FOUR of the seven-million guinea turnover on day one of the July Sale was provided by one vendor. The impressive Godolphin draft failed to match the aggregate achieved at the same venue last year, but it came close, and their 66 lots sold for an average just short of 61,000gns. While the top 10 lots at the same session last year were provided by Godolphin, this time they gave us six of the top 10.

No fewer than 14 of the consignment sold for 100,000gns or more and heading the draft, and the sale, was the five-year-old Shamardal mare Time Check. She cost Tom Pritchard-Gordon of Badgers Bloodstock 300,000gns and he had a fierce battle to hold off a determined and hugely disappointed Hubie de Burgh. Tom was with his father Grant and Paul Messara. A minor winner at the age of four, Time Check is a daughter of the Group 2 Australian winner Alizes and a half-sister to the dam of the Group 1 Golden Rose Stakes winner Astern.

Badgers Bloodstock made a couple of other significant acquisitions from the draft. They paid 130,000gns for the Redoute’s Choice mare La Pelegrina. Not covered this year, the nine-year-old is dam of three winners with her first three foals and is a full-sister to Miss Finland, a champion in Australia who won five Group 1s and is the dam of a Group 1 winner.

For 105,000gns they got the winning Street Cry mare Intiba, barren this year, and she is a half-sister to Hong Kong champion Subscribe and Australian Group 1 winner Dizelle.

Having failed to race, the Medaglia D’Oro three-year-old filly Wild Mint saw her value fall from $850,000 as a foal to 290,000gns this time. She remains a full-sister to the Grade 1 winning American two-year-old Violence, her grandam is an own-sister to the Horris Hill Stakes winner Hurricane Cat, and her third dam is the champion racemare Sky Beauty. Ed Sackville of Sackville Donald revealed that she was set for export and the breeding shed.

BELARDO POPULAR

Belardo retired to stud this year and among the mares he covered was the Dubawi four-year-old La Patria, a stakes-placed winning daughter of the German Group 3 winner and classic-placed Evil Empire. This is a very current family and includes the recent Norfolk Stakes runner-up Santry. Crispin de Moubrey gave 270,000gns for her on behalf of Andreas Putsch.

Belardo’s popularity was emphasised shortly afterwards when another mare carrying to the Dewhurst and Lockinge Stakes winner sold for 240,000gns. She was the listed runner-up You’re Back, a daughter of Street Cry and a half-sister to Group 1 winner Capponi and the Group 2 Queen Anne Stakes winner No Excuse Needed, a son of Street Cry’s sire Machiavellian. Rabbah Bloodstock secured this granddaughter of Greenland Park. Another Rabbah purchase was the three-year-old Bernardini filly Astray and she is a half-sister to the Kentucky Derby runner-up Eight Belles. She sold for 110,000gns.

The BBA Ireland’s Eamonn Reilly was busy and among his purchases was the unraced three-year-old filly Pannonia for 170,000gns. She is out of the dual Grade 1 winner Panty Raid who has a yearling colt by Tapit and is back in foal to that sire.

The duo of Matthew Houldsworth and Geoffrey Howson paid 155,000gns for the stakes-placed Aqlaam mare Light And Shade, carrying her first foal by Exceed And Excel and she is likely to remain in Britain, while later they added the group-placed Redoute’s Choice mare La Pieta, in foal to Slade Power, for 150,000gns. The latter received a serious catalogue update when her sibling Maternal became a stakes winner in Australia.

Not surprisingly the four-year-old Sepoy filly Lakshmibai proved attractive to buyers in the southern hemisphere and Magic Millions acted as agent to purchase this half-sister to champion juvenile filly Earthquake for 140,000gns.

Hazelwood Bloodstock acting for Emirates Park paid 105,000gns and for that got a winning three-year-old daughter of Invincible Spirit out of a full-sister to Dubai Millennium. The filly’s third dam is the blue hen broodmare Fall Aspen.

Completing the list of six-figure sales by Godolphin were the stakes-placed Helmet three-year-old Boater who sold to Cormac McCormack for 110,000gns, and a Street Cry four-year-old own-sister to Group 1 Fillies’ Mile winner Lyric Of Light who sold to John Clarke for 100,000gns. The latter is another in foal to Belardo.