THE Goffs February Sale has fluctuated in fortunes over the years and, like all sales at this time of year, it is often subject to what the prevailing market conditions are.
It can be boosted by occasional dispersals, or be victim of poor demand. However, its timing is good for late developing young stock, it provides an opportunity to purchase breeding stock with the covering season about to begin, and generally attracts large crowds in attendance, appearing in public after a winter hibernation.
This year’s sale produced the highest gross since 2007, and that was a four-day sale with twice as many lots. More immediately, this year’s trade, as Henry Beeby said, “exceeded expectations”, with a turnover that was 63% better than a year ago, and with jumps of 37% and 48% in the average and median. The biggest growth came among the weanlings, contributing €3.9 million of the total turnover of €6.3 million.
Four of the week’s 11 six-figure lots were weanlings, and they included the best price of the two-day sale, when Tally-Ho Stud gave €220,000 for a son of their proven sire Mehmas.
Tony O’Callaghan and his family bought six lots and spent a total of €606,000, making them by some way the biggest purchasers at the sale, both by value and numbers.
The Castlebridge Consignment had the largest draft, and consequently emerged as the leading vendor, selling 23 lots for €515,000. The Aga Khan Studs were not far behind in terms of value, but their receipts of €478,500 came from selling all five lots they brought to the sale, among them three of the best six prices.
Beeby was delighted with the two days of selling. He said: “These results continue the very positive trends at superb renewals of our recent November Foal and December National Hunt Sales, both of which make us very proud and grateful for the support we receive.”
He added: “These highs are the result of the Goffs Purchaser Attraction Team and our friends at Irish Thoroughbred Marketing combining to ensure another truly international contingent of buyers have converged on Kildare Paddocks over both days, with bidders from France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kuwait, Sweden, the UK and Ireland.”
O’Callaghan supports his own
Few stallion masters support stock by their own sires like Tony O’Callaghan and his family at Tally-Ho Stud. This was evident again on the opening day when they acquired the overall sale topper for €220,000. This was a son of Mehmas from Clare Manning’s Boherguy Stud out of a stakes-placed Dandy Man mare who won at two.
Succinct and to the point, O’Callaghan said: “The horse is right, the price is wrong.” He then expanded. “We had to have him. We liked the horse; he is the full shilling. The trade is good for the good ones.” His son Roger added: “He is the best horse in the sale. Simple as.”
Manning gave some background to the sale, but first expressed her delight. “That was unbelievable. He’s a very nice colt and has been going down very well for the past couple of days, but I don’t think we expected to get that much. There were plenty of lads there for him and they were very strong, but Tally-Ho were very keen to have him, clearly.
“I took him from the clients to prep him about a month ago and he’s improved massively. The owners usually sell as yearlings but decided to take a chance selling him in February.
“I thought it was a good sale and that he’d stand out, and he’s shown all that improvement in the last month. Hopefully he’ll go on and improve even more for Tally-Ho.
“I foal all the mares for [owners, Hanshen Tham’s Pattern Bloodstock and Carol and Peter Henley], so I actually foaled several of this mare’s progeny, including this colt. Then he’d have gone back to Carol’s. I’ll have the mare in another few weeks as she’s in foal to Night Of Thunder.”
Hanshen Tham, co-breeder of the Mehmas colt, also spoke after the sale. “We thought he was a very nice colt and the pedigree is nice also. The foal sales at Goffs were so strong that we decided to come here in a bid to stand out, and thankfully it worked. It’s great doing business with Tally-Ho Stud and they really support breeders at the sales; so a massive thanks must go to them. I hope he is lucky for them.
“Clare deserves a lot of credit as well because she foals all our mares and does a great job. We bought the mare, Russian River, at the Orby Sale here in 2019 off Joe Foley. She managed to get blacktype, while her first foal, a No Nay Never filly, sold for €330,000. This is another great result, and the mare is in foal to Night Of Thunder, which is very exciting.”
FOLLOWING a year of outstanding success on the racecourse, it was odds-on that the opportunity to buy into some of their best families would create lots of interest in the Aga Khan Studs’ offerings, and so it proved to be, with a trio of four-year-old fillies selling for €115,000 or more. Two of the three went to Tally-Ho, and the two winners among them will continue to race.
