Goresbridge wildcard provides latest smart pinhook for Ger and Yvonne Kennedy

Ger and Yvonne Kennedy do not seem the types to be wise after the event. Given the way the County Tipperary-based brother and sister have managed to find small-change yearlings and convert them into big-money breeze-ups, it seems to work best to stay a little under the radar.

Friday’s Tattersalls Ireland Goresbridge Sale represented the latest good result for the Kennedys’ Sherbourne Lodge.

A Dialed In colt named Onesmoothoperator was knocked down to Richard Brown of Blandford Bloodstock for £140,000 after being sourced for just $5,000 at Fasig-Tipton last October. He is now likely to be part of the agent’s Never Say Die resale syndicate and sent to David Simcock.

It rivalled their feat at the Guineas Sale in 2016 when a Mayson colt bought for £9,000 went through for 140,000gns, while at this month’s rescheduled Guineas event a Goken sold nicely for 60,000gns.

"We had a grand year, thankfully," said Ger Kennedy. "Everyone was very worried - there were people looking at them at home but it’s very hard to value a good horse, as such.

"We’re in the business of selling them and thankfully Richard Brown, who bought him, we’d sold him Pellucid [Group-placed and subsequently resold for $175,000 at Keeneland] before that, they know the horses we’ll be selling.

Ger Kennedy was modest about finding the colt for $5,000Credit: Laura Green

"He’s bought for himself and clients, maybe to win a race and sell them back to America or another part of the world. It’s great to have people like that doing things like that in the current climate."

Kennedy, who mixes breeze-ups with yearling prep and farming, has been in this particular game for 25 years now. He revealed no great art to sourcing the Dialed In colt whose dam, Sueno d’Oro, has produced a couple of minor winners.

"I’ve gone to the sale for the last couple of years," he said. "He had a nice presence about him. A great action and a lovely colour.

"It was a Medaglia d’Oro mare, but you have to see it what looks like after that. Like everyone, you do your list, go round looking at the horses and draw your own conclusions.

"I didn’t know I was going to buy him for $5,000, I can’t believe I did, to be honest, but those things happen at auctions. He was a beautiful moving, good scopey horse, but that’s the way it is."

They slipped in as a wildcard towards the end of the sale, which had worked out well in terms of timing.

"He was supposed to go to the Arqana sale at Doncaster but he was a bit under the weather and wouldn’t have breezed great," Kennedy explained. "If you weren’t feeling great, you might not run a 100 metre sprint to your best ability!

"We were trying to mind him, and changed him into Goresbridge. It was brilliant. With the whole current climate you don’t know, but we loved him and he breezed well. We were very lucky to purchase him for that."

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