WITH no crowds allowed at Cheltenham, and a suspension of point-to-pointing in Ireland seriously impacting on the supply chain for sales, this year’s version of the Tattersalls Cheltenham March Sale was a very different animal to any of its predecessors.

Nonetheless, the sale which was added to the end of Wednesday’s selling at the inaugural Tattersalls March Sale held in Park Paddocks, Newmarket, must be considered to have been satisfactory, and all but a pair of the 27 lots offered changed hands. All of the usual buying bench were in play, and most of the leading trainers in Ireland and Britain were active.

A listed winner in a long racing career, Crillon is best known in these parts as the sire of Buveur D’Air. Time will tell if the sire’s four-year-old son Au Fleuron proves to be as good.

With no recent point-to-points in Ireland, handler Denis Murphy was forced to take a different route with this French-bred, and he sent him to Tipperary a week before the sale, and there he ran out a most impressive winner of his point-to-point bumper over two and quarter miles.

Bought for £37,000 by Colin Bowe with Denis Murphy last July when he was offered at the Goffs UK store sale, this time he returned a handsome profit when selling to the Moran’s Bective Stud and Gordon Elliott for £220,000. He attracted bids from a number of different parties, including the eventual under-bidder Matt Coleman, before Richard Botterill’s gavel fell.

Waterford bound

Jamie Codd partnered Au Fleuron when he won at Tipperary, and he was in the saddle on the same day when the Shirocco five-year-old Ballybough Native won his point-to-point bumper by 13 lengths, also run over two and a quarter miles. Trained by Ian McCarthy, this gelding was unsold when his owner Mary Kearns offered him for sale two years ago. A bid of €25,000 would have seen him on the market that day, but the decision to keep him reaped dividends.

Now Ballybough Native will be headed to the Co Waterford base of Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle and Champion Chase winning trainer Henry de Bromhead, who struck the winning bid of £195,000 via telephone. Out of a five-time winning hurdler and chaser, Ballybough Native is from the family of the Grade 2 Paddy Power and Troytown Chase winner Cane Brake.

Cormac Doyle of Monbeg Stables offered a four-year-old gelding from the first crop of the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes winner Telescope, a son of Galileo. Named Pay The Pilot, he was runner-up on his debut in a two and a half mile point-to-point bumper at Punchestown. The gelding will now be trained by Kim Bailey after being purchased for £130,000 by Aiden Murphy. Pay The Pilot was bought at last year’s Derby Sale for €20,000.

Strike twice

Murphy and Bailey also combined to purchase the Michael Kennedy-trained Hurlerontheditch for £85,000. Having unseated his rider on his point-to-point debut in November, the Shirocco five-year-old made amends when he won a point-to-point bumper at Wexford recently for his owner and breeder Conor Murphy.

A €26,000 buy at the 2019 Goffs Land Rover Sale by Gearoid Costelloe, Complete Unknown unseated his rider in a point-to-point in Britain 14 months ago on his debut. Not seen again until the middle of March this year, the Jonathan Fogarty-trained five-year-old gelding by Dylan Thomas caught the imagination of a number of bidders.

On his racecourse debut at Thurles he won at 50/1, but it was the manner of his victory, and the fact that he beat the Willie Mullins-trained, Cheveley Park Stud-owned Deploy The Getaway, that made people sit up and take notice. Tom Malone and Megan Nicholls secured him for £115,000, a little over half what Deploy The Getaway sold for two years ago.

Ernest Grey

Barry O’Neill rode Complete Unknown to victory, and he will have had a yardstick when it came to evaluating the worth of Ernest Gray’s win at Punchestown recently.

The four-year-old son of Walk In The Park, sire of Douvan and Min, is the first foal, runner and winner for his Grade 3 chase winning dam Emily Gray, a daughter of Flemensfirth. From a top-class female line – his fourth dam was the Cheltenham Stayers’ Hurdle winner Rose Ravine – Ernest Grey cost €62,000 last year at the Land Rover Sale.

Winning a two and a quarter mile point-to-point bumper at Punchestown, and being trained by Colin Bowe, many might have tipped him before the sale to make more than he did. He sold to Anthony Bromley of Highflyer Bloodstock for £105,000.

The two lots which failed to sell were Navan bumper-placed Corbeau at £290,000, and Tipperary point-to-point bumper winner Mr Fred Rogers at £115,000.

With Irish point-to-points set to resume on April 10th, and English pointing already back, Tattersalls Cheltenham is already planning for the April Sale which will be held again at Park Paddocks.