A FEATURE of this sale in recent years has been the consistent offering of blue chip breeding stock from Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown House Stud which produced a landmark moment in National Hunt history with the sale of Apple’s Jade last year.

This time it was the turn of another Gordon Elliott-trained Grade 1 winner to take centre stage as Shattered Love sold to Justin Owens of Mountarmstrong Stud in Donadea, Co Kildare, for €260,000.

A dual winner at the highest level, which took a win in the Golden Miller Novices’ Chase at Cheltenham, the 10-year-old daughter of Yeats retired as a seven-time blacktype winner with a host of notable placings to her name.

For good measure she was offered in foal to Walk In The Park and all this combined to make her a broodmare of distinguished appeal and quality.

Gigginstown jems

The Gigginstown draft yielded several other highs which featured the €190,000 sale of Tintangle.

A listed bumper winner and placed in a host of graded race over hurdles and fences, this daughter of Yeats was sold in foal to Crystal Ocean and she was snapped up by Kieran Mariga’s Coolmara Stables just a month after the Cork-based operation secured the Grand National runner-up Magic Of Light for €185,000.

Tintangle is a half-sister to another quality Gigginstown-owned runner in Tombstone.

There was another six-figure transaction in the offing when Ballylinch and Newtown Anner Studs combined to give €115,000 for Gigginstown’s Grade 3 winner Surin.

She was bought to visit Fascinating Rock who will stand at Burgage Stud in 2022 as he embarks on a career as a dual-purpose sire. The same axis also spent €80,000 on the capable The Sliding Rock.

Meanwhile, Cathal Ennis forked out €80,000 to secure Gigginstown’s Darling Daughter whose brief but productive career with Gordon Elliott was headed by a victory in the Grade 2 mares’ bumper at the 2020 Dublin Racing Festival.