Record-Breaking Juvenile Trade At Goffs UK

An extraordinary revival in trade and a new record top price for a Goffs UK breezer kick-started the flat sales season in Doncaster with figures up in all sectors and a highly encouraging clearance rate of 90%.

The day was hailed as “an amazing experience” by Goffs UK's managing director Tony Williams, and the returns were indeed impressive, buoyed by a terrific turf season for previous sale graduates.

“The sale had its best year on the track in 2016, with the highlight being the Royal Ascot meeting, and this year's sale has undoubtedly been the best breeze-up conducted here at Goffs,” Williams remarked.

With 12 different countries represented on the list of buyers, the average shot up by 37% at £45,025, while the median also improved, by 36%, to £30,000. A total of 120 juveniles sold from 134 offered––12 more than the number sold last year––ensured that the sale's turnover also improved dramatically, the final tally of  £5,403,000 representing a 53% increase.

For the Tally-Ho Stud team behind the day's record-breaking price of £360,000 for a Kodiac (Ire) colt (lot 89), it was a case of if at first you don't succeed, try again. Originally bought as foal for €68,000, the son of Sodashy (Ire) (Noverre) was unsold when reoffered at the Orby Sale.

“I couldn't get a bid for him as a yearling,” recalled Roger O'Callaghan, whose operation was the sale's leading vendor with 13 sold for £764,000. “But he's done really well and has been very easy. I hope he's lucky for his new owner.”

That owner is Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, whose representative Dick O'Gorman outlasted Stephen Hillen and Robert Cowell in the race to secure the colt and picked up another two on the day to end the session as leading buyer for an outlay of £550,000.

“He's been bought for Godolphin. He did a really good breeze and he's by a sire who has been very successful at this sale,” said O'Gorman.

Indeed, Kodiac supplied the joint-top lots at last year's sale, Ardad (Ire) and Prince Of Lir (Ire), both of whom went on to win Group 2 races later in the season.

The buyer of Ardad, Blandford Bloodstock's Richard Brown, was back in action at Doncaster on Wednesday, most notably when going to £210,000 for lot 62, a Lonhro (Aus) colt out of the winning Danehill Dancer (Ire) mare Our Drama Queen (Ire), a half-sister to G1 St Leger winner Leading Light (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}).

The young mare has already produced juvenile winner More Drama (Ire) (Thewayyouare {Ire}) and her third foal was picked up as a yearling at Keenelend for $17,000 by Justin Rea, who consigned him at Doncaster through his Fairgreen Stables.

“It's hard to believe,” said Rea after thanking Richard Brown. “This is only the second time I've been over to America to buy yearlings and I bought six there last year. This colt was very professional from the start and he always did his job well.”

Brown commented, “He obviously did a very good breeze. He's for someone who may want to race and here and in America so the fact that the stallion has done well on both sides of the Atlantic is an interesting angle.”

The agent also issued an update on the Abdullah Saeed Al Naboodah-owned Ardad, who has remained in training with John Gosden in Newmarket after winning last year's Windsor Castle S. and G2 Flying Childers S.

“Ardad has grown a huge amount over the winter. He did us proud last year and we're looking forward to seeing him back on the track soon. He should start out in a Listed race at York in May,” he continued.

“I wouldn't have been certain about him training on at three, and we had plenty of offers for him to retire to stud at the end of his 2-year-old season, but when I saw him recently he'd done really well. He's over 16 hands now and it's all about five furlongs for him this year. John has tried to stretch him to six but he's just blisteringly quick.”

If Justin Rea's pinhook looked impressive, an even bigger touch with a Keeneland yearling occurred just an hour later when lot 92, a colt by More Than Ready, increased in value from $5,000 to £200,000.

The buying agent, Kerri Radcliffe, has such an affinity with the offspring of the stallion that she even appears in WinStar Farm adverts. Her fondness for More Than Ready was doubtless sparked by her purchase of subsequent Group 3 winner and Group 1 runner-up Nemoralia, for $170,000, at OBS, and she bought another filly by the same sire for $600,000 at this year's breeze-up in Ocala.

“He's for the same owners who I was buying for in Florida recently. He's a lovely colt and we hope he'll be a Royal Ascot horse but it's all up to the trainer now,” said Radcliffe who confirmed that, like Nemoralia, the colt will be trained by her husband Jeremy Noseda.

