IN the week when it was announced that Enable would remain in training for another season, Khalid Abdullah’s racing manager Teddy Grimthorpe was busy at the sales, adding to the prince’s already well-stocked collection of jewels.
While the name of Juddmonte Farms does not appear too regularly on the buyers list at sales, it made two purchases in Book 2.
A Group 3 winner and multiple stakes-placed, Ladys First made a couple of splashes in the sale ring at Newmarket. Sold out of training for 650,000gns, she reappeared a year later with a Galileo covering and her value almost trebled, as that time she sold for 1,800,000gns to Hugo Lascelles, acting for Lady Bamford.
Dam of two winners with her first two foals, and with a two-year-old by Golden Horn yet to race, Ladys First’s yearling this year is a daughter of Frankel and she sold to Juddmonte for just 270,000gns as part of The Castlebridge Consignment. “We like Frankel fillies and we like Frankels,” was something of an understatement from Lord Grimthorpe. “We tried on a number of Frankels last week and were unable to buy, but we like this filly and she is bred on a god cross.” Ladys First is out of a winning daughter of Danehill.
Towards the close of Book 2 Juddmonte struck again, this time paying 220,000gns for a Kingman colt out of the Group 3-placed Lomitas mare Quilita, from the family of Quijano.