The star turn of the Tattersalls December Foal Sale was Whitsbury Manor Stud’s Kingman half-sister to Chaldean who was sold at the 2020 renewal of the sale and won the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes this year. The filly duly did not disappoint, becoming only the sixth lot ever to make 1,000,000gns at the sale when knocked down to Juddmonte.
Juddmonte Farms’ Simon Mockridge had struck the successful bid of 550,000gns for Chaldean two years previously and was not to be denied for his half-sister, seeing off the attentions of Philipp von Stauffenberg, bloodstock agent Michael Donohoe, seated alongside Yuesheng Zhang to the left of the rostrum, an online bidder and eventual underbidder David Redvers to secure the filly.
Mockridge commented: "We are delighted. It is always going to be expensive buying a filly like that when you have a new Group One winner on the page. Chaldean is very exciting, we were delighted to buy him a couple of years ago and he certainly has not let us down.
"The family want to reinvest in pedigrees, this is a very strong page, and with Chaldean who knows what is going to happen next year? This filly could be a very valuable prospect going forwards. "Chaldean was a slightly smaller horse, she is bigger, she has a big backside on her.
She looks faster, if you can say that, but she is an exciting filly. Kingman has had such a good season: two Group One winners and 14 individual Group winners, he is going from strength to strength." One of the earlier highlights through the ring was a Lope De Vega filly out of Group Three winning racemare Poet’s Vanity also selling to Juddmonte Farms.
Billed as one of the day’s star lots, a variety of bidders made a play for the filly from around the ring before underbidder Philipp von Stauffenberg threw a seemingly ‘strategic’ bid of 480,000gns, only for Juddmonte Farms’ general manager Simon Mockridge to respond quickly with the successful bid of 500,000gns.
Mockridge said: "I knew she was very, very popular, everyone liked her. She is a great athlete, a great walker, and has been well produced. We thought we'd have to be strong on her, but for us she is an outcross pedigree for the longer term.
She is a beautiful filly, hopefully she can be a race filly now and then come back home. “It is a beautiful pedigree, and it is easy to see why we liked her. She has depth and strength and is out of a Group winner. She has everything and showed well throughout."
Juddmonte Farms proved a dominant force at the head of the purchasers’ table and they struck again at 500,000gns for a filly by their their brilliant sire Frankel out of the Grade One performer Awesometank.
The filly was the last lot through the ring to be consigned by Heatherwold Stud, at least in its current ownership and bloodstock advisor Jeremy Brummitt mused: "It is a bittersweet sale really; she is the very final youngster to be sold from Heatherwold Stud under Mick Caddy's ownership, he is ceasing operations but at least he has gone out with a bang!”
The fourth and final of the quartet of fillies secured by Juddmonte Farms last Friday was Selwood Bloodstock’s Kingman filly out of Burning Rules for 425,000gns, for a total spend of 2,425,000gns. Moyglare Stud enjoyed Classic success in the Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas this year courtesy of the Frankel filly Homeless Songs and the operation’s Fiona Craig went to 550,000gns to secure another filly by the outstanding stallion.
"She is a Frankel! And we all know how much he is going to be next year," laughed Craig. "If you breed, you don't know if you are going to get a colt or something upside down. "This is a filly, she is nice, she is not a great big striding filly, but I know what Homeless Songs looks like. "I wasn't going to buy an Oaks winner. I want to buy something fast; we have plenty of slow ones! Speed is so hard to find and she looks fast.”