The most surprising aspect of the transaction was that the More Than Ready colt was owned by two schoolchildren, Anna and Philip McCartan, aged 12 and 10, whose father Jim is a well-known vendor on the breeze-up circuit and consigned the horse through his Gaybrook Lodge Stud.

“We just got lucky,” said Jim McCartan in the understatement of the day. “I liked this horse at Keeneland and I asked the vendor what the reserve was and he'd told me $30,000. When he went into the ring I had to check my catalogue to make sure I was bidding on the right horse but it turns out that the owner had decided to let him go without reserve.”

He added, “I rang my kids at home and told them I'd bought a horse that they could have if they liked him, so we did a deal and I looked after the expenses and they got him mucked out every day while he was being ridden. An old friend told me that it's good to give children some responsibility.”

McCartan sold all four horses he brought to the Goffs UK sale for a total of £357,000.

“I'm lucky that I have such a brilliant team at home. I really couldn't do it without them, and I mean that,” he concluded.

The top-priced filly of the day at £190,000 reprised a successful theme at this sale: a daughter of Showcasing offered by Thomas Whitehead's Powerstown Stud. The last time the vendor and sire combined in this particular ring was in the sale of Quiet Reflection (GB), a £44,000 purchase two years ago who went on to win the G1 Commonwealth Cup and G1 Haydock Sprint Cup for Kark Burke and the Ontoawinner Syndicate.

David Redvers signed the docket for Powerstown's most recent offering by Showcasing (lot 66) out of the Listed winner Primo Lady (GB) (Lucky Story) on behalf of Qatar Racing and said, “We're hoping that lightning can strike twice. She did a sensational breeze and is by the right sire. She looks precocious and strong and, like everyone else here looking for horses, we hope that she will be a Royal Ascot 2-year-old.”

Redvers, who added that the filly will be trained by Richard Hannon, later went to £135,000 for lot 72, by a stallion a bit closer to home, Havana Gold (GB), who has his first runners this season. The colt, who was bought for 22,000gns as a yearling by Jeremy Brummitt, was sold through Johnny Hassett's Bloodstock Connection and is a half-brother to all-weather specialist and G3 Winter Derby winner Grendisar (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}).

Another of the day's top fillies was a Shadwell-bred daughter of Tamayuz (GB) from the high-achieving family of Height Of Fashion (Fr). Let go at the Goffs November Open Yearling Sale for €12,000, her purchaser that day, Michael Byrne, brought her to England in his Knockgraffon consignment from which she sold for £140,000 to Richard Brown.

“She'll be trained by John Gosden,” said Brown. “She was a little green in her breeze but the farther she went the better she did. I think Tamayuz is a really under-rated sire and while it's not right there at the top of the page, you're going back to Height Of Fashion. If she can win some black type she'd be a nice addition to anyone's broodmare band.”

The March-born filly is the first foal of the Hard Spun mare Arsheef who won twice in France as a 3-year-old. Her dam Atayeb (Rahy) is a half-sister to Sheikh Hamdan's 1,000 Guineas winner Ghanaati (Giant's Causeway) and G3 Cumberland Lodge S. winner Mawatheeq (Danzig).

The team from Hong Kong Jockey Club, comprising Mark Richards, Nick Columb and advisors Grant and Tom Pritchard-Gordon of Badgers Bloodstock, are a rare sight at breeze-up sales but they looked as if they meant business from the off, and it wasn't long before Richards had signed for the first six-figure lot of the day (8), a colt by Kodiac (Ire) out of the unraced Florida City (Ire) (Pennekamp {Fr}) sold by Fforest Farm Stables on behalf of National Hunt trainer Rebecca Curtis.

“He was the one horse in the breeze we really wanted after yesterday,” said Richards after going to £100,000 for the colt. “I saw him as a yearling and liked him then. He's gone the right way and was very professional in his breeze. This is a new area for us and we'll be going on to Newmarket next week [for the Craven Sale] followed by Deauville.”

The Hong Kong Jockey Club later purchased another three colts, including Lynn Lodge Stud's son of first-season sire Havana Gold (lot 139), also for £100,000.