THE Hong Kong Jockey Club acquired a Mehmas colt from Dermot and Catherine Dwan’s Kellsgrange Stud in Callan, Co Kilkenny for €500,000, a healthy profit on his 240,000gns foal price.

This colt is a full-brother to Quattroelle, a five-year-old mare who has won at Grade 2 level in the US this year and been placed in Grade 1 company. Michael Kinane, who bought four horses at the sale for the Hong Kong Jockey Club, said: “He’s a nice, lovely balanced horse, and his sister is a very good horse. If he’s half as good as her he should be fine. Mehmas is new on the scene in Hong Kong, and there’s only one or two I know of over there, so he’s in his infancy. But I see no reason why he shouldn’t work.”

A couple of hours earlier a New Bay filly was turning heads when selling for €480,000 to agent Hubie de Burgh and owner Craig Bernick’s Glen Hill Farm. Bred and sold by Joe Banahan’s Moortown House Stud outside Navan, the filly is a half-sister to You Send Me, a Group 3 runner-up this year for trainer Fozzy Stack and who races in the Bernick colours.

Bernick said: “She was our top choice today. She’s a beautiful filly, not as big and rangy as You Send Me, who is going to improve with age. This filly looks like she can run at two and be a miler at three. We’re excited to get her.” Aspen Grove won a Grade 1 race for Bernick and Stack in Belmont this summer and is being aimed at a Grade 1 race in Canada soon.

Senior starter

Joe Banahan, perhaps better known as the senior starter in Irish racing, said: “It’s incredible. You spend a lifetime trying to achieve these results and we have hit the board eventually. We only have three or four mares and my wife Edel does all the work while I am racing. Breeding thoroughbreds has been in my family for three generations. My late father Percy bred the good sprinter Almaty and Hong Kong star Military Attack.”

The Banahans acquired the filly’s dam Coco Rouge, a winning Shamardal half-sister to 1000 Guineas ‘first past the post’ Jacqueline Quest, for 17,000gns just over a decade ago. “I just thought she was a nice, big Shamardal mare who walked very well, and Jacqueline Quest had recently entered stud so I thought the page might take off,” said Banahan. “Luckily, it did, and Jacqueline Quest became a winner machine, with the likes of Line Of Duty and Onassis in the past, and now Jackie Oh.

“We made a few mistakes with sires early in Coco Rouge’s career, she was a little quiet but through no fault of her own, and then we sent her to Starspangledbanner and the result was You Send Me, who’s got her breeding record up and running.

“It was a handicapper friend of mine who put me onto New Bay. He told me after his first season he was getting phenomenal strike-rates with horses rated 90 or more. It shouldn’t have been possible, what he was doing, so I asked John O’Connor at Ballylinch Stud for a nomination, and luckily he agreed. The sire has been on an upward spiral ever since.”

Forenaghts

Tony Smurfit’s Forenaghts Stud achieved its best sale result under manager Caoimhe Doherty, with a Frankel half-sister to listed winner Magical Touch out of the multiple graded-winning Machiavellian mare Criticism selling to BBA Ireland for €400,000.

“She’s a beautiful filly with great size, a great walk and the most wonderful temperament,” said Doherty. “She did everything perfectly from the day she arrived at Goffs. The dam is in foal to Ghaiyyath, so we’re going for the Dubawi cross that produced Magical Touch, and we retained her Night Of Thunder two-year-old even though he’s a colt. He’s called Chicago Critic and he finished a close third to Jessica Harrington’s good Blue Point filly Bluedrum on debut recently, so maybe we’ll keep hold of the family in another way.”

A Dark Angel own-sister to Group 2 winner Birchwood, who was placed in the National Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, sold to Form Bloodstock for €425,000. The sale was watched by Guy and Serena O’Callaghan and baby James, and Guy said: “The filly is extremely well-bred and with the physical to match. We hope she’s very lucky for them.”