AI has transformed the art of buying a race horse, with records smashed at 2025 breeze up sale events

2025’s breeze up sales are completed, with last Friday’s Tattersalls Ireland sale at Fairyhouse concluding the events for the year. 

Breeze up sales are a vital part of the horse racing industry. Data is essential for punters to make informed sports bets and is equally important when assessing the potential of a race horse.

At a breeze up event, race horse trainers, buyers and journalists get to watch two-year-old horses literally “breeze up and down” the track, showing off their pedigree, canter, gait, and hundreds of other data points that go into predicting  a horse’s future performance on the racetrack.

Not only have the sales broken all the 2024 records in many metrics, they’ve also surpassed some all-time records since breeze up sales began in Great Britain in the 1970s – from top-selling lots to the total sales figures.

One notable facet of this year’s events was the contribution of Pythia Sports’ new proprietary technology, which combines artificial intelligence, machine learning, and historical breeze up sales data to improve the accuracy of performance predictions.

The Highlights

Stephen Davison, head of commercial operations at Pythia, said: “The video content captures some brilliant highlights of everything that goes into creating a complete data set at the 2025 sales. The breeze up continues to be an ever-popular sale for buyers seeking top two-year-old talent, and it’s a testament to the hard work of all the consignors and buyers who helped drive this year’s record-breaking results. We hope the insights provided through our data have played a small part in supporting their success.  

“From our point of view, we’re really pleased to have been involved in 18 purchases, with the combined purchase prices exceeding £1.4 million. We’re very much looking forward to seeing them on the track and hope they prove very lucky for their owners.”

Davison continues: “It’s also fantastic for those who want an inside look into some of the hard work that happens behind-the-scenes in horse racing. We’re really pleased at how successful the sales have been, and we love how the sector has responded to our breeze up technology.

“Incorporating more than 100 essential factors, the innovative tech is a proprietary model which evaluates time, stride and biomechanics for every horse at the breeze ups. These individual factors  then generate a comprehensive rating for each horse,” said Davison.

Breeze up sales – by the numbers 

2025 was a banner year for breeze ups across Europe, with YOY changes increasing greatly and some historic records smashed.

• Total turnover from all sales: c£70.2m

• Craven YOY increase: +25.7%

• Goffs UK YOY increase: +12.4%

• Arqana YOY increase: +24.8%

• Tatersalls Ireland YOY increase: +21.5%

In addition, at the Craven sale, the record purchase price for a breeze up horse was broken on consecutive days:

• £1.4m Acclamation colt – purchased by Godolphin

• £1.75m – Havana Grey colt purchased by Amo Racing,

Further records broken:

• The horse that won the 2,000 Guineas, Ruling Court, was a breeze up horse that sold for €2.4m at 2024’s Arqana Sale

• The first-ever Goffs sale of a £1m breeze up horse occurred this year, with a Mehmas colt selling to Godolphin.

• 2025’s Tattersalls Ireland sale was the first time trade has exceeded the €10m euros mark – the first time in Tattersalls Ireland history the 8-figure mark was reached.

• Top lot was a Night of Thunder colt sold to Stroud Coleman Bloodstock for 580,000 EUROS.

“Tattersalls Ireland provided a fantastic finale to the breeze up season, with average prices rising and yet more records falling. It’s clear that breeze ups have become an essential part of the sales calendar, offering buyers both quality and confidence. It’s an exciting time for the sector — and now, with the sales behind us, the spotlight shifts to the track. I’m sure, like me, everyone is eagerly anticipating how these horses perform, especially with some already making a strong impression,” Davison explained.