Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale | Horse Racing Free Tips

Predictably Hesitant Start to Yearling Sales

DONCASTER, UK—Well, at least that ordeal is out of the way. It was never going to be fun, but it could have been worse. Horses were sold, some of them even sold well; and other vendors, with an 83% clearance rate, were evidently ready to cut losses. And soon everybody will at least be able to start figuring out how venturesome they can afford to be, once finally bidding good riddance to 2020.

Embarking on the European yearling circuit was always going to be extremely challenging for an industry so exposed to catastrophic loss of momentum in a global economy reeling under the pandemic. Sure enough, as an auction that had been on a tremendous roll in recent years, the opening session of the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale registered some sobering returns—and a very sobering absence, too, with no sign of Shadwell after a five-year streak as leading buyers.

An average of £36,687 was down from £49,202 on the opening session last year—but should perhaps be less randomly measured against the £46,519 average across both days. The £30,000 median compared with £38,000 on day one (and £35,000 overall) last year. Turnover was down by one-third to £6,970,500, from £10,578,500. But perhaps the most instructive index was the number of six-figure sales. In last year’s opening session, there were 19—topped by the £440,000 Kingman colt who set a new record for this auction. This time round there were nine, with the session topped at £170,000.

Certainly the most conspicuous keynote from these opening skirmishes was the fact that Shadwell appeared to have taken “social distancing” to an unwelcome extreme. Needless to say, the absence of Sheikh Hamdan’s buying team caused alarm among those consignors whose perennial and pervasive debt to the Maktoum family had been measured, at this particular auction in 2019, by 17 yearlings at an aggregate just shy of £2 million.

It would be premature for those preparing yearlings for elite sales to leap to conclusions about the broader intentions of the various Maktoum concerns. Yes, the industry finds itself in grievous need of its greatest benefactors. But if we have learned anything from the travails of 2020, it is to repent of our complacency in so much that we have always taken for granted.

But things could always be worse. As Guy O’Callaghan of Grangemore Stud wisely remarked, after selling a Dark Angel (Ire) colt well towards the end of the session, “Obviously it isn’t as strong a market as in recent years but the world’s in a different place compared with six months ago. We’re lucky to have a market at all. Isn’t it good that at least we’re able to turn up and trade?”

Speaking to TDN on the eve of the sale, Goffs Group Chief Executive Henry Beeby had said that planning for a financial year that opened with the start of the coronavirus lockdown was predicated on the firm’s lowest turnover in recent years. In the case of its British sales, that was 2013—when turnover at the Premier Sale stalled at £13,310,250 for an average of £32,464 and median of $25,000. Some breathing space, there, if day two maintains Tuesday’s levels of business.

So not only could things be worse; they have been, not so long ago. We all know that plenty of very productive racehorses will be picked up cheaply this week. And so, however painfully, the next cycle begins.

Another Banner Sale for Coulonces with £170k Star

When signing a £115,000 docket for lot 160, an Acclamation (Ire) colt, Richard Ryan found himself responsible for the top price of the day to that point. Nonetheless he promised that somebody would be spending a good deal more within the next few minutes. Sure enough, Ryan himself promptly gave £170,000 for lot 165, a January colt by Starspangledbanner (Aus) imported over the Channel by Anna Sundstrom of Coulonces Sales.

This was a happy reunion for vendor and purchaser alike, Ryan having been forced to £280,000 in last year’s buoyant market for the Wootton Bassett (GB) colt now known as Legion Of Honour (GB). Trained for Teme Valley 2 by Roger Varian, he was a promising second on his Haydock debut this summer. Both of these colts were bought in the same interest and will likewise head to Varian.

“He was the star of the show,” Ryan enthused of the session-topper. “The best in the sale in our opinion, and in the opinion of the trainer. We also bought a very nice horse here last year from the same vendor, for whom we have high hopes. Starspangledbanner gets winners out of all sorts of mares and all sorts of pages, but only very rarely will they have that kind of look at this age: that scope and quality, backed up by a top-class pedigree. It’s a beautiful family.”

It certainly is, with a distinct stamp of Classic quality for a catalogue that typically majors in speed and precocity. The colt’s Classic-placed third dam Agathe (Manila), herself a half-sister to GI Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Arcangues (Sagace {Fr}), is the dam of two elite winners in Artiste Royal (Danehill) (dual Grade I scorer in the U.S.) and Aquarelliste (Fr) (Danehill), who won the G1 Prix de Diane and chased home Sakhee (Bahri) in the Arc.

