Nicholls Snaps Up 160k Beaumec De Houelle Gelding At Goffs Arkle Sale

Trainer Paul Nicholls and bloodstock agent Tom Malone flexed their muscles at the newly-branded Goffs Arkle Sale on Tuesday by signing for three lots to the tune of €410,000, including the €160,000 day one topper, a Beaumec De Houelle (Fr) gelding already named Zamek (Fr) consigned by Mark Dwyer's Oaks Farm Stables.

That was the highest average posted by any buyer on day one, however, it was the point-to-point outfit Monbeg Stables who posted the highest aggregate spend by signing for 15 lots to the tune of €784,000.

Of the 224 horses offered at Goffs on day one, 204 were sold for an aggregate of €10,862,500, representing a €53,248 average.

Zamek was picked up as a two-year-old from Precolette at the mixed sale at Arqana last July for €70,000. Out of the Sinndar (Ire) mare Zanatiya (Fr), the gelding is a half-brother to the classy jumps performer Zarisk (Fr) (No Risk At All {Fr}).

Beaumec De Houelle is a son of Martaline and fittingly stands at Haras de Montaigu for €6,000. A Grade 1-winning hurdler himself, his first crop are just three years' old.

On the day one headline act, Nicholls commented, “He is a lovely, sharp horse and we're delighted to get him. He actually reminds me a lot of Call Equiname, who was a similarly lovely-looking grey horse. Hopefully he can be as good as him.”

The post Nicholls Snaps Up 160k Beaumec De Houelle Gelding At Goffs Arkle Sale appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

British NH Champions Named At Sandown

Trainer Paul Nicholls was awarded his 14th British Champion NH Trainer award, when the end-of-season champions were named at Sandown Park on Saturday. He is sitting on 3,582 British jump winners to date. Nicholls is eyeing the longstanding records of Martin Pipe, who accumulated 15 Champion Jump Trainer championships, and also saddled 4,183 winners under both codes.

“It's been a fantastic season with some fantastic horses that have been very consistent all through the campaign and we are obviously thrilled,” said Nicholls. “It reflects very well on the whole team and everyone involved that we've had a 28% strike rate right through from October until now, which is the best we've ever achieved.”

Bravemansgame (Fr) (Brave Mansonnien {Fr}), as well as Cheltenham Festival winners Stay Away Fay (Ire) (Shantou) and Stage Star (Ire) (Fame And Glory {Ire}), where some of the leading lights of the stable during the season.

“We want to compete at the highest level and we're getting there again,” the trainer added. “It's like with a football team–they might win the Premiership and then go away for four or five years before coming back. It's all about the players on the team.”

JP McManus, who won his 20th Irish Champion Owner title this year, earned his 15th British Champion Jumps Owner award. Later in the day, his Under Control (Fr) (Doctor Dino {Fr}) won the bet365 Novices' Championship Final Handicap Hurdle.

Brian Hughes won the Champion NH Jockey title for the third time with 165 winners. He is already focusing on attempting a fourth title, and beating his tally of 204 winners during the 2021-2022 season. His family was on hand at the racecourse on Saturday.

“There's a bus load at Sandown,” the jockey said, regarding his family and friends who traveled to watch the presentation. “I organised for a bus to take all the family down there. There's my wife and kids and then her parents and my parents and plenty of others, so logistically it seemed the right thing to do. It's a long way to go in cars and getting on a bus together takes the stress away.

“Everything was behind closed doors when I won my first title, but the welcome I got last year was great. I'm not really one for fanfare or anything like that, but my family had a good day.”

Luca Morgan was named the Champion Conditional Jockey. Morgan rode 45 winners through the 2022-2023 season for his boss, trainer Ben Pauling.

The post British NH Champions Named At Sandown appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Galopin to Glory in the Gold Cup

CHELTENHAM, UK–Resplendent in bright green on St Patrick's Day, Audrey Truly clasped the Cheltenham Gold Cup as she chatted with Princess Anne while her face bore a look of disbelief. The owner could be forgiven if the enormity of the relatively smooth victory of her 7-year-old Galopin Des Champs (Fr) (Timos {Ger}) in jump racing's most prestigious race was yet to sink in. 

Exactly a year ago the sleek dark brown gelding appeared to be about to back up his first Cheltenham success in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Hurdle with victory in the G1 Turners Novices' Chase when, with a 12-length lead in hand, he crumpled on landing over the final fence. With three more confidence-restoring Grade 1 wins to his credit since that luckless day, including the Irish Gold Cup, Galopin Des Champs has now added the big one to the Gold Cup roll of honour, his name permanently etched on the list of winners including such greats as Golden Miller and Arkle.

