Godolphin has had not had much success with horses by Sea The Stars in recent years but they still have a lot of faith in the Gilltown Stud sire, judging by their purchases in recent weeks.

At Goffs two weeks ago Godolphin spent €900,000 on a Sea The Stars colt from Norelands Stud, and last week at Tattersalls they acquired a 1.6 million guineas Sea The Stars colt from Kildaragh Stud. On Monday at Tattersalls the trend continued when Godolphin bought two Sea The Stars colts for 875,000gns and 475,000gns.

And Sheikh Mohammed's team came back for more on Tuesday at Tattersalls, going to 550,000gns for the a Sea The Stars colt from Folland-Bowen Bloodstock and bred by Fiona Marner of Windmill Farm in Berkshire.

This colt is out of the Shamardal mare Kitcarina. A delighted Marner said she bought the mare out of André Fabre's yard as a maiden and put her in training with Andrew Balding, who trained her to win a race, albeit a modest all-weather handicap.

"We sent her to Sea The Stars for her first cover, a foal share kindly arranged by the late John Clarke, and went back to the sire again and produced this colt," she said. "He foaled with me and spent his time with us until going to Natalie and Matt to prep, they are based at Fonthill Stud and it is such a lovely farm, beautiful land. This colt has always been just such a lovely person and individual, and I am so pleased for Natalie and Matt, it is so nice to see young people getting on."

The mare had a filly by Baaeed this spring and was covered by Showcasing.

Godolphin's best horses by Sea The Stars to date include the French-trained Cloth Of Stars and the Charlie Appleby-trained pair Endless Time and Ottoman Fleet.

Amo Racing/Al Shaqab

Tuesday's top lot was a Too Darn Hot filly out of Lola Paige which sold for 600,000gns to Al Shaqab / Amo Racing. The transaction reduced Robert "Chocolate" Thornton, stud manager at Paul Dunkley's Appletree Stud, to tears. It is the highest price achieved to date by the farm.

"Paul puts so much into the stud," said Thornton. "She is a queen, I thought she'd get 200,000gns or so, and then thought maybe 400,000gns, but to do that... She has been a star all the way through, and of course we were tempted to keep her, but the boss has put a lot of money in he deserves to get some back.

"We have been with Too Darn Hot from the word go, and we have already produced a filly by him with another Galileo mare*, she is training with Roger [Varian] and has not run yet, but she is gorgeous. We sold a foal by him very well and the sire has done us well."

*That foal by Too Darn Hot and sold by the farm was out of Astonishing, bought by Stroud Coleman Bloodstock for 270,000gns at the December Foal Sale in 2021.

Asked to expand a little further as to why this filly is so special, he added: "This filly always moved well and looked the part, she has taken everything so well. It is brilliant. The mare had another filly by the sire this year, and she is arguably stronger at the same stage, she will be one we keep!"

Buyer Alex Elliott said: "She has been split between Al Shaqab and Amo, a trainer yet to be decided, but we have a team of trainers who we are very happy with and she will go to one of those.

"Both sides gave her top marks, she is by Too Darn Hot, who is a global stallion now, and she is out of a Galileo mare. She was always going to cost a lot of money."

A Camelot for Coolmore

Also on Tuesday, Coolmore Stud's M.V. Magnier gave 500,000gns for a Camelot filly from Ballylinch Stud. She is out of the multiple listed winner Fort Del Oro (by Lope De Vega), already the dam of Fast Attack, who was Group 3-placed.

"Camelot has had a exceptional year, the lads liked the filly a lot and, in fairness to Ballylinch, the farm is a very good breeder," Magnier explained. "They sent a good mare to Camelot and were rewarded with a nice filly and we are happy to have bought her.

John O'Connor of Ballylinch Stud added: "We are very happy with that price, we were pretty confident she would sell well. She is a beautiful filly with the best combination of Camelot and Lope De Vega. The mare was very quick, she has already bred a good one, so the pedigree is stacking up for everyone. Then her physical, her temperament and her ability to show is just exceptional. Pretty well most of the big operations were interested."

Of the decision to use Camelot on Fort Del Oro, he outlined: "It is interesting, we have done some statistics that indicates that Camelot does well with fast mares, which was not something I expected. Camelot is a very solid sire, I like him, he brings a lot of quality and class and then if you get the right individual you can be in business. I liked her a lot – we were tempted to keep her, I would have quite liked her to walk around the paddocks at home!"

As Tuesday's session drew near its end, the day's average price was running at just over 111,000gns (10% ahead of Monday) and the median was 75,000gns (about 15% better than Monday). The clearance rate was hitting over 91%, again a very high mark.

The Book 2 sale concludes on Wednesday.

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