Sundstrom was ecstatic that her Doncaster migrations had once again proved so lucrative. This colt was co-bred with Charlotte Hutchinson as the first foal of a Dalakhani half-sister to G2 Grand Prix de Deauville winner Ziyad (GB) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}), cheaply culled by the Wertheimer brothers at the Arqana Autumn Sale of 2017.

“Charlotte is my head girl and was leading him up,” said an emotional Sundstrom. “She bought the mare out of training, she only cost €16,000. We love Starspangledbanner, we’ve had a lot of luck with him, so he was an obvious choice for Dalakania.

“It’s the most fantastic thing that he’s going to Roger Varian. And a fantastic result in a market like this. It just shows that there are people there for good horses. It’s difficult to know when things are like this, we knew he had a lot of people interested, but I didn’t think he could make this much. It’s incredible.

“Goffs has been very good to us. The results on the track from horses we sold here include Laurens (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}) and Nickajack Cave (Ire) (Kendargent {Fr}), so it’s easy to come back.”

Laurens was the top filly of this sale in 2016, at £220,000, and went on to become one of its all-time poster girls with multiple Group 1 success; while Nickajack Cave made £65,000 the following year and last month won his first group race at The Curragh.

Equally delighted was Dermot Cantillon of Tinnakill House after selling the Acclamation colt so well—due reward for his breeders (Tinnakill Bloodstock and Ian Thompson) holding their nerve when he was bought in for 40,000gns as a foal at Tattersalls last December.

“That’s our first horse through and a really good start at a difficult time,” said Cantillon. “He just did really well, foal to yearling, and Acclamation has had a very good year—including with [G2 Prix Robert Papin winner] Ventura Tormenta (Ire), who we sold here last year.”

Ryan described this as “the best Acclamation I’ve seen in the ring in recent times: a very tidy, well presented colt.”

4,000gns Mare Proves a Hidden Bounty

The first lot to break six figures represented a splendid dividend for Ken Carroll and Tom Wallace, of Lewinstown Farm and Lemongrove Stud, respectively. Their Kodi Bear (Ire) colt (lot 30), who made £110,000 online from Phil Cunningham, was acquired in utero with his dam, an unraced Bahamian Bounty (GB) mare named Usem (GB), when she changed hands for just 4,000gns at Tattersalls December in 2018.

Two Sayif (Ire) fillies she had previously delivered both did well, one winning four times and the other listed-placed in France, and the quality of this colt had meanwhile persuaded her new owners to upgrade her coverings.

“She has a Galileo Gold (GB) filly who’s a queen, and she’s in foal to Invincible Spirit (Ire)—so what would you say we think of her?” said Carroll, who has “12 to 15” mares on his farm. “To be fair, Invincible Spirit was a Kodi Bear once upon a time.”

Carroll learned the ropes with Eddie O’Leary at Lynn Lodge, up the road from his base in Co. Westmeath, while Wallace has experience both in the United States and at another highly astute outfit in Tally Ho.

“It’s the centre of racing, is Westmeath,” Carroll said with a smile. “But he was one of the easy ones. He had six or seven vettings. Good horses sell, don’t they?”

Doyles Trust in Happy Fortunes with Redpender

One team that wasn’t missing the competition from Shadwell was Peter and Ross Doyle, always purposeful participants at this sale. They stuck to a tried-and-trusted formula when giving £105,000 for lot 49, an Acclamation (GB) colt presented by Redpender Stud—both in terms of his Co Kilkenny origins and his breeding.

“We’ve had a wonderful relationship with Redpender over the years,” Ross Doyle observed. “Jimmy [Murphy] and his family do a wonderful job and have sold us two champions in Canford Cliffs (Ire) (Tagula {Ire}) and Toormore (Ire) (Arakan), as well as Estidhkaar (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}). And last year they sold us Happy Romance (Ire) (Dandy Man {Ire}) here.”

That filly cost just £25,000 at this sale and won her second valuable prize in the associated Goffs UK Premier Yearling S. at York, taking her earnings past £175,000 already. She now seeks some black-type in the G3 Dick Poole S. at Salisbury on Thursday.

