'I was a bit worried but Allaho did it again' - bid-spotter's pleasant diversion

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Here relays his conversation with Allaho's breeder at Arqana on Sunday, when the star chaser with humble roots won a vintage John Durkan - subscribers can get more great insight from Martin every Monday to Friday.

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Thomas Leffray and his colleagues on Arqana’s bloodstock team put in some heroic stretches of bid spotting during a frantic first few days of trade in the company’s December Breeding-Stock Sale, signalling all the offers being fired in from around the ring to the auctioneer with a howl or a yelp.

Luckily, Leffray was able to co-ordinate a break from those duties to watch Allaho, a horse he bred with his family, make a winning return to action in the John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase on Sunday.

The tale of how Leffray bred the son of No Risk At All, who has now won five times for Willie Mullins and Cheveley Park Stud and looks to have plenty more big races in him, is quite remarkable.

A then 15-year-old Thomas was asked by his father Eric, a small breeder based near Le Mans, to source a broodmare for him and he found Allaho’s dam Idaho Falls for sale on the internet. He bought the unraced Turgeon mare for the price of “a few bags of apples”.

The Leffrays have bred three winners from Idaho Falls, also including Shanning, a daughter of Spanish Moon who was a three-time winner for Mullins and finished placed in Listed company as well as in valuable handicap hurdles at Galway, Listowel and Down Royal.

“I made a plan to watch the race with my brother Mathieu,” said an understandably hoarse Thomas when I caught up with him after his second marathon session of bid spotting on Sunday. “I’m delighted that he was able to win a Grade 1 like that on his first run of the season. I was a bit worried before the race, as he was going up against another champion in Envoi Allen, but he did it again.”

Allaho leads at Punchestown on Sunday, and he stayed there - much to the delight of his breeders, the Leffray familyCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Reflecting on his and his family’s feat of breeding Allaho, the Irish National Stud breeding course graduate said: “I bought Idaho Falls online for very little money, and we just covered her away, trying to use the best stallions we could each year. She has been a great mare, having also produced Shanning from only a few runners.

“We still have Idaho Falls, and we also have a full-sister to Allaho who we are going to keep as a broodmare. She has a yearling full-brother to Allaho and a colt foal by Goliath Du Berlais, and she’s back in foal to Saint Des Saints. I think we’ll go back to No Risk At All with the mare next year – it seems the obvious thing to do.”

Leffray was in the eye of the storm for an extraordinary opening session of the Arqana December Breeding-Stock Sale that saw five fillies and mares sell for seven-figure sums and the turnover and average price both soar by around 70 per cent.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before, to go over the million mark so many times and then for Rougir to sell for €3 million, it was just amazing,” said Leffray. “It was cool to be part of the team on such a monumental day for Arqana.”

Bid spotters are often the unsung heroes of sales, having to stand and maintain a hawk eye for the tiniest gestures from potential buyers for long spells of time. For Leffray, at least, victory for his homebred Allaho will have made the sore feet and lost voice much easier to endure.

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Pedigree pick

The King Power Racing and Andrew Balding team has exceptionally well bred colts set to make their debuts in both divisions of the 7f novice stakes at Southwell on Tuesday evening.

Love Mystery, a Frankel colt who is the first produce of Chartwell Fillies’ Stakes winner Mix And Mingle, an Exceed And Excel sister to this season’s Listed winner Double Or Bubble, is set to be unleashed in the first race at 6.30. Bred by Deerfield Farm, he was a 300,000gns Tattersalls October Book 1 Yearling Sale buy.

Teumessias Fox contests the second race at 7.00 for the same connections. He is a Lope De Vega full-brother to Prix d’Ispahan hero Zabeel Prince and a three-parts brother to Group 2 winners Puissance De Lune and Queen Power. He was bred by Roundhill Stud and bought at Book 1 for 230,000gns.

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Good Morning Bloodstock is our latest email newsletter. Martin Stevens, a doyen among bloodstock journalists, provides his take and insight on the biggest stories every morning from Monday to Friday