'He's the best here' - €145,000 Magna Grecia colt stars as Goffs breaks records

The first storm of autumn hit Ireland on Friday morning but, while the rain lashed Kildare Paddocks, Johnny Hassett was busy dreaming of spring sunshine while stocking up on horses for next year's breeze-ups on the final day of the Goffs Sportsman’s Sale.

Hassett was aided by Nico Archdale in his quest to buy horses for Get In The Game, a pinhooking venture which offers shares in yearlings to be resold next year. He is hoping a combination of first-crop sire and a first purchase by a new team member will blow a gale up the gallops and into healthy profit for his investors.

Godolphin Flying Start graduate Archdale, who recently established his own agency, was given the honour of bidding on and signing for the colt from the first crop of Magna Grecia, Coolmore's 2,000 Guineas and Vertem Futurity winning half-brother to St Mark's Basilica.

"I met Nico when he was doing the Flying Start and this is the first year he has worked with us," said Hassett by way of an introduction to Archdale, for whom his hopes are as high as for the €145,000 yearling he entrusted him with buying.

"He spent a couple of years with Avenue Bloodstock, and Mark McStay, who is as good a judge of a horse as a man, recommended him highly. He brought a couple of horses to us but this is the first horse Nico has bought for me. I think both man and horse have futures."

Consigned by Peter Kelly's Ballybin Stud, he is the third foal out of unraced Fastnet Rock mare Callisto Star, who has a perfect record with her first runners both winners by Starspangledbanner.

"My selection team thought he was the best colt of the sale, not just today, and it’s rare you can get those horses," added Hassett. "The mare has bred two winners from her first two foals and the two-year-old [There’s The Door] was fourth in a Listed race and the three-year-old [Rhea Moon] was entered in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks but scratched from the race on the day, so there is possible upside."

Kevin Molloy bred the session-topping colt, as he did the dam Callisto Star, out of Livia Galilei, a homebred Galileo full-sister to Group 3 Ballyroan Stakes winner Eye Of The Storm and a three-parts sister to Listed Stonehenge Stakes winner and Group 2 King Edward VII Stakes third Mohican Heights, by Australia.

Archdale was delighted to have signed for the colt, who he recommended to Hassett.

"He’s a lovely colt and the best here,” he said. “It's great to buy a horse for Get In The Game, which is a brilliant initiative that will widen access to the industry."

Earlier, the team had struck for a filly by another Classic-winning first-crop sire, but at a considerably cheaper price. The daughter of the Irish National Stud's Irish 2,000 Guineas winner Phoenix Of Spain, who was runner-up to Magna Grecia in the Vertem Futurity at two, is out of Urban Hunt, a Born To Sea half-sister to Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile winner Hunt, by Dark Angel, and cost €30,000.

Zou the star pinhook for Wallace

Tom Wallace went to the foal sales at Goffs last November with the express intention of buying a foal from the second northern hemisphere crop of Zoustar.

The breeder of Beau Recall, who won four Grade 2 contests and was placed in another four Grade 1 events including successive runnings of the Just A Game Stakes, was convinced that Zoustar's first European two-year-olds would enhance their sire's sky high reputation earned with spectacular first-season results in Australia and that purchasing a foal by him was a calculated risk.

The Zoustar colt who was the joint-second top lot on FridayCredit: Goffs

"I went to the foal sales purposely to buy a Zoustar foal as he has worked so well in Australia I thought he should work well up here," remarked Wallace, after seeing the foal he bought for €22,000 from the Irish National Stud sell for €82,000 to Nick Bradley Racing and David Redvers via an online bid.

Their purchase is a half-brother to Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes runner-up Marshman, who is trained by Karl Burke for Bradley, and the emergence of that performer on the page was not entirely expected.

You are never banking on a £5,000 yearling turning out to be a Group horse but Marshman did and that update was brilliant.

The connections to Marshman do not end there.

"Darragh Lordan, who breezed Marshman, loved this colt as a foal and when I went down to see him I liked him a lot and he fell at the right money," Wallace explained. "I am very happy with that result, it's great."

Wallace is based outside Mullinager, a couple of miles from Tally-Ho Stud in Westmeath, and another of his neighbours, Ken Carroll, consigned the grandson of Sirenia Stakes winner and Cheveley Park Stakes second Dhanyata through his Lewinstown Farm.

The April-born colt is the third foal out of White Rosa, a winning daughter of Galileo, which means he is inbred 4x3 to the full-brothers Fairy King and Sadler's Wells.

The successful pinhooker, who now turns his attentions to preparing his homebred foals for the upcoming sales, said: "He was just one of those horses that are so easy to do anything with, he is very nice and has such a good head.