Doyle’s interest was further stimulated by his team’s record with the sire of this colt, who actually achieved only a marginal gain having been pinhooked for €94,000 as a foal at Goffs November. “We’ve been very lucky with him with our clients and the Hannons, with Mehmas (Ire) and Harbour Watch (Ire),” he said. “Oh This Is Us (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}) is under the second dam, so they’re closely related, and this one reminded us very much of him.”

Oh This Is Us, who includes two listed prizes among his 13 wins for the Hannon stable, is out of the Group 3 winner Shamwari Lodge (Ire), herself out of a half-sister to that flying filly Pipalong (Ire) (Pips Pride {GB}).

Doyle signed another six-figure docket minutes later when giving £100,000 for lot 56, a filly by another “Donny” standing dish in Kodiac (GB). Bred and consigned by Loughtown Stud, she was acquired in utero when her stakes-placed dam Zvarkhova (Ire) (Makfi {GB}) made 125,000gns through Emerald Bloodstock at Tattersalls December in 2018. Zvarkhova’s granddam is an unraced sister to champion Mark Of Esteem (Ire) (Darshaan {GB}).

Alice’s Looking Class

For someone who speaks so modestly of an operation confined to “mornings, evenings and weekends”, Alice Fitzgerald is producing horses of which any 24/7 professional would be proud. Previous sales through this ring include Hey Jonesy (Ire) (Excelebration {Ire}), who won the Wokingham H. at Royal Ascot this summer; star hurdler My Tent Or Yours (Ire) (Desert Prince {Ire}); and Weatherbys Super Sprint winner Ginger Nut (Ire) (Sir Prancealot {Ire}).

And Jake Warren was in no doubt that the Mehmas (Ire) half-sister to Ginger Nut he bought for £100,000 as lot 78 has the potential to emulate their example. “We’re thrilled with her,” the agent said. “She has a very nice pedigree and is a real athlete, a wonderful mover, and looks a real summer 2-year-old. She’s for a private client and likely to go to Richard Fahey.”

Fitzgerald, known to many in the Co Tipperary racing and breeding fraternity through her day job in advertising, has three yearlings in this sale; two in the Orby; and one in Book III at Tattersalls. “We thought this was a very nice filly, but couldn’t have hoped that she would do quite so well,” she said. “But the sire is flying, of course, and she’s a half-sister to a very fast filly.”

Fitzgerald emphasized the role of partner Michael Doyle; and also deserving a mention is Royal Applause, who is not only sire of this filly’s unraced dam but also grandsire of Mehmas.

Warren, meanwhile, was acting for the same client when giving £140,000 late in the session for a Dark Angel (Ire) colt (lot 219) bred and presented by Guy O’Callaghan of Grangemore Stud in Co Kildare.

“Cracker of a horse,” Warren said. “A terrific mover with a lot of substance who should make a cracking 2-year-old. I would think he’ll stay in the U.K.”

He is the first foal of Futoon (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}), purchased by O’Callaghan for 100,000gns at Tattersalls December in 2017 after she had achieved serial stakes placings for Kevin Ryan. With 19 yearlings spread across a variety of sales, O’Callaghan has his biggest draft of yearlings to date—a tough year to be growing your business, but we have already cited his admirable breadth of perspective and he saluted this as “a champion of a horse.” Here, plainly, is another young talent worthy of a remarkable dynasty of horsemen.

Sackville Shows Faith in Fast Families

Tom Dascombe is to welcome a couple of brisk-looking colts picked out by SackvilleDonald: one by Dark Angel (Ire) for £105,000, offered as lot 162 by Yeomanstown Stud; and one by Acclamation (GB) for £120,000, presented by Eugene Daly of Longview Stud as lot 186. Both are related to star sprinters. The Acclamation colt’s dam is a full-sister to Slade Power (Ire) (Dutch Art {GB}); and the Dark Angel is out of a Verglas (Ire) half-sister to champion Pipalong (Ire) (Pips Pride {GB}).

He is also a full brother to G2 Robert Papin runner-up Frozen Angel (Ire). “He was a very good horse for us and was sold on to Hong Kong for 335,000gns,” Ed Sackville said. “We thought this one was a very similar type. So it’s not only a stallion we’ve been lucky with, but also a family.

