Quai De Bethune

What's rare is wonderful. Royal Ascot winners coming on the market is certainly a rare thing and Quai De Bethune (Persian King), successful in the Golden Gates Stakes at the Royal meeting, was most certainly wonderful when selling to Blandford Bloodstock's Richard Brown for a record-high price of 775,000gns at the Tattersalls July Sale.  That sum eclipsed the previous best that was achieved just over 24 hours earlier for Calyx's sister that went the way of Badgers Bloodstock at 550,000gns. But Quai De Bethune was billed as the star attraction...

If you're looking for a single word to sum up the catalogue for the Tattersalls July Sale, chances are that 'mammoth' will do the trick.  In what other week would you find a recent Royal Ascot winner among the 17 horses who boast Timeform ratings in excess of 100, along with a list of mares as long as your arm that hail from deep Godolphin, Juddmonte and Shadwell families.  Don't forget Baroda Stud offering the first mare in foal to champion racehorse City Of Troy. Put simply, there is something...

Kalpana might have been missing from Andrew Balding's Royal Ascot squad, but the trainer now heads to the Curragh with his stable star in tow and a spring in his step, buoyed by what was a "fantastic" week in Berkshire which yielded four winners from Park House Stables. Top billing went to the two-year-old Humidity who, having been considered Balding's best chance of a winner at the start of the week, duly delivered with a gutsy performance to land the Listed Chesham Stakes on the final day of the meeting....