Consignors Confident Ahead of Tatts December Foals
by Emma Berry
Newmarket endured its first major frost Monday night, but that’s unlikely to cool the level of trade expected at Park Paddocks over the next four days as the Tattersalls December Foal Sale gets underway.
During Tuesday, the sales grounds swarmed with potential buyers with many consignors reporting a busy viewing session.
“We’ve been flat out all morning,” said Louise Parry of Pantycoed Stud, who sold subsequent G1 Irish 1000 Guineas heroine Saoire (GB) (Pivotal {GB}) at the December Sale of 2002 and has three colts consigned for Wednesday and Thursday, including a first-crop son of Delegator (GB) scheduled to sell this evening as lot 524. “ It’s been as busy as I can ever remember it being.”
More than 1,100 foals are catalogued to sell through the week, including the first representatives of freshmen Bated Breath (GB), Born To Sea (Ire), Casamento (Ire), Delegator (GB), Dragon Pulse (Ire), Elzaam (Aus), Excelebration (Ire), Famous Name (GB), Harbour Watch (Ire), Helmet (Aus), Jukebox Jury (Ire), Mayson (GB), Nathaniel (GB), Power (GB), Requinto (Ire), Sayif (Ire), Sepoy (Aus) and Sir Prancealot (Ire).
Also included in the catalogue are another four first-crop foals by Frankel (GB) and one by his three-quarter brother and lead horse Bullet Train (GB). The Irish-born Bullet Train filly is consigned by Houghton Bloodstock as lot 528 and hails from the family of Hector Protector and Bosra Sham.
Two young consignors looking forward to presenting their second draft of foals at the December Sale are Mark Gittins and Aisling Kinane of Castlefarm Stud. The Kildare-based duo have eight weanlings to sell Thursday and Friday–a combination of homebreds and clients’ foals.
“We’re aiming to focus on quality over quantity and specialize in consigning a decent standard of horse,” said Gittins, who has owned the 100-acre Castlefarm Stud in Ireland for five years. The couple also have access to another 80 acres of farmland nearby.
Both 28, they welcomed the arrival of their second son just four weeks ago, but Aisling is straight back into her stride, organizing her consignment and apparently relishing every minute.
“I’ve been going to sales for as long as I can remember and worked for Eimear Mulhern at Abbeville and Meadowcourt Studs as well as Coolmore Australia,” commented the daughter of former top jockey Mick Kinane.
Kinane added, “We consigned five foals last year and have built that up to eight, but we don’t want our drafts of foals or yearlings to get too big. We’re both hands-on at home and as well as breeding, we run a pre-training operation, largely for our clients’ horses.”
The outstanding Sea The Stars (Ire) had just one jockey–Aisling’s father–throughout his nine-race career and the couple are consigning a homebred filly by him out of a mare bred and raced by Mark’s father, the dual Group 3 winner Lady Springbank (Ire) (Choisir {Aus}).
Commented Gittins, “We also have a really nice Invincible Spirit (Ire) colt [lot 997] out of Rakiza (Ire) that we’re very excited about, plus we have foals by a range of fairly commercial stallions, such as Dark Angel (Ire) and Born To Sea (Ire). We hope we have a horse to suit every type of buyer.”
In last year’s draft, Lady Springbank’s Invincible Spirit colt was bought by McKeever Bloodstock for 120,000gns while the team of Liam Norris and William Huntingdon went to 100,000gns for another Invincible Spirit colt from the draft, out of the War Chant mare Ghurra.
On the back of such a positive start to their fledgling business and in such a buoyant market, it’s hard for the consignors to feel anything other than positive on the eve of Europe’s biggest foal sale.
“The feeling here is very good, especially after last week at Goffs,” said Gittins. “All consignors can only feel optimistic and breeders are getting paid which is a major positive. Hopefully there will be plenty of opportunity for pinhookers too.”
Castlefarm Stud has already found favor with some serious foal buyers and it’s a name we’re likely to be hearing plenty more of in the future.