Denis Murphy heads to the sales after his four-year-olds hit the ground running

The arrival of a new year of four-year-old maiden races is always met with great anticipation as handlers get their first opportunity to test the quality of their purchases from the previous summer’s store sales.

This season's early exchanges have certainly gone the way of Wexford handler Denis Murphy. His Ballyboy Stables team have fielded three runners in the division and all have returned victorious. Within a matter of minutes, Murphy had recorded an across-the-card double with his first two runners in the category when Taurus Bay, a son of Poet's Word, scored at Comea, and Hitintheheadlines made his winning debut in Tallow. 

Taurus Bay and Jack Hendrick get the four-year-old sequence going for Denis Murphy at Comea

They were followed six days later by stablemate Jet Of Stars, who won last weekend’s sole four-year-old maiden in Oldtown. The early evidence suggests Murphy certainly bought well last summer, particularly in the current era of high prices being traded to secure pointing prospects from the store sales. 

His three four-year-old winners were all sourced from the Goffs Arkle sale last June, where he was able to secure two of them for under €30,000. Taurus Bay had been bought for €26,000 from Boley Stud, while Murphy had to give only a relatively paltry €16,000 to purchase Hitintheheadlines from Calluna House Stud.

Murphy will be hoping to be rewarded for that strong start with Taurus Bay set to be offered at the Tattersalls Cheltenham February sale on Friday. 

Notably, three of the stable’s four winners this month have been ridden by Jack Hendrick, with the concluding leg of their Oldtown double last Saturday bringing him to the 99-winner mark between the flags. For so many years, Murphy’s orange and white silks were synonymous with Jamie Codd. 

The pair were a formidable combination, enjoying over 120 successes together between 2011 and 2021, when Codd retired after riding his final winner for Murphy at Tattersalls in May 2021. 

It is fitting Hendrick should now find himself in the position vacated by his second cousin, and it is a role the 25-year-old has slotted into naturally, alongside his association with Cormac Doyle. Since his first winner for Murphy at Knockmullen House in late 2011, a quarter of that near-century of victories in the point-to-point fields have come for the Ballyboy team, cementing this now leading combination.

Weekend fixtures 

Saturday
Farmacaffley, first race 1pm
Knockanard, first race 1pm
Punchestown, first race 1pm

Sunday
Kildorrery, first race 1pm
Lisronagh, first race 1pm
Tinahely, first race 1pm

Read more here:

Cheltenham Festival tide looks like it is finally starting to turn for the point-to-point mare 

Dublin Racing Festival was outstanding but omission of hunter chase remains a sore point 

Four-year-old maidens back on Sunday but early entries suffer another sharp decline 

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