A Galileo Filly Pour Flay

A Galileo Filly Pour Flay… 
It took just two lots into trade to get the atmosphere buzzing during Book 1’s third and final session 
yesterday, and that happened when lot 318 a Galileo (Ire) three-quarter sister to G1 Investec Derby hero Pour Moi (Ire) from Camas Park Stud stepped into the ring. Auctioneer Ollie Fowlston asked for an opening bid of 1.5 million guineas on the blaze-faced bay, but in the end settled for a half-million. Agent Ed Sackville and John Magnier were involved in the action, but in the end it came down to James Delahooke, who succeeded at 1.25 million guineas on behalf of American celebrity chef Bobby Flay. 

In addition to the Derby winner, the filly’s siblings also include multiple group winner and Classic-placed Gagnoa (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells) and the stakes-winning Kissed (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). It is also a family that has been much sought after in sales rings in recent years. Another full-sister to this filly, Sparkle Plenty (Ire), was a €650,000 purchase at last year’s Paulyn Dispersal at Goffs November, and that filly had been picked up by Badgers Bloodstock for 800,000gns at this sale two years earlier. Kissed cost John Ferguson 900,000gns here in 2010. 

“She was my pick of the sale,” Delahooke revealed of the latest high-priced transaction for the family. “We tried to buy a Bernardini filly in Keeneland and I was beaten by John Ferguson, and this is the nicest filly I’ve seen since then. The page speaks for itself and she’s just a gorgeous filly. She ticked all the boxes.” 

Flay has been busy as both a buyer and seller at sales on both sides of the Atlantic recently. The New Yorker sold a pair of fillies for $1 million and the $1.1 million at Keeneland September, and Delahooke noted he’d been involved with those youngster’s dams, Super Espresso and Countess Lemonade. 

“They’re both the first foals out of mares I bought for him,” the agent explained. “One was bought as a yearling and he raced and the other he bought here in the December sales, and both their first foals paid for their mothers. It’s very satisfactory.” 

Delahooke noted of Flay’s newest acquisition, “I suspect he’ll race her in Europe, but he hasn’t decided whose going to train her yet.”