The much anticipated first auction of the season is always a big one as the one thing a new season does bring is a fresh batch of 2 yr olds and plenty options ahead for racing them. This auction saw 535 horses up for sale for anything between £7.65 and £3,000 reserves made up of 370 G1’s and the remainder in ungraded and G2’s. 223 lots contained 2 yr olds so anyone looking to bring some fresh young talent in had plenty of scope to do so.

The most expensive lot came from the experienced stable of Dallas1 who announced earlier this year that he would be closing his stable down. Dallas had spoke with several interested parties regarding the sale of the remainder of the stable and negotiations with Victor Consortio saw the shrewd Justin & Paul partnership at VC buy 20 of the finest horses in the game for £3,000.

This looks a very good investment by VC and will see the stable as leading contenders this season in numerous finals.

The highest monies paid for a single horse was for Engage Thrusters who has transferred from the ever popular Pompadours stable to Topcert for a fee of £1845.99. The talented 2 yr old is said to be similar to hes a goodone which was a £2500 horse & a profit making machine so it looks like Topcert has got himself a very good deal today. Personally, I expected this horse to go for well over £2,000 but it looks as though the quantity of quality horses in the auction has spread the wealth around a bit.

The improving stable of Benfica who seems to have similar luck in the ring to pompadours and Shandyman sold a job lot of horses for £1777.27 which included a host of top horses and looks like Shotgun Mike has poached himself another bargain deal from a relative newcomer. Benfica’s clearout this auction saw him take in £3772.43 in total - not bad for a weekends work.

Derekw10 also had a clearout of his remaining horses and the ‘Roman Abramovic’ of the virtual racing world made sure top dollar was paid for his star studded stable. Hes a goodone sold for £1350 to muggins racing which also makes Topcerts purchase of engage thrusters look even better value for money. Derek took in £5356 this auction which must be close to being the record for one seller in a single auction. Derek still has 22 horses left in the stable with another 3 grands worth minimum & all are for sale!

Andy Hargie stables is another owner leaving the game for pastures new and received a total of £3288.63 from his sales this weekend. This included a naked stayer very similar to one Andy sold a few auctions back for £515 but lesson were learned when average adds saw the horse sold on for £150 for an instant loss. Hotchpotch taking the gamble spending £262.41 on the horse but it seems pretty good value for its potential abilities. Normally Andy expects big money for his horses and although the transfers weren’t pocket change I do feel as though he clearly wanted to sell today with very reasonable prices indeed.

It is estimated that approx £27,000 changed hands this auction which would mean a take of £4,050 for race clubs & indicates the sums of money involved in the virtual racing world make it no small time hobby for the purist.

Probably the best bargains of the day were to be found from the aml racing stable who announced his decision to leave the game and proved his point by nominating each of his horses for the minimum reserve. This led to several bargains including lil miss sunshine who was originally purchased by Aml racing for £900 & was bought back by formerly DVD man for only £95.28. The horse only took in £276 in earnings and was clearly a crippling blow for the respected Aml stable.

Team Johansson deserves a section almost every auction for his ability to make good wise purchases & rarely makes errors in judgement. He picked 17 purchases up this auction including challenge types & wisely purchased them from reputable sellers most kown for under valuing their horses. Buying 2 from Andy Hargie, an Aml racing horse, 2 from Hendon Racing club & 5 from Benfica continuing TJ’s fine record.

Redhalo racing is another who looks to have made some very wise purchases today with 7 top horses including Benfica’s The Perfect Storm for £562 but it was his other buys which caught my attention. 4 of them must have good final hopes over the next season or two & all for £200 or less.

Narrowly missing out on the bargain hunter award was green mile race club for snapping up sing star for only £89. The stayer does low challenge time trials and is sure to make the £89 back sooner rather than later depending on the route chosen by the new owners. Award for biggest spender goes to Topcert who spent £3130 on 4 horses. Topcert is not normally associated with the big money expenditures but made clear his intentions for the season.

Award for Best Bargain hunter goes to Team Johansson who made several purchases all for under £200 including Romantic Fart for £150 from Kerrydale. The challenge horse is still only on 2 wins and does the time trials required for a successful challenge racing career and although the name is terrible - the horse gets bargain of the auction for me. Note: this doesn’t include privately arranged sales.

Award for best salesman goes to derekw10 who maximised the value of his stable to take in over £5k.

For those that think the game is struggling just need to take one look through the auction pages and you will see the amount of cash still being invested into the game is high - a fine advert for the season ahead. What also impressed me was the quantity of different players investing - YOU GOTTA LOVE THE AUCTION