THE announcement, half an hour in advance of the sale starting at 10am, that the ice-cream man had arrived on site, prefaced a day of sizzling trade at the inaugural Somerville Yearling Sale at Newmarket.

It was both an inaugural sale, and a rebranding of an existing sale, having started life in 2017 as the Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale. Moved last year to Park Paddocks, something that found favour with vendors and purchasers, it was decided to retain it there for 2021. Hence the same venue and the new name.

The new formula certainly worked, with 17 lots selling for 50,000gns or more, a notable achievement when you consider that the top lot a year ago realised 58,000gns. The sale, in its previous guises, has been remarkably successful when it comes to producing winners, this year’s Royal Ascot winner Chipotle selling a year ago for 10,000gns. The Group 2 Lowther Stakes winner Miss Amulet, a £7,500 purchase, is another star graduate.

Tuesday’s sale had a single six-figure lot, Petches Farm’s son of Twilight Son, and he cost Adam Driver of Global Equine Group 120,000gns. Petches Farm is owned by Baileys Horse Feeds’ managing director Paul Venner, and his son Simon, the firm’s sales director, was on hand to oversee the sale.

He said: “We weren’t quite expecting that level; we were very hopeful as we knew we were bringing a nice individual to the sale. All the right people were on him. He has always been quite an eye-catcher, very strong and straightforward, and he has not taken too much work.

“He has been flat out since getting here. He showed himself off greatly. I think he owned the runway in the Further Yard; he caught a few eyes. It is nice when it works out. Obviously Petches is linked with Baileys, so it’s nice to show that the feed works! Ollie Costello joined us last November as stud manger and it is one of the reasons why we are doing yearlings. It is great result for him and the team.”

The dam of the colt, Baileys Jubilee, was a listed winner in France at two and finished third in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes. When she came out of racing she was suffering with laminitis and hopes were not high. She is now an 11-year-old, has had six foals, and is in foal to Oasis Dream.

Magic

The purchaser Adam Driver said: “We will get him back to Jo Fenton’s and she will work her magic, break him in and get him backed. He is a strong solid horse, so we will see what he shapes up into. He is for Raed El Youssef for whom we bought some breeze-up horses. We’ve had a bit of luck with the breeze-up horses, so he thought he’d buy a few yearlings. No trainer has been decided upon yet. This is the only horse that I bid on and he is the only horse on my short list.”

The sale-topper was lucky to get to Tattersalls at all, the lorry bring the two Petches Farm yearlings being involved in an accident.

Ollie Costello, who was following the lorry to Newmarket and was about five minutes behind, said: “The lorry was run off the road; it is a write-off. I rang Keith Harte, whose farm is only five minutes away. He jumped in his own lorry and came out to us. Both yearlings behaved impeccably and swapped over on the road. Thank god everyone involved and the horses were all okay.”

Ardad and Kodiac feature

THE first crop successes of Ardad will fuel plenty of interest in his stock at the upcoming sales, and he had a pair of yearlings realise 50,000gns or more this week. Scarlett Knipe’s Cobhall Court Stud bred and consigned his daughter of the Lujain mare Sparkling Eyes, She made 85,000gns and was bought online – even though he was at the sale - by Robson Aguiar with Amo Racing.

“We sell foals mainly – I am going home now to do 11 that will be here in December!” said Knipe, adding “However, we keep the fillies to sell as yearlings. This filly was never really in the box here, and she has been as good as gold, a joy to deal with. The dam is in foal to Havana Grey and she has a colt foal by Tasleet. I like to go for good-looking sires, ones that I hope are going to come out straight and correct.”

Aguiar is familiar with the Overbury Stud stallion. He said: “I bought a few by Ardad last year and I breezed Perfect Power [Group 1 winner] and Ardad himself. I like to buy horses that I think will be good racehorses. I look at everything in the catalogue and make a short list of five or six and try to buy them.”

Peter and Ross Doyle Bloodstock paid 50,000gns for Throckmorton Court Stud’s Ardad colt out of a full-sister to Group 2 winner and Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes-placed Finjann. The colt is already a half-brother to two winners, the dam’s first pair of runners.

Ardad’s sire Kodiac was responsible for a filly from Canice Farrell’s Kockatrina House who sold for 70,000gns. He bought the dam, Sahool, at the Tattersalls December Mares Sale in 2016 for 4,500gns. The pedigree then received a major boost when her Pivotal son Larraib won the Group 3 Cumberland Lodge Stakes at Ascot.

Keeping faith

Sahool’s 2020 filly by Kodiac went through the ring as a foal but was not sold. Now she justified Farrell’s faith when selling to Roger Marley and Kevin Ryan.

“I have kept a daughter and she is in foal to Kodiac,” said Farrell. Speaking of the yearling, he added: “She has got a great mind, she is a lovely athletic filly and I like her a lot. She had 100 plus shows. We’ve had a lot of good horses over the years, three or four Group 1 winners, but I really think she will be a Royal Ascot filly.

“I thought she might get a bit lost in Book 2, but she is in the top 10% here. The man who has done all the work with her is Brendan Cooney.”

SIRES with their first yearlings on offer were among those making the headlines too. The first yearling colt by Expert Eye to sell at Park Paddocks realised 80,000gns, bought by Freddy Tylicki with Smarden Thoroughbreds and Steve Bradley. He was sold by Michael Fitzpatrick’s Kilminfoyle House Stud, pinhooked by JC Bloodstock for 41,000gns, the most expensive pinhook offering on Tuesday.

