Flat racing might have wound down for the winter here in Ireland but the sales season has been in full flow this past week with the Goffs Breeding Stock Sales. The week started off with four days of their Foal Sale with over 900 foals on offer and ended with two days of mares and fillies.
There was strong trade throughout the foal section with an average price of just over €40,000 for the 738 foals sold successfully. Kingman was flavour of the sale as three of his progeny were the most expensive lots sold including the top lot: a half-brother to Champion 2yo Filly Skitter Scatter who was sold by breeders Airlie Stud for €550,000 to Stauffenberg Bloodstock.
Roundhill Stud sold another son of Kingman, from the family of dual Group One winner Rizeena, Zabeel Prince and Group 2 Balanchine Stakes winner Summer Romance, for €530,000 to Juddmonte. The latter were the top purchasers of the sale by average price as they also bought a son of Wootton Bassett for €340,000.
Sold by Swordlestown Little, this colt is a half-brother to Dinozzo, who is a multiple Stakes winner in Hong Kong. The other stallions making the headlines with their foals at Goffs last week were Coolmore’s No Nay Never, Ballylinch Stud’s Lope De Vega and Godolphin’s Night Of Thunder.
The last filly foal by the legendary Galileo to ever pass through a sales ring did so at Goffs last week and his daughter was knocked down to BBA Ireland for €290,000. My own family farm, Newtown Stud, had a very good week as we consigned two foals among the top lots of the sale.
Both were by the wonderful Aga Khan stallion Sea The Stars and were sold on behalf of their top German breeders Gestut Gorlsdorf. One was a full brother to their homebred stallion Sea The Moon and he sold for €250,000 while the other was a filly bought by Airlie Stud for €230,000.
It is always a long and busy week for our farm and staff but it is exciting to see nice foals that we have bred go to good buyers and we look forward to following their careers in the future. The top priced lot of the Breeding Stock Sale was Aspiring, an unraced 4yo daughter of Galileo in foal to Wootton Bassett. She is herself a half-sister to the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Danedream and a full sister to Group winners Venice Beach and Broadway.
She was bought for €790,000 by BBA Ireland for the Lucky Vega Syndicate and is destined to be covered by the Irish National Stud stallion next year. The same combination of buyers teamed up to purchase 18 lots from this sale for Lucky Vega’s book next year for a total of over €5.2 million.
The sales wagon now moves on to Tattersalls in Newmarket with yearling and foals on offer this week before the Mare Sale the following week. Their newly created Sceptre Session on Monday night (28 November) will see Group One winners like Alcohol Free, Saffron Beach and La Petite Coco light up the sales ring.
The breeding stock sales season then comes to its annual close with the Arqana Sale in Deauville, France at the beginning of December which is always a chance for the members of the industry to let their hair down after a long few months on the road.
SALLY-ANNE GRASSICK
