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Full House in Newmarket as Mares Grab the Spotlight at Tattersalls

NEWMARKET, UK — There are no hotel rooms left in Newmarket. Visitors to Tattersalls are not only spread far and wide across Suffolk and Cambridgeshire but have come from far and wide too.

The largest ever contingent from Japan is expected at Park Paddocks this week, and with most of the stallion farms in the region displaying signs saying 'open house' it's the perfect time for international breeders also to consider using a local stallion to cover a new purchase before export. The locals are pretty good after all. Frankel (GB) handed the champion sire trophy to his Newmarket neighbour Dubawi (Ire) at the end of last year and the Juddmonte star is just about to reclaim his title.

There are six mares in foal to Frankel in this week's December Mares catalogue and while there are none carrying to Dubawi, there are 12 opportunities to buy a mare in foal to the young British sire currently tearing up the charts: Havana Grey (GB). They include Zuhoor Baynoona (Ire) (Elnadim), a half-sister to the dual Group 1 winner Hello Youmzain (Fr) (Kodiac {GB}), who has already produced three winners and is being sold by Cheveley Park Stud as Lot 1651.

Driving rain throughout Sunday didn't stop plenty of hardy breeders getting around to the stallion farms on the quiet day between the end of the foal sale and the start of the mares.

At Lanwades, there was an extra treat in store, and I don't mean the excellent fish pie. Along with inspecting Bobby's Kitten, Sea The Moon (Ger) and Study Of Man (Ire), there was the chance to see Bobby's Kitten's newly retired daughter, the treble Group 2 winner Sandrine (GB), and Listed winner Alpenblume (GB) (Kendargent {Fr}), the half-sister to last year's Arc heroine Alpinista (GB). Both will be visiting Alpinista's sire Frankel (GB) in the new year.

Beech House Stud is now properly back in business as a stallion operation with the Shadwell trio of Baaeed (GB), Mohaather (GB) and Mostahdaf (Ire) all based there permanently. The new year heralds important times for all three. Mostahdaf is set to cover his first book of mares as Baaeed's first foals arrive on the ground. Come spring and summer we shall start to see how the good-walking Mohaather gets on with his first runners.

A Baaeed bobble hat graced the top of the Shadwell Christmas tree, loyally decorated in blue and white, and a newly installed stallion roll of honour reminded us just what an important place Beech House Stud has been over the years. For a small taster, think Nearco, Crepello, St Paddy and Ardross.

On to Dalham Hall Stud to see a trio of new recruits and the marquee proved very popular thanks to the mulled wine, giant doughnuts and a few moments to dry out in the warmth. Modern Games (Ire) already looked properly settled in the yard which has also been the long-term home of his sire Dubawi (Ire) and broodmare sire New Approach (Ire), while fellow newcomer Triple Time (Ire) looked equally at home posing outside the box of Cracksman (GB), who was the first son of Frankel (GB) to retire to stud in Britain and is this year joined by Triple Time, Mostahdaf and Chaldean (GB) in Newmarket alone, while Onesto (Ire) is now at stud in France, and Adayar (Ire) and Westover (GB) are settling in to a new life in Japan.

There was also the opportunity to see the imposing former champion two-year-old and Classic winner Native Trail (GB) before he starts his stud career at Kildangan Stud in Ireland.

Fading light, encroaching cold and the need to scribble a few notes meant that visits to other farms will have to be made in the coming days, but a heartfelt thank you to all the studs for being so accommodating, and special thanks to the hardy stallion handlers showing in the cold and wet weather. Your efforts are hugely appreciated.

A New Avenue for McStay

With Tattersalls being back in the spotlight from 9.30 on Monday morning, we return to this week's important business of selling fillies and mares. Mark McStay, the man behind Avenue Bloodstock, has added a new string to his bow in launching a consigning element to his business under the name of Avenue Sales. McStay brings two mares who have each been represented by high-class winners during 2023.

Opening up the first of two Sceptre Sessions on Monday will be Sulaalaat (GB) (New Approach {Ire}) the 11-year-old dam of G2 Rockfel S. winner Carla's Way (Ire) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}) and from the family of the champion racemare The Fugue (GB) (Dansili {GB}).

“Historically I've sold my own horses or unofficially helped my parents when they've been selling yearlings over the years,” McStay explained. “I've been standing outside stable doors for 30 years, so this was always something that I thought I'd do at some stage. For the last few years I've helped Taylor Made when they've brought horses over. Obviously I have a number of clients with some nice stock that they wanted to sell, particularly the two that we have here this week.”

