SO much importance is placed on blacktype in sales catalogues, that highly-rated horses often get overlooked, much to breeders’ disappointment and buyers’ loss. It’s one of many challenges for those aiming to breed a ‘sales horse’, as well as a racehorse and, quite often, horses don’t tick both boxes.
I don’t envy those selecting stallions 18 months or more before the resulting produce goes through the ring. In racing, everything happens so fast that sires can go from fashionable to failing in the space of a single season.
The mare needs luck, too. Should one of her foals get injured, another prove slow to mature, it doesn’t take long for her page to be deemed stale by sales companies and prospective buyers. Breeders’ misfortune can often lead to value prices, so it’s worth looking beyond the obvious elements on a catalogue page, and next week’s inaugural Tattersalls Autumn Yearling Sale is a case in point.
The catalogue of 104 yearlings replaces Book 4 of the October Yearling Sale, of which graduates include Oscula. Bought by Michael Aguiar from Kilpatrick Farm for 4,000gns, she went on to win one listed and three group races, as well as place in the Prix Marcel Boussac, before reselling for 1,000,000gns.
As a yearling, she was listed as a Galileo Gold filly out of a once-raced Big Bad Bob filly whose first foal, by Free Eagle, was yet to run. Now, she is one of three winners, two of them blacktype horses, out of the mare.
Next week’s catalogue may also require some imagination, but dig a little deeper, and there are plenty of highly-rated relations to be found. All lots are eligible for the £200,000 Tattersalls October Auction Stakes and the £200,000 Tattersalls Somerville Auction Stakes. Selling gets underway following the conclusion of the Tattersalls Autumn Horses In Training Sale on October 31st.
Lot 1635: Colt by Docklands’ sire Massaat, out of blacktype sprinter
Lot 1637: Advertise half-sister to three horses rated 80 or above, out of a 91-rated mare
Lot 1639: Dream Ahead colt out of a blacktype mare rated 96 as a juvenile
Lot 1642: Harry Angel colt, closely related to stakes performer Bimble (Acclamation)
Lot 1645: Bated Breath filly, whose dam was beaten a neck at Group 2 level
Lot 1657: Invincible Army half-sister to listed fourth Love Dynasty (OR 96), out of a half-sister to Elusive Wave
Lot 1674: Rajasinghe filly out of a 100-rated sprinter
Lot 1680: Mohaather half-sister to 94-rated Superbella, out of a highly-rated miler
Lot 1684: Ardad (Kodiac) half-sister to the dam of listed winner and group performer Rogue Lightning (Kodiac)
Lot 1692: Lope Y Fernandez filly out of a listed winner and group performer
Lot 1697: Caturra filly out of a full-sister to Prix Marcel Boussac runner-up Rose Bloom
Lot 1710: Masar filly is closely related to Geoffrey Freer Stakes winner Hamada (Cape Cross)
Lot 1722: Mohaather half-sister to twice stakes-placed Staxton and another rated 96
Lot 1731: Territories filly out of a blacktype mare, from the family of Excelebration, Lancaster Bomber and Sarah Siddons
Lot 1732: Masar half-brother to Royal Hunt Cup fifth Urban Lion (OR 99), out of a blacktype own-sister to Group 1 runner-up Vif Monsieur