Edelpour Tops Champions Sale
Updated: September 12, 2015 at 1:33 pm
Goffs staged its second Champions Sale in the Leopardstown parade ring prior to opening day of Irish Champions Weekend Saturday, with the select 11-horse catalogue whittled down to nine with the scratchings of the 2-year-old colt Battle Pride (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}) and juvenile filly Great Page (Ire) (Roderic O’Connor {Ire}) from the Richard Hannon stable. Of the nine on offer, five sold for a total of €925,000 and an average of €185,000. The median was €150,000. Last year’s Champions Sale saw nine of the 11 offered find new homes, for total sales of €2,043,000. Last year’s average was €227,000, and the median €185,000.
Top billing this year went to the 3-year-old colt Edelpour (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) (lot 3), who was picked up by Gerry Hogan Bloodstock for €450,000. A grey son of champion and Classic winner Ebadiyla (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells) from the Aga Khan Studs, Edelpour is from the immediate family of G2 Prix de Royallieu victress Ebiyza (Ire) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}). Edelpour has won two of his four outings for trainer Dermot Weld and was most recently second in the G3 Ballyroan S. Aug. 6.
Edelpour’s sale was followed by a handful of buybacks, and the sale was concluded by three additional six-figure lots. Most prominent among those was lot 10, the 3-year-old gelding Plot Twist (Ire) (Champs Elysees {GB}), who was hammered down to De Burgh Equine/James Harron Bloodstock for €200,000. Plot Twist was a winner in his lone outing Aug. 23 at The Curragh for former owner/trainer Andy Oliver. The 2-year-old gelding Moral High Ground (Ire) (Elnadim) (lot 11) brought the sale to a close when selling to BBA Ireland for €150,000. Moral High Ground won at second asking at Navan Sept. 5. and finished sixth in Leopardstown’s G3 Willis Champions Juvenile S. just hours after his sale.
The most high-profile buyback of the small sale was Jim Bolger’s 3-year-old filly Steip Amach (Ire) (Vocalised), who RNA’d at €300,000. Steip Amach won last year’s G3 Killavullan S., and finished sixth in Saturday’s G1 Matron S. after the sale.