NOTHING thrills Jedd O’Keeffe more than the drama of the sales ring. For the keeper of the historic Brecongill Stables, in Middleham, unearthing a bargain and careful wheeling and dealing is what the game is all about.

O’Keeffe has been training from Sally Hall’s empire since 2000 and started right at the bottom.

At the start of the Flat season, there were 22 occupants in the yard – a mainly Flat-based team supplemented by a small number of National Hunt horses.

Unashamedly ambitious, O’Keeffe wants to train winners and sees the sales, racing’s equivalent of the transfer market, as his chance to show off his eye for a player.

It’s paid spectacular dividends. Luna Landing, costing just 1,500 guineas, won four times on the Flat and once over hurdles while, Bid For Gold, at 26,000, has won six races over six furlongs.

With a limited budget, for O’Keeffe it’s attention to detail that counts. That and a strict set of rules that help him navigate the jungle of breeding and conformation.

“There are two ways I do it (at the sales),” he said. “Some clients are very knowledgeable about pedigree and they will go through the sales catalogues and make a list of horses that interest them.

“I will go through the list of horses looking at the individuals and a tick or a cross goes next to them.

“Then we will have another look as owner and trainer and see what we can afford and what we like.

“I am probably too choosy at the sales. I am very particular about what I buy. I like a certain type of horse. I like a big, strong horse which means, sometimes, as two-year-olds they need a bit more time.

“I like them very correct. There are some faults I will accept but there are plenty that I won’t so there are probably a lot more crosses than ticks in the catalogue.”

That’s just for starters. O’Keeffe particularly likes buying yearlings and seeing youngsters through those difficult early stages to fulfilling their talent on the track.

But pedigree, although important, is not everything.

“On the other case, I might just get a budget from an owner at which point I will ask them what sort of a horse that they want,” O’Keeffe added.

“Do they want an early sprinting two-year-old type that might not train on?

“Do they want something that may have a few runs as a two-year-old and train on to be a better three or four-year-old, or do they want something that’s definitely going to be a middle distance horse that might not have much activity as a two-year-old at all?

“If they give me a guide and a budget then I will go and try to find something for them.

“It is a similar thing that other trainers and bloodstock agents will see.

“You look at the individual before the pedigree. If you like the individual and the pedigree matches up then you have got something to go to war with.

“I have got a couple of rules – I don’t know whether it is right or wrong – I will only buy a first foal out of a mare if she is a winner and I will only buy a yearling out of a mare that hasn’t won if she has produced a winner, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

“So I have got some fairly strict guidelines to go and that seems to help. It means we seem to end up with more horses that are mostly capable than those that aren’t.”