THIS year’s two-day Goffs February Sale produced a vastly improved set of results when compared with its predecessor, and this was in spite of having some 50 less lots on offer.

Consisting principally of weanlings and breeding stock, it was the youngsters that boosted the trade enormously, with three of their number selling for six-figure sums.

Comparatively speaking, the days of the sale produced two very different sets of results. Most of the first day’s figures were down from 12 months earlier, while a much improved second day saw more of the star lots appear. Nonetheless, Wednesday’s trade was dominated by the sale of a Space Blues weanling, bred by Derek Iceton and sold from Tara Stud. Though he was not at the sale, the ever-colourful Clive Washbourn lit up the ring when, speaking by telephone with John Hyland of Oghill House Stud, he opened the bidding on a well-bred daughter of Space Blues.

Hyland takes up the story: “I opened her at €100,000 – those were my instructions. Clive is delighted; he’s jumping up and down at the other end of the phone. She is a beautiful filly and has been bought to race. She will come back to Oghill House now for a break. She is well-bought and has great residual value too as a broodmare. I am thrilled for Derek Iceton and family – she is coming from a great home. We are delighted to get her.”

Hyland saw off the opposition with a final bid of €150,000. The filly is a half-sister to two pattern winners, Selenaia who won the Honeymoon Stakes at Santa Anita in 2023, and Higher Leaves who landed last year’s Group 3 Prix Fille de l’Air.

Iceton could not hide his delight at the outcome, and said: “I never thought that a horse of mine would open at €100,000! I can’t believe it and I am just delighted she sold so well; we didn’t expect it to go like that. We were offered a lot of money for the mare and decided to keep her, but you have to sell something, which is why we sold this filly.”

TWO exceptionally well-related colts from Moyglare Stud, sold as consecutive lots, left all sides pleased when they headed the final day of the sale on Thursday. “If they had made a hundred [thousand] each, I’d have been doing handstands,” commented the stud’s Fiona Craig afterwards, but they did much better.

A son of Blue Point sold to Tony and Roger O’Callaghan of Tally-Ho Stud for €250,000, while a Study Of Man colt realised €165,000, signed for by Matt Coleman in the name of The Investors.

The sale-topper is from a family deeply embedded in the history of the Maynooth-based farm, being the second produce of a wining own-sister to dual Group 3 winner Carla Bianca, and a half-sister to the stakes-winning dam of Moyglare’s 2022 Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas winner Homeless Songs. The female line is packed with stakes winners. Plans for the colt are fluid, according to the purchasers.

Speaking of his €165,000 purchase as he dashed to catch a plane, Matt Coleman said: “I thought he was the best-looking weanling here over the two days. I have a lot of respect for Study Of Man as a stallion, a sire that has been doing it the hard way. I think he is a stallion who will do better and better over the coming years.”

He added: “Moyglare needs no introduction as a nursery to raise good racehorses. The dam [the Dark Angel mare Titanium Sky] is blacktype, Sparkling Sea [a Starspangledbanner half-sister] is blacktype, so he has all the ingredients to be a good racehorse in the future. He is going back to the UK and then I will speak to the client. I am not sure what his plans are. He was a horse that I highlighted yesterday, and the one we targeted. Delighted we got him and, as always, he made the max of what we wanted to give for him, but that is always the way.”

GLENVALE Stud’s Ciaran ‘Flash’ Conroy spent €90,000 to secure a son of Camelot from The Castlebridge Consignment, before losing out to Paul and Archie McCartan of Ballyphilip Stud on a weanling colt by Churchill.

The colt is a full-brother to a two-year-old now with Joseph O’Brien, and Conroy had successfully pinhooked him from a €65,000 foal to a €225,000 yearling. The pair are half-brothers to four winners, and this week’s offering was from Paddy Kelly’s Ballybin Stud.

McCartan senior had his eyes on the colt from the outset. He said: “A lovely horse, and I believe his full-brother was a lovely horse too. He has a great pedigree and I love the Holy Roman Emperor [damsire] in it. I am using Churchill too, and this was the one I wanted to get this week, and I am glad I got him. I’d often meet [Flash Conroy] on one. We have similar tastes.”

Minutes beforehand, Conroy was the winner in a bidding duel for a Camelot colt whose two-year-old full-sister was sold from Glenvale Stud last year to Blandford Bloodstock for 575,000gns.

The colt’s family has especially successful in recent times. His Azamour dam Shamooda’s own daughter Shamida enjoyed three of her four wins in Group 3 races, while her Night Of Thunder granddaughter Dynamic Pricing was a Grade 2 winner in the USA last year. Conroy said: “Sure he is by a proven horse, with a great pedigree, a superb Aga Khan family. The full-sister last year was very nice.”

Sexton buys

On behalf of MK Bloodstock, Nancy Sexton spent €82,000 on the first day for Ballynure Park Stud’s weanling son of Ghaiyyath, out of the Listed Cheshire Oaks runner-up Entertainment. The half-brother to two winners will “most likely be kept to race” according to Sexton.

She added: “He’s for a long-established client of another agent who couldn’t be here. Ghaiyyath has enjoyed a good couple of weeks. His stock needs a bit of time and people have cottoned on to that now.”

Both the second and third dams of the colt had eight winners each. The grandam Opera Comique bred a Grade 1 Arlington Million winner, while third dam Grace Note is responsible for Belmez, winner of the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

THE breeding stock section of the sale produced spirited bidding for the better lots, but there were few of great quality in the catalogue. Best of this group was a pair of fillies, both heading to the paddocks now.

Placed at two in the Group 2 Airlie Stud Stakes, the Sioux Nation four-year-old filly Ashwiyaa won twice, in Ireland and later in England, and was placed again in a blacktype race, the Listed Legacy Stakes at Dundalk. Part of The Castlebridge Consignment, she sold to Gay and David O’Callaghan’s Yeomanstown Stud for €92,000. David said: “She is a very strong filly, with great action. She showed a high level of form on the track. She will visit Mill Stream this year.”

Group 1 July Cup winner Mill Stream starts his new career at Yeomanstown Stud, standing alongside the 2024 champion sire Dark Angel, at a fee of €12,500. Ashwiyaa’s dam is a half-sister to Suedois who won the Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile in the USA, the Group 2 Solonaway Stakes in Ireland, and a pair of Group 3s in England and France.

A daughter of Dariyan, Dream Ticket was a supplementary entry, and was sold by Oghill House Stud to Mags O’Toole for €78,000. Twice runner-up at two in Dundalk, the four-year-old won last year for trainer Willie McCreery. A half-sister to the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere winner Naaqoos, Dream Ticket traces to a Ballymacoll Stud family.

O’Toole said that the purchaser, a longstanding client, will send the filly to be covered in South Africa. “She has an outstanding pedigree, and my client is delighted to get her”, said the agent.