PART two of the July Store Sale at Tattersalls Ireland on Thursday wound up the 2023 store sale season in fairly low-key fashion and it was tough enough going for vendors, as the clearance rate of 55% suggests.

At the culmination of the session €748,000 worth of stock changed hands for an average of €6,032 and a median of €5,000.

French-bred stores have been very much in vogue this season but it was the turn of a German-bred gelding to find favour on Thursday when Derek O’Connor paid €32,000 for the day’s top lot. A son of the German 2000 Guineas winner and German Derby runner-up Lucky Lion, the gelding is out of Ajesha, a very smart jumps mare in Germany and Italy, winning six times in total.

Already named Arthur, the three-year-old was consigned by Niall Bleahen’s Liss House and, after signing for him under Eoin Barry/Sean Aherne, O’Connor said: “He is for an existing client of Sean’s. Sean wants to build up a nice young bunch of horses. This horse will probably go down the bumper route for education and hopefully will then make up into a good racehorse further down the line. He is very athletic and he’s out of a good mare so he could be a nice horse.”

‘He stood out today’

Glen Stables offered a grey son of the mighty Yeats and he proved another of the more popular horses of the day when knocked down to Darren O’Dwyer for €27,000. Out of the three-time French winner Dahara from the family of Coko Beach, the gelding is also a half-brother to bumper and hurdles winner Valentina Lady.

“This horse has a good pedigree and is by a great sire, he stood out today,” said O’Dwyer. “He’ll head down to Eoin Doyle in Kilkenny. They will break him in and assess him from there.”

The Crawford brothers bought six horses on Wednesday and the Larne team were back in action on Thursday where their spending was headed by a son of Getaway who cost €24,000. From Mountain View Stud, this gelding is out of Misty Rose, an unraced full-sister to the Grade 1 winning chaser Ballycasey.

Stuart Crawford, who had earlier bought a Youmzain gelding from the family of Opera Hat for €18,000, said of the Getaway youngster: “He is a fine horse, options are open for him. I think that’s the fourth or fifth purchase today, I should have gone home yesterday!”

Hughes does business

Cian Hughes is making a name for himself in both the breeze-up and the point-to-point sectors, with Chantry House the main equine name he has had through his hands to date, and he made a €20,000 purchase under his CH Thoroughbreds banner.

The Mahler gelding was offered by Great Downs Farm as the property of Tom Birmingham, and his page features the Willie Mullins-trained, high-class chaser Dysart Dynamo, as well as the dual Grade 2 winner Gales Cavalier.

Willie Browne’s Mocklershill Stables is more associated with selling high-end breeze-up horses than stores but he sold one of the higher priced lots of the day when Sam Curling, a Tipperary neighbour of Browne, paid €13,000 for an Ocovango gelding.

The property of Brigitte Neilson, the gelding is from the family of high class staying hurdler Lord Transcend and will target a point-to-point next year.

It’s rare to have buyers from Eastern Europe at an Irish store sale but Tomas Janda, a familiar face at European yearling sales, was in town this week with a client of his and he made his journey from Czech Republic worthwhile when buying two lots.

Janda gave €11,000 for a Kingston Hill gelding offered by Peter Nolan out of the dual winning Kalanisi mare Western Home.