Easy bumper winner Ocean Wind looks another Ascot bargain

A few will always slip through the net from an expansive operation such as Godolphin but it is unlikely that overseers of the draft at last year’s Tattersalls Ascot July Sale would have imagined it contained a possible Weatherbys Champion Bumper winner.

Ocean Wind was knocked down to Mark Goggin for just £9,000 as an unraced three-year-old and has made outstanding progress for trainer Roger Teal, winning at 28-1 on his debut at Huntingdon in November before taking a narrow second in a Listed event at Cheltenham on New Year's Day.

On Saturday he went even further by running away with another Listed race at Newbury, won in recent times by such as Al Ferof, Shutthefrontdoor, Definitly Red, Barters Hill and Ballyandy.

By Teofilo out of a Brazilian Grade 1 winner and still a colt, Ocean Wind does have some jumping in the family too, as his half-brother Three Kingdoms was a prolific hurdler for John Ferguson and ended up scoring in graded company as a novice chaser.

"We used Nat Barnett of Select Bloodstock, he pointed him out, so we took a gamble," said Goggin, who bought him for Rockingham Reins Limited, which runs horses for groups of company directors.

"We were told he’d had suspensory ligament problems in the past but that all came good, and he’s just paid for himself over and over again. He was definitely up there as something we wanted to buy, we bought two that day and he’s come good.

"We didn’t know he was a bumper horse, we thought he’d be more on the Flat, to be honest, but we’ll see where we go."

More to read...

Not So Sleepy provides his owner-breeders with best of Flat and jumps worlds

Stallion career beckons for Tiger Roll's half-brother Austrian School

Irish St Leger winner Sans Frontieres relocated to Vauterhill Stud