Trainers and traders assemble for tantalising Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale

Trainers, owners and bloodstock agents from far and wide will descend on Fairyhouse on Wednesday for the latest Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale, which begins its two-day run at 10.30am.

A total of 445 lots have been catalogued, and given the pedigrees on offer and the auction's roll of honour - a list that includes recent Grade 1 winners such as City Island, Lostintranslation and Honeysuckle - it seems entirely possible that more major talents lurk among this year's bunch.

Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown may be a speck in the rear view mirror, but store sale season signals one of the most crucial times of the year for jumps trainers, as the acquisitions they make now will be their tickets back to the big festivals in the future.

View full Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale catalogue

Among those bound for Fairyhouse is Tom Lacey, who will be looking to restock after a season that saw him saddle 38 winners under rules at a potent strike-rate of 21 per cent.

"Very much so," he says enthusiastically when asked if the sales season is a time of year he looks forward to. "It's an exciting time of year - the store sales season is huge for us.

"I've got plenty of owners who like stores but who can't necessarily afford to buy the form horses. The store sales are as good a way as any of trying to put a nice string of horses together.

"You have to accept that not every horse you buy is going to be a star but if you work your way through them you can, hopefully, end up with a nice group of horses."Lacey has found the Derby Sale to be a well-spring of talent down the years, and he has also highlighted how its graduates can come to hand quicker than many might expect from the penultimate store auction of the Irish calendar.

L'Incorrigible, for example, ran out a ready winner of a Warwick bumper in November having been signed for by Stroud Coleman Bloodstock last June; Glory And Fortune looked a hugely exciting recruit when winning a Listed Cheltenham bumper on debut on New Year's Day having been bought at the same auction, while Red Nika, another 2018 graduate, won a Woodford point-to-point in April.

When trawling the sales grounds for future talent, Lacey says the type of budget he works with tends to dictate that the individual be prioritised over pedigree. It is a method that has served him well.

"Traditionally you'll find a horse with plenty of size and scope at the Derby Sale," he says. "Because of the price range we operate in I very much go there looking to buy the individual rather than the pedigree. If you have a nice order you can look for both, but you have to cut your cloth accordingly - you have to be more forgiving and start making sacrifices with things like conformation and size.

"Just because you buy a good-looking horse with size, scope and pedigree doesn't guarantee anything though - looks and price don't count for anything on the racetrack."

Lacey heads to the sales in a relatively unique position, as not only does he train a thriving string of runners under rules, but he and his wife Sophie have been at the forefront of British-based pinhookers buying stores to sell on after running in point-to-points.

Blackbow: Tom Lacey unearthed the major bumper talent for €32,000 in 2016Credit: Patrick McCann

Among the Derby Sale purchases to have graduated from the Laceys' pointing academy at Cottage Field Stables in an idyllic corner of rural Herefordshire are King Roland, a wide-margin winner at Larkhill who is unbeaten in bumpers for Harry Fry, and Blackbow, a Maisemore Park maiden scorer who switched to Willie Mullins, for whom he won a Grade 2 bumper and finished a close second in the Grade 1 Racing Post Champion Bumper at Punchestown.

Blackbow also went from €32,000 store to £150,000 Goffs Aintree Sale graduate in under ten months.

While Lacey may favour the physical model over the pedigree page, those looking for a well-related youngster are well catered for at this year's Derby Sale, with siblings to Ballycasey, Brindisi Breeze, Douvan, Getabird and Rathvinden just a handful of the blue-blooded stores due to come under the hammer at Tattersalls Ireland.

Lacey, renowned as something of an old fashioned horseman despite being one of the most upwardly mobile members of the training ranks, went on to pay tribute to the standard of stock on offer at the modern day store sale, saying: "The large majority of vendors do an extremely good job and nowadays the horses are so well prepped for the sales.

"If they've been well handled prior to the sale, it makes the breaking in process easier once you get them home. I've been buying stores for ten years, but when I started as a 17-year-old kid we'd get stores in at Captain Radclyffe's and they were absolutely wild!"

Budget may be central to Lacey’s spending habits, but he may well be forced to dig deep this week as he expects the fierce trade witnessed at the Goffs Land Rover Sale to spill into the Derby Sale.

"In my experience if one sale is strong, the other tends to be strong," he said. "The first sale of the season, the Tattersalls Ireland May Sale, brought incredibly strong trade and that tends to set the bar for the rest of the year."

TATTERSALLS IRELAND DERBY SALE FACT-FILE

Where Tattersalls Ireland sales complex, Ratoath, County Meath
When Two-day sale begins on Wednesday, with sessions starting at 10.30am
Last year's stats From 406 offered, 347 lots sold (85 per cent) for turnover of €17,890,500 (up one per cent); an average of €51,560 and a median of €42,000 (down two per cent)
Notable graduates City Island (sold by Castletown Quarry Stud, bought by Martin Brassil for €31,000); Lostintranslation (Derrygrath Stud, Peter and Ross Doyle, €38,000); Honeysuckle (The Glanvilles Stud, Mark O'Hare, €9,500); Shattered Love (Greenville House Stud, Philip Fenton, €50,000); Waiting Patiently (Vincent Finn, Summer Bloodstock, €16,000)

If you found this of interest, you should also read...

Celebrity Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale graduates before they were famous

Sibling success and a freshman to follow: five things we learned at Royal Ascot

David Simcock snares Goffs London Sale top lot from familiar family