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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.
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Total turnover from all sales: c£70.2m
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Craven YOY increase: +25.7%
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Goffs UK YOY increase: +12.4%
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Arqana YOY increase: +24.8%
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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:
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£1.4m Acclamation colt – purchased by Godolphin
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£1.75m – Havana Grey colt purchased by Amo Racing,
Further records broken:
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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
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The first-ever Goffs sale of a £1m breeze up horse occurred this year, with a Mehmas colt selling to Godolphin.
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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.
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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.
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Boomerang Partners shortlisted in 6 award categories at SBC – Affiliate Leaders AWARDS 2025
Boomerang Partners, a rapidly growing affiliate gambling and betting marketing agency, was shortlisted for the SBC – Affiliate Leaders AWARDS 2025. It is a celebration honouring the visionaries of the iGaming affiliate and operator communities. The winners will be determined through voting, which is open until August 21.
Boomerang is aiming to win in the following categories:
- Affiliate & Digital Marketing Campaign of the Year – Boomerang Partners
- Affiliate Marketing Manager of the Year – Darina Sharban, Boomerang’s affiliate team lead
- Affiliate Programme of the Year – Large – Boomerang Partners
- Best Affiliate Program – Boomerang Partners
- Social Media Campaign of the Year – Boomerang Partners
- Affiliate Leader of the Year
The inclusion of Boomerang in the shortlist for six categories is a testament to the company’s notable achievements in the affiliate marketing industry from 2024 to 2025.
In 2024-2025, Boomerang achieved:
- x5 increase in profit in the online betting segment
- x2 increase in the online gambling segment revenue
- +120% growth in the number of partners
- +194% growth in sports traffic
- 6-fold increase in the number of online sports betting offers
- +6 new products added to the portfolio (now totaling over 17)
- 1.5-fold increase in the number of product users
Furthermore, in 2025, Boomerang celebrated the first year of its strategic partnership with AC Milan and hosted the second season of its annual Golden Boomerang Awards tournament. This event saw the participation of over 400 affiliate teams from around the world, who had the opportunity to showcase their expertise and gain global recognition. The award ceremony took place in May 2025 at the legendary San Siro Stadium in Milan, where awards were presented in 11 categories. It was accompanied by a networking event and a charity auction.
Support Boomerang Partners and Darina Sharban by voting on the Affiliate Leaders Awards website until August 21. The winners will be announced on September 17 at Lisbon’s iconic MEO Arena.
About Boomerang
Boomerang Partners is a rapidly growing global brand offering a wide range of services. Boomerang is the Official Regional Partner of AC Milan. In 2024, it launched the inaugural Golden Boomerang Awards — a global tournament for affiliate teams. More than 400 affiliate teams participated in the second season of the tournament in 2025. Boomerang launched six new products in 2024, contributing to a nearly 1.5-fold increase in product users.
Boomerang’s portfolio contains 17+ brands offering affiliate and entertainment services across 40+ markets in compliance with local regulations. These products provide personalized bonuses and 24/7 multilingual support.
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This regional structure strengthens Felicity’s access to one of the world’s fastest-growing game development ecosystems, enabling deeper collaboration with developers and creators, having already established a strong gamer base in the US. The new move also positions the company to better serve a rapidly diversifying user base, supporting its broader goal of achieving 2x global growth.
Felicity will also invest $1 million over the next 12–18 months towards building a robust leadership team, expanding its talent pool, and deepening market penetration across APAC. With presence in India, Türkiye, and now Singapore, the company aims to further acquire IP’s, expand talent and player base in new geographies with senior strategic leads focused on product innovation and cross-border partnerships, as well as the formation of a regional developer network.
Felicity has successfully raised a total of $3.7 million across two funding rounds, marking a strong start to its global journey. The company secured $700K in its pre-seed round from DeVC, Swiggy founders, Kunal Shah, and other marquee angels. Building on this early momentum, Felicity recently closed a $3M seed round led by 3one4 Capital, MIXI Global, and T-Accelerate Capital.
Says Anurag Choudhary, Founder & CEO of Felicity
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Following the success of the 21st BAFTA Games Awards earlier this year, BAFTA today opens entries for the 2026 edition, with key dates, updated entry requirements and voting rules confirmed today.
The BAFTA Games Awards celebrate the very best games of the past year and the talent who make them and recognise the outstanding creativity and technical achievements of individuals and teams working in games every year.
Unlike other industry awards, the BAFTA Games Awards are voted for by an expert membership of over 1,400 experienced professionals and are watched by millions online. Content from the 21st BAFTA Games Awards on 8 April 2025 achieved over five million views (and an additional 2.2 million views across the awards season), in a ceremony that saw Astro Bot take home five BAFTAs including Best Game, Still Wakes the Deep take home three and Thank Goodness You’re Here! crowned Best British Game.
A cross-industry BAFTA Games committee reviews the awards’ eligibility criteria, voting and campaigning rules annually to ensure they are robust and fair, and that they evolve with the ever-changing industry landscape.
Key changes for 2026 include:
Voting
- As our membership grows, we are creating more craft chapters for voting, bringing it more in line with our Film Awards. Thanks to the growing expertise of our games voting membership, members with craft experience in art, audio and performance roles will now vote in Round One of the Artistic Achievement, Audio Achievement, and both Performance categories. Previously, the full BAFTA Games membership voted in these categories in Round One.
Key dates, announced today are as follows:
- Monday 11 August 2025: Entries open
- Thursday 6 November 2025: Entries close
- Tuesday 9 December 2025: Longlist revealed
- Thursday 12 March 2026: Nominations announced
- Friday 17 April 2026: Ceremony
Tara Saunders, chair of the BAFTA Games Committee, said: “It’s always a special moment when the entries open for the BAFTA Games Awards. Reflecting on the success of the last awards and all the amazing games celebrated, it spotlighted to me the incredible resilience, collaboration, and creative brilliance across the games industry. As games continue to explore storytelling, design, and innovation, BAFTA’s is here to champion the teams and individuals whose talent and dedication deliver extraordinary experiences to players around the world. With this year’s updates to rules and voting, we’re continuing to evolve how we recognise excellence across every corner of the industry. I’m excited to see all the brilliant work that will get celebrated in 2026.”
Entry is open to all developers and publishers for games released between 16 November 2024 and 14 November 2025, with an entry deadline of Thursday 6 November 2025.
Entry Information
BAFTA is calling for all developers to register games into the Awards within 30 days of a game’s release. This allows BAFTA’s voting members – experts from all across the games industry – enough time to discover and play all games entered in the awards ahead of voting, levelling the playing field across a wide range of games.
Any developer, publisher or studio that has released a game since 16 November 2024 is encouraged to register it into the Awards by 11 September 2025 to benefit from half-price entry fees. The discounted rate is also available to entrants registering their games within 30 days of release in future.
Only basic details are required to register a game into the awards, within 30 days of release. Entry is half price (£220 + VAT) within that period. The standard entry fee is £440 +VAT. Full entry details will then need to be submitted by Thursday 6 November 2025 to finalise the entry.
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