He continues, “We had a couple of late withdrawals which means that the consignment is a little smaller than I had envisaged but it's a good starting point.

“We have the dam of Carla's Way, who is by New Approach, a really good broodmare sire. She's a good-looking mare and Carla's Way was awesome at the breeze-up sales and she's turned out to be one of the superstars on the track this year who is now a live Guineas prospect.”

Anisette (GB) (Awtaad {Ire}), who started her winning in England this time last year, has flourished since moving to the United States, where she has won the GI Del Mar Oaks and GII San Clemente H for Leonard Powell. Her dam, Tutti Frutti (GB) (Teofilo {Ire}), a close relation to the G1 Nassau S. winner Sultanina (GB) (New Approach {Ire}), is also 11 and is consigned by Avenue Sales on behalf of the Morera Partnership in Tuesday's Sceptre Session as Lot 1774.

“Anisette was bred by some friends of mine and then I sold her to Aron Wellman of Eclipse Thoroughbreds,” McStay says. “I've followed her career with huge interest and she's the highest-rated three-year-old turf filly in America at the moment. She goes for the American Oaks on 26 December. She's already a Grade I and a Grade II winner out there and she's a really exciting prospect.

“The mare is in foal to Magna Grecia and she's a magnificent-looking mare, so hopefully she will sell very well.”

Of his decision to branch out into consigning, he adds, “Being a bloodstock agent, you're a natural salesperson, whether you're buying or standing outside a stable door selling a horse. When you're buying you have to sell the idea to the client and pitch the horse to the end-user. These two mares should really sell themselves but I'll have my shoulder to the wheel to make sure we can get the last bid for my clients. It's important that people feel like you're working for them if they've put their faith in you, and over the last few years in my agency business I've been fortunate that I've had people who have put their faith in me.

“This is now a progression in my life, and my wife Eva is going to be involved. And we've got great staff: Mick O'Dwyer and Tony Murphy are going to be helping us, and fingers crossed that it will build and keep going.

“I'm really excited, and Tattersalls have put together a great catalogue, so let's hope that it all falls into place.”

It's not all about the Sceptre Sessions, however. At all levels of the market there are entries with plenty going for them. Lot 1386 Rekindle (GB), was bought from the Juddmonte draft at this sale five years ago for 170,000gns. Though unraced, it is easy why she commanded such a price as the daughter of Frankel is out of Hot Snap (GB) (Pivotal {GB}), herself a Group 3-winning half-sister to the brilliant Midday (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}). Returning at the age of eight, Rekindle is now offered for sale by Houghton Bloodstock in foal to Too Darn Hot (GB), whose eight foals sold last week averaged 126,500gns on the back of a solid season for his first runners.

The Juddmonte draft this time is split between the Monday and Tuesday and on each day is scheduled to sell just ahead of the Sceptre Sessions. On Tuesday there is the rare chance to buy a daughter of blue hen Hasili (GB) when Very Good News (Empire Maker) is offered as Lot 1754 with a March 31 cover to New Bay (GB). Among her four winners, the 15-year-old mare has two stakes-placed multiple winners by Frankel and also has a two-year-old filly and yearling colt by the same stallion still to run for her.

As already mentioned, the next few months will see the appearance of the first foals of last year's top-rated turf horse in the world, Baaeed (GB). If you can't wait to send Baaeed a mare in 2024, there are 11 mares to be sold in foal to him this week, including Patronising (GB). The daughter of Galileo (Ire) is Lot 1824 from Minster Enterprises and is a half-sister to the Group 1 winner Lillie Langtry (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}) whose own Galileo-sired dynasty includes the Classic winners Minding (Ire), Tuesday (Ire) and Empress Josephine (Ire).

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Equinox, the Champion Who Turned Races into Processions

Crossing the line as Equinox sauntered home in the Japan Cup, Christophe Lemaire gave a little shake of his head and beamed as he tried unconvincingly to pat the horse's neck. Lemaire's disbelief was such that he went floppy with delight.

Championship races are not meant to be processions. Even legendary horses aren't supposed to be so superior to their contemporaries. While others bobbed and heaved with effort, Equinox arrived at the front in his races on the bridle, with Lemaire perched as if for a portrait painter. Then he would slip into a groove of precise, majestic speed, and kill the race.