“I loved him, I thought he was the pick of the sale, I am very taken as to how well Expert Eye is throwing them,” said Tylicki. “This is for a client, and we were very keen on this lad. There is a lovely update on the page [two-year-old half-sister won] as well and this horse has it all going for him.

“He has a lovely physique, great walk to him, plenty of presence, very good eye to him. He ticked a lot of the boxes – probably all of them!” The colt is also a half-brother to two stakes winners, Cay Dancer and Dynamic. Their winning dam is a Dalakhani half-sister to Balisada, winner of the Group 1 Coronation Stakes.

A daughter of Showcasing’s son Tasleet sold for 75,000gns to an online bid from Robson Aguiar. She was consigned by Trickledown Stud on behalf of Richard Tucker’s Nelson Farm. “She is one that just has everything; she has just got such a good mind on her. She just enjoyed being shown, walking up and down in a heatwave!” smiled Paul Thorman.

“Auctioneer Ollie [Fowlston] said when she was in the ring that she could be a Queen Mary filly – I know we all like to think it of our fillies, but I really think she could be. Hey, anyone could consign a filly like her, she consigned herself!”

Of her sire, Thorman added: “Lots of people are saying by the end of October he’ll be the one we’ll all be talking about. There are some nice ones round.”

Eye-catching

Kessaar was another sire whose first yearlings were catching the eye. Tally-Ho Stud sold a pair of his sons for 62,000gns and 52,000gns. Oliver St Lawrence bought the more expensive, a half-brother to six winners, five of them successful at two. “He goes to Phil Makin and Steve Burdett. Hopefully he can win some nice two-year-old races and we can put on our top hats!” said St Lawrence.

The sale’s leading buyer, Sheikh Abdullah Alamalek Alsabah, spent over a quarter of his 200,000gns outlay on six lots on Kessaar’s son of the winning Zebedee mare Hope And Faith.

A daughter of Jungle Cat sold for 60,000gns. She was consigned by Jamie Railton and is a half-sister to the stakes-placed Umneyati. His two lots sold for an average of 50,000gns. Winner of the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint, Jungle Cat is a son of Iffraaj and stood one season at Kildangan Stud.

NIGHT Of Thunder had two yearlings for sale and both performed well.

Kevin Ross spent 78,000gns on Whatton Manor Stud’s colt out of the winning two-year-old Fleabiscuit, a daughter of High Chaparral. “He is by a proper sire, and he is a good solid colt. He is out of mare who had a lot of ability. I just liked him as an individual,” said Ross, adding “It has been a strong sale, anything we liked it has been hard to get them.”

One of the last lots in the sale was Houghton Bloodstock’s Night Of Thunder daughter of a winning Iffraaj mare, the immediate family of Group 1 winner Aoife Alainn. She cost Amo Racing and Robson Aguiar 50,000gns.

Kevin Ross spent just 4,000gns less than the leading buyer, and his four purchases averaged 49,000gns. He spent 68,000gns for the filly with the best update in the sale, Cooneen Stud’s Dandy Man half-sister to the unbeaten Group 3 Prix d’Arenberg winner Corazon.

The Galloway Stud-consigned Zoustar filly out of a winning Oasis Dream mare was bought by MC Bloodstock for 70,000gns. She is out of Cordial who has had two winners from two runners, her only foals of racing age, and they have won eight times. Sadly Cordial died last year.

Domination

Tally-Ho Stud dominated the leading vendors’ table, selling 19 lots for 522,500gns, more than the next three vendors – Trickledown, Yeomanstown and Lynn Lodge – combined. Among them was Nigel Tinkler and Jamie Piggott’s purchase for 65,000gns of a filly by Awtaad, from the family of Mount Nelson. Another Tally-Ho standout was a filly by Mehmas, half-sister to six winners including listed scorer Liber, who sold to Peter and Ross Doyle Bloodstock for 50,000gns.

Completing the line-up of lots to sell for 50,000gns or more were Norris Bloodstock’s Time Test half-sister to this year’s juvenile winner Vaunted, bought by Blandford Bloodstock for 55,000gns, and Ballyphilip Stud’s Starspangledbanner filly out of a Kodiac winning half-sister to Group 1 winner Xtension and the dams of Group 1 winners Harry Angel and Supremacy. Clive Cox bought for 50,000gns.

Chairman’s summing up

AT the conclusion of the sale, chairman Edmond Mahony commented: “We are absolutely delighted with today’s inaugural Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale. We had no choice but to relocate last year’s Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale to Park Paddocks and it proved to be a great success, which made the decision to rebrand and permanently relocate the fixture a relatively straightforward one.

“Sale turnover of double last year’s wide-margin record level, as well as huge rises in average and median, fully vindicate the decision and suggest that the Somerville Yearling Sale can legitimately be regarded as Europe’s most progressive yearling sale.

“There has been a genuinely vibrant atmosphere around Park Paddocks for the past few days and, just as with last week’s Tattersalls August Sale, it has been a pleasure to have been able to conduct the Somerville Yearling Sale without the need for any restrictions. We have welcomed buyers from throughout Europe and further afield, but perhaps the most encouraging feature of today’s sale has been the prolific number of British trainers who have been active.

“They have all contributed to a sale which has produced more lots sold for 50,000gns or above than the previous four Ascot Yearling Sales combined, a record top price of 120,000gns and a clearance rate well over 80%.”