The Baroda Stud-consigned Aspiring (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), a half-sister to champion and G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and five-times Group 1 winner Danedream (Ger) (Lomitas {GB}), was knocked down to the BBA Ireland on behalf of the Lucky Vega Syndicate for €790,000 to take the lead at about the midway stage of day one of the Goffs November Breeding Stock Sale. The unraced 4-year-old filly, also kin to Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed Venice Beach (Ire) and Group 3 winner Broadway (Ire), produced a colt by Wootton Bassett (GB) for her first produce this year and was offered back in foal to the Coolmore-based stallion. The Lucky Vega Syndicate also paid €530,000 for Bocca Baciata (Ire) (Big Bad Bob {Ire}) and €500,000 for Albula (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) to account for three of the session's four highest transactions.
When one has a filly like the Galileo (Ire) daughter of Shastye (Ire) (Danehill), Julian Dollar admits, “you don’t look at those sorts of horses particularly objectively.” And to be fair, that assessment likely doesn’t just apply to the Newsells Park Stud general manager. Such a force has Shastye been in the Tattersalls October Book 1 ring and on the racecourse over the past 10 years that plenty of shoppers are likely to get a bit starry-eyed.
Lot 436 at next week’s renewal of Book 1 is the sixth filly out of Shastye and is a full-sister to Secret Gesture (GB), the G2 Middleton S. winner and triple Oaks runner-up who was disqualified from a first-place finish in the 2015 GI Beverly D. S.; last year’s G1 Juddmonte International winner Japan (GB); last month’s G1 Grand Prix de Paris scorer Mogul (GB); and Group 3 winner Sir Isaac Newton (GB). Secret Gesture was a 230,000gns yearling who later sold to Godolphin as a broodmare for $3.5-million, while Japan, Mogul and Sir Issac Newton cost 1.3-million gns, 3.4-million gns and 3.6-million gns in the Tattersalls ring, all bought by the Coolmore partners. Shastye had another Galileo filly, Secret Gaze (GB), sell for 1.35-million gns at Book 1 in 2016.
Dollar confirmed that the latest filly’s looks and attitude match her pedigree.
“We’ve loved her since day one and she’s a bit of a favorite,” Dollar said. “Not only because of her pedigree but also because she is just a lovely filly and she has that wonderful temperament. I described her the other day as serene and I think that is a good description of her. She’s a beautiful, elegant filly, she’s got a huge walk, but it’s the way she conducts herself, really. She’s very much the boss in the paddock and always has been.
“And yet when she’s with people she’s like a 14-year-old pony. She just loves people and is a sweet filly to deal with. But when it comes to business she knows what she’s about. She’s just got that air about her. She’s a bit special I think and a bit of a collector’s item.”
While Shastye’s filly will likely feature as one of the stars of the sale when she strolls into the ring midway through day three of the sale on Oct. 8, she is far from the only “collector’s item” in the Book 1 draft of Newsells, which has been leading vendor at the sale last past two years. Shastye’s filly is one of two Galileos Newsells will offer, the other being a colt (lot 454) who is the first foal out of the G3 Prix Imprudence winner and multiple Group 1-placed sprinter/miler Spectre (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}).
“He’s got a really good step to him,” Dollar said. “He’s a very attractive, neat horse with a good step and a good walker. He’s a very encouraging first foal for the mare.”
Newsells offers two colts by Galileo’s best son Frankel (GB) out of Oasis Dream (GB) mares on day one of the sale: lot 62, a colt out of Enable (GB)’s unraced half-sister Birdwood (GB), and lot 36, “a real class horse” out of As Good As Gold (Ire), a half-sister to former Frankel standout Eminent (Ire).
Dollar recalled having to buy Birdwood twice-“once when she was good value, and once when she wasn’t when our partners wanted to sell.” The former was for 150,000gns as a 3-year-old from the Juddmonte consignment at Tattersalls December in 2016 before Enable had raced. The second was for 1.1-million gns two months after Enable won her first Arc in 2017.