"He never saw a vet until he got to Goffs and through all the vettings and everything he never turned a hair."

Friday's fourth and final session continued Zoustar's successful Goffs stint as his average comfortably out-performed that of the sale as a whole.

Lodge Park Stud offered a homebred filly by the sire of Lezoo out of Expecting To Fly, a winning daughter of Iffraaj and the Group 3 Fairy Bridge Stakes winner Lady Wingshot from a family that traces back to the legendary Yeats. Another to be inbred to Sadler's Wells and Fairy King, she was bought by the CK Partnership for €50,000.

That brought Zoustar's Sportsman's Sale average up to €57,333, with all three of his second-crop yearlings to come under the hammer finding buyers. His average was more than twice that recorded by the sale.

Phoenix filly for Morans

Bective Stud is not a name one expects to find in a list of buyers at an ostensibly Flat-focused sale but Noel and Valerie Moran's Meath farm is the destination for the Phoenix Of Spain filly from the draft of Peter Nolan Bloodstock who made €82,000 at Goffs on Friday.

The Phoenix Of Spain filly bought by Bective StudCredit: Goffs

Gordon Elliott, who trains the majority of the Morans' horses, was acting on their behalf when buying the filly and it is a family that both Elliott and his clients are very familiar with.

She is a half-sister to Zanahiyr, who Elliott trains for the Morans and who so far has collected three Graded hurdle winner's trophies and been placed five times in Grade 1 company, most notably behind Honeysuckle in both the Champion Hurdle and Irish Champion Hurdle last season.

Elliott said: "We have been very lucky with the family already and I am delighted to be able to buy her for Noel and Valerie.

"She is a filly with a lot of options and we will take our time with her. She looks a very nice prospect whatever direction we take with her."

Royal Ascot reminders for O'Ryan

A sad week for all those connected with Oghill House Stud, following the death of Hugh Hyland, ended with a little spark of optimism on Friday when Bobby O'Ryan bought their colt by Profitable for €75,000 on behalf of an owner in the yard of Richard Fahey.

The Hyland family has previous form with Profitable as they bred Quick Suzy, the Queen Mary Stakes winner from the first crop of the King's Stand Stakes hero.

However, it was a different Royal Ascot winner entirely who O'Ryan had in mind when looking at the colt, a half-brother to a winner out of Urban Beauty by Sea The Stars.

"He is a gorgeous horse and he is for an existing owner with Richard Fahey who has a couple already in training there," he said.

"He comes from a very good farm and I saw him there a few weeks ago and I just loved him and I was lucky enough to be able to buy him today.

"I showed him to Richard before he went back to England and he loved him too. It's funny because he's a different colour and by a different sire but he reminds me a lot of Rajasinghe [Coventry Stakes winner bought as a yearling by O'Ryan]."

Statistics

The final of four frenetic days of trade in yearlings at Goffs trod the same path as each of the three previous ones in recording growth across key areas.

Volteo Horse Services and El Picayo team after buying the Waldgeist colt out of Hangzhou for €4,500Credit: Peter Mooney

Friday's second session of the Sportsman's Sale posted turnover that at €4,287,500 was 42 per cent higher than the equivalent day last year. A clearance rate of 83 per cent contributed to a 9.2 per cent increase in the average, which was €22,101, while the median leaped 25 per cent to €20,000 from €16,000 last year.

Taken overall, the Sportsman's Sale generated €10,360,000 in turnover, which was a jump of 49 per cent year-on-year. The greatest growth after that was seen in the median, which was up 31 points to €21,000, while the average recorded an increase of 21 per cent to €25,085.

That growth was on the back of a significantly greater number of horses offered and sold, with 413 of the 480 yearlings who walked into the Kildare Paddocks sale ring walking out with a new owner.

End-of-sale statement

Henry Beeby, the Goffs group chief executive, said: "Like Orby, we have broken records, not least for the top price with Abbeville Stud’s superb colt selling for €300,000, which has proved to be the highest-priced yearling ever sold in Ireland outside the Orby Sale, so demonstrating that Sportsman’s very much lives up to its billing as Part Two of the Irish National Yearling Sale.

"International participation has proved key throughout the week and we salute the work of ITM, who work so well with our vibrant buyer recruitment team and the network of Goffs international agents, all of whom have played a significant part in the week’s successes."

He added: "Advances in average, median, and a strong clearance rate of 86 per cent are even more noteworthy given the much bigger catalogue, meaning that we finish the week on a high and it only remains for me to thank each bidder and every purchaser at Orby and Sportsman’s for their tremendous support, all of which is valued and appreciated. We know you have alternatives and we are grateful that increased numbers in both categories are making Goffs their first choice."

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