THIS is normally a busy fortnight at Goffs and at home. The Land Rover Sale was scheduled to have taken place on Tuesday and Wednesday and, on Sunday, I expected to travel to London to check on final preparations for Monday’s Goffs London Sale, before returning home on Tuesday morning for the lead-in to next weekend’s Body & Soul Festival.

With racing behind closed doors, that is simply not part of the proposition next week. However, it will be again one day, and hopefully we will not find our parking space occupied by Tattersalls in 12 months’ time.

Mehmas winner

Among those on offer at Monday’s online Tatterslls sale is Muker, one of two winners on the day recently for first season Tally-Ho stallion Mehmas. He was bred by Joe and June Staunton at Milltown House Stud, near Kells, which is owned by June’s father Noel Finegan and run by her sister Jill. Indeed, the animal’s conception would have involved a journey right past our door as both Tally-Ho and Ballinlough sit on the N52.

Noel will turn 90 this year so is probably our most senior client to sell foals every year. One benefit of the social distancing protocol is that it gives him the perfect excuse to avoid me when I call to see their horses next week. I have drunk dozens of cups of tea in that kitchen, when Noel, often in a collar and tie, grills me on exactly who owns every parcel of land for sale from Navan to Mullingar while recounting, in accurate and fascinating detail, varying characters and events that have shaped the equestrian, agricultural and social landscape of our neighbourhoods. Hopefully a visit to discuss his foals later in the year will have a more familiar feel.

Muker was bought at Goffs as a foal by Tom Burns, whose eponymous father is well known as the resident vet in Derrinstown. Tom Jnr is a key member of the Tally-Ho team and offered Muker for sale in August at Doncaster where I happened to be the auctioneer. When he entered the ring at 6.30 on the second evening, less than 10 lots from the end of the Premier Sale, the late hour was not entirely to the disadvantage of the vendor.

It had enabled one party of buyers to enjoy a lunch of significant length, every added minute of which appeared to have added to their enthusiasm to own the colt. They even started cheering before I dropped the hammer so I can only imagine their celebrations when the colt won at Newcastle. What a pity that they could not be present at the racecourse to entertain us all again.

The scene at the Goffs London Sale last year \Sarah Farnsworth

Deserved compensation

One colt that we would all like to own is Kameko, whose victory in last weekend’s 2000 Guineas was a deserved compensation for Sheikh Fahad’s Qatar Racing and their manager David Redvers, who lost Roaring Lion last August to colic. Both horses are by Kitten’s Joy so that sire line looks set to revive at Redvers’ Tweenhills Stud.

Sheikh Fahad has been involved in racing for only 10 years but has made a lasting impression, from owning a Melbourne Cup winner to riding in charity races in Ireland, as well as having a go at several different aspects of the thoroughbred game. He certainly looks fit and well on it all – indeed a “before and after” picture of him would encourage anybody especially, one hopes, a member of a Middle Eastern Royal family, to become part of the thoroughbred world in these two islands.

When Sheikh Fahad’s jockey Oisín Murphy won the 2019 UK championship, it was the 13th by an Irish jockey in the last 25 years, following those won by Pat Eddery, Kieren Fallon, Jamie Spencer and Richard Hughes. There is every reason to hope that Murphy can yet rank with the best of them.

Oisín’s interview facemask which looked like a hybrid of John Wayne’s neckerchief and a pair of black underpants \Healy Racing

He has certainly developed, both on and off the horse, since bursting onto the scene in September 2013 when winning four races on Ayr Gold Cup day. Jockeys are generally a well-tailored lot so I was somewhat puzzled by Oisín’s interview facemask which looked like a hybrid of John Wayne’s neckerchief and a pair of black underpants. Hopefully he can get something better fitting, in the Qatar colours, for Kameko’s next outing.

The 2000 Guineas sadly coincided with our family goldfish, a veteran of Katie’s last Christmas in 2009, being summoned to the great aquarium in the sky. Things had been looking dodgy for a few days and Alice even invested in a new air filter, in the hope that it might have the effect of a piscine ventilator. To no avail. Indeed, I almost met my own Waterloo this week, with a close shave in a field of 18 colts.

At that moment there was little comfort, I can tell you, in my face-mask or the knowledge that my hands were well sanitised. As a result, I am not entirely unhappy that yearling visits will be completed shortly before we move on to the breeze-up sales – a complete reversal of the normal sequence of events.

I was invited to join an online debate last week about breeze-up matters including measuring and weighing horses, as well as the pros and cons of official timing. On a personal level, I have listened to the arguments for, and against, official timing and am always surprised that jockeys’ weights seldom feature in the discussion.

Another idea mooted recently was that horses should breeze for three, rather than two, furlongs. Sales occurring later in the year may give this some traction but I suspect that the formats are unlikely to change too quickly. Mind you, when I started in the sales business, the only two breeze-ups in the UK were at Ascot and at Doncaster. Most horses came up in twos and threes at a good, but certainly not extreme, speed, so there has definitely been quite a shift there.

I will travel on the ferry to Doncaster for the Goffs and Arqana Sale and am unlikely to get on an aeroplane until the end of July. When that happens, I will be ready for any sniffing, space-invading passengers that have so often been drawn alongside me in the pre-covid era.

Years of irritable intolerance will manifest itself as I apply multiple layers of gloves and masks and then spray everything in reach before probably opening the bottle and tipping the rest of the sanitiser over me like a marathon runner after the line. I am just not quite sure how to react if anybody does exactly the same thing while glaring at me.

It has been a funny few months but hopefully the end is in sight.