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'He's a film star' - Weveallbeencaught off to Twiston-Davies after £210,000 sale

The son of Getaway sold to Cheltenham regular Jimmy Wenman to top Tattersalls

Weveallbeencaught: son of Getaway topped the Tattersalls Cheltenham January Sale at £210,000
Weveallbeencaught: son of Getaway topped the Tattersalls Cheltenham January Sale at £210,000Credit: Debbie Burt

After an afternoon full of returning old favourites on the track, buyers turned their attention to sourcing the next generation at a well-attended Tattersalls Cheltenham January Sale, staged for just the second occasion after the inaugural running in 2020.

They were certainly won over by the commanding presence of Weveallbeencaught, a sizeable son of Getaway who changed hands for an impressive £210,000 to fuel the dreams of Jimmy Wenman, an owner with Nigel Twiston-Davies.

A recent debut winner at Dromahane, he represented a fine result for breeder Conor Murphy and his consignor Michael Kennedy, who trains a small string of runners under rules in County Cork and has only recently turned some of his attention to this more commercial angle. Weveallbeencaught was produced out of the dual winning hurdler Curvacious.

Wenman said: “I think he’s the best horse in the sale, an absolute film star of a horse. He’s an out and out stayer and I’ve given him to a top-class trainer in Nigel Twiston-Davies, who specialises in top-class chasers. One day, please God, he will come up the Cheltenham hill for me.

“Nigel's trained lots of winners for me so I've bought the horse with a friend of mine, Edward James. I live in Romford but I come to most meetings at Cheltenham with my wife. I was born here and my ambition is to have a Cheltenham winner.”

Kennedy added: “He’s a smasher, we broke him in and brought him along nicely and we were hoping he’d sell well. It was always the plan to race him and we have a couple from the family. It’s a good family and I think you’ll see a lot more winners from them over the coming years.”

There was some immediate affirmation of Weveallbeencaught’s Dromhane form when the runner-up Supreme Commander, trained by Matty Flynn O’Connor’s Ballycrystal Stables, was sold to Tom Malone and clients for £120,000 just two lots later.

Browns follow on from Pied Piper

The first to break through the six-figure barrier was Queens Vic, from the renowned academy of Aidan Fitzgerald’s Cobajay Stables, who set a formidable leading mark of £175,000.

A couple of years ago, Fitzgerald had sold the subsequently smart bumper and hurdle mare Queens Brook for £160,000 after she won the exact same Dromahane maiden as this latest daughter of Shirocco. She had a further bit of appealing pedigree by being from the close family of Minella Rocco, the sire’s Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up.

Queens Vic will join Queens Brook at the Gordon Elliott yard, with agent Joey Logan signing with owner Andrew and Gemma Brown, whose Pied Piper had created an enormous impression in winning the JCB Triumph Trial at the start of the afternoon.

Logan said: “They [the Browns] are getting together a serious bunch of horses. We saw her and thought she was a very nice filly, a very big, scopey filly. If she can go on and get black type she will be a lovely broodmare – she has a lovely pedigree. The Browns are buying a few, smart well-bred fillies and that is the long-term plan.”

Fitzgerald said: “We’re delighted, she really won well [at Dromahane] and she has a savage pedigree. The third dam is six from six, the second dam is six from seven and she’s out of a winning Old Vic mare.

“I’d envisage she’s going to win a bumper and then become a black-type mare over hurdles next year.”

Fitzgerald added: “I love her and she’s a good mare. I love training mares and with a pedigree like that she was always going to be nice. Two very good friends of mine own her with me and I’m delighted for the boys.”

Nostalgic signing for Tim Vaughan yard

Another significant sale came in quick succession to the headline acts when Copperfasten, from the Cheltenham Festival-winning family of Copper Bleu, was knocked down to Nathaniel Barnett’s Select Racing Bloodstock and owner Louise Bowtell for £160,000.

Bowtell and her husband Paul had owned the Flemensfirth filly’s Westerner half-sister Copper Gone West with Tim Vaughan, who suffered a fatal injury in the 2020 Pertemps Final after twice placing in Listed hurdles. Also an obvious future breeding prospect, Copperfasten won what turned out to be a good Boulta maiden for Terence O’Brien’s Woodstock Stables.

We loved Copper Gone West, we thought she would have been in the first three in the Pertemps, but sadly we lost her,” said Vaughan. “Hopefully this will be a nice filly."

Another among the six-figure lots was Mark Scallan’s Carrigarostig winner Western Diego, who made £125,000 to Gerry Hogan.

The County Wexford-based Scallan said: “He’s a very nice individual, we expected him to sell well today and I hope he’s very lucky for connections. I retired from riding point-to-pointers a year ago and this is a new venture.”

It had looked as if the 2020 best was about to be eclipsed as early as lot four when Iliade Allen strode into the ring. The Rail Link filly, who was second in a Listed bumper at the track on January 1, seemed destined to head straight back to trainer Nick Williams unsold but Highflyer Bloodstock negotiated a £130,000 private sale soon afterwards.

The sale concluded with 33 of the 37 lots selling at a clearance rate of 89 per cent for a total of £2,592,000. The average of £78,545 and median £68,000 were huge improvements on previous figures.


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Kitty TriceBloodstock journalist

Published on 29 January 2022inNews

Last updated 19:46, 29 January 2022

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