THE WILD SALE OF SPARKLING PLENTY

Jean-Pierre Dubois’ homebred filly was, after all, an impressive three-length winner of the Prix de Sandringham on her last start, and due to contest the Prix de Diane on the day before the sale.

She was also exceptionally well bred, being a Kingman full-sister to Jersey Stakes scorer and Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère runner-up Noble Truth, out of a Frankel half-sister to Dubois’ wonderful racemare Stacelita and to the dam of his Prix du Moulin heroine Sauterne, who was bought by Japan’s Grand Stud for $4.2 million at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale at the end of 2013.

But at that point no-one could have predicted the extraordinary scenes that would ensue at Kensington Palace on the eve of Royal Ascot.

Indeed, the reality of Sparkling Plenty winning the Prix de Diane and then selling for a sum that exceeded the European auction record for a thoroughbred by nearly £2 million, only for it to transpire that she had been bought back by her vendor, was stranger than fiction.

Goffs chief executive Henry Beeby, who conducted the bidding for Sparkling Plenty that day, calls it his “most surreal experience” on the rostrum in 40 years of professional auctioneering.

Looking back on the occasion, he says: “Getting Sparkling Plenty in the first place was all down to our French agent Amanda Zetterholm. She was sourcing entries for us and suddenly said the filly was a candidate, but was due to run in the French Oaks. We thought well, if she runs well at Chantilly that’ll be nice, she’ll be a nice prospect. And then she went and won. There were mixed emotions when Sparkling Plenty ran above our expectations and won the Prix de Diane. Obviously we were thrilled, as her value had increased substantially, but there was also some trepidation over whether the vendor would still want to sell. Fortunately, he did. We then received a wave of calls from prospective purchasers that day. People were asking what was happening; whether she would actually sell; what her reserve was, and so on. All we could tell them was put your best boots on and get ready, as she was definitely going to be offered.”

As usual, Goffs had assembled a United Nations of top owners, breeders and trainers for the London Sale, including Bobby Flay and John Stewart from the US, Gai Waterhouse from Australia and football stars Michael Owen and Álvaro Odriozola from closer to home. Kia Joorabchian of Amo Racing was also in attendance and had already signalled his intent to buy the best stock on offer, paying £650,000 for the unraced two-year-old filly by Kingman out of multiple Group 1 heroine Laurens.

Sparkling Plenty was sold in absentia as Lot 11, with Beeby describing her various charms from the rostrum while footage of her Prix de Diane victory and her walking at Patrice Cottier’s stables was broadcast to spectators. “When you put together a catalogue for a sale like this you dream about updates, and then you have wild dreams about Classic updates,” he said. “Every once in a while they come true, and they have with this filly.” Then started the most astonishingly tense and thrilling round of bidding seen at a thoroughbred auction in years. “Bidding opened at a million, and there were multiple bidders,” recalls Beeby. “I was getting lots of shouts from the bid spotters all the way up to three or four million. It then went down to a three-way tussle between Amanda on the phone to the vendor, Emmanuel de Seroux on the phone for a big Japanese buyer I assumed, and Kia Joorabchian bidding in person. As the auctioneer, my focus was on keeping everyone bidding, but knowing Amanda was talking to the vendor and still going, I couldn’t help thinking to myself ‘this is extraordinary, how far will he go?’ He passed the reserve he’d put on the filly, which wasn’t wrong: he was entitled to bid himself, or have one person bidding on his behalf, and that’s what he was doing. I took £7.8m off Kia, £8m off Emmanuel, and thought that was a done deal, and then to my absolute astonishment Amanda bid again. I think I said something like ‘she showed me a beautifully manicured finger so I had to take it’. I won’t lie, in my head I was thinking ‘I can’t believe this; I can’t believe the vendor has just bid £8.1m’. No-one else bid after that. I went round the ring for a final time, and dropped the hammer.”

What followed was a frantic round of negotiations to try to organise a private deal, made all the more bizarre by the fact they had to be held in the middle of a garden party rather than behind closed doors as would usually happen. Cue a lot of curious glances and gossipy whispers as representatives of Goffs mediated between Zetterholm, conversing with Dubois all the time, and the underbidders. In the end another entirely different party entered the discussions and saved the day. Beeby says: “By coincidence Sparkling Plenty was the changeover lot, so as soon as the bidding was over I handed the gavel to Nick Nugent and went to Amanda to ask whether it was indeed a vendor buyback – I still couldn’t quite believe it – and she confirmed that was the case. We had a hiatus of around half an hour working out whether the underbidders were interested in doing a deal. If it had happened at Goffs in Kill or Doncaster we would have taken the key players into a room and had a chat, but we were in an open space with journalists standing there with their pens poised, quite understandably, so it became evident it wasn’t going to be straightforward. Eventually, His Excellency Sheikh Joaan Al Thani, who’d been there and watched it all, did a deal at £5m. The surreal thing is if you’d told me that morning we’d sell a filly for £5m I’d have been ecstatic. But having gone up to £8.1m and had to come back to £5m, I can’t deny there was a sense of disappointment. But by the same token we soon looked back on it and thought what were we worried about? A £5m sale is still extraordinary and wonderful.”

Because of those strange events on that hot summer’s day, Sparkling Plenty will always have the following peculiar price details attached to her: “Vendor £8.1 million; Al Shaqab Racing £5 million (PS)”. Eyebrows were raised by the adjustment, but people were looking for scandal where there was none. The record is an exact reflection of what happened. “As a sales company of course we always try to accentuate the positives but I firmly believe it would have been a mistake to try to spin something that didn’t happen,” says Beeby. “I’ve banged on enough about integrity and transparency in the industry, so I couldn’t and wouldn’t do that. Honesty is the best policy. My father gave me some good advice many years ago, when he told me that auctioneers trade on their integrity; it’s all we’ve got, and it takes a lifetime to build up and one stupid decision to lose. Some people told me I should say this, or say that, but I said ‘no no, we’ll tell everyone precisely what’s happened’. The vendor was entitled to do what he did, and it’s not for me to tell him what to do. Of course I wished he’d taken the £7m or 8m, but it was his prerogative and I respect that.”

Sparkling Plenty didn’t win again in 2024, but even in defeat she showed she was worthy of being the subject of a record-breaking three-way bidding war. Carrying new joint-owner Al Shaqab Racing’s silks, she finished third to Opera Singer in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood and filled the same position behind Friendly Soul in the Prix de l’Opéra at Longchamp.

Summing up his memories of her sale, Beeby says: “I can honestly say it was the most surreal experience I’ve had in the course of auctioning a horse. It might not have been straightforward but it was very exciting, and certainly something I’ll never forget. I don’t look back on it with any regret at all, as it confirmed what we at Goffs have been telling people for years: bring a horse to the London sale, or to any of our sales in fact, and people will bid top prices for them.”

He adds, with a grin: “And from my own point of view, I can still always say for as long as I’m around that I took the highest genuine bid at a European sale.”

Mark your calendars for December! Sparkling Plenty will be up for auction once again, this time at Arqana!