Superiority on the scale Equinox displayed it contradicts everything we think about how competitive elite breeding and racing are. A Japan Cup or Dubai Sheema Classic is hard enough to win by half a length. But his wins in those races were outlandish.

Equinox's final outing before he was retired to stud bore a distinctly Japanese flavour: 85,000 spectators in Tokyo, a rolling surf of noise from the gate to the line, the local rituals of reverence and respect. But it would be wrong to call him merely Big in Japan. The safest measure of his status as the world's best racehorse was on the one occasion he left his country – then left everything else in the Sheema Classic for dead.

If you could take one Equinox victory to a desert island it would surely be the one in Dubai, which had the racecourse commentator calling him “the titan of the world's Turf.” The Sheema Classic was the highest expression of his brilliance. It added global fame to his notoriety in Japan and lustre to his stallion career in a country quietly building a bloodstock empire.

In Cheltenham Festival season, in March, the TV screen lit up with a performance of astonishing beauty. The Meydan replays never lose their power. On the turn into the stretch we see Equinox up the ante, and Mostahdaf, who has him in his sights, starts to run through tar. While he bobs and heaves under his jockey's urgings, Equinox merely organises himself into a smooth surge that takes him away from a top-class field.

The kind of horse that makes you want to tell non-racing
friends – stop what you're doing, and just watch this.

When a genius comes along in other sports we say they are playing a different game to everyone else. Equinox ran in different races – his own – much as Constitution Hill does in National Hunt racing. In the Sheema Classic, Lemaire merely nudges him down the reins into his full imperious velocity. Every sheikh in the house must have winced with envy.

Discarded in his wake that night were the subsequent Arc runner-up Westover, the Grosser Preis von Baden winner Zagrey and of course Mostahdaf, who won the Prince of Wales's Stakes and Juddmonte International. From that moment Equinox's admirers (and his owners) were on safe ground. Yes, the desire took hold to see him tackle the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, and confront Ace Impact; but that became a dream match-up only after Ace Impact had won so impressively, not before.

Nobody dodged Equinox on his final appearance. For a moment the doomed optimism of the 2022 Dubai Turf winner Panthalassa in blasting 10 lengths clear at the final turn made the race look like a test for Japan's champion. Nor was he alone in possessing a top-class cv. The Japanese fillies' Triple Crown winner Liberty Island made the first move on Panthalassa but Equinox swept past her as if she were a pensioner hurrying for a bus.

Even Lemaire was taken aback – hence the shake of the head as they pulled up. “When we got into the final straight, the horse just reacted to the point that even I was surprised,” he said. “His acceleration was incredible. He's truly a super horse, smart, powerful and gentle, like a pony.”

That nobility shines through. His dark bay coat and white blaze are other distinguishing features, along with his work ethic, his eagerness to quicken. It's this desire that most fascinates me about the best horses. They want to do it – though Equinox 'did it' so easily he left you bemused by the apparent lack of exertion.

Now his owners have decided he's exerted himself enough and will join his sire Kitasan Black at Shadai Stallion Station. It's our loss, but he is four years old, and has won six top races in a row.

Boxing reporters used to like tracking down the first or last fighter to beat a great champion, because the search often led to a nightclub doorman or shelf stacker. Do Deuce has the distinction of being the last horse to beat Equinox, in the 2022 Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby). Since then Do Deuce has finished 19^th in the Arc (42 lengths behind Alpinista) and eight and a half and five and three quarter lengths behind Equinox in the Tenno Shun (Autumn) and Japan Cup respectively (his record since his neck win over Equinox is one victory in five).

Do Deuce was merely good. Equinox turned out to be supernatural: not only big in Japan but monstrous in Meydan: the kind of horse that makes you want to tell non-racing friends – stop what you're doing, and just watch this.

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Half To Ribchester Debuts At Deauville

Observations on the European Racing Scene turns the spotlight on the best European races of the day, highlighting well-pedigreed horses early in their careers, horses of note returning to action and young runners that achieved notable results in the sales ring. Sunday's Observations features a half-brother to crack miler Ribchester (Ire).

16.07 Deauville, Debutantes, €30,000, 2yo, c/g, 9 1/2f (AWT)
RIBBLE VIBE (IRE) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) is a half-brother to the four-times Group 1-winning miler Ribchester (Ire) who debuts on the Polytrack in the Godolphin blue for the Andre Fabre stable. In the immediate family are the classy Matterhorn (Ire) (Raven's Pass) and Bangkok (Ire) (Australia {GB}), who performed at their best either on dirt or the all-weather.