“He’s a very nice horse,” Dollar said of Birdwood’s colt. “Strong, well-made with a good step to him. And of course, what a lovely pedigree.”
Dollar said As Good As Gold’s colt resembles his sire in his athleticism.
“I remember watching his father walk and he had that amazing movement, moved a bit like a panther,” he said. “And this horse has got a great step to him. He’s a very nice horse.”
An elite yearling draft would hardly be complete without representation from Dubawi (Ire), and Newsells has two colts to offer by Darley’s kingpin: lot 356, a half-brother to G1 Oaks winner Qualify (Ire) (Fastnet Rock {Aus}), and lot 112, a son of the Arc winner Danedream (Ger) (Lomitas {GB}) offered on behalf of breeder Teruya Yoshida.
“This is a really nice horse,” Dollar said of lot 356, who is out of the Galileo mare Perihelion (Ire). “He’s always been a lovely individual since the day he was born. Sadly we no longer have the mum, she passed away soon after he was born. But he’s a nice colt. He’s quite typical of Dubawi but he’s got a lot of quality.”
Lot 112 is just the second of Danedream’s foal to see a sales ring; the first was this colt’s full-brother who made 1.5-million gns from Shadwell in 2017 and has won three times. The mare’s next foal, a Frankel (GB) filly, sadly died before making the races but Dollar reported that Danedream’s current 2-year-old Online Dream (GB) (Frankel {GB}) is training well in Japan.
“Funny enough, the Frankels have been quite fine horses, but both Dubawis had much more size and strength about them,” Dollar said of Danedream’s foals. “And this guy, he’s a big brute of a horse. But he’s nice, and I know the mare hasn’t got off to the brightest of starts, but you can never ignore a Dubawi out of a filly as good as Danedream.”
Newsells has thrown plenty of support behind leading French sire Siyouni (Fr) with three yearlings in the draft including fillies out of Grade III winner Ceisteach (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}) (lot 84), who Newsells bought for $700,000 in 2015, and Queen Philippa (Henrythenavigator) (lot 380), a full-sister to Group 1 winner Pedro The Great and a half to Footstepsinthesand (GB) and to the dam of Classic winner Power (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}).
Dollar said of the daughter of Ceisteach, “she’s a beautiful filly. She’s very, very nice. I really rate her. She’s just beautifully balanced, has a great step and real quality. I’m excited about this mare, she’s producing some lovely stock.”
Dollar described Queen Philippa’s filly as “a real strong, precocious type.”
“I would be disappointed if she wasn’t winning races by this time next year,” he said. “She looks the type that isn’t going to take long; she’s very well put together, very balanced and precocious-looking, which is not necessarily what we normally produce, but I’m happy to see something like that.”
Another in the draft to fit that bill is a Kodiac (GB) colt out of G1 Prix de l’Opera winner Kinnaird (Ire) (Dr Devious {Ire}) (lot 250), a half-brother to the triple stakes-winning 2-year-old Berkshire (GB) (Mount Nelson {GB}).
“He is just a real monster of a 2-year-old [type],” Dollar said. “Some might say I wouldn’t know what a 2-year-old looked like, and they might be justified in that, but even a blind man can see that this is a 2-year-old type. He’s strong, he’s got a great step, he’s well put together and he just means business.”
Of quite the opposite profile are a pair of colts by Sea The Stars (Ire): lot 518, a son of the Newsells foundation mare Waldmark (Ger), and lot 366, a half-brother to the G1 Premio Roma GBI Racing winner Potemkin (Ger) (New Approach {Ire}) from a family that has been nurtured by Newsells’s German sister stud Gestut Fahrhof.
