Tony Arrold's article Horse trading at its very best in this week's Australian declares this year's Easter yearling sale was a "refreshingly honest sale for the thoroughbred industry":

"What has been hard to put a lid on in the bloodstock market for many years at this, and almost every other significant sale, is the rorts that have gone on that leave a public perception that something was not as it had been presented.

A classic example was a yearling sold privately prior to the sale, with an arrangement for that yearling to go into the ring and bring the top, or near top, price in an exercise of ego or a future investment with other parties.

The 2006 Australian Yearling sale was almost totally clean of such nonsense, although there are strong suspicions over one yearling at the top end of the market -- and there seems to be no secret among industry players as to what that was all about.

So this was not only the mother of all sales, it was an honest sale."

For intriguing stories of Inglis security staff "frog-march[ing] a person from the sale grounds" on Day 1 and (the perhaps more dubious claim) that "The Inglis company, like all other auctioneers, has to turn a blind eye to rorts and "arrangements" since it is its job merely to set up and and sell the horses for the vendor to the highest bidder, and expect the appropriate fee from the vendor for doing so -- rort or no rort" the full article is at the following URL.