'Here and there yearlings are walked and trotted this way and that while potential buyers, wise or foolish, look on' David Ashforth watches the action unfold at the Ocala sales grounds in Florida.

Byline: David Ashforth

SHEIKH MOHAMMED isn't here; nor is John Magnier. It's a pity, as they could have given each other a lift. The horses for sale at Ocala, just like Sea The Stars, all trace back to one of the same three stallions - the Godolphin Arabian, Byerley Turk or Darley Arabian - but, judging from the bids, most of them don't seem to trace back in quite the right way, or maybe there's something awry with their pasterns, or fetlocks, or gaskins. Then there's the depression, but we've all got that.

Royal Ascot winner Jealous Again was bought here, for $30,000, and so was the Dubai Golden Shaheen winner Big City Man, for $45,000. They now grace the covers of book 1, the Selected Sale of Yearlings (hips 1-200), and of book 2, the Open Sale of Yearlings (hips 201-1151). You wouldn't want to be hip 1151.

In the long barns, under a hot blue sky and green corrugated roofs held up by cream coloured girders, hopes and fears wait for the bidding to begin. It seems quiet.

"The traffic's much lighter," says consignor Janie Roper, in a turquoise shirt and blonde hair. "There's a big difference from previous years. If you have a nice individual with a good pedigree, you can still sell well, but below that ..." Quite.

Boards hang from chains at the end of each barn, bearing the names of the consignors. 'Woodside Ranch. Bryan and Holly Rice', 'All Dreams Equine', 'Peggy S Dellheim. Agent'. Juan Centeno is 'All Dreams Equine', with three horses in the select sale and seven in the also-rans.

"I think the sale is a little hard, like any other business," says Centeno, dark hair, dark moustache, dark sunglasses, light smile. "We think positive. We work extra hard to prepare our horses and to give them good manners.

"You have to work harder than before and try to be a little better than the rest. I feel glad when we sell a horse and it do [sic] good. It makes me feel good, it's my pride."

CENTENO moved from Mexico 20 years ago. Now he has a small farm in nearby Morristown where he prepares horses, his own and other people's, for the sales. Centeno buys weanlings and sells them as yearlings. If they don't sell as yearlings, he sells them as two-year-olds.

"I am not looking for a lot of money," he says. "I try to make a bit from each group each year. We are hoping to survive. I am happy. You are happy if you make the best of things, and make the best of your neighbours and friends."

Confucius said the same thing, I think.

Hip 14, a colt by Macho Uno, is not owned by Centeno, but he has prepared him. "Whoever gets him will have a nice horse," he says. "He's very athletic, well balanced, with a good temperament. People get a decent horse."

For how much, Juan? How much will you be happy with? It is not a question sellers want to answer. Twenty? Thirty? Finally, he says: "$50,000. If he brings $50,000 I will be happy. He is one of the nicest."

From a stall in barn six, hip 278 is led out. "Tony, look at this horse," says a woman in an extra large T-shirt, the smaller sizes being unable to contain her. Tony watches as the bay Indian Ocean filly is trotted one way, then trotted the other. Here and there yearlings are walked and trotted this way and that while potential buyers, wise or foolish, look on.

A long walk away, in the outback, a sign hangs from barn 14. 'University of Florida Equine Science Program'.

Richard Hays, rebellious hair sprouting from beneath his U of F baseball cap, sits, undisturbed, in a beach chair. Hays, the university's farm manager, explains that they keep a band of mares and, every year, students prepare their yearlings for the sales. This week the university is selling 16. What is the highest price they've ever got? "Over $20,000," says Hays. "The money might not be here this year but the people will be here, not like last year, when a hurricane kept them away." That was hurricane Fay. It was jolly windy, evidently.

In the walking ring, Centeno waits.

On the podium, Ryan Mahan, the senior auctioneer, warbles in the alien, machine-gun language taught at the school of auctioneers. "32, 32, 32, 32, 35, dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones, 35, 35, 37, dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones. Virgil's in at 37."

VIRGIL must have got fed up with writing poems, and decided to buy a yearling by Exchange Rate instead. I don't blame him. It must have been murder, writing in Latin.

In the sales pavilion only about 100 seats, out of hundreds more, are occupied. Hip 14 is led forward to meet his market. Mahan warbles and rat-tat-tats his way to $35,000 while bid-spotters snap their "yaps" and "hos" and "ay-ups". 40, 45, 50. Centeno's Macho Uno colt goes for $55,000. Juan will be happy.

Time passes. Mahan has either been replaced by another auctioneer or he's put a toupee on. The prattle's much the same. Either all the auctioneers are mad, or my ears need to see an otologist.

Centeno is happier than most vendors, because only 113 of the 200 yearlings are sold, for an average of less than $33,000, 34 per cent down on last year. Only three break the $100,000 barrier, with a Medaglia D'Oro filly topping the sale, bought by Live Oak Plantation for $275,000.

Charlotte Weber, whose grandfather founded Campbell's Soup, owns Live Oak. I expect she's got one of those Andy Warhol pictures of a Campbell's soup tin on her living room wall; tomato, perhaps.

With 28 hips going for less than $15,000 (pounds 9,150), what will it be like by Thursday? I might go to a cash machine, and take out $100.

CAPTION(S):

Juan Centeno with his pride and joy, hip 14, a Macho Uno colt, whom he consigned to the Ocala August Yearling Sale and sold for $55,000