SHEIKH Fahad is assembling a top-quality broodmare band and joining it in the spring will be the five-year-old Hurricane Run mare Wekeela, a winner at Group/Grade 3 level in France and the USA and runner-up in both the Group 1 Pour Moi Coolmore Prix Saint-Alary and the Grade 1 Coolmore Jenny Wiley Stakes.
From the family of Group 1 winner and champion sire Monsun, Wekeela cost David Redvers 1,800,000gns and was consigned by European Sales Management on behalf of owner Martin Schwartz. “She is an absolute beauty and with great ability,” said Redvers. “She is a young, incredibly sexy mare and let’s hope she breeds some magnificent foals.”
What a fairy tale story is that of the two-year-old Dabirsim filly Different League. An €8,000 foal purchase by Con Marnane, she failed to sell at £14,000 as a yearling and was put in training in France by Marnane. She travelled to Royal Ascot this year where she won the Group 3 Albany Stakes and has since been placed in both the Group 1 Juddmonte Cheveley Park Stakes and Darley Prix Morny.
Raced by Theresa Marnane, wife of Con, the filly was brought to the sale by the couple’s daughter Amy who revealed that she was shown more than 500 times. She provided one of the best results of the week, selling to a partnership of White Birch Farm and MV Magnier for 1,500,000gns. She will now be trained at Ballydoyle and holds classic engagements.
UNBELIEVABLE STORY
“It is an unbelievable story,” said Con Marnane. “She has been wonderful for us and a once in a lifetime horse. I just have to thank everyone who has been involved with her. I hope she gives her new owners as much enjoyment as she has given us.”
Of her initial purchase, Marnane recalled: “She was by a stallion who had yet to get going, but she always had that wonderful walk and that is why she caught my eye.”
Newsells Park Stud sent an Oasis Dream half-sister to Horse of the Year Enable to the sale and Birchwood will head back to the farm after selling for 1,100,000gns. She was owned in partnership going to Tattersalls but now is wholly owned by Newsells Park. Oliver St Lawrence signed for her on the day and the four-year-old is carrying for the first time to Lope De Vega.
John O’Connor of Ballylinch Stud has been frustrated on a number of occasions this week for some of the leading lots, but he finally won the day when paying 1,000,000gns for the US stakes winner Modernstone from Baroda & Colbinstown Stud. The daughter of Duke Of Marmalade is in foal to Galileo.
The Castlebridge Consignment is always a highlight of the December Sale and Bill Dwan and his team had an outstanding week.
Five of their draft sold for seven-figure sums on the first two days, while Only Mine and Oakley Girl also threatened to join the select group of millionaires.
Oakley Girl is a stakes-placed daughter of Sir Percy and from the great Meon Valley family of Reprocolor. Sold in foal to Frankel, she had obvious appeal and Kerri Radcliffe, acting for Phoenix Thoroughbreds, had the final say for her at 925,000gns. Two other mares in foal to Cracksman’s sire to sell prominently were Kiltinan Castle Stud’s My Rosie, a half-sister to Group 1 winner Tante Rose who sold to Ecurie des Monceaux for 600,000gns, and the stakes-winner Zuhoor Baynoona who moves from Norelands Stud to Cheveley Park Stud for 560,000gns.
MILLIONAIRE PAIR
Baroda & Colbinstown Stud sold two millionaires, while their consignment also included Peeping Fawn’s three-parts sister Unbelievable at 800,000gns, and the 13-year-old America Nova who made 550,000gns. Not covered this year, but with a Gleneagles colt foal on the ground, Unbelievable sold to Dean Hawthorne, a bloodstock agent in Australia, and Badgers Bloodstock.
The 13-year-old America Nova has made an outstanding impact at stud, five of her first six foals being winners and three of them are group winners. Her first foal, Sir Patrick Moore has also been Group 1 placed, while America Nova’s two-year-old this year is Nyaleti, winner of the Group 3 Juddmonte Princess Margaret Stakes at Ascot. The mare is in foal to Siyouni and was bought by Charlie Gordon-Watson.
A daughter of Galileo and in foal to Dubawi, the stakes-placed Anzhelika is a half-sister to the Grade 1 winner Angara and she leaves Kiltinan Castle Stud after her 750,000gns sale to Stroud Coleman Bloodstock. John Clarke companied Pat O’Kelly from Kilcarn Stud as the breeder added I Am Beautiful to her broodmare band for 700,000gns. The Group 3 winner is a half-sister to Rumplestiltskin, a granddaughter of Miesque and in foal to Kingman.
The 2016 Group 2 winning juvenile Spain Burg, a daughter of Sageburg, sold from Ballyhimikin Stud to White Birch Farm for 650,000gns, while Barnane Stud paid 500,000gns for this year’s Group 3 winner Apphia, trained by Hugo Palmer and sold through The Castlebridge Consignment.