Mickey Cleere

Leading vendors and buyers open up ahead of the Tattersalls Ireland Breeze-Up Sale "We've three or four owners who are mad keen to get in on the action," said Ross O'Sullivan on the eve of the Tattersalls Ireland Breeze-Up Sale.  O'Sullivan was one of many domestic trainers - Ado McGuinness, Paddy Twomey, Stephen Thorne, Michael O'Callaghan and plenty of others - who will be busy trying to sniff out some value.  And why wouldn't they? Breeze-Up maestro John Cullinan admits that consignors are "feeling the pain" from a cooling market...

Top breeze-up handler Mickey Cleere has shared how he breathed a huge sigh of relief after Big Evs (Ire) (Blue Point {Ire}), a horse he describes as the fastest he has ridden, bounced right back to form to run away with the G2 Flying Childers S. at Doncaster.  That win provided Cleere with an added pep to his step ahead of the Tattersalls Ireland September Yearling Sale, where he picked up the similarly smart juvenile Ballymount Boy (Ire) (Camacho {GB}) for just €8,000, before turning him into a €110,000 breezer...

NEWMARKET, UK--The profile of breeze-up sales has changed over the years, and perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than at the Tattersalls Guineas Breeze-up, which can count top-class stayers Trip To Paris (Ire) (Champs Elysees {GB}) and Trueshan (Fr) (Planteur {Ire}) among its graduates. There will doubtless be a helping of whizz-bang juvenile types but, overall, the sale is better known as one at which you might find a horse with a more progressive outlook who still has the potential to take you to all the best places, just perhaps...

DUBAI, UAE--The interesting thing about talking to trainers from different parts of the world is that one man's gallop is another man's breeze, or indeed another woman's canter. Even within the specialised sector of the breeze-up sales, a Donny breezer may set a different pace to a Guineas breezer, often deliberately so, and for the inaugural Dubai Breeze-up Sale the focus is more on letting the 2-year-olds stretch out and show their moves over the two furlongs rather than rousting them along at a searing pace. Not one for the...