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$100,000 Guaranteed Gross Pool
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Thursday
The email bloodstock wakes up to
It might not be a particularly bold or brave prediction to make, but the midwinter mixed sales in early 2022 should be incredibly strong.
A lot of pinhookers found it difficult to get value at the foal sales as everyone rushed to restock after a buoyant round of yearling sales, and so they will likely be on the lookout for short yearlings to trade instead, and then there have been so many rags-to-riches stories at the Tattersalls December Mares’ Sale this week that surely one and all will now want to invest in a bargain broodmare of their own.
The blue-collar backgrounds of some of the transactions in Tuesday’s premier session at Park Paddocks are nothing short of astonishing.
First and foremost, how on earth did Tom Malone manage to snatch Muwakaba – the dam of Blandford Stakes winner and Irish Oaks second Cayenne Pepper (pictured below), who was sold to Tom Magnier for 2,000,000gns – at just £8,500 from a Shadwell draft at a Tattersalls Ireland Ascot Sale in November 2015?
It’s easy to say now, of course, but that price seems inexplicable. Okay, the mare’s first foal Just Because had only won at a lowly level, but she had scored on debut at two for a decent RPR of 81 herself, and she is by Elusive Quality out of a winning daughter of Nureyev and the great blue hen Allegretta.
That means that Urban Sea is her maternal aunt and Galileo and Sea The Stars are her cousins, for heaven’s sake!
Malone’s clients were not the recipients of the seven-figure windfall from Cayenne Pepper’s sale this week, but they still made a significant profit when selling the filly as a foal to Harriet Jellet on behalf of Jon S Kelly for 195,000gns.
Buying Cayenne Pepper was a very good bit of business for the late Kelly and his widow Sarah. The filly was originally intended to be a pinhook before connections had second thoughts and put her into training with Jessica Harrington. She earned £315,000 on the track before her starring role at the sales.
Muwakaba provides a timely reminder of the riches available in Shadwell mare drafts, as the stud continues to dispense with a large portion of its stock in a bid to streamline operations after the death of its founder Hamdan Al Maktoum.
Speaking of inspired purchases of foundation mares, what about Bill O’Gorman’s acquisition of the Dodge mare Simply Times on behalf of owner Allan Belshaw for just $18,000 from the unusual source of a yearling sale in Ocala, Florida, in 1995?
Simply Times’ racing career was inauspicious, to say the least, as she fell on one of her two starts and finished tenth on the other, but she proved to be a remarkably productive broodmare.
She produced ten winners, including the durable stakes winners Welsh Emperor and Majestic Times, and her daughter Forever Times produced two dams of Group 1 winners – Sunday Times, who produced dual US Grade 1 winner Newspaperofrecord and Question Times, who bred Irish Derby hero Latrobe.
Through Goldford Stud, Belshaw on Tuesday sold the 12-year-old Holy Roman Emperor mare Sunday Times, back in foal to Newspaperofrecord’s sire Lope De Vega, to MV Magnier for 1,800,000gns and Sunday Times’ four-year-old winning Gleneagles daughter Daily Times, also pregnant to Lope De Vega, to London Thoroughbred Services for 800,000gns.
The Grassick family of Newtown Stud should also be congratulated for their uncanny ability to unearth quality broodmares on a budget, as they bred two of the five most expensive lots on Tuesday – this season’s Cheveley Park Stakes runner-up Flotus, who was sold to Katsumi Yoshida for 1,000,000gns, and Listed winner and Queen Mary Stakes third Shades Of Blue, who was sold in foal to Frankel to White Birch Farm for 850,000gns.
The dams of neither lot cost the earth. The Starspangledbanner filly Flotus is out of Floriade, a winning daughter of Invincible Spirit who was bred by Newtown Stud, sold to Godolphin for 130,000gns at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale of 2010 and then cleverly reclaimed for just €15,000 when she came back on the market at Arqana at the end of the following year.
Newtown Stud have sold progeny of Floriade for a combined value of more than €200,000, including the €65,000 Flotus made as a foal.
Shades Of Blue, a five-year-old by Kodiac, is the first foal out of the unraced Verglas mare Enjoyable, who in turn is out of Mathaayl, a winning daughter of Shadeed bought for Newtown Stud for just 29,000gns from the Tattersalls December Mares’ Sale 15 years ago.
Mathaayl more than paid her way on the farm thanks to the sales of her progeny, and Enjoyable’s foals and yearlings have grossed in excess of £400,000 at auction, including 105,000gns received for Shades Of Blue.
The man who really made finding profits in the thoroughbred business look like shelling peas at Tattersalls this week, though, was Nick Bradley.
The syndication supremo was responsible for a number of fillies who had been sourced cheaply, collected black-type for Nick Bradley Racing and were then resold for many multiples of their original purchase price.
Most striking of all were the sales of high-class three-year-olds Dandalla, Fev Rover and Mystery Angel for a total just shy of 2,000,000gns when they were bought for no more than 22,000gns each.
Albany Stakes and Duchess of Cambridge Stakes heroine Dandalla, a daughter of Dandy Man signed for as a yearling by Kelly Burke at €22,000, sold to Katsumi Yoshida for 750,000gns.
Group 2 winner and 1,000 Guineas third Fev Rover, a Gutaifan filly bought as a yearling by Howson and Houldsworth Bloodstock with Bradley for £20,000, went to Tracy Farmer for 695,000gns.
Listed scorer and Oaks runner-up Mystery Angel, a daughter of Kodi Bear bought for 22,000gns at the breeze-ups, meanwhile found favour with Haruya Yoshida at 500,000gns.
The breeders of that trio might not have received huge sums for parting with what turned out to be top-notch horses, but all were later rewarded when selling foals or yearlings out of the fillies’ inexpensively sourced dams in the wake of their achievements this year.
This broodmare buying and breeding lark looks easy, doesn’t it?
It’s probably best not to get too carried away by studying only the top prices of a major sale without also taking into consideration the shattered dreams at the bottom of the market, though.
And before breaking open the piggy bank it would be wise to remember the deep investment in stallion nominations, boarding fees and vets bills that is required on top of the initial outlay on the mare – to name just a few sundry other costs of breeding.
It also takes considerable expertise, and the following words from Bradley at the end of his momentous run of profits on Tuesday should be heeded.
“I’ve studied, worked hard and learned, learned, learned,” he said. “Every year I get better and now we’ve had five stakes winners in a year.”
It doesn’t have to be left to the professionals, though, and there are plenty of racing and breeding syndicates out there – like Nick Bradley Racing – that allow smaller investors to spread the financial risk while also tapping into the knowledge and experience of an old hand in the industry.
fonte RacingPost
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