A REDUCED catalogue saw the Goffs UK Doncaster Breeze-Up Sale conclude with a highly satisfactory set of numbers. In a time of unprecedented difficulty and uncertainty, the British sales company combined with Arqana to stage what was meant to be two distinct sales in the one location. The collaboration worked.

Both sales, held one after the other, were bedevilled with withdrawals, vendors unable to resist the lure, at times, of selling their stock privately while uncertainty prevailed. Some resisted the temptation to offload and a number reaped the benefit of doing so.

The day-long auction started with the Goffs UK catalogue. The 165 lots catalogued whittled down to 99 being offered, and 84% of these changed hands. The median rose 15% year on year. Trade was led by a son of Kingman who sold to Jamie Lloyd of Meah Lloyd Bloodstock for £290,000. The grandson of Invincible Spirit was bought by MC Bloodstock for £120,000 at the same venue last year and was re-offered by Jim McCartan’s Gaybrook Lodge Stud. He will be trained in California by Richard Baltas on behalf of Calvin Nguyen.

Al Shaqab Racing spent £200,000 on a son of Dandy Man, with Nicolas de Watrigant doing the bidding. The colt was bought by Glenvale Stud as a foal for 80,000gns and was part of Willie Browne’s Mocklershill consignment, he comes from the family of Territories. The same vendor sold a Hard Spun colt to Jono Mills of Rabbah Bloodstock for £110,000.

Pharoahs in demand

American Pharoah had two lots catalogued and both sold for a six-figure sum. Star Bloodstock received £175,000 for a son of the multiple stakes winner Gitchee Goomie. Richard Brown of Blandford Bloodstock signed for him and this was well in advance of the $90,000 he cost Byron Rogers and Matt Eves last October at Fasig-Tipton. The colt will be trained by David Simcock.

Norman Williamson’s Oak Tree Farm minutes earlier sold a colt out of the Grade 3 winner and Grade 1-placed Final Fling for £110,000 to Goffs UK’s Scandinavian agent Filip Zwicky who was bidding online. Williamson bought the colt at Keeneland for $30,000. Later the Co Meath vendor sold to another Goffs UK agent, Richard Ryan, when he obtained £120,000 for an Exceed And Excel colt who had cost 40,000gns as a yearling. This colt joins Roger Varian.

King Power Racing, using the services of Alastair Donald of Sackville Donald, gave £165,000 for a son of Mehmas from Kilbrew Stables.

A €12,000 foal, he was bought privately after being led out unsold for €19,000 at the Goffs Sportsman’s Sale and provided a bonanza for National Hunt jockey Andrew Lynch and his wife Riona. The colt will join Andrew Balding.

Siyouni sale

Michael and Sarah Murphy’s Longways Stables sold a son of Siyouni to Blandford Bloodstock’s Stuart Boman for £140,000. The list of six-figure lots was completed by a son of Travers Stakes winner Will Take Charge, out of a Scat Daddy mare, who was bought from Yeomanstown Stud by Ross Doyle for £100,000.

Goffs UK managing director Tim Kent said: ‘We couldn’t have predicted that! It’s been a very long journey to enable us to hold this sale and there have been many twists and turns along the way but we are absolutely delighted with what has been achieved today. To deliver those results is way beyond what we could have imagined, and the timing could not be better with the yearling sales not far away.”

Having paid tribute to many who facilitated the staging of the sale, Kent added: “The real credit for today’s achievements lie with the vendors. They have been extremely supportive during the planning of today’s sale and have kept these horses in top form for an extra two months before today. Many have resisted the temptation to sell privately and have instead shown huge faith in what we’re doing, only to be well rewarded as a result.”