Skiffington Wins The War

Skiffington Wins The War… 
La Conquerante (GB) (Hurricane Run {Ire}), third in the 2012 G2 Prix Royallieu, failed to sell for €85,000 off the track at Arqana’s December sale a year ago, and the decision to hold on to her and breed her to exciting first-season sire Declaration of War proved a profitable one when she fetched 320,000gns at Tattersalls last night. Signing the ticket was agent Amanda Skiffington, who did her bidding alongside Ballylinch Stud’s John O’Connor and fended off spirited challenges from the likes of Adrian Nicholl, Charlie Gordon-Watson and Crispin de Moubray on behalf of Vimal and Gillian Khosla. The Khosla’s are regular clients of Ballylinch, and bred this year’s G1 Fillies’ Mile heroine Together Forever (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). The Khosla’s sold Together Forever to Coolmore for €680,000 at last year’s Goffs Orby sale, and Skiffington signed for that filly’s Sea the Stars (Ire) half-sister at €1.1 million–the top price for a filly–at this year’s Orby sale. 

Of last night’s acquisition, Skiffington–who was yesterday awarded the bloodstock agent of the year award by the Federation of Bloodstock Agents–noted, “She’s a lovely mare and she was a very good racemare. She was the package. Personally I’m very keen on Hurricane Run–I’m very keen on that sire line.” 

O’Connor added the Khoslas keep “about six” mares at Ballylinch. 

“They race some and they sell some,” he noted. “We haven’t decided on a mating for her at all yet. We’ll get her home and see how she is and have an interesting sit-down. They’re very into their pedigrees and their matings.” 
In addition to her Prix Royallieu placing, La Conquerante, who was consigned by European Sales Management as lot 1573, finished third in two Group 3s for owner Martin Schwartz and trainer Jean-Claude Rouget. She won three times and was never off the board in seven starts.