“Acclamation is another sire we’ve been very lucky with, including with a nice 2-year-old called Lauded (GB), who runs in the G3 Unibet Sirenia S. this weekend. This looked a similar model: strong and precocious-looking. He’s from a very good farm that we know well, just down the road in Chasire, and we hope to have a lot of luck with him.”

As for trading conditions, Sackville gave a shrug. “It’s a typical Donny catalogue and there are nice horses here,” he said. “We just haven’t been as strong as in recent years—for the obvious reasons.”

Undaunted, most people will be back for another go when the sale concludes on Wednesday. Selling opens at 10 a.m.

The post Predictably Hesitant Start to Yearling Sales appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Doncaster a Weathervane in Tempestuous Times

DONCASTER, UK–Well, this is the day when perhaps we’ll start to know. Only perhaps, mind. Each auction is a market in its own right and, besides, everyone has over recent months become accustomed to such wild fluctuations in outlook that the world can look a very different place between breakfast and dinner, never mind between the opening session of the yearling sales season, at Doncaster on Tuesday, and its conclusion two months hence.

All that said, the opening skirmishes of the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale are bound to be treated as a barometer for what lies ahead. During these uniquely challenging times, vendors and consignors will watch the early returns with far more than even their customary trepidation. Equally, the likelihood of “a buyer’s market” will not assuage the anxieties of core clients such as trainers, nervously awaiting orders, or pinhookers, who have to gamble on a return of economic confidence as soon as next spring.

So while the whole community has demonstrably been at pains to hold its collective nerve and work together, not least the rival sales companies, it is only when the gavel comes down that we can begin to know whether we have merely been helping each other to rearrange the furniture on the Titanic; or have actually managed to board a serviceable lifeboat, with a functioning motor and plenty of buckets.

For the little it may be worth, the ambience on the sales grounds on the eve of the sale seemed positive. The consensus was that there were more prospectors, relatively speaking, than has been the case at sales staged in other sectors since the lockdown. Nobody was foolhardy enough to be making predictions, and the ongoing fidelity of the Maktoums–perennial mainstays of the industry–is being monitored with more angst than ever.

But perhaps there was something auspicious about the change in the weather: horses had been unloaded over the weekend into a bitter north wind, like a sadistic downpayment of the coming winter. On Monday, they were being displayed in the kind of perfect late-summer weather–high, slow clouds occasionally filtering warm sunshine–that could only be more flattering to cricket on the green than it was to the shimmering flanks of a meticulously groomed yearling.

At the best of times, Henry Beeby approaches the sales season with a candid paranoia about picking up any kind of infection that might compromise his resonance from the rostrum. As a friend said to the Goffs CEO: “You must be delighted: nobody’s touching you, everyone’s washing their hands the whole time–and nobody thinks you’re weird anymore!”

But the pandemic has been a rollercoaster to challenge even Beeby’s trademark dynamism.

“An ex-colleague, who has retired, rang me up recently and said: ‘I bet you’d like a bit of foot-and-mouth!'” Beeby says. “And I said: ‘Well, I’m not sure I’d like it. But yes, by comparison, having seemed an absolute nightmare at the time, foot-and-mouth now seems like the mildest of inconveniences.’ When we moved a sale, someone said: ‘At least you’ve given us certainty.’ And I replied: ‘In the COVID world, there is no such thing as certainty.'”

That clearly extends to the next two days. While it would clearly be unfair to invite public commitment to any specific number, even in private it is presumably difficult for the Goffs management to agree what might pass as a tolerable loss of momentum after the relentless bull run of recent years. In broad brush-strokes, however, Beeby explains that the accountants will be measuring the year against an established “worst-case scenario.”

“I’ll be quite open,” Beeby declares. “Our financial year is Apr. 1 to Mar. 31 so, if there could be such a thing, I suppose from that point of view it happened at the right time. It meant we could recalibrate all our budgeting for the year. Rather than base it on the last couple of years, we said: ‘What is the worst year we have had, in terms of ring turnover, in recent memory?’ In Ireland, it was 2010; in England, 2013. So we worked everything backwards from there: if we can hit those targets, having worked out our costs to a break-even position, then we can just tread water and hopefully move forward again after COVID.”

Beeby remarks that last year’s Irish turnover of around €123 million matched almost precisely the business done in 2007, having slumped to €45 million in 2010 after the financial crisis. In other words, a perfect U-shaped recovery had been completed. What the whole global economy is craving now, of course, is a much narrower, steeper “V” revival.

