IRISH vendors Roderick Kavanagh, Norman Williamson and Brendan Holland sold the top three lots at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale on Wednesday evening, each one netting 600,000gns or more.

The two-day sale ended with a 75% clearance rate and an average price of 123,528gns, which is 7% higher than last year. The median price of 82,500gns is 8% lower than in 2022.

Selling under the Glending Stables banner, Kavanagh sold a colt by Havana Grey for 625,000gns to the Stroud Coleman agency. The half-brother to four minor winners, from the family of Anabaa, was bought by Kavanagh for just 42,000gns at the Tattersalls December Yearling Sale.

The vendors on that occasion, Childwickbury Stud, were taking a loss on the 52,000gns they paid for the Maywood Stud foal a year earlier.

Bloodstock agent Alex Elliott led much of the early running before Blandford Bloodstock’s Richard Brown emerged as the eventual underbidder. After winning that duel, Anthony Stroud said: "Havana Grey has done really well, he is a legitimate sire and had the good filly win today. [Mammas Girl in the Nell Gwyn]. The colt breezed well in good time and looks a two-year-old type."

Kavanagh commented: "Havana Grey has done so well and had the Group 3 winner today and an impressive one at that. You hope all the interested parties are going to pitch up and it has obviously got late in the sale and it is a bit lonely, but they all got there. We had some great judges on him. He is an athletic horse with a bit of scope and I don't think he is just a sprinter type, hopefully he will get seven furlongs or a mile."

He added: "This easily our best result, most of them make 25,000 guineas! When it happens, it happens. We have had a good week and the two have breezed so well, they are naturally fast horses. We are delighted. Cormac O'Flynn buys most of them with me, he is the brains of the outfit, I just get to hold the reins!"

Godolphin purchase

The Havana Grey colt was the fourth last lot in the catalogue and Stroud Coleman also paid the same amount (625,000gns) for the very next lot into the ring, a Blue Point colt from Norman Williamson's Oak Tree Farm. He is out of the Canford Cliffs mare Most Beautiful, trained by David Wachman to win a Group 3 race at the Curragh in 2015, when part-owned by rugby international Ronan O'Gara. She ended her racing career in America and has already bred a minor winner.

Her Blue Point colt was sold as a foal by Norelands Stud for 110,000gns and was bought back in as a yearling for 70,000gns when consigned by Shane Power's Tradewinds Stud.

Anthony Stroud had to see off Dubai-based agent Satish Seemar to land this colt and said: "He is for Godolphin. Blue Point has made a great start, this colt comes from a top consignor and he fits the profile. He will go to Charlie Appleby, who has a few by the sire and likes what he has."

The colt will be following in classic winning hoofprints, as Norman Williamson’s Oak Tree Farm sold the champion two-year-old and classic winner Native Trail here for 210,000gns two years ago.

A beaming Norman Williamson said: "All spring people have been telling me that they had Blue Points that could run. I kept my powder dry but I knew I had a good one and am thrilled. Although Native Trail went from this sale and won just six weeks later, this is a sharper sort than him and just feels like he is one to point and shoot - he feels fast. It has been a great week. It is what you do it for and the team have done a top job."

Touch landed

Brendan Holland of Grove Stud in Fermoy, Co Cork, landed a superb touch when he sold a Night Of Thunder filly for 600,000gns to agent Kerri Radcliffe. The filly is a half-sister to Group 3 winner Rumble Inthe Jungle and was bought by Holland for €90,000 at the Goffs Orby Sale last September from breeder Patrick Gleeson of Whiteoaks Stud.

She is the second highest-priced filly ever sold at the Craven Sale.

Radcliffe said: "She has got the pedigree so she got residual value and she comes from a great consignor. She did a lovely breeze, not one of the quickest times, that's not what I buy, I like to buy something that finishes out well. Whenever she hit the rising ground she took off, and that is what you want to see them do."

Of plans she outlined: "She is for a new client based in London and we don't know where she is going to go yet – give me 24 hours to think about it! I am getting on a plane to Florida in the morning so I have plenty of time to think of it. She will either stay in Britain or go to France."

Radcliffe added: "I saw her in February and loved her and physically she has done very well since then. Hopefully she will be very good, and, hopefully, she will be an Ascot filly."

A delighted Holland commented: "It is a great result for the farm,," he said. "I Ioved her when I bought her as a yearling, Night Of Thunder is a top class sire and she is from a really fast family. It is very hard to buy something with speed all the way through the page, which she has and to be by such a good sire.

"I did not dream that we could get a result like that today, but we did think at the farm that she was the best filly we have had since [Group 1 winner] Rosdhu Queen and we really liked her coming into the sale."

Recalling his inspired purchase last autumn, Holland said: "She had a great physique at the yearling sale, she was a May foal and she looked like she would improve physically. She has improved again, she is very mature, she has a great top and great limbs. You can get anything by the sire and he had the fastest sprinter in Europe last year and that was a filly. She was an easy buy at the sales, at the time it was a lot of money, but today has exceeded expectations."

She has been showing Holland plenty of talent at home.

"Her ability all spring was very evident. Even though she is a May filly, and she has to win her maiden, but there is a chance she could end up at Ascot – it is big shout for an unraced two-year-old filly, she looks like an Ascot horse.

"She has always been able to run, the running bit has been easy for her. On reflection she was a very good yearling buy, but giving €90,000 to pinhook any yearling is no small price."

FINAL FIGURES

YEAR CAT OFF SOLD AGGREGATE AVERAGE MEDIAN

2023 202 166 126 15,357,500gns 121,885gns 80,000gns

2022 164 134 103 11,939,500gns 115,917gns 90,000gns