Home Secretary Visits Tattersalls As Swindler Steals The Show

NEWMARKET, UK—Britain's Home Secretary Priti Patel MP paid a surprise visit to Tattersalls on Tuesday and will doubtless have had impressed upon her, by those depending on international trade ahead of the major sales of October and December, the importance of lifting quarantine restrictions for incoming buyers.

In the current climate, it is impossible to imagine the packed sales ring at Tattersalls on a dark, crisp December evening as a potential blockbuster mare comes under the hammer. Hopefully we will return to those moments of thoroughbred theatre in time, and in the meantime the bloodstock community is doing its level best to carry on buying and selling horses under previously unimaginable restrictions.

With that in mind, it was heartening to see the tempo quicken a notch on Tuesday after a solid start to the August Sale. Figures across all sectors rose a level from the opening session and again the most impressive indicator was a clearance rate of 95%. This is twofold, of course: on one hand buyers are there, either in person or online, and on the other, owners keen to move horses on are being realistic when setting reserves.

As buyer confidence increases in the use of online platforms, a rising number of bids were placed remotely, but Bahraini trainer Fawzi Nass attended the sale in person, along with his regular agent Oliver St Lawrence, and was successful in seeing off Stephen Hillen for the top lot of the day. That honour fell to the Bjorn Nielsen-bred sprinter Swindler (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) (lot 332), who has shown signs of a wayward tendency in going to post for his races but plenty of talent coming back, as his rating of 97 suggests. Interested parties pushed the price to 150,000gns for the 4-year-old, who has won two of his eight starts, both at Ascot.

“He is a very talented horse, he goes on fast ground and can sit off the pace. There might be a race for him on our international day, but he could make up to be good enough to go to Dubai or Saudi,” said Nass, who confirmed that the former Ed Walker trainee would be based in Bahrain.

Nass also picked up Dark Angel (Ire) gelding Deep Intrigue (GB) (lot 459), for 75,000gns and has plans to race him in Dubai. The 4-year-old was a five-time winner for Clipper Logistics when trained by Mark Johnston and was runner-up in last season's listed Spring Cup.

Moyglare Stud's homebred Desert Highway (Ire) (lot 345), a Dubawi (Ire) half-brother to Irish St Leger winner Royal Diamond (Ire) (King's Best) and G2 Ribblesdale S. winner Princess Highway (Ire) (Street Cry {Ire}), will also be heading east after being bought by Qatar's champion trainer Gassim Mohammed Ghazali for 82,000gns. Formerly trained by Dermot Weld, the 3-year-old colt has placed once in his three starts to date.

Jamie Lloyd went to 90,000gns for lot 470, Whisper Not (GB) (Poet's Voice {GB}), who has won his last two starts over 10 furlongs in July and is now bound for America. The agent was acting on behalf of Chris Dunn, whose previous success racing European-breds in the United States includes being one of the owners of GI American Oaks winner Lady Prancealot (Ire) (Sir Prancealot {Ire}).

“This horse has got a lot of pace, and is lightly raced—Richard Hannon said there is some more improvement to come,” said Lloyd of the 3-year-old colt.

“He won that first race by 20 lengths on a slow track and then won again on the faster track at Lingfield. I think he could drop back to a mile in the U.S.”

During the first two days of the August Sale, more than 200 lots have had bids placed on them online and around 20% have been sold in this manner. That was the case for Shared Belief (Ire) (Dandy Man {Ire}) (lot 357), who was sold to C H Wong via the internet bidding platform for 80,000gns. The 91-rated 3-year-old will continue his career under trainer David Ferraris in Hong Kong.

David Spratt of Gaelic Bloodstock was another to take advantage of the online facility and he bought lot 436, Georgeville (GB) (Dawn Approach {Ire}) for 75,000gns. The 3-year-old colt was the leading light of the Juddmonte Farms draft and was previously trained by Dermot Weld, who also trained his winning dam Big Break (GB) (Dansili {GB}) and her decorated full-brother Famous Name (GB).

With this being the inaugural August Sale, there are no comparative figures, but a further 2,932,200gns was added to the sale's turnover on Tuesday, with only nine of the 172 horses offered failing to find a buyer. The average price was 17,989gns and the median was 12,000gns—both up on the opening session.

The final session of the sale begins at 10am on Wednesday.