By Daithi Harvey
A sun-drenched Gowran Park Racecourse was the scene on Thursday as 213 juveniles breezed in front of a large international audience in advance of the auction at neighbouring Goresbridge on Friday. Last year was a record- breaker for the sale as turnover hit a high of €5.2-million and featured a €270,000 sale topper, the highest in the sale's history. This year the catalogue has been condensed slightly, back to 236 from 255 last year, with 24 withdrawals at the time of writing. If trade at the earlier European breeze up sales this season is any indicator, then business should be brisk.
Goresbridge boss Martin Donohoe is hopeful of building on the impressive gains made in recent years and commented, “It looks a good catalogue and we are hoping for the best. Plenty of the right faces seem to be here and given the way trade has been at Doncaster, Tattersalls and Arqana you would have to be optimistic. We have reduced the catalogue slightly since last year just to try and tighten up and to increase the quality so hopefully that will pay off.”
Unfortunately among those withdrawn include lot 91 a well- related Lope De Vega (Ire) colt from Baroda & Colbinstown and lot 59, the solitary offering by Medaglia d'Oro. However, there is still ample quality on offer and one consignor hoping for similar success to last year will be the Ardglas Stables team of Ambrose O'Mullane and Mary Reynolds. The pair sold a filly by Spirit One (Fr) for €66,000 at Goresbridge last year having bought her for €4,000 at Arqana as a yearling. They returned to France last autumn and reinvested in a colt by Broken Vow (Unbridled) that cost €31,000. Offered on Friday as lot 33, the colt is out of the speedy G2 Robert Papin winner New Girlfriend (Ire) (Diesis), who has already bred the six-time winning stakes performer Diaz (Ire) (Azamour {Ire}) from just the one runner.
“The dam was very fast and she has already bred a good horse. This is a big colt that covers a huge amount of ground,” said O'Mullane. Ardglas also offer the only lot by Style Vendome (Fr) (Anabaa), whose progeny have been in demand at breeze-up sales this season. Lot 52, a grey filly from the family of Clodovil (Ire) (Danehill), was also the subject of a favourable mention from O'Mullane. “We're very happy with the Style Vendome filly. She breezed well and is also qualified for French Premiums so we hope that will help her stand out. Her sire has made a great start so we are very hopeful.”
From a draft of four to sell, the Ardglas team also consign a filly by Camacho (GB) (Danehill) lot 136, and O'Mullane feels this half-sister to five-time winner Beach Bar (Ire) (Azamour {Ire}) could offer a potential purchaser a quick return on investment.
“She clocked a very fast time, she is very precocious and is pretty much ready to go,” he said. “Goresbridge has been good to us in the past and we hope that will continue tomorrow.”
The vending machine that is Tally-Ho Stud will offer a horse every 10 lots up until lot 210, among them several by their resident stallion Kodiac (GB) (Danehill) who also happens to be one of the 'go-to' stallions at any breeze-up sale. Tally-Ho sold the stakes winner Terror (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) to Qatar Racing for €75,000 at Goresbridge in 2014 and return today with her full- brother catalogued as lot 50. Tally-Ho had the misfortune to lose Society Rock (Ire) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}) around this time last year and the O'Callaghan family's stud offers one of the best- bred colts in the book by him. Lot 110 is a half-brother to G2 Queen Mary S. winner Elletelle (Ire) (Elnadim), who in turn has bred GI Secretariat S. and G1 Cox Plate winner Adelaide (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}).
An innovative feature of last year's sale was a facility implemented by Goresbridge and Irish Thoroughbred Marketing to beam the sale live into the owners and trainers room at Kranji Racecourse in Singapore, where bids could be accepted over the internet. It resulted in five lots being purchased by Singapore- based owners and such was the success of the venture that it has been extended this year to include Macau.
“So far there has been a winner and runner-up from last year's batch that went to Singapore and due to positive feedback we decided to extend the reach to Macau this year,” explained Irish Thoroughbred Marketing's Jeremy Greene. “Irish horses have a good strike rate in Singapore and hopefully this will help increase their popularity further.”
Selling kicks off in the Goresbridge sales complex at 10:30 a.m. and recordings of all the breezes are available on its website.
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