Magnier's shopping spree at the sales

It has been an expensive week for John Magnier, but, he expects, good husbandry. The man behind the twin Irish empires of Ballydoyle and Coolmore has been scattering seedlings in the fields of speculation at Old Trafford and, on more familiar turf, at the yearling sales. Both are expected to reap dividends.

Magnier and his racing cohort J P McManus now own 6.8 per cent of Manchester United after a shopping expedition by their company, Cubic Expression. Within the last 10 days they have bought almost 10m shares in the club.

There has been huge investment too in the July Select Yearling Sale at Lexington, where Magnier himself has been on hand this week. On Monday, the Irish team won all three major bidding battles with their old foes, the Maktoum brothers, including purchase of the top lot, $4m for a son of Saint Ballado.

It might seem an obscene sum for a chunk of untried horseflesh, but then Keeneland is a theatre of the absurd, where money that could feed a district in an impoverished nation is spent on a puppy animal.

This is the Harrods of the horseracing world, held in sticky Lexington, where the temperature gets you even if the money being sloshed around is not enough to send the steam up.

The air in the sales pavilion is chilled by conditioning, but there is always reason to pull the collar away from the neck, as the young horses, or hip numbers, as they call them at the sales, are produced.

The yearlings do not sashay as in Europe. They just peer out from the a semi-circle in front of the bidders' rostrum as the electronic numbers on the bidding board go bonkers.

In 1983, a son of Northern Dancer and My Bupers got everybody excited. Sheikh Maktoum Al Maktoum bought what looked the perfect racehorse in Snaafi Dancer. Yes, he was beautiful. The problem was that he could not run for toffee. He never attended the racecourse and he never procreated. The dismal tale was completed by his infertility.

That, however, was chickenfeed. Two years later, after 24 bids, a son of Nijinsky and My Charmer went for $13.1m to a man who used to be a big wheel in this business. Robert Sangster had captured Seattle Dancer.

Sangster's place in the arm-wrestle with the Maktoums has been taken by a different figure from the same stable. Michael Tabor now supplies the ancillary funds with which Magnier and his people go to war. Demi O'Byrne bids for the Irish team and John Ferguson nods for Godolphin. It was the latter who came out blazing on the final day of the Keeneland session when he spent $16.3m (£11.5m) inside three hours.

There will be another sweaty battle between the big guns a week tomorrow, when it will be the turn of the horses to perspire. Galileo, the winner of the Derby and its Irish equivalent, will be in the green corner, while the Emirates World Series champion, Fantastic Light, will represent Godolphin in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot.

The latter worked pleasingly on Newmarket's Long Hill yesterday in company with his usual lead horse, Give The Slip. The ground was atrocious after heavy rain, so no chances were taken with Royal Ascot's Prince of Wales's Stakes winner.

A rival to the big two has emerged with the announcement that another winner at the Royal meeting is on course for a return to the Berkshire track. Barry Hills's Storming Home, who was fifth in the Derby before winning the King Edward VII Stakes, is also being prepared for the high-summer championship.