His victory left no small amount of drama in its wake as the long-term leader Ahoy Senor (Ire) (Dylan Thomas {Ire}) fell at the 17th fence, bringing down Sounds Russian (Ire) (Sholokhov {Ire}) in the melee, after the 2021 winner Minella Indo (Ire) (Beat Hollow {GB}) had already cried enough and been pulled up early in the second circuit. Last year's winner, A Plus Tard (Fr) (Kapgarde {Fr}), representing the resurgent Henry de Bromhead stable, could not match his heroics of 12 months ago, and he too was eased down by Rachael Blackmore as the leaders started to draw away with three left to jump. Most heartbreaking of all was seeing the game Eclipse Award winner Hewick (Ire) (Virtual {GB}) make a bold go from the front after Ahoy Senor's departure, only to fall himself at the second-last fence.

Thirteen starters had faced the judge and only seven crossed the line. Galopin Des Champs was simply too good for the best of the British contenders, Bravemansgame (Fr) (Brave Mansonnien {Fr}), whose faultless round, and particularly his never-say-die effort at the last under Harry Cobden, could leave his supporters dreaming of Gold Cups to come for the 8-year-old after he finished seven lengths adrift in second. Conflated (Ire) (Yeats {Ire}) posted a similarly solid performance to take third for Gordon Elliott and the Gigginstown House Stud team, while last year's Grand National winner, Noble Yeats (Ire) (Yeats {Ire}), who looked beaten a long way out, called upon his great reserves of stamina to rally to take fourth for Emmet Mullins.

Usually unflappable and once again the leading trainer at the Cheltenham Festival with six winners across the four days, Willie Mullins nevertheless admitted to some nerves as he watched Paul Townend guide Galopin Des Champs to the stable's third win in the Gold Cup.

“I didn't realise what pressure I was under,” he said. “I'm absolutely delighted for Audrey and Greg Turley and for Paul, who was under huge pressure too. He had the confidence to drop him in and come through.

“They were going to plenty fast enough so I didn't want him up in there in the early stages. I thought if he has the class he will come through. All thoughts were going through my head; one or two fell and we missed all that, so we had a lot of luck as well. I think that man on board when the pressure comes on he is very good. I was surprised myself how I was over the last two fences.”

Mullins added, “He has that little bit of class: you could run him over two miles, two and a half miles. He has that little bit of speed when you want it. You just have to conserve it. Over those shorter trips he likes to get on with the job and that was to me the whole key today, not to let him get running early on in the race.”

Stay Away Fay Stays All Day

Despite having to settle for second in the Gold Cup, Paul Nicholls had made his second visit to the winner's spot this week earlier in the day when Stay Away Fay (Ire) (Shantou) took advantage of a bizarre last-flight run-out by favourite Corbetts Cross (Ire) (Gamut {Ire}) to win the G1 Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle.

“He's a very smart young horse, and he'll improve for the summer,” said the champion trainer. “I knew he would win turning in, because he's a very, very strong stayer. Well, I hoped he'd win, because I knew he wouldn't stop.

“He looked fantastic and to me he ran how he looked. That was only his third race under Rules and there's lots of improvement to come from him.”

French Fab Four 

It is hard to imagine anyone ever repeating Michael Dickinson's extraordinary feat of training the first five home in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, but Willie Mullins is rarely short-handed in the major races and he got Gold Cup day off to the perfect start when being responsible for the first four home in the G1 JCB Triumph Hurdle. 

The favourite Lossiemouth (Fr) (Great Pretender {Ire}) had been beaten just once in her nascent career and she made amends for that blip when second at Fairyhouse last month by overhauling her conqueror that day, stable-mate Gala Marceau (Fr) (Galiway {GB}). That pair was followed home by two more familiar faces in Zenta (Fr) (Pastorius {Ger}) and Gust Of Wind (Fr) (Great Pretender {Ire}), making it a quartet of French-breds to the fore in the juvenile contest. 

To put Mullins's feat in context, he saddled seven of the 15 runners for the race he has won in three of the last four years. 

While Lossiemouth's owner Rich Ricci appeared to pour cold water on the idea of the smart filly switching to staying races on the Flat, he did leave the door open for another of his stars to be seen on the level this summer.

“I think she has got enough boot to go on the Flat but my view would be to go to Punchestown and put her away for next season. She is only four so maybe in two years' time she will go for the Champion Hurdle, depending on Constitution Hill and the rest of the field. You are asking me the same question that Willie asked me about going to the Flat with her and I'm not sure we have to. Vauban is a better question, to go on the Flat with him, because he has a good Flat rating.”

French-bred jumpers have been particularly prevalent this week at Cheltenham, with the feature races on three of the four days falling to Energumene (Fr), Sire Du Berlais (Fr) and Galopin Des Champs. Exactly half of the 28 winners at the 2023 Cheltenham Festival were bred across the Channel. 