“It does put everything in perspective,” Beeby reflects. “Normally, you’re deeply upset if your sale hasn’t grown by at least inflation. But now it’s a question of leading with the clearance rate, because our primary focus–going into every sale–is to deliver liquidity to the market, to let the vendors sell their horses for a price they can accept.

“The Land Rover Sale was down 36%. In a normal year, that would have me virtually suicidal, though actually, compared to its competitors, it wasn’t too bad. But the clearance rate on day one was 84%. Slightly less on the second day, but it was a question of just keeping the wheel turning, keeping the market going, keeping the liquidity, helping people through their cycles. Because of course a yearling is only a yearling once, and same with your 3-year-old store, or your breeze-up horse.

“So what it needs from us, and from our clients, is adaptability, flexibility, reactivity. It’s about not being afraid to act quickly, to make quick decisions; but equally to be unafraid of saying: ‘No–we need to change it again.'”

And Beeby speaks warmly of how the industry, as a whole, has stepped up to the plate. He is also perfectly aware that a lot of people looked to the sales houses for a lead. He stresses that Goffs and its principal rival Tattersalls already tend to work together, in the interests of their clients, more routinely than people may realise.

“We are competitive, of course we are, but this year in particular it’s been a question of putting that to one side and helping each other,” Beeby says. “Because we know we’re in it together. There was a period of a week or 10 days when I think I must have spoken more to [Tattersalls chairman] Edmond Mahony than some of my colleagues. We’re swimming in a very small pool, most of the clients are mutual clients, and in various categories–be it the breeze-ups, be it stores, be it yearlings–most major vendors sell in all places. So it just makes enormous sense to co-operate and co-ordinate and harmonise.”

The toughest nettle to be grasped, perhaps, was the decision to transfer the Orby and Sportsman’s Sales here to Doncaster from Co Kildare.

“The Orby used to be called the Irish National Yearling Sale,” Beeby notes. “It’s a major event in Ireland. The modern-day Goffs was set up in 1975 to provide high-class facility in Ireland for Irish breeders, so it was a big decision to move. But aren’t we lucky that we had this complex here? First of all, prior to 2007, it wouldn’t have been as easy because D.B.S. [Doncaster Bloodstock Sales] was a separate entity; and prior to 2008, we were across the road with 290 stables that weren’t to a high enough standard for these horses, and certainly the Orby and Sportsmans. So we’re very lucky that we are served by two such high-class sales facilities. And largely people have said: ‘That makes sense, let’s do it.'”

No market, of course, can sustain perennial growth. Nobody could have anticipated quite what it was that eventually broadsided the bloodstock bonanza, but everyone always knew that cycles are inevitable. In our industry, moreover, too many sectors are too interdependent for the headline figures to show “pure” gain. Many Thoroughbreds are sold many times over: in utero, even, and certainly as foals, yearlings, breezers, horses-in-training, breeding stock. And then everything starts over. But an apparently booming yearling market, for instance, always raises the stakes for the breeze-up sector. In turn, that will often mean that even a corresponding boom in the 2-year-old market is illusory; that margins have remained pretty stable.

Certainly pinhookers here are treading warily. “We have seven months for everything to turn round,” said one. “But we don’t even know what things will look like in seven days.”

Another, who had actually come out ahead from the breeze-up sector’s delayed calendar, was hoping that these initial yearling exchanges may be particularly cagey, saying: “If they do wait and see, then I’m hopeful I might get one or two early on. But nobody knows what’s going to happen. If we had another lockdown of racing, then we’re all in trouble. But we’re here. That’s a start!”

And it is in these times, when the soil seems thinnest, that the seeds of subsequent fortune will often be sown.

“Absolutely,” says Beeby. “There will be great opportunities. These horses were bred in pre-COVID times, when things were going really well, and there are some beautiful horses here.”

As detailed by colleague Kelsey Riley in yesterday’s edition, moreover, Premier Sale graduates have been excelling even in the constricted programme contrived after lockdown. As ever, they have been doing so where the emphasis is on speed; but they have been doing so at the highest level, with consecutive wins in both the GI Commonwealth Cup and GII Norfolk S. at Royal Ascot. Already nine graduates of last year’s sale have won stakes.