17.52 Deauville, Debutantes, €30,000, 2yo, f, 9 1/2f (AWT)
PELLEGRIN (IRE) (Kingman {GB}) is another notable newcomer for Andre Fabre on the card, being a daughter of Lady Bamford's brilliant G1 Oaks and Irish Oaks heroine Sariska (GB) (Pivotal {GB}). A full-sister to October's G3 Prix de Flore third Tygress (GB), she encounters the Wertheimers' Halfday (Fr) (Lope De Vega {Ire}), a granddaughter of the high-class Midday (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}).

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Almost 30 Million Guineas Spent On Foals At Tatts But Figures Take A Dip

Tattersalls chairman Edmond Mahony acknowledged the weakness of the lower end of the market as the Tattersalls December Foal Sale concluded on Saturday with a 125,000gns Showcasing (GB) filly leading the way.

Almost 30 million gns was spent on foals this week at Tattersalls while Friday saw the most expensive foal sold so far this year–a St Mark's Basilica (Fr) filly–in Europe and North America at 575,000gns.

However, the aggregate of 29,842,902gns was down 15% on last year while the average dropped 6% to 44,608gns. The clearance rate was more or less the same, dropping 1% to 75%, while the median dropped 19% to 21,000gns.

Mahony commented, “Sustained demand for quality foals has been the feature of the four days of selling at Europe's premier foal sale. In addition to the highest price for a foal in Europe and North America this year there have been a record 29 foals sold for 200,000 guineas or more and a healthy diversity of buyers in all sectors of the market.

“The cream of the British and Irish foal crop has attracted buyers in abundance not only from Britain and Ireland but also from throughout Europe and the Gulf region as well as China, Japan and America. The overseas demand has had a significant impact on trade which, although not matching last year's record levels, has remained robust with the exception of the lower end of the market which we must all recognise has been challenging.”

He added, “The pinhookers will always be the backbone of any Tattersalls December Foal Sale and as ever they have worked tirelessly, but the contribution from so many significant owners is becoming an increasingly important and regular feature of the sale. When a sale consistently produces racehorses the calibre of 2000 Guineas winner Chaldean (GB) and the unbeaten Group 1- and 2-winning two-year-olds Vandeek (GB) and Ghostwriter (Ire), it reflects the quality of the stock presented by the consignors and it is clear that their confidence in the sale has been reciprocated by many of the world's most successful racehorse owners.

“Another positive to come out of this year's December Foal Sale has been the overwhelmingly favourable response to the break in selling on the Thursday of the sale which allowed buyers valuable extra time to view the Friday and Saturday foals. The change was introduced in response to feedback from vendors and purchasers alike and as well as being well received it is notable that the clearance rates for both Friday and Saturday have improved significantly on last year's record-breaking sale.

“With a solid Tattersalls December Foal Sale behind us we now look forward to welcoming buyers from every continent in the world to Park Paddocks for another quality renewal of the Tattersalls December Sale which features some spectacular fillies and broodmares, many of them showcased in the elite Sceptre Sessions which take place on Monday and Tuesday.”

The Saturday topper (lot 1203) was consigned by Daymark Stud and went the way of Ciaran 'Flash' Conroy. The Showcasing filly is a sister to the stakes-placed Fourth Way (Ire) (Iffraaj {GB}) and will be offered for resale next year.

Conroy commented, “Let's hope she is a top lot next year! She is a lovely physical, I like the stallion – he is a very good sire of fillies. She is a really good individual, very balanced, a very good walker. She is a Book 1 individual, and from a young operation so good to see young breeders having a good result.”

The sale capped off a solid day's trade for Daymark Stud with four foals selling for 263,000gns.

“It is a sigh of relief! It has been incredible, we are very lucky, we are a very small operation,” the stud's Josh Cameron said. “I have done every hand walk with every single foal and some days I think 'Oh maybe I should get someone to help', but I do think it helps the foals in the end. I am not sure my girlfriend has loved living with me over the last eight weeks!

“But we got there in the end and thanks to the little syndicate who own the mare Messalina for their support. Two mates bought her out of Archie Watson's yard and sent her to me, and just said, 'See how you get on!' Her first foal by Havana Grey (GB), who we sold here last year for 46,000 guineas, is going to Kevin Philippart De Foy and this year she has produced this amazing Showcasing filly, who has not missed a beat all week. She is a real athlete and for someone like Flash to buy her is unreal.”

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