Impervious Delights Small Breeder O'Doherty

The Colm Murphy-trained Impervious (Ire) (Shantou) gave owner JP McManus his first of two winners on the day when turning over the hot favourite Allegorie De Vassy (Fr) (No Risk At All {Fr}) on the run-in in the G2 Paddy Power Mares' Chase, in turn providing a truly memorable result for her small breeder Tom O'Doherty.

“I'm absolutely over the moon,” said O'Doherty, whose sole broodmare is Impervious's dam Blodge (Ire) (Kalanisi {Ire}).  “My sister bought Blodge at the Tattersalls sales in 2017. A lot of people won't know, but Impervious's grand-dam Bilboa (Fr) was placed in the [2002] Champion Hurdle, so it came out somewhere.”

He continued,”I saw Blodge win a point-to-point in Ireland a long, long time ago and she came from a very good family. She came from a very good place, the Kenilworth House Stud in Clonmel, and I love the pedigree. Bilboa was a feisty lady as well. She's inherited all of it.”
O'Doherty added. “It's been wonderful. Little did I think when I sold my foal for €4,000 that JP McManus would end up buying her and she would end up winning at Cheltenham.
“I saw two fences, I could not watch, my heart was in my mouth even though she is a fantastic jumper. I knew she wouldn't let me down. Once she got into battle, I knew she'd outbattle the rest. She's a terrier, and the mare at home is a terrier as well.”

The post Galopin to Glory in the Gold Cup appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Special Envoi Delivers Third Ryanair for Cheveley Park Stud

CHELTENHAM, UK–It always pays to take note of past Festival form, as exemplified by the winners of Wednesday's two big races, Envoi Allen (Fr) (Muhtathir {Fr}) and Sire Du Berlais (Fr) (Poliglote {GB}). They had respectively made four and five previous appearances at Cheltenham in March, with Envoi Allen having won the G1 Weatherbys Champion Bumper and G1 Ballymore Novices' Hurdle prior to his emotional return to the winner's circle after the G1 Ryanair Chase, completing the full set of top-level Festival wins in three different spheres. The 11-year-old Sire Du Berlais had in turn won two Pertemps Finals on this day in 2019 and 2020, and was previously runner-up when Flooring Porter (Ire) (Yeats {Ire}) won the G1 Paddy Power Stayers' Hurdle for the first time in 2021. 

Still only eight, the front-running Flooring Porter went out, as usual, with all guns blazing in an attempt to get his hat-trick up in the race, only folding when turning for home as he was reeled in by the chasing pack. Dashel Drasher (GB) (Passing Glance {GB}) took up the running and momentarily looked as though he would deliver a dream first Festival victory for Jeremy Scott. The trainer, whose wife Camilla bred Dashel Drasher, was magnanimous in his post-race comments after his stable star crossed the line still holding onto second place, though that was later taken from him in the stewards' room and handed to Teahupoo (Fr) (Masked Marvel {GB}), giving Gordon Elliott a one-two in the Stayers' Hurdle and his first Grade 1 of the week.

Arguably, though, the day again belonged to Henry de Bromhead, who recorded his 20th Festival victory and his third of the week with Envoi Allen, a former resident of Elliott's stable, and who had disappointed when well beaten into seventh in the King George VI Chase on Boxing Day. His owner, Cheveley Park Stud, has only become properly involved with jump racing in the last few years and from the select team racing for Patricia Thompson and her son Richard, there has been incredible success in that time, including being leading owner at the Cheltenham Festival for each of the previous two years. The Ryanair Chase, in particular, has been a lucky race for them, with the currently sidelined Allaho (Fr) (No Risk At All {Fr}) having won the last two runnings. 

De Bromhead said, “It's great for the Thompsons as they are great supporters of ours and the industry. It's just brilliant.

“I kept saying to Richard that [Envoi Allen] was as good as he was before he went to Kempton. I was so happy with him before the King George, we really fancied him, but like a few of ours who went to England in the first half of the season, he just never showed up.”

De Bromhead, who had to settle for second and third in Mares' Novices' Hurdle named in memory of his son Jack, added, “The amount of people, our friends and family who have travelled over, and Michael O'Leary and Ryanair naming the race in honour of Jack, makes this week very special.”

On Friday, the de Bromhead-trained A Plus Tard (Fr) (Kapgarde {Fr}) will attempt to defend his Gold Cup crown for a team which appears to have hit peak form just at the right time.