Beeby feels that the bloodstock market, so far as it has been tested, has so far stood up surprisingly well at a time when owners have been deprived of their customary adrenaline at the racetrack; and when prizemoney dividends have made even less sense than usual of the investment demanded of them. That gives him “quiet hope” for the next two days.

“There’s going to be a market here,” he says with a shrug. “Quite what it is, remains to be seen. But it’s the old cliché. All you can do is your best. We are a very resilient industry. And why is that? It’s because for most of us, it’s not a job, it’s our life; it’s what we live and breathe. Even if we wanted to, most of us probably couldn’t do anything else. I certainly can’t: I’ve done this for 38 years, don’t want to do anything else, and am certainly not qualified to. And I daresay that’s true of most of us here. So what do you do? You make hay when the sun shines. You have a good time, you make the most of it. And when things go badly, you knuckle down and make sure you get through it.

“There was a time, before the breeze-up sales, when the previous year we had already turned over £46 million–and this time it stood at zero. But what’s been heartening has been the calmness of so many people. There’s never really been a sense of panic, which you could have understood. People have said: ‘Just give us something to aim for.’ And even though sometimes we’ve had to change even that, there has just been that feeling that we have to keep the wheel turning. People have been prepared to knuckle down and work together, put their normal differences or individual ambitions to one side. That’s been refreshing.

“We have to keep trying, to keep as much normality as we can in an incredibly abnormal world. And I suppose someday we’ll look back and say: ‘Do you remember 2020?'”

He gives a wry grin. He knows how few of us will do so in tones of nostalgia. But even though his father, DBS stalwart Harry, will be missing for the first time since 1964, he will be avidly following proceedings on Beeby’s mother’s “machine”.

“So the message,” concludes Beeby, “is really to keep calm and carry on.”

The first of 423 lots catalogued over two sessions enters the ring at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

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Doncaster To Offer Early Market Clues

The start of the racing season, and in fact the yearling sales season itself, may have been badly impeded by the coronavirus pandemic, but that didn’t stop Goffs UK’s Premier Yearling Sale graduates from getting off to a flying start once things finally did get underway. One of the fastest from the gate was The Lir Jet (Ire) (Prince Of Lir {Ire}), whose debut victory three days after racing’s resumption on June 3 led to a private deal with Qatar Racing and a subsequent victory in the G2 Norfolk S. 16 days later. It was the second straight year that a Premier graduate had taken that Royal Ascot feature, following on from A’Ali (Ire) (Society Rock {Ire}) in 2019, and it was the first of the sale’s two title defenses of the meeting, with Golden Horde (Ire) (Lethal Force {Ire}) taking the mantel from Advertise (GB) (Showcasing {GB}) in the G1 Commonwealth Cup an hour later.

The Lir Jet would go on to finish second to fellow Premier graduate Ventura Tormenta (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}) in the G2 Prix Robert Papin and was runner-up again in the G1 Keeneland Phoenix S.

Such is the quality of last year’s Premier Sale intake, however, that it could be someone other than The Lir Jet or Ventura Tormenta who winds up top of the heap. Supremacy (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}) proved to be well-named with a four-length score in the G2 Richmond S. on July 30 that earned him a rating of 115. Method (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}) looked a smart type when taking the Listed Rose Bowl S. at second asking in July, and the filly he had beaten by 4 1/4 lengths on debut, Fev Rover (Ire) (Gutaifan {Ire}), came roaring back to take the Listed Star S. and last weekend won the G2 Prix du Calvados. These are among nine graduates of last year’s Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale to have already won stakes, and they set a strong precedent for the 423 yearlings set to go under the hammer at this year’s edition of the sale at Doncaster on Sept. 1 and 2.

“It’s been a wonderful year on the track and we have a wonderful bunch of horses,” said Goffs UK’s Managing Director Tim Kent. “If we were in a normal year we’d be very confident we’d have a wonderful sale but it’s difficult to know what to expect with the way everything is going, but the market has held up remarkably well in Europe up until now. The breeze-up sales went better than anyone expected and the horses in training sales have had plenty of demand. So we have to hope that continues. We’re confident we have a nice draft of horses and the stallion index is reading well. There have been a lot of photos on social media and videos online and just looking at those you think ‘blimey, that’s a nice horse…that’s a nice horse…’ and they’re by the right stallions and from some good farms, so we’re hopeful it will all come together.”