Best of the draft was the Navan winner Shamalza, and this daughter of Lope De Vega will now join Ralph Beckett to try and earn some blacktype before she eventually goes to stud. She has only run twice, and cost bloodstock agent Alex Elliott €190,000 after he had seen off Matt Coleman, a man who frustratingly was beaten on a number of the best fillies in the catalogue.
Shamalza is a half-sister to three winners, the best of which was Invincible Spirit’s son Shartash. He won the Group 2 Railway Stakes by a short head from Blackbeard before running third in both the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes and Group 1 National Stakes. Their dam Shamreen won the Group 2 Blandford Stakes twice, and is a daughter of Dubawi.
Change of plan
Putting his latest purchase in training was not Elliott’s original plan. “I wasn’t really thinking about racing when I came over, rather to cover her with Kingman,” he said. “When I got here I loved the physical. She did well to win on her debut on good ground, but then she was well-beaten next time out on heavy. She is a good mover, so I think we will put her back in training and she will go to Ralph Beckett. With a young mare like that we have to see what she can do.
“It is a deep family, and there is a horse there in that family that Amo did well with [Group 3 Craven Stakes winner Indestructible] and he is a Kodiac, a half-brother to Invincible Spirit, and that’s why I thought of Kingman. I bought her for Valmont and she will race in their colours.
“We will see what mark she has and how she is training. She is a winner, so we have nothing to lose. If we want to chuck her in at the deep end we can. There are lots of positives to her. She was in the range I had her at, a bit below the budget. I am happy to get her.”
Following Elliott’s example is Tony O’Callaghan, though he had an epiphany at the sale, thanks to a chance telephone call from a trainer.
The Tally-Ho boss was always going to win the bidding battle for Katashuna at €165,000, a winning daughter of champion sire Night Of Thunder, and one of two winning daughters of the Group 3 Prix du Royaumont heroine Kataniya. Again, it was Matt Coleman in the underbidding role.
In the immediate aftermath of purchasing, O’Callaghan indicated that the team were in two minds as to what to do next with the filly.
He said: “Ryan McElligott [who was with O’Callaghan as he bid] thinks she should go back into training. We will see. She is a good specimen, a good model and by the right sire. We will take her back to Tally-Ho and see about a stallion, or we might think about training. When you are taking on Aidan and all those good horses in listed races, it’s hard.”
Queried as to whether he might do both, he added: “I don’t like covering fillies in training - I think it affects the size of the foal.”
After his next big purchase from the Aga Khan Studs draft, O’Callaghan revealed a new plan. He had decided to send Katashuna to Joseph O’Brien to train. “He was the first person to pick up the telephone and ask to have her, and I admire that in someone.”
He had firm plans for the unraced Sindafa, a daughter of Siyouni who cost €115,000. The half-sister to Group 3 winner and Group 1 Flying Five Stakes-placed Sonaiyla out of a winning half-sister to the dam of last year’s Group 1 winner Sibayan was going straight home to Co Westmeath. “I will take her home and cover her with Mehmas, a proven sire, and give her the best possible start. She is a lovely filly,” commented O’Callaghan.
“SHE was a beauty, the sire speaks for himself, and she was a physical standout of the day, I thought, by a margin,” commented Kevin Blake after his bid of €120,000 for a Starman filly from Peter Kelly’s Ballybin Stud proved decisive.
He added: “She is bought by a new client for resale, and will come back to me at Golden Farm, and you will see her again in seven or eight months. I am not surprised at her price – I expected her to make 100,000-plus, so I wasn’t shocked in that sense. The sire is red hot, and she is a beauty. As to where she will sell, we will talk about that in the next couple of months, and make a plan.”
The filly was bred by Jacqui O’Brien and Andrew Everard. Colm O’Brien said that the filly was their highest price to date, leaving them “shell-shocked but over the moon.” He went on: “Everybody loved her. She’s by far the best filly we’ve ever bred. The stars aligned for us with Starman doing so well, and she’s just a good, strong filly. Peter [Kelly] picked the mare out for us a good few years ago.”
Two weanling colts brought €100,000. Moyglare Stud sold a son of Sioux Nation to Yeomanstown Stud, and David O’Callaghan said: “He was a man amongst boys in the sale. A very good colt, a good sire and comes from a good outfit. We will bring him back for sale. Hopefully we will have made a good decision. There seems to be a good spread of people here. I would say vendors and the sales company are happy.”
