NO doubt some good runners, and some bargain buys, will emerge from this year’s smaller renewal of the Osarus Yearling Sale. Canny Irish buyers at the sale included Con Marnane, Hyde Park Stud’s John Bourke, Ardglas Stables and Thomond O’Mara.

This year’s catalogue suffered as a result of a change of sales dates by Arqana, and the 131 lots offered was half the number from a year ago. Turnover therefore fell from €1,732,000 to just €945,500, while the average was almost unchanged, and the median rose from €9,000 to €10,000. The top price was €45,000 for an Intello filly, and 13 lots sold for €20,000 or more.

Florent Fonteyne’s Trotting Bloodstock Took home five lots from the sale, one in a private sale and two in association with Christophe Escudar. They purchased the day’s best offering, and this half-sister to a couple of winners is only the fourth progeny of her winning Gold Away dam, Villa Tamaris.

Dabirsim was responsible for the next three highest-priced lots. Escudar signed in his own name for Haras du Buff’s daughter of Victhur at €35,000. She is the second offspring from the winning Exceed And Excel mare whose first produce, a colt by Toronado, sold last year at the same venue for €48,000. In his own right, Escudar signed for 10 lots.

The next best-priced Dabirsim yearlings were both from the La Motteraye Consignment. The first of this pair was another filly, and she cost David Bonilla’s Code 73 Agency €31,000. She is the first foal of a winning Sea The Moon mare, Moonoon, and she was runner-up in a Group 2 in Italy. She looks likely to be trained by Christophe Ferland who handled the racing career of Moonoon.

Damien de Watrigant paid €30,000 for the highest-priced colt in the sale, a Dabirsim son of the listed winner Glowing Cloud, herself a daughter of Dylan Thomas. The cross has already worked and the colt is an own-brother to a winner.

No stranger

Flushed with breeding a classic winner this year in Cachet, John Bourke is no stranger to the Osarus team, and he left this sale with a daughter of Zelzal for €20,000, picked from the Haras des Granges draft. Her sire is one of the hottest tickets this season, covering some 200 mares. The filly is a sibling to four winners, but this was one of the best coverings their dam Shakila has had.

Immediately after Bourke signed for the filly, Trotting Bloodstock and Christophe Escudar struck for the very next lot, The Channel Consignment’s filly by The Grey Gatsby out of Shaking, a winning Linamix mare who has produced four winners to date. That price was later matched by James Moon’s purchase of a Zarak colt out of a stakes-placed mare.

Con Marnane’s most expensive buy was a Panis colt for €19,000. Marnane’s attraction to the lot had a great deal to do with the fact that he bought and sold the sire’s Group 1 winning son, Sands Of Mali. The Bansha House man bought three yearlings by Fas, a sire he bred, two by Donjuan Triumphant, and a colt by Captain Chop.