HAVING topped the store section of the Goffs UK Spring Sale last year at £140,000 for a son of Kayf Tara, Michael Moore’s Ballincurrig House Stud had to share the honours on Tuesday when Ross Doyle and Colin Tizzard combined to pay £105,000 for a three-year-old son of Getaway.

The half-brother to the Scottish Grand National winner Joe Farrell is by the hugely exciting Getaway and Moore sold him on behalf of William Bryan and partners who paid €28,000 for him as a foal. Doyle has enjoyed great success buying for Tizzard, last season’s Grade 1 winners Lostintranslation and Reserve Tank advertising the potency of the partnership.

Ballincurrig House Stud was clear at the top of the vendor’s table, their dozen lots sold making just one or two bids short of £500,000. Five of the lots sold for £50,000 and the top three were all by the sire of Verdana Blue and Getabird. Next best of the Getaway/Ballincurrig House trio was a three-year-old half-brother to this year’s chase winner Alminar, from the family of the Long Walk Hurdle winner Kristenson. Brendan Bashford paid £24,000 for the recently-turned yearling and this time he sold for £65,000 to Monbeg Stables. Given the Doyles’ propensity for success on the point-to-point circuit, the gelding should again turn a profit if he does well between the flags.

It was no surprise to learn that the day’s highest-priced filly will join Nicky Henderson as the trainer has been responsible for the career of Getaway’s best female runner, the Grade 1 winning hurdler Verdana Blue. Sold by Ballincurrig House for Sandra Mayoh, the £62,000 Highflyer Bloodstock purchase was bought as a young yearling for just £9,000. From an esteemed female line, her half-brother Livelovelaugh was runner-up in the Grade 1 Leopardstown Chase.

The insatiable appetite for stock by Getaway was shown by another couple of top prices. The investment of €14,000 as a foal in a son of Getaway and the Flemensfirth mare Crossbar Lady paid rich dividends when Tom Malone, acting for Paul Nicholls, gave £100,000 for the three-year-old. Offered from Tony Costello’s Treannahow Stables, his grandam is a half-sister to Calling Wild whose career was shaped by Nicholls.

Meanwhile, David Minton paid £58,000 for Roxborough Stud’s Getaway three-year-old out of an unraced own-sister to Shadow Eile and Corskeagh Royale, both Grade 2 winners and runners-up in Grade 1 contests. The €24,000 foal buy will be trained by Nicky Henderson.

THE first lot to break into six-figure territory, and one of the joint best prices on the day, was Oak Tree Farm’s son of Yeats out of the bumper, point-to-point and chase winner Talktothetail.

Norman Williamson of Oak Tree Farm congratulates Olly Murphy for his purchase of a son of Yeats for £105,000 /Sarah Farnsworth

Bought for €30,000 as a foal, his pedigree received a significant boost when his half-sister Roksana won this year’s Grade 1 mares’ hurdle at Cheltenham. Aiden Murphy won the day when his bid of £105,000 silenced all opposition and the agent revealed that the gelding would be trained by his son Olly.

Father and son added to their haul when paying £55,000 for Great Triumph, a three-year-old son of Galileo’s Group 1 Italian Derby winner Cima De Triomphe from Juliet Minton’s Mill House Stud. You have to go four generations back to find the pedigree’s outstanding performer, triple Grade 1 winner Don Poli.

Four lots sold for £100,000 or more this year, compared to one 12 months ago, and completing the quartet was a three-year-old son of Sholokov, a full-brother to a bumper winner and the best of the draft from Katie Rudd’s Busherstown.

Bloodstock agent Tom Malone and trainer Paul Nicholls knocked the wind out of Anthony Bromley with their winning bid of £100,000 for the gelding, whose dam is a Martaline half-sister to dual Grade 1 winning hurdler Yanworth. This was more than four times the gelding’s purchase price as a yearling.

The veteran Milan’s son of Baby Briggs, an own-sister as the name might suggest to the Aintree Grand National hero Ballabriggs, will be trained by a lady who has won the centrepiece of the great April festival of racing at Liverpool.

Lucinda Russell paid £80,000 for the gelding, a €15,000 foal purchase, on behalf of Colin and Nicola Drysdale’s Allson Sparkle Ltd. The vendor was Denis Cummins’ Rathurtin Stud.

Another Irish vendor to enjoy a successful pinhook was John Dwan’s Ballyreddin Stud in Co Kilkenny. His €21,000 foal buy, a son of Shantou from the family of leading hurdler Fortune And Fame, sold to Tessa Greatrex of Highflyer Bloodstock for £75,000.

A half-brother to two winners, including the graded-placed hurdler Fortunate George, he will now be trained by Ben Pauling.

GIGGINSTOWN House Stud’s news a week earlier that they were to withdraw from purchasing would appear to have had an immediate impact on the sale, though the longer term consequence is yet to be seen.

Opportunities certainly exist for new owners to buy into better quality lots at value, and two figures to emerge from the store sale that would indicate that it is more of a buyer’s market than a seller’s were the fact that the clearance rate fell from 84% to 80%, while the number of lots selling for £50,000 or more decreased from 27 to 22.

Niall Bleahen of Liss House sold a son of the little-known Noroit, a son of Getaway’s sire Monsun, to Aiden Murphy for £62,000 and this half-brother to a winner is out of an unraced half-sister to the Grade 1 Punchestown hurdle winner Quatre Heures.

Galway native Bleahen sourced the gelding as a foal in France from breeder Gilles Trapenard who stands the sire. Murphy was acting for Kim Bailey.

Shortly afterwards the Dauntsey Park-consigned Kayf Tara three-year-old gelding from the family of Doone Valley, the dam of Dramatist and grandam of Smith’s Man, realised £62,000 when sold to Fergal O’Brien. He was the sole offering from Tor Stugis’s farm.

The leading British-based sire for many years now, Kayf Tara was also responsible for the second-best filly in the sale by price, Ballincurrig House Stud’s daughter of the smart hurdler R De Rien Sivola. She was sold on behalf of Coolmara Stables for £56,000, more than doubling in value from the €30,000 she cost as a foal. Tom Symonds was the purchaser.

Ross Doyle and Colin Tizzard bought one of the sale toppers, the son of Getaway for £105,000, and they also secured the previous lot when paying £60,000 for Glenwood Stud’s Flemensfirth gelding from the family of the Grade 1 chase winner Strong Promise.

The first crop by Leading Light are three-year-olds and the best of his offerings at Doncaster was Trickledown Stud’s son of the bumper winner Keyaza. That mare is a half-sister to Grade 1 winning juvenile hurdler Pittoni and Grade 2 winning hurdler Calorando. Harry Fry had the final say at £57,000 for the gelding who sold to Tim Hyde as a foal for €27,000.

Ross Doyle and Colin Tizzard will be hoping they found another Lostintranslation or Reserve Tank /Sarah Farnsworth