Making use of the hundreds and indeed thousands of yearling images uploaded to the auction house websites each year, our new gallery pages sort them into categories such as Group I winners from particular years and Group I winners sold at particular sales.
Also of interest our Million Dollar Earners page and categories for Group I winners sold for under $100,000 and over $100,000.
Click here for the Galleries Page.
Trawling the images does offer a real insight into thoroughbred conformation and while some images obviously don't do a horse justice, others offer a very real picture as to what this youngster was like.
A look at the page for Group I winners sold for less than $100,000 makes for interesting reading and two youngsters stand out for different reasons.
Dual Group I winner Brazen Beau has a fairly natural, candid yearling shot, but even 'blind freddy' can see the muscle bulk, balance and good bone that have made this colt the best three year-old sprinter in the country.
Trawling the images does offer a real insight into thoroughbred conformation and while some images obviously don't do a horse justice, others offer a very real picture as to what this youngster was like.
A look at the page for Group I winners sold for less than $100,000 makes for interesting reading and two youngsters stand out for different reasons.
Dual Group I winner Brazen Beau has a fairly natural, candid yearling shot, but even 'blind freddy' can see the muscle bulk, balance and good bone that have made this colt the best three year-old sprinter in the country.
He'll take his brilliance to Royal Ascot next and in my opinion is the best horse we've sent there in recent times with the exception of Black Caviar.
At the other end of the scale we see the yearling image for Caulfield Cup winner Fawkner, a rare Australian bred stayer!
Leggy and athletic with a huge length of rein, everything about this picture makes you think budding stayer and some $3.4 million in prizemoney later, that's exactly what he is.
Another interesting image in this section is for Golden Slipper winner Mossfun.
Short coupled and muscular, she appealed as a fast and precocious type that
would jump and run, with not a lot of scope for further physical improvement.
As it happened she needed no improvement as the 'pocket rocket' was good enough to win both Silver Slipper and Golden Slipper earning $2.5 million in prizemoney.
Click here to trawl our new gallery pages and enjoy!
It would be nice to think that all yearlings ran to their appearance, but sadly they do not for a wide variety of reasons, often not the fault of the horse.
Accidents, racetrack injuries, wind issues, troublesome feet and illness play a role in holding horses back from achieving their potential, while the mental aspect can never be underestimated and that's something hard to assess at a yearling sale.
We can get clues as to a horse's personality at sale time, but race day is a whole other ball game and the harsh reality is that some horses are more competitive by nature than others.
The horse that genuinely wants to be a racehorse will always outperform the more beautifully conformed horse, whose mind may be on other things.
Many years ago I had a close friend that worked for Neville Begg, who specialized in fillies and she would always say, "Some of them are career women and some just want to be housewives!"
As it happened she needed no improvement as the 'pocket rocket' was good enough to win both Silver Slipper and Golden Slipper earning $2.5 million in prizemoney.
Click here to trawl our new gallery pages and enjoy!
It would be nice to think that all yearlings ran to their appearance, but sadly they do not for a wide variety of reasons, often not the fault of the horse.
Accidents, racetrack injuries, wind issues, troublesome feet and illness play a role in holding horses back from achieving their potential, while the mental aspect can never be underestimated and that's something hard to assess at a yearling sale.
We can get clues as to a horse's personality at sale time, but race day is a whole other ball game and the harsh reality is that some horses are more competitive by nature than others.
The horse that genuinely wants to be a racehorse will always outperform the more beautifully conformed horse, whose mind may be on other things.
Many years ago I had a close friend that worked for Neville Begg, who specialized in fillies and she would always say, "Some of them are career women and some just want to be housewives!"
