Buyers take notice

VICTORY for Rumbles Of Thunder in the Listed Premio Merano in recent weeks provided her Darley sire Night Of Thunder (Dubawi) with his 24th stakes winner, a list that is headed by the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes winner Thundering Nights and the Group 1 Queensland Derby winner Kukeracha. Thirteen of this group are winners at group level.

Sold by her breeder Francis Killen for €77,000 as a foal, Rumbles Of Thunder was a whopping pinhook success when she resold from Eugene Daly’s Longview Stud in Cheshire for 425,000gns, Angus Gold pushing Charlie Gordon-Watson all the way before finally conceding defeat.

Rumbles Of Thunder is the first foal for Blanche Neige (Halling) who was purchased by Killen for €75,000 carrying the new stakes winner. She then visited Profitable (Invincible Spirit) for her second year at stud, producing a filly who sold for €58,000. Named Jersey Rose, she is one of her sire’s 18 first-crop winners.

The third and fourth progeny from Blanche Neige are a yearling colt, already named Sopran Alpeggio (Dawn Approach), and this year’s Night Of Thunder colt who is pictured below with his dam. He is due, as is the policy of the breeder, to be sold as a foal in November at Goffs. Rumbles Of Thunder is the latest stakes winner for the brilliant young French trainer Jerome Reynier.