The Weekly Wrap

The British yearling sales season gets underway today and while the name Goffs UK is slowly becoming regular parlance among the sales crowd, to many this week's Premier and Silver Sales in Yorkshire will simply always be collectively known as 'Donny'.

Today and tomorrow will feature those animals deemed to be in the premier category and it's safe to say that no other sale has so successfully carved a distinctive niche for itself. Spend time looking at foals or yearlings on farms and it won't be long before you hear someone say, “he's a real Donny horse”, the translation for which reads strong and sharp-looking–the type that one might reasonably expect to be ready in time at two for the meeting which has become the holy grail for many owners, Royal Ascot.

There are plenty of notable examples among recent Goffs UK graduates but one which perhaps perfectly encapsulates the 'Donny horse' is Gale Force Ten (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}), who topped the sale back in 2011 at €280,000 and went on to finish runner-up to Reckless Abandon (Exchange Rate) in the G2 Coventry S. before winning the following year's G3 Jersey S. You'll find seven of his first-crop yearlings for sale across the next three days.

Gale Force Ten's breeder Bob McCreery, who died in December, will be much missed at the sales this season, but his name very much lives on at the races through some notable graduates of his Stowell Hill Stud. McCreery enjoyed plenty of success with Richard Hannon senior over the years, and Richard junior has continued in a similar vein, coaxing impressively consistent form from the half-siblings Billesdon Bess (GB) (Dick Turpin {Ire}) and Billesdon Brook (GB) (Champs Elysees {GB}).

Bob's wife Jeanette is continuing at the helm of Stowell Hill and, with the Pall Mall Partners, has enjoyed some good days out this summer. Not even the appalling weather at Glorious Goodwood could dampen the mood as 'the Billesdons' won on consecutive days at the meeting, and each has gone on to stakes glory. On Aug. 16, the 3-year-old Billesdon Bess won the Listed Upavon Fillies' S. at Salisbury, while on Saturday her year-younger brother returned to Goodwood to land the G3 Prestige S. The siblings can now boast seven wins from only 15 starts between them and, as first and second foals, are a real feather in the cap of the young Manduro (Ger) mare Coplow (GB), a daughter of the accomplished Stowell Hill matriarch Anna Oleanda (Ire), who is by one of the farm's most famous alumni, Old Vic (GB).

Incidentally, both Coplow and Trois Lunes (Fr), the dam of Haras de Saint Pair's Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed Trais Fluors (GB), are from the first crop of Manduro, a stallion we should expect to hear more about in the broodmare sire division in the coming years. Trais Fluors and Billesdon Brook are bred on very similar lines as sons of the full-brothers Dansili (GB) and Champs Elysees (GB).

Pivotal Week For Prescott Team
Pivotal (GB) only ran six times in his life but he won four of those races, culminating in the G1 Nunthorpe S. at York in 1996 for the inimitable Sir Mark Prescott.

In the intervening two decades, the Cheveley Park Stud stallion has grafted his way to become one of the most respected sires in Britain. His influence was felt last week on the Knavesmire through his grandson Wells Farhh Go (Ire), an unbeaten son of the first-season sire Farhh (GB), who took the G3 Acomb S. for local trainer Tim Easterby. Another of Pivotal's sons who will be worthy of a stud place when he eventually retires is 6-year-old Lightning Spear (GB), who on Saturday landed his second consecutive G2 Celebration Mile and has been a stalwart of the Qatar Racing team, with placed finishes this season in the G1 Lockinge S. and G1 Sussex S.

Twenty-one years after Pivotal's last hurrah, his trainer, the longest-serving member of his profession in Newmarket, claimed his second Nunthorpe trophy with the consistent Marsha (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}), who rarely fails to give her many owners in the Elite Racing Club a proper run for their money. The 4-year-old's impressive record now stretches to seven wins–including two at Group 1 level–and seven places from her 16 starts. In a sad week for Rathbarry Stud, which lost its leading National Hunt sire Presenting (GB), Marsha was one of two Group winners for another of the farm's resident stallions, Acclamation, whose son Attendu (Fr) won the G3 Prix Quincey Barriere.

Sir Mark wasn't on hand to collect the trophy himself as he was in Ireland looking at yearlings but he will have been proud of his Heath House team, led by his long-term assistant William Butler, who will one day succeed him as trainer. The yard very nearly pulled off a big-race double at York at opposite ends of the distance spectrum, with Flymetothestars (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) being beaten just a head by Nakeeta (GB) (Sixties Icon {GB}) in the valuable Ebor H. The lightly-raced 4-year-old is clearly held in high regard at Heath House, with Butler indicating after the race that Flymetothestars will now be stepping up in grade out of handicap company. In the meantime the Prescott team has another decent stayer with which to go to war in the form of St Michel (GB), who is also by Sea The Stars and was beaten only half a length when third in the G2 Lonsdale Cup. He remains on course for Melbourne.

Leger Not In Mind For The Queen
The Queen may not have enjoyed seeing Dartmouth (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) being beaten a nose by the fast-finishing Montaly (GB) (Yeats {Ire}) in the G2 Lonsdale Cup but a double dose of compensation came Her Majesty's way just 24 hours later.

The William Haggas-trained Call To Mind (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) posted a fine performance on just his fifth start when winning the Listed March S. at Goodwood, setting up a stakes-race double which was completed by Fabricate (GB) (Makfi {GB}) in the G3 Winter Hill S., a first Group winner in the royal colours for trainer Michael Bell.

If the Queen had happened to be in residence at Windsor Castle, a good pair of binoculars would have allowed her to watch Fabricate's race without the need to venture out to her local course. She will doubtless have been delighted at a pair of homebred stakes winners, but she will not be adding to her Classic haul this year. Call To Mind's Goodwood win sparked a hope that he may attempt to give the Queen a second St Leger victory 40 years after Dunfermline's memorable win in Silver Jubilee year. He is not, however, entered in the race, which takes place on Sept. 9.

Described by his trainer as still being “a shell”, Call To Mind, a son of the G2 Cherry Hinton S. winner Memory (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}), will instead be a horse to look forward to for next year.

“We are not supplementing for the St Leger. If Call To Mind runs again this season, it will be in the G2 Prix Chaudenay at Chantilly on Arc weekend,” Haggas told the TDN on Monday.

Call To Mind's win on Saturday was the 99^th of the season for Haggas. Winners number 100 and 101 were notched the following day at Goodwood and Yarmouth to make him one of only four trainers in Britain to have broken the 100-winner mark this season. The fact that Haggas has achieved this from 385 runners means that he has the best winning strike-rate of the bunch at an impressive 26%. Congratulations to all the team at Somerville Lodge.