It's great to see so many vendors taking the time (and yes, investing the money) in promoting their yearlings for the forthcoming sales. Technology has ably assisted many people with this task as is demonstrated by the number of the sales companies now offering pedigree information, conformation photographs, and streaming video of the yearlings walking, on their respective websites.

I would encourage every vendor to utilise the promotional tools available to them - with one proviso: Before you fork out the additional money ask yourself why you are using each one and what you hope to achieve from it.

Pedigree page - speaks for itself as buyers will want to know the breeding of the horse in question, not just its sire and his accomplishments (both as a racehorse and also in terms of what his progeny have gone on to achieve) but also the race and breeding performance of the dams reflected on the page. Pedigrees on sales sites all follow the same format. For the A3 (or larger) pedigrees you laminate and attach to the stable door at the sales complex I would suggest using Photoshop/Publisher (or similar) or getting a graphic designer to spend an hour of his/her time assisting you to highlight the relevant parts of the pedigree that you wish to bring to prospective buyer's attention (e.g. that a stakes winner on the page was bred on the same cross as your yearling; the sire has now had 100 stakes winners; recent winners under the first dam etc etc).

Photos - a good side-on conformation shot is a good tool for those people who have seen the yearling onsite (either at the stud farm pre-sale or at the sales complex) and wish to refresh their memory against their notes, see how it has grown since they saw it (as photos are usually taken about 4-6 weeks out from the sale), or see it for the first time to encourage a 'live' viewing. Without a photo a horse is just a pedigree page. It is an inexpensive and effective tool. It becomes a very dangerous tool when a photograph that does utterly no justice to the animal is used (the excuse often being "we were in a rush/we ran out of time"). Just remember that bad promotion can often prove more damaging than no promotion at all.

So, who takes a good photo? Go and have a look at the way the bigger studs do them (accepting that many use professional photographers): Collingrove, Widden, Coolmore, Darley for eg. Their photos are always good - the horses are immaculately presented, they are paraded on level ground, are set against a clean background, and the photo is cropped to maximise the subject. The time of day the photo is taken and the weather conditions all play an important role as well as timing will effect shadows, and conditions the colour/shine on a horse's coat. Just out of interest - to show how a background can effect things - look at the photos of some of the Broadwater Farm yearlings. Magnificently presented yearlings but the slope BEHIND the photo draws the eye and makes you wonder if the horses are actually standing on flat ground.

Streaming videos - from a purely marketing angle it has been encouraging to see the huge developments in web streaming in recent years and SireCam has certainly been at the forefront of this in the thoroughbred arena. The company offers a very good service and a number of vendors are (not surprisngly) using it. A number of people I know have ended up purchasing a horse that they have openly said they would not have considered but because they liked what they could see (to the extent that SireCam and photos could depict the animal), they at least inspected the horse whereas without the photo/video, they wouldn't have. It just goes to show the power of the visual.

My original question still applies however - why use it? Video allows us to see a horse walking to look at their overall appearance, the freedom of their action, assess their balance, and to see whether they have a visible conformational defect. Can video show that? My answer is - in the current format - no it can't. SireCam certainly provides a good basis for assessing the overall 'look' of a horse, but if the horse is paraded in an area that isn't flat, if we get to assess the conformational defects of the person walking the horse rather than the horse itself (if the groom blocks a clear view of its charge's legs) then why exactly have you spent the money to have the video taken?

Have a look at GaitCam - again, not perfect (as web streaming will never be as good as "actually being there") BUT the horse is walked on flat ground, lines have been marked on the ground so you can assess the horse's action as they walk towards you/away from you, you can choose front on or side views and also conformation shots.

One hopes the next generation of streaming video in Australia offers the same functionality, otherwise my concern is more and more people will just latch on to marketing initiatives of this nature without actually thinking through whether they are using the right tools to meet their objectives - or are simply worried about not "keeping up with the Jones'".