There was steady trade with a sprinkling of six-figure flashpoints as the Goffs Orby Sale switched from Book 1 to Book 2 on Thursday.
The session saw 236 yearlings come under the hammer and 181 - 38 fewer than in 2022 - sold for a clearance rate of 77%.
Those transactions resulted in turnover of €4,366,500, which was down 28% from the corresponding session last year, when the event was held as the Sportsman's Sale. The day-one average was €24,125, a figure down 13% year on year, and the median was €20,000, down 16% from 12 months ago.
The first lot to break the six-figure barrier was the Sea The Stars colt out of Valais Girl offered by The Castlebridge Consignment. Johnny Hassett, signing as JCH Bloodstock, outlasted Tony O’Callaghan of Tally-Ho Stud with a bid of €160,000.
Bred by the Tsui family’s Sunderland Holding Inc, the youngster boasted one of the day’s stronger pages, being a full-brother to German Group 3 winner Alpen Rose. There is classic form back in the pedigree too as the colt’s third dam is 1000 Guineas winner Sleepytime.
“I bought him to breeze, although I didn’t think I’d have to give that price for him,” said Hassett. “I thought €100,000 would buy him. He’s by Sea The Stars and a full sibling to a group horse. I just think he’s a belter. Emma Chilcot and Becky Monaghan picked him out and he’ll probably go to Arqana. I’ve breezed two by Sea The Stars before and they were both lucky.”
The six-figure lot was Hassett’s second purchase by Sea The Stars on the day, having also secured the colt out of Group 3 Prix d'Aumale scorer Shahah, another bred by Sunderland Holding Inc and offered by Castlebridge, at €68,000.
Thursday’s brace took Hassett’s Orby haul to four, having also sourced a €100,000 daughter of Too Darn Hot and a €60,000 Wootton Bassett filly during Book 1. Despite the Orby spree, Hassett said he intends to be down on numbers but up on quality for next year’s breeze-up sales.
“I’m probably going to have less horses than I had last year, but I’m probably going to spend as much, if not more,” he said. “We’re trying to up our game every year and we also want to produce racehorses. We started off breezing cheap horses and got on well producing winners, but you need a big horse, and that means buying a big horse!”
Bolger and Boherguy
The second six-figure lot came late in the session when Clare Manning’s Boherguy Stud sold the three-parts brother to Beresford Stakes third Young Ireland for €100,000. After the price leapt from €80,000 to €100,000 in one fell swoop, Adam Potts signed the docket as SSF. The son of Teofilo was bred by Jim Bolger and is out of Ard Fheis, a Lil’s Boy half-sister to Soldier Of Fortune and Heliostatic.
American investment was a key feature of the market during Book 1 of the Orby Sale, and that trend continued during Book 2 as Justin Casse went to €85,000 for a Sioux Nation filly from the family of Iffraaj and Park Appeal.
The half-sister to winning hurdler Fire Lake provided Philipstown Stables with a tidy bit of pinhooking profit as the April-born filly was picked up for just €10,500 at Goffs last November. Although she was sourced on behalf of American interests, Casse explained the filly would remain in Ireland to begin her racing career before traversing the Atlantic.
“I think she’ll go to Joseph O’Brien’s for the time being, but I signed with the American trainer Jack Sisterson so she may eventually end up with him,” said Casse. “We have a programme in place where we get them started at two, I like developing the horses here, and then if they seem like they’ll suit America then we can move them over there at the end of their two-year-old year or start of their three-year-old year.”
Casse is hoping the filly can follow in the footsteps of another successful purchase by the same sire in Behind Enemy Lines.
“We’ve had luck with Sioux Nation before with a horse named Behind Enemy Lines who Joseph trained as a two-year-old,” said the agent. “He won at Dundalk in January at three and Jack bought him from us and then won a stakes race right off the bat.”
On the subject of Coolmore-based sire, Casse added: “I love Sioux Nation. I have a few mares in foal to him and I’ve been a supporter from the get-go.”
TDM Bloodstock might be a new name among the catalogue’s vendors index but there is a familiar face at the helm of the operation, which is run by Michelle Motherway, wife of Paul Motherway of leading consignor Yellowford Farm.
And Motherway has enjoyed a productive few days at Kildare Paddocks with a homebred Dark Angel colt sold to Richard Ryan for €100,000 during Book 1, before a pinhooked Kodi Bear filly went from €26,000 foal to €75,000 yearling on the bid of Edmondo Botti and Cristiana Brivio of Razza Latina.
The filly, a sibling to Italian listed-placed performers Irishman Mark and Mutamaiezah, was making her second appearance at the yearling sales having travelled to Doncaster only to meet with a mishap.
“That exceeded my expectations,” said Motherway. “I would’ve been happy if she doubled up, but she’s done more than that. She was in Doncaster but got cast and got a cut. I thought so much of her that I went to Henry Beeby with puppy dog eyes and asked if I withdrew her there, was there any chance of getting into Book 2 at the Orby. I thought he’d say ‘no way’ but he said ‘absolutely, no problem’, which was fantastic of him. Goffs were so kind to us.”
With that setback behind them, and with Kodi Bear siring Saturday’s Group 3 Dubai International Airport World Trophy Stakes winner Thunderbear, things looked to be heading in the right direction. However, Motherway said that the arrival of Storm Agnes made expectations harder to form than usual.
“She arrived here on Tuesday night and started showing yesterday but we couldn’t do much because of the storm, so we didn’t know how we were going,” she said. “Things picked up today and everybody loved her. She was a standout, which was the whole reason I wanted to go to Doncaster with her originally. Kodi Bear having a Group 3 winner at the weekend was a bonus and it’s all worked out in the long run.”
Motherway said consigning under a new banner felt like “business as usual” before expanding on the poignant backstory to the TDM Bloodstock name. She said: “We lost our first child, Tadhg, so the T is for him, D is for our other son Donnacha, and M is for Motherway. It’s a tribute to our boys, and this way when Donnacha grows up he knows he has a big brother too.”
The €75,000 mark was reached by two other lots, including Springbank Way Stud’s Blue Point colt. The second foal of the Dansili mare Alezia was signed for by Henry Lascelles’ Finlaggon Bloodstock and Transatlantic Thoroughbreds.
The other €75,000 yearling on the day was the Mastercraftsman filly out of American Beauty from Anna Sundstrom’s Coulonces Sales. The well-related youngster was signed for by US-based buyers Legion Bloodstock, acting as agent for Hoolie Racing.
The first foal hails from a Wildenstein family as her dam is a Dark Angel half-sister to Adventure Seeker, who won the Listed Prix De Liancourt during her time in training with Alain de Royer-Dupré and later bred Group 1 Phoenix Stakes hero Little Big Bear.
The filly was Legion Bloodstock’s seventh purchase of this year’s Orby and followed on from six buys that totalled €622,000 during Book 1.
“That’s our seventh purchase this week and they’ll all go back to America,” said the agency’s Kristian Villante. When asked how he had found the Irish buying mission, he said: “Hopefully we can get one or two more too. The weather has been kind of difficult but other than that it’s been great, everyone here has been awesome. There’s beautiful horses here. We came last year and bought two, they’ve done well back home so we’ve come back this year and bought a little more. I love the horses here.”
The Orby Sale concludes on Friday, with the second session of Book 2 starting at 10am.