The day's racing was, rather strangely, labelled St Patrick's Thursday, despite the real St Patrick's Day being 24 hours later. But it was largely a good day for raiders from across the sea, with five Irish trainers being represented by a winner. For John McConnell in particular it was a memorable occasion as Seddon (Ire) (Stowaway {GB}) romped to glory in the Magners Plate Handicap Chase to give the trainer and his jockey Ben Harvey a first Festival winner. Another young rider, Liam McKenna, also shed his Cheltenham maiden tag aboard Good Time Jonny (Ire) (Shirocco {Ger}) in the Pertemps Final for Tony Martin. The 8-year-old's owners, Aidan Shiels, Donal Gavigan and Niall Reilly, had made the long trip from New York to Prestbury Park and will likely float home across the Atlantic. The trio had also been involved in a decent horse on the Flat in the 2016 Melbourne Cup runner-up Heartbreak City (Fr) (Lando {Ger}).

Thursday's results did not all go Ireland's way, however. In the opening G1 Turners Novices' Chase, the flamboyant 7-year-old Stage Star (Ire) (Fame And Glory {GB}) brought back memories of his talented tearaway of a mother, Sparky May (GB) (Midnight Legend {GB}), a Grade 2-winning hurdler who found only Quevega (Fr) too good when challenging for the Mares' Hurdle at Cheltenham in 2011. Hers was something of a fairytale, her dam Glassy Appeal (Glassy Dip) having been bought by owner/breeder Bill Muddyman of Huxley Holdings with the idea of breeding a few show jumpers. Well her descendants can jump, that's for sure, and Stage Star, the best of Sparky May's three winning offspring to date, looked very well named as he made all, meeting each fence beautifully under Harry Cobden to give Britain's champion trainer Paul Nicholls a first strike at the meeting.

Sparky May, now 18, is a boarder at David and Tamso Cox's Baroda Stud in Ireland. Though Bill Muddyman, a former chairman of Fulham Football Club, died in 2020, his son Andy has continued his breeding interests.
“She's doing really well and delivered a Walk In The Park colt on 19 February,” reported David Cox, who added that the mare also has a 2-year-old filly by Harzand (Ire) on the way through.

It has been a good week for the boarders of Baroda Stud, which is also home to Game Of Legs (Fr) (Hernando {Fr}), whose son Gaelic Warrior (Ger) was runner-up in Wednesday's G1 Ballymore Novices' Hurdle. The mare will be returning to his sire Maxios (GB) this season, while Sparky May will again visit Walk In The Park.

The late Muddyman was not the only football club chairman connected to a winner on Thursday. The 83-year-old Sir Chips Keswick, whose colours were carried to victory by You Wear It Well (GB) (Midnight Legend {GB}) in the G2 Jack de Bromhead Mares' Novices' Hurdle, was chairman of Arsenal FC until 2020. His nephew Ben Keswick is the owner of Rockliffe Stud, owner-breeder of Group 1 winner Snow Lantern (GB) (Frankel {GB}) and last season's G2 Flying Childers winner Trillium (GB) (No Nay Never).

The Dream Begins Again

With darkness attempting to claim the parade ring ahead of one last day of Festival action, there was a final bit of business to be conducted under the spotlights. The Tattersalls Cheltenham Festival Sale, which has been in existence for seven years, has the catchline 'See you in the winner's enclosure', which is both literal and aspirational.

The auction staged therein comes with the implication that its expensive graduates will return to that hallowed ground one day to collect a Festival trophy. Love Envoi (Ire) (Westerner {GB}) did just that by landing last year's G2 Mares' Novices' Hurdle after being sold for £38,000 in 2021, and she only narrowly failed in her attempt when second to Honeysuckle (GB) in Tuesday's G1 Close Brothers Mares' Hurdle. At the pricier end of the market was Gerri Colombe (Fr) (Saddler Maker {Ire}), bought for £240,000 and beaten just a short-head on Wednesday in the G1 Brown Advisory Novices' Chase. Bravemansgame (Fr) (Brave Mansonnien {Fr}), a £370,000 purchase in 2019, could yet give the sale the ultimate cachet if he obliges in Friday's G1 Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Plenty don't make the grade of course, but that hasn't stopped owners backing this boutique event to the tune of £16.5 million in the first six years, raised through the sale of 114 horses. Another 19 horses (76%) changed hands on Thursday evening, for a total of £3,405,000 and average of £179,211.

Sharing the top spot on the leaderboard were two 4-year-old geldings, Romeo Coolio (GB) (Kayf Tara {GB}) and Jalon d'Oudairies (Fr) (No Risk At All {Fr}), both consigned by Donnchadh Doyle's Monbeg Stables and bought for £420,000 apiece by Gordon Elliott. Romeo Coolio will race for the Keep The Dream Alive syndicate.

“These are the sort of horses we want, we thought they were the two best horses in the sale,” said the trainer. Of Jalon d'Oudairies he added, “We don't have an owner yet, but we will have by the time the night is out.”
Romeo Coolio will race for the Keep The Dream Alive syndicate.

The post Special Envoi Delivers Third Ryanair for Cheveley Park Stud appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights