A press release from Tattersalls back in September took a lot of folk in the business by surprise, announcing as it did the departure of marketing director Jimmy George. 

The man who can fill many a quiet hour with a word-perfect monologue on the merits of the Book 1 Bonus first joined the company back in 1986 and, bar a brief stint on the bloodstock magazine Pacemaker, has been a stalwart of the team at Terrace House and Park Paddocks.

George is not going far though – in fact, a bit of investigative field reporting has revealed that it is a total of 168 steps to his new office, just down the hill at the International Racing Bureau (IRB), where he will succeed Alastair Donald as managing director. It will however be a major adjustment for the man who was born to wear the Tattersalls tie.

“Well, not the tie, I hate those ties,” he says. “But definitely a Tattersalls pen. I will literally have it around my neck all day, every day, in the office. I fancy walking out with an armful of Tattersalls’ pens that will hopefully last me a lifetime.”

The advice then, to chairman Edmond Mahony, is to check George’s pockets as he leaves Terrace House in the weeks after the end of the sales season at Tattersalls next Thursday. What George will deserve as he decamps to the IRB is a long-service award and, as our accompanying photograph shows, George was plainly only just out of his school blazer when he signed up to Europe’s major sales company.

“It was ’86 when I started here,” he says, before adding with a laugh, “Then, after three years, and I mean I’d got to the ripe old age of about 25 and they hadn’t put me on the board or made me chairman, which came as an extraordinary surprise to me. So I left to join Pacemaker but I came back here in ’94. I’ve done 33, 34 years in total, which is well over half my life.”

He adds, “I remember the first sale I ever did here, which was the July Sale, 1986, and I’m not even sure it numbered 200 lots.”

The sales scene has changed a bit then?

“It’s quite unrelenting now,” he agrees. “It’s definitely changed a lot since the summer of ’86. I was talking with an American agent who will be coming over for the December Mares this year, who said that in the course of one week he had bought horses in four different countries.

“That’s the biggest change in my time, the sheer number of sales taking place, the sheer volume of horses changing hands, and obviously the advent of the online platforms. And it’s growing as we speak – they’re changing the make and shape of the industry as well.”

We’re now accustomed to seven-figure lots being sold from the ring at Tattersalls, but back in 1997 it was a different story. So when the full-brother to Derby winner Generous (Ire) (Caerleon) appeared at the December Foal Sale and set a new record of 2,500,000gns, it was a pretty jaw-dropping moment.

“It was off the charts,” George recalls. “I mean, not just a Tatts record or a European record, but a world record for a foal, by a country mile. I mean, we were fairly confident he would top the sale, because he was an own-brother to a Derby winner and he was a smashing colt. But to top it by that sort of a margin and to shatter the previous world record for a foal by such a margin was something that you couldn’t have foreseen, and nobody did foresee.”

He continues, “And I remember taking calls from bloodstock or racing journalists that night, one in particular from Australia, and the ripple of that particular transaction, it turned into a bit of a tidal wave fairly quickly. It was pre-social media, of course, and people were just staggered by the fact that this foal could make that sort of money. I always likened it to the Bob Beamon long jump in the Mexico Olympics, when he literally jumped out of the pit. But I’m showing my vintage a bit there.”

Still smiling: George has been with Tattersalls for more than half his lifetime | Laura Green

George adds of the foal bought by Satish Sanan and later named Padua’s Pride (Ire), “It’s no longer a world record, but it’s still a European record by a very wide margin. Because I think the next best would’ve been the Giants Causeway filly out of Urban Sea, who ended up being a slightly better racehorse than Generous’s brother. She turned out to be My Typhoon, who was a Grade I winner. She made 1,800,000gns, which again is a huge sum of money for a foal, but still a full 700,000gns less than dear old Padua’s Pride, who was a fair way off being a Grade I winner.”

George is not entirely signing off from Tattersalls as he will continue to represent the company in America and Japan, both of which have been happy hunting grounds over the years. But he leaves his day job on a high after the record-breaking returns of this year’s October Yearling Sale.

“The world is a funny old place at the moment, and there are a lot of reasons out there why people might not feel a burning need to go out and buy a shiny new thoroughbred,” he says. “But by the end of Book 2 of the October Yearling Sale at Tattersalls this year, there were a lot of people with a renewed spring in their step and at least a feeling of, ‘Wow, okay, there’s life out there.’ And a feeling that the sport of racing and the world of thoroughbred breeding is not in such a bad spot.

“And you could feel the confidence returning. So to get to the end of that and know that there were so many different people who’d benefited from the strength of that market, unexpected as it was, was fantastic.”

The international aspect of the business, both on the racecourse and at the sale paddocks, has been another major change during George’s tenure and he has played his own ambassadorial role in encouraging potential buyers from across the world to visit Newmarket.

“I think that’s been one of the great things about this job at Tattersalls, it’s taken me places that most ordinary jobs wouldn’t take you, actually most jobs, not even ordinary ones,” he says. “It’s taken me to every continent in the world, in a working capacity, which is pretty extraordinary, and it’s given me the opportunity to meet some wonderful people along the way. 

“Sometimes there’s a little bit of a language barrier, but I think a shared love or enthusiasm for the sport of horse racing or the world of thoroughbred breeding, covers a lot of language deficiencies. 

“Everywhere you go in the world, if you find a racecourse, you’ll find somebody to talk to, if you enjoy our sport and our world. It’s been very varied and hugely enjoyable, and the contacts you make on these overseas trips, they can be contacts that last a lifetime and prove to be invaluable from the word go. Others can be slow-burners but their time will come.”

There is of course a natural synergy between his current role and that of the job he will take up come January with the IRB, which plays a vital role in aiding trainers and their teams at overseas meetings.

“Obviously it doesn’t have quite the 250-year-plus history of Tattersalls, but it’s not a million miles off 50 years that the IRB’s been going,” he notes. 

“And it has carved an important niche in that it was probably a company a bit ahead of its time in some ways, in almost anticipating the growth of international racing and the importance and significance of international racing. I’m looking forward to working with the team there, and and the international side of racing is only going to continue to grow and thrive, I think.”

George adds, “I’ll still have a small role for Tattersalls in certain overseas markets but I shall remain Tattersalls through and through for a very long time – and I’ll certainly still be wearing the pen, even sitting at my desk at the International Racing Bureau.”