“A bit of a personal favourite is the Sea The Stars colt out of Waldmark,” Dollar admitted. “Waldmark and this whole family mean an awful lot to Newsells because Waldmark was one of the first horses that the late Mr. Jacobs bought in 2000. And he bought her as a filly foal, raised her at Newsells when he just bought the farm, sent her to train with Michael Stoute and she was second in the Falmouth S. She’s bred a number of good horses, not least of course Masked Marvel who won the Leger and was a very good horse for Bjorn Nielsen and John Gosden. The very next year we had Waldlerche who turned out to be a group winner for Andre Fabre and subsequently, of course, bred Waldgeist as her first foal.
“She means a lot to us, Waldmark, and she had five years where we were unable to get a live foal out of her. We were all set to throw in the towel but between our vet here and the encouragement and support of a vet in Ireland, we got her going. She’s got a Frankel filly that’s a 3-year-old with John Gosden at the moment who’s only had the one start; she had a little setback recently, but she’s a filly we want to carry on with. And now this nice Sea The Stars colt and he’s an absolute belter.”
Newsells also offers a grandson of Waldmark in lot 519, a Le Havre (Ire) colt out of the German listed-winning Waldnah (GB) (New Approach {Ire}).
“If you’re looking for a horse that when you look at the pedigree and look at the horse you say, ‘this is bred to win the Derby’, this horse looks every inch a horse that’s bred to win the Derby,” Dollar said. “I know Le Havre, from a colts’ point of view, is not always the most commercial, but he’s such a taking horse, this horse, that’s why we decided to put him in Book 1. He’s a proper Book 1 horse for me and deserves lots of respect.”
Among three Lope De Vegas in the draft is a son of the G1 Irish Oaks winner Great Heavens (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) (lot 188) offered as part of the Waddesdon Stud dispersal. Also offered on behalf of the late Lady Rothschild is a No Nay Never half-brother to G3 Bengough S. winner Mince (GB) (Medicean {GB}) (lot 468) who Dollar said is “a real monster. He is just so impressive to look at, you just take a deep breath and go ‘wow.'”
Newsells offers a Fastnet Rock (Aus) filly (lot 279) on behalf of Manfred Ostermann of Gestut Ittlingen that Dollar described as a “real Oaks filly.”
The only unproven sire represented in the Newsells draft is Ulysees (Ire) via lot 8.
“This horse has got a great step and a great mind, which I think is just so important with these horses,” Dollar said of the relative of the recent G3 Prix de Ris-Orangis winner Royal Crusade (GB). “He looks very solid, I really like him.”
Reflecting on his expectations of the market with the season’s first few yearling sales in the book on both sides of the Atlantic, Dollar said, “I thought earlier in the year that best-case scenario we would be down 20%, and worst-case scenario is 50%. I suspect we’re going to be somewhere in the middle, as a whole. I think it’s hard to be overly optimistic, given the circumstances. You’ve got to think to yourself, ‘who is going to want to spend lots of money on buying horses to go racing with while this virus is still plaguing us?’ But at the same time I hope that we all come together, and I think we have to a degree this spring and summer, come together and supported each other and just tried to get racing back on its feet.
Dollar said he rates the Newsells draft as one of the best that the stud has offered, and that the sale as a whole will offer opportunities looking for those to invest in blueblooded stock while the market is down.
“You’re going to be able to buy into some beautiful pedigrees at prices that, if you looked at what people were spending in the last couple of years at the December sales for mares, are going to look like serious bargains,” he said. “I certainly know from our point of view that when we invested in mares about 10 years ago [during the last major economic crash] we were buying at a level that we thought was value and that’s been borne out subsequently. Certainly the last few years buying broodmare prospects it’s been eye-watering the sort of money we’ve had to spend. So I think there is a great opportunity for buyers who are brave this year, who can see beyond the next six, maybe 12 months.”
“Ultimately, there’s not very much we can do about [the market],” Dollar added. “It’s just a question of preparing these horses as well as we can and taking them to the sales, hoping that people like them and trying to sell them. But we’ll be very realistic. We will be reducing our reserves significantly in order to get the market ticking over and we’ll take our medicines like everybody else has had to do.”
