JOHNNY and Danielle Hurley were among the many consignors celebrating at Thursday’s Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale when their Woodlands Lodge operation sold a Kodi Bear colt to Godolphin for £500,000. The €9,000 yearling buy was prepared by the husband-and-wife team at their Co Cork base in their third year consigning two-year-olds.

“It still hasn’t sunk in to be honest, it’s very surreal,” Danielle told The Irish Field on Friday. “I actually had to leave the ring when he hit 200. I came back in and saw the bid board at 400, and when I realised it was still our horse, I almost fainted.

“The atmosphere was absolutely electric,” Hurley continued. “If you had the right horse, all the big buyers were there. After we sold the horse, every single person came up to us – everyone wants you to do well, everyone is building each other up, with no jealousy or begrudgery.”

On what this result means to them, she said: “It’s absolutely life changing. We haven’t exactly had the best luck over the last two or three years, but this has kind of changed everything.

“We have 13 stables; we have six National Hunt horses, four breeze-up horses and then three flat horses that haven’t run yet. We have great guys riding out for us here – Mike Kenneally and Cathal Sheehen. It’s a small team, but a great team, and we got a great result this week. It was beyond anything we could have imagined.”

Kilminfoyle House Stud set the tone early in the day when selling a Mehmas filly to Blandford Bloodstock for £650,000, a new record for the sale, which was broken soon after by Tally-Ho Stud’s colt by the same sire, which brought £720,000 from Godolphin.

That marked the highest price ever achieved at the venue across all sales, but was eclipsed by Godolphin’s £1million bid for a Mehmas colt from Katie Walsh’s Greenhills Farm.

Forward thinking

The strength of the sale had a special significance for Goffs chief executive Henry Beeby as his late father, Harry, established Europe’s first breeze-up sale at Doncaster in 1977. “He pioneered it and it’s a testament to his vision,” Beeby said.

“I have been blown away by the number of messages I have received from people who referenced my father and were thrilled to see Doncaster break that glass ceiling. It was beyond our wildest dreams. Everyone on the team here is delighted.

“Pinhooking yearlings and breezing them is a precarious profession but the consignors are doing a mighty job and they deserve everything they got this week.”

Beeby agreed that the market is being driven by Middle Eastern buyers. “It would appear so. Godolphin were very strong, as was [agent] Richard Brown for Wathnan Racing. But Amo Racing were also involved as underbidders. Alex Elliott acted for Amo and I believe he was in contact with Kia Joorabchian, and we were delighted to get his support. There was a quite a depth of buyers.”

Many of those selling on Thursday sold at the inaugural sale, and were delighted to see the company rewarded for their forward thinking all that time ago.

Brendan Holland, chairman of the Breeze-Up Consignors Association, commented: “Doncaster is where the breeze-ups started, so it was great to see them achieve their first seven-figure sale.

“It was a big achievement for a sale that is synonymous with the breeze-ups and it was brilliant to see Katie Walsh rewarded with her horse.”

Holland agrees that the demand for juveniles is good news for the bloodstock industry as a whole. “It’s all connected; the money that breeze-up consignors earn is put straight back into the yearling market, which leads to good foal trade and feeds into the mares’ trade. It’s important from that perspective.”

On whether he expects trade to continue apace at future breeze-up sales, he said: “Don’t forget, the first two sales were predominantly more forward two-year-old types. Trade was competitive for those, but you’ve a slightly different type, more late maturing, at future sales.

“There probably will be a few Royal Ascot two-year-old types among them, I grant you that, but the demand was for a very particular type of horse. We remain optimistic by nature and certainly after the first two sales, that hasn’t changed and we’re looking forward to the next sales.”

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