Matt Coleman, acting for Paris Bloodstock, bought a colt by New Bay for the same amount from Donnellys Well. Bred by John Fielding and the New Bay Syndicate, he is half-brother to a juvenile winner. The agent commented: “He is bought for an existing client and will be reoffered. He is a great-looking horse, has great strength to him and is typical of his sire.”
WELL touted ahead of the sale, the bumper and hurdle winner Cameletta Vega was some people’s idea of a likely sale-topper. In the end she sold for €110,000 to Robert McCarthy of The Beeches Stud, and could be headed for a mating with one of the most exciting recruits to the National Hunt stallion ranks who stands there.
McCarthy was thrilled, and somewhat surprised at the price. “We are delighted to be taking her home. She is a lovely young mare; most likely she will be covered by Crystal Ocean or Kyprios. We will sit down when we get home and decide. She has as good a pedigree as you could find, and I think she was a bit of value, I really do.”
Fourth in a listed bumper and a Grade 3 hurdle race, this daughter of Camelot won a bumper in 2024 and over hurdles last year. She is a daughter of the great Quevega, after whom a bar at Cheltenham is named, such is her fame. She won the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle six times, though never when it was a Grade 1. At Punchestown she made the Grade 1 Tipperkevin Hurdle her own, landing it four times and finishing second once.
Good broodmares
The old theory that great racemares don’t make good broodmares has been well and truly disproved by the likes of Quevega.
Two of her offspring won at Grade 1 level, her daughter Aurora Vega and her son Facile Vega. Both are by Walk In The Park, and the ill-fated Facile Vega was a huge talent, matching his dam with four Grade 1 wins, twice in bumpers and twice over hurdles.
WHEN Henry Beeby announced the addition of a point-to-point section to the Goffs February Sale before Christmas, he said: “The new session follows feedback from a number of significant vendors keen to see an additional point-to-point sale in Ireland. From a vendor, buyer and logistical perspective, the February Sale is the ideal time and place. We are confident that this new sale will provide a vibrant platform for vendors to offer horses of quality with Goffs.”
No one would have forecast the inclement weather which has played havoc with the plans of Irish handlers up and down the country, but nonetheless Goffs catalogued a baker’s dozen entries, and 12 turned up for sale on Thursday, when all but one sold.
In his post-sale comment, Beeby said: “The new section attracted a large group of buyers, despite some pre-sale predictions, and would have benefited from further entries if the weather has been kinder. We had more buyers than lots for the category, so ensuring a very competitive trade. With a top price of €125,000 it made a good start to ensure it will become a regular feature of the sale in future.”
Heading to Mullins
The top lot was a five-year-old mare consigned by Denis Murphy’s Ballyboy Stables. Lady Aurora is a daughter of Muhtathir, sire of Doctor Dino and Envoi Allen, and she was purchased by her handler for €50,000 at the Goffs Arkle Sale from Brook Lodge Farm. A first foal for her winning dam, she has Grade 1 Manifesto Chase winner Arzal in her pedigree. Pulled-up in November on her debut, Lady Aurora was a taking winner of a mares’ maiden at Ballyvodock on the first of the month. This time she cost Aubrey McMahon €125,000.
The purchaser said: “I saw her in September at Denis’s, and I also saw her as a three-year-old at the sales here. In September I really liked the physical. She put in a great performance the last day, jumped really well and is a lovely filly. I have a photograph of her from September, and looking at her today I would say she has grown half an inch. I had an order from a man looking for a good horse. She has the physical, sire and pedigree, and she jumps really well. I think she will go to Willie Mullins.”
”Stellar performance”
Lady Aurora was followed into the ring by a four-year-old gelding, Onehellofalaugh, offered by Derek O’Connor from Fiddaun Farm. He trained and rode the son of Postponed to a debut success four days before the sale in a Goffs-sponsored maiden at Tallow. Onehellofalaugh sold as a weanling at Goffs UK for £3,500, but on this occasion it cost Dan Astbury €100,000 to buy him. His half-brother We’re Red And Blue has won four times for Jonjo and AJ O’Neill, and their dam is a hurdle-winning daughter of Black Sam Bellamy.
Astbury revealed the plans for Onehellofalaugh. He said: “He has been bought for Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero, and is hopefully a bit of value. I actually saw him doing a bit of work a few weeks before he ran, and I know plenty about him. He put in a stellar performance given how much condition he had on him for a four-year-old. I hope he will be a nice novice hurdler next season, and a good staying chaser in time.”