The July sale at Tattersalls has just come and gone, and also a big sale at Saint Cloud. We’ve been pretty busy, but the market still feels pretty toppy and the selling has gone better than the buying.
Three of the string sold last week. Thunderbolt Jaxon made £6k, Master of the Race £11k and Conservation £16k. I’m pleasantly surprised – the first two had proved very frustrating and Conservation has had a whole host of lameness issues. I would normally consider these prices to be well over the top, but everything I tried to buy went for a lot, so it feels like a sellers rather than buyers market at the moment.
We looked into a load of horses at Tattersalls.
Bold Bibi was a half sister to my unraced 2yo Lord Peter Flint and initially she topped our list. She had a run at Leopardstown before the sale in a 22 runner handicap – she won by 4 1/2 lengths at 14/1. I wasn’t too distraught as I had a nice bet on her. Mick rang Michael Halford to see if the owner still wanted to sell his filly – he didn’t.
Longoria caught Mick’s eye, but she was taken out early on. Rhondda Valley looked possible and we took a look at her on the day – she was lame and was withdrawn on the morning of the sale.
Ed Dunlop had a couple of interesting entries – Mutual Friend and Kasban. I decided I liked the look of Kasban, possibly as a trade to sell in the November HIT. Mutual Friend, rated 80, sold early on for a chunky £72k. Tom Dascombe was at the sale – his view on Kasban (rated 74) was that he would make £40k tops. I took a different view – I told him he could bid up to £55k for me, and I rang him back later and raised it to £65k. As it was he went for a fairly remarkable £85k.
Jerry Jamgotchian, an owner with John Hills, put his entire string of 12 horses into the sale. I rang John and asked him about that – he said he thought Jerry would be looking to buy most of them back. I bid for three of them, but I was bidding against Jerry who wasn’t looking to sell cheaply, and all of those I bid for he bought back.
In France the only one I was interested in was Zillione, who had a reserve on her of E65k. She was being sold “to dissolve a partnership”. I didn’t bid for her in the sale and she didn’t sell – I got my man in France to call up the owners after the sale and make a bid. They decided that they weren’t selling for now.
So three sold and none bought. This doesn’t concern me – I think it’s important to maintain discipline and not to overpay.