Inspecting yearlings in the rain at Newmarket last Thursday was a bit like looking at girls in the Windmill Club – in the old days, of course – with their wet weather cycling kit on. You just don’t get much of an idea of what they might be capable of. But whatever the weather, when you enter the sales ground at Tattersalls, you step into a parallel universe populated by an eclectic bunch of coves.

Over the three days of the premiere yearling auction in Europe, 400-odd colts and fillies went under the hammer. But there were two very different games being played out.

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The heavyweights in the ring were Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, and MV Magnier, spearheading the Coolmore Stud from Ireland. It was like watching Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier slugging it out in the Thrilla in Manila.

By the time the hammer fell for the last time, the sheikh had spent approximately 27 million guineas on 25 prospects, a staggering number when you consider he is merely topping up the hundreds of blue-chip homebreds being prepped on his studs around the world.

For the vendors, the million-dollar question, quite literally, was whether the two superpowers were both locked........

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