The book provides a complete analysis of European bloodstock sales in 2024 for all foals, yearlings and older horses in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany and Italy. It also includes foals and yearlings either foaled in Europe or by European-based sires at the major auctions in North America and Japan.

Furthermore, the Bloodstock Sales Review features comprehensive overviews of the trading year for Tattersalls, Goffs, Tattersalls Ireland and Arqana, as well as tables of the leading sires of 2024 by yearling average, lists of the year’s most expensive yearlings and foals, and a roll of top historical auction prices.

To mark the publication of the book, we compiled a top ten of the most profitable British and Irish-based yearling sires last year.

We have worked out each sires’ profitability index by dividing their 2024 yearling average by their covering fee of 2022, when the offspring in question were conceived.

In second place...

Sergei Prokofiev

2024 yearling ave: 31,052gns/€37,495

2022 covering fee: £6,000

Profitability index: 5.43

Sergei Prokofiev, a sharp, speedy and strapping son of Scat Daddy, has been a popular working man and woman’s stallion, covering full books of mares at affordable fees since he retired to Whitsbury Manor Stud in 2021. His supporters will have been pleased to see him make an encouraging start with his first two-year-old runners last year, leading the freshman table thanks to stakes winners Arizona Blaze and Enchanting Empress.

Those who used him in his second season at a fee of £6,000 were well paid for correctly predicting he would be quick out of the blocks, with 89 of the resultant yearlings selling for an average of 31,052gns (€37,495), making a profitability index of 5.43. S&R Investments swooped for the most expensive lot, a half-brother to Listed-winning sprinter Great State, for 170,000gns.