The DBS Premier Yearling Sales returned two days of thrilling trade with a
top price of £280,000, a record for the DBS Yearling Sales. This was matched by
a two day turnover of £10,634,000, up 11 percent on last year, and an average
that had increased by 5 percent to £28,206. The median was also up by 5 percent
to £21,000 and the clearance rate across the two days was a healthy 77 percent.
The top priced horse was offered by Stowell Hill, who sold three horses for a
total of £386,000 and entered an Oasis Dream (Ire) colt who was the first foal
out of listed victress Ronaldsay (Kirkwall [GB]). The February born offering
attracted plenty of interest around the ring with David Redvers having to
compete with John Ferguson for the early part before Richard Brown played his
hand and was forced to pay under bidder to Eddie Fitzpatrick, who signed the
docket on behalf of his Coolmore colleagues at £280,000.
“Demi (O’Byrne), Paul (Shanahan) and M.V. (Magnier) were here yesterday and
thought he was the best colt in the sale,” Fitzpatrick told the Racing Post.
“You’d hope he’d be quite an early sort. He’s a lovely-looking animal.”
Despite being the highest
sum paid at this auction, his tag falls slightly short of the 275,000 paid in
guineas by Shadwell five years ago. For the breeders of Ronaldsay, who also has
a foal by Dubawi back at the stud, the sale represented the culmination of
an unlikely success story as the dam had been returned for box-walking after
being sold in 2005.
The progeny of Acclamation has had no shortage of interest this week and
Rathbarry offered a cracking colt out of a winning Marju mare that was sold to
John Warren for £115,000 with Peter Doyle forced to play the role of under
bidder. Hip 251 is a full brother to one of Highclere
Thoroughbred Racing’s past runners Pose and will race for that
syndicate.
“He had the best hind leg I’d seen in the whole catalog,” Warren
told the Racing Post. “He is a very powerful, strong horse and more than just a
two-year-old. I had to pay that bit extra for one with the scope to be a
three-year-old as well.”
Warren later paid £70,000 for Croom House Stud’s Hip
417, a Kheleyf colt out of Spiritual Air (GB) (Royal
Applause [GB]). The dam is a half to Mystical Land (Xaar), who placed in the Norfolk S.
(Eng-G3), July S. (Eng-G2), Richmond S. (Eng-G2) and Mill Reef S. (Eng-G2) in
2004.
On a day in which the colts dominated, the top billing among the fillies was
shared by a Nayef offering from Newsells Park Stud and the Castlebridge
Consignment’s daughter of Exceed and Excel.
The former, consigned by the
Jacobs’ establishment as Hip 259, is out of 2002 Moyglare Stud S. (Ire-G1) winner
Mail the Desert (Desert Prince [Ire]), who was also third in the following
year’s Coronation S. (Eng-G1), and was knocked down to Cormac McCormack for £70,000.
That price was later matched by Gill Richardson for the Exceed and Excel
consigned as Hip 340, a daughter of stakes winner Poppo’s Song (Polish
Navy). She
will race in the colors of Jon and Julia Aisbitt, like her two-year-old
half-sister Petaluma (Teofilo).
“Absolutely delighted. That is the only way I can really describe our feeling
following the last two days of exceptional trade,” DBS Managing Director Henry
Beeby said. “I commented in the lead up to the sale that in normal times we
would have been quite bullish as the catalog was strong, we knew the individuals
matched up and our graduates have performed exceptionally well on the track.
However, I confess that we really didn’t know what to expect coming into the
sale as anyone paying any attention to the news would understand the trepidation
felt by a purveyor of a luxury item like a racehorse.
“Therefore we have been so pleased to see a huge crowd descend upon Doncaster
from two days before the sale, made up of a diverse group of potential
purchasers and what has been massively reassuring for everyone is that the
overwhelming majority are UK or Irish based.”
Full results are available at
www.dbsauctions.com.