Three of the sale’s likely heavyweights will come on day two, beginning with a Starspangledbanner (Aus) half-brother to Ventura Tormenta (lot 313) from Baroda Stud. Given the Group 2 update supplied by his elder brother, that one is likely to provide a hefty return on the €40,000 paid by the Tweenhills team Redwall Bloodstock at Goffs November last year.

Just a few lots later Salcey Forest Stud’s Cotai Glory half-sister to A’Ali (lot 322) will grace the ring (see Monday’s TDN for more on her). And the very last horse through the ring is likely to ensure that bidders stick around; he is a full-brother to the 2016 sale topper and G3 Hackwood S. winner Yafta (GB) (Dark Angel {Ire}) (lot 423) offered by Highclere Stud, the same draft that sold Yafta as well as Golden Horde here. Others that appeal on paper include a No Nay Never daughter of the G3 Round Tower S. scorer Dingle View (Ire) (Mujadil) (lot 170); an Invincible Spirit (Ire) colt out of G3 Firth Of Clyde S. winner Distinctive (GB) (Tobougg) (lot 173); a Kodiac (GB) filly out of a half-sister to Equiano (Fr) (lot 195); a Night Of Thunder (Ire) colt out of a full-sister to champion sprinter Fleeting Spirit (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) (f2lot 346); a Siyouni (Fr) filly out of a half-sister to GI Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf victress Queen’s Trust (GB) (Dansili {GB}) (lot 361); and a Lope De Vega (Ire) son of the Group 3-placed Royal Empress (Ire) (lot 380).

With the consequences of Britain’s low prizemoney levels being increasingly felt, it is perhaps more important now than ever to provide owners with incentive to get in or stay in the game, and races like the £180,000 Goffs UK Premier Yearling Stakes open to all graduates of this sale can go some distance towards that. The winner of this year’s contest at York on Aug. 20 was the Dandy Man (Ire) filly Happy Romance (Ire), who cost £25,000 at Doncaster a year ago and is the first horse owned by the McMurray family. It is likely no mistake, either, that trainer Richard Hannon targets the race so heavily, and Happy Romance gave him his fourth win in it in the past five years. Happy Romance was scratched from Saturday’s G3 Prestige S. but will doubtless get her shot at black-type soon.

The Premier Yearling Sale S. has not only been taken by some quality fillies, but also by three of the best colts to ever come from the sale: Wootton Bassett (GB), Acclamation (GB) and his son Dark Angel (Ire). That triumvirate sits atop a burgeoning group of successful sires to have emanated from this sale.

Acclamation was a £33,000 purchase by his trainer Gerald Cottrell in 2000 under this sale’s former guise as the St Leger sale and was a member of the first crop of his sire Royal Applause (GB). Acclamation capped a productive juvenile campaign the following year with a victory in the £200,000 St Leger Yearling Stakes. After an interrupted 3-year-old campaign he blossomed to take the Listed Starlit S. and the G2 Diadem S. at four, but it was in the breeding shed where his legacy was truly cemented. While his best runner was the superstar sprinting filly Marsha (GB), he has left behind a stacked roster of colts to carry on his line, thus far led by Dark Angel and Equiano (Fr) and with this year’s first-season sensation Mehmas (Ire) potentially poised to join them. He can also lay claim to the very useful sires Lilbourne Lad (Ire) and Harbour Watch (Ire), the latter of whom is responsible for this season’s impressive G2 King Edward II S. and G2 Great Voltigeur S. scorer Pyledriver (GB). And with young horses like Aclaim (GB) and Expert Eye (GB) still to have their first runners, the Acclamation sireline looks likely to continue to thrive.

Dark Angel, meanwhile, has already firmly established his own branch of the Acclamation line. Like Acclamation was, Dark Angel was a member of the first crop of his own sire and was a £61,000 purchase from the 2006 St Leger sale. He won the sales race for trainer Barry Hills in 2007 before going on to take the G2 Mill Reef S. and G1 Middle Park S. before retiring upon the conclusion of his 2-year-old campaign. Dark Angel’s first crop, interestingly, would include the G1 Diamond Jubilee and G1 July Cup S. winner Lethal Force (Ire), the sire of current Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale poster boy Golden Horde. Dark Angel looks in these early days to be making a similar mark on the breed to his sire, with Gutaifan (Ire) proving his prowess in his second year with runners and with Estidhkaar (Ire) and Markaz (Ire) each having gotten off to a promising start with his first runners this season. And while his best runner to date, Battaash (Ire), will not get the chance to pass on his genes as a gelding, Dark Angel still has the Goffs UK graduate and champion sprinter Harry Angel (Ire) waiting in the wings with his first foals this year. Another Group 1-winning sprinter to come from the sale with a chance to make his mark as a sire is the Phoenix S., Commonwealth Cup and Prix Maurice de Gheest scorer Advertise (GB), a £60,000 graduate who covered his first book at the National Stud this year.

Already a sire on the rise, Wootton Bassett is set to enter a different stratosphere, having been purchased by Coolmore just prior to getting his second Group 1 winner in the G1 Prix Jean Romanet victress Audarya (Fr). A £46,000 graduate of 2009, Wootton Bassett won the sales race midway through a perfect 2-year-old career which was capped by a G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere score and French champion 2-year-old honours. With Coolmore having pledged the support of its impeccable broodmare band and with Wootton Bassett’s best son Almanzor (Fr) set to have his first runners next year, there looks to be plenty more to come in the Wootton Bassett story.

With such opportunities on the line, the shrewdest buyers will not miss this week’s Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale. And as the first yearling sale during this pandemic-stricken season, all eyes will be on the figures as an indication of what is to come.

“The big thing for us will be clearance rate,” said Kent. “People have brought these horses here to sell and we’re providing an opportunity for that to happen. The way we’ll measure the sale is going to be different; the normal metrics will go out the window and it will be very much about clearance rate and feel. If vendors are happy with what they’re achieving and purchasers are saying they can’t buy horses, for us that’s a good feel for this sale. We’re normally worried about comparative metrics-average, turnover, median, that sort of thing. It’ll be less about that this year and more about clearance rate and the ability to get horses sold.”

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TDN Q&A With Ross Doyle

Bloodstock agents Peter and Ross Doyle have developed quite an affinity with the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale, having plucked Group 1 winners like Canford Cliffs (Ire), Olympic Glory (Ire), Tiggy Wiggy (Ire) and Barney Roy (GB) from its catalogues. The Doyles’ haul from last year’s sale includes the G2 Prix Robert Papin winner Ventura Tormenta and the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Stakes winner Happy Romance (Ire) (Dandy Man {Ire}). The TDN‘s Kelsey Riley caught up with Ross Doyle as he prepares to shop this year’s catalogue.

KR: You have purchased four winners of the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Stakes in the past five years, most recently Happy Romance this year. Is that the kind of result you’re looking for when you go to Doncaster, a precocious horse who can collect those kinds of purses early on?

RD: Its great when you can win the race dedicated to a particular sale; it confirms that our team are doing a very good job selecting the yearlings along with the great job Richard Hannon and his team have done with Happy Romance. The Premier Sale is known for precocious types but you would hope they can train on as 3-year-olds like Canford Cliffs, Olympic Glory and Barney Roy, for example, in the past.

KR: Happy Romance is the first horse raced by the McMurray Family. How important is a result like that at a time when we need to incentivize owners to stay involved and when prizemoney levels are such a concern?

RD: Happy Romance is repaying her owners in spades considering she cost £25,000, not only by winning the Weatherbys Super Sprint but also the sales race, taking her earnings to £177,600 so far for the season. It’s a huge help to get the owners something back on their initial investment which will hopefully spur them on to reinvest during these tough times for everybody.

KR: You have a long list of successful purchases from the Premier Sale-the likes of Canford Cliffs, Olympic Glory, Tiggy Wiggy, Barney Roy, and Ventura Tormenta most recently. Can you tell us what you recall about some of those horses at their times of purchase?

RD: A lot of the horses you mentioned had a presence about them, strong but balanced with good movement, temperament and they all came from top nurseries. The team at Goffs UK along with the vendors obviously do a fantastic job selecting the right types to suit the sale.

KR: What first-season sires are you looking forward to seeing the progeny of this year?

RD: On the back of our old friend Mehmas doing so well this year with his first crop, it will be nice to see the Aclaims being by Acclamation as well. I have seen some very nice yearlings on the farms recently by Caravaggio, Churchill, Profitable and in particular by Ribchester; they look very racy.

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