Razoul at Goffs sale
RAZOUL, the Ray Cody-trained Kilbeggan maiden hurdle winner, has been supplemented into next Wednesday’s Goffs UK August Sale at Doncaster. A four-year-old son of Mastercraftsman, he won on the day by 10 lengths.
Summer festival
KILBEGGAN’S Summer Festival of Racing continues next Saturday, August 10th with the first race at 5.35pm. In spite of the rain and occasional thunderstorm a huge crowd turned out for the recent AXA Midland’s National meeting. Paddy Dunican said “We are continuing to experience a significant growth in the number of new people coming to our race meetings, and also a massive growth in new companies sponsoring races.
“We are looking forward to our Summer Saturday Festival and five of the seven races on the card are being sponsored, including the opening maiden hurdle and the bumper by Bet Victor. John Mahon, New York (originally from Longford), Tom and Paul Mangan of the Mangan Group Dublin, and the Bank House Family, Kilbeggan also sponsor.
“The Kilbeggan best dressed lady competition will see the winner take home €2,000 in cash. There will also be live music.”
Newsells Park Stud’s new chairman
NATHALIE Albin-Jacobs, youngest daughter of the late Klaus J. Jacobs, has taken over as a chairman of Newsells Park Stud. She replaces Andreas Jacobs who will remain on the board and continue to contribute to its further development.
Albin-Jacobs said: “I would like to thank Andreas for his great work and dedication over the last ten years and I’m looking forward to working with him and the Newsells team to write the next chapter of this unique success story.”
Owned by Jacobs Holdings, Newsells Park Stud has since its reformation in 2000 bred or reared 11 Group 1 winners, with four Group 1 winners coming from the stud in 2018 alone. At the same time Newsells Park Stud has become an increasingly commercial force at the major European yearling sales.
Keeneland yearlings
KEENELAND announced this week that 4,644 yearlings have been catalogued for the September Yearling Sale which will run from Monday 9th to Sunday 22nd. The sale features a revised format for Books 1 and 2. The catalogue will be online on Tuesday, August 6th.
Book 1 will encompass the auction’s first three days and, after a dark day with no auction on Thursday, September 12th, the sale resumes with Book 2 during the fourth and fifth sessions. A total of 569 yearlings are catalogued in this year’s Book 1 compared to 989 yearlings last year. Book 2 has 730 horses compared to 826 last year.
Surgery for Lion
FOUR-TIME Group 1 winner Roaring Lion has this week had to undergo a second colic surgery at the Cambridge Equine Veterinary Hospital in New Zealand. The son of Kitten’s Joy had been making positive progress since his initial surgery last Saturday, but began to show symptoms of discomfort overnight Thursday.
The symptoms were evaluated with some international consultation and the decision made to return to the operating table. There were adhesions from the first operation compromising a length of small intestine and they were removed.
David Redvers is with the horse and said on the Tweenhills website: “The worst case scenario has occurred where we’ve had to re-operate, though he came out of his operation as well as anybody could have expected; in fact, slightly better than his previous one.
“The surgeons have had to take 25% of his small intestine out and we now have a critical 48 hours. But we are dealing with a special horse and can only hope that he makes a full recovery - if any horse is going to recover from something like this then it’s him.”
Autumn fixture
THE Autumn point-to-point fixture list has been published and features nine meetings in October, 14 in December and six on the first two Sundays in December. The season opens on October 5th with the Mid Antrim meeting in Moneyglass, Toomebridge.