Back To The Well For Badger

Back To The Well For Badger… 
One man who knows the Juddmonte families better than most is Grant Pritchard-Gordon of Badgers Bloodstock, having spent 17 years as racing manager of Khalid Abdullah’s operation. Pritchard-Gordon noted he has been buying fillies from Juddmonte’s consignments, “every year since I left,” and the one he took home last night was Open Window (GB) (Dansili {GB}) (lot 2146) for 115,000gns. 

“I always buy two or three and I have the same people come back year after year saying, ‘let’s buy Juddmonte fillies’, for Australia and for here. I hate to say that I know most of the third dams very well,” he quipped. 

The unraced 3-year-old filly Open Window is out of the G3 Prix des Reservoirs victress Summer Breeze (GB) (Rainbow Quest), a full-sister to Group 1 winners Raintrap (GB) and Sunshack (GB), as well as the dam of G1 Manhattan H. victor Meteor Storm (GB) and G1 Dubai Sheema Classic hero Polish Summer (GB). Summer Breeze has produced the four-time group winner Doctor Freemantle (GB) (Sadler’s Wells) and the dam of Group 3 winner Starboard (GB) (Zamindar). 

Pritchard-Gordon declined to identify his client, but noted Open Window is to remain in Europe. Pritchard-Gordon landed on Open Window after bidding on a number of members of the draft for various clients. 

“We bid away on an awful lot of the Juddmonte fillies,” he said. “There are picks for different budgets. We were bidding away even on the expensive filly, but we didn’t have that sort of money.”