John Ingles highlights four talking points from the Craven Breeze Up Sale where the joint-top lots were both by sires among the winners this week.
Classic-winning graduates help boost record turnover
Turnover at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale held over Tuesday and Wednesday of this week hit more than 15 million guineas, a sale record. A total of 60 lots fetched six-figure prices and 21 of those were sold for 200,000 guineas or more. The best advertisement for a sale are the exploits of horses that have gone under the hammer there in previous years, and a pair of classic winners featured on the back cover of this year’s Craven sale catalogue, both of whom were successful at last year’s Craven meeting.
Aclaim’s daughter Cachet was bought for 60,000 guineas at the 2021 sale and proved a bargain buy, winning the Nell Gwyn Stakes in the colours of Highclere Thoroughbred Racing 12 months after her purchase and going on to even better things when following up in the 1000 Guineas.
The other notable winner to come out of the 2021 Craven Breeze Up Sale was a son of Oasis Dream who joined Godolphin for 210,000 guineas. That was Native Trail who made a winning debut at Sandown for Charlie Appleby just months later and remained unbeaten at two when wins in the National Stakes and the Dewhurst made him the leading juvenile. He too made a successful reappearance at Newmarket the following spring, in the Craven Stakes, and while stablemate Coroebus denied him a win in the 2000 Guineas, he went one better in the Irish version.
Proving a Point
First-season sire Blue Point had his third winner of the season on day one of the Craven meeting when Blue Storm (replay below) was successful in the novice for colts. All three of those winners came in little more than a week which was excellent timing for Blue Point who had more two-year-olds – 13 – catalogued in the Craven Breeze Up Sale than any other sire. Blue Storm himself had actually been entered for the sale before connections obviously decided he was worth racing instead, but six of Blue Point's other lots fetched more than 100,000 guineas, including a colt out of the Canford Cliffs mare Most Beautiful who fetched 625,000 guineas which was the joint-highest price of the sale.
Bought by Godolphin who raced Blue Point, the colt is a half-brother to Ludo’s Landing (by Kodiac), a fairly useful two-year-old last year for Charlie & Mark Johnston who won a nursery at Carlisle. Most Beautiful was a useful mare (Timeform rating 106) whose two wins for David Wachman both came over six furlongs at two, notably in a Group 3 contest at the Curragh. He’s bred to be a speedy two-year-old therefore, something confirmed by his consignor, Norman Williamson, who described him as a ‘sharper sort’ than Native Trail who had also been consigned by the former jump jockey’s Oak Tree Farm. Like Native Trail, this colt will also join Appleby.
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Mammas Girl a timely winner for Havana Grey
The other joint-highest-priced lot of the sale immediately preceded the Godolphin purchase into the ring. He too was by a sire who had success on the track during the meeting as Havana Grey was responsible for Mammas Girl who came from well off the pace to be a clear-cut winner of the Nell Gwyn Stakes earlier on Wednesday. Last year’s leading first-season sire Havana Grey was another well-represented stallion at the sale, though none of his other two-year-olds came close to matching the 625,000 guineas paid for the colt out of the Exceed And Excel mare Mosa Mine.
Mosa Mine was just a modest maiden, best at five furlongs, but she’s from the family of top-class sprinter Anabaa and is establishing a reliable record at stud with all four of her runners to date being winners. Much the best of those is Mine’s A Double, who, despite being by high-class middle-distance horse Mukhadram, was a useful sprinter for Clive Cox at three when winning all three of his starts. Her two other winners in Britain, Becker and Lady Kheleyf, were both successful over five furlongs, the latter as a two-year-old, so this colt, who was bought for just 42,000 guineas as a yearling in December, looks destined for a sprinting career too.
Daughter of Night of Thunder the top filly
The record for the most expensive filly ever sold at the Craven Breeze Up Sale belongs to Divine Spirit, a daughter of Kingman bought by Godolphin for 850,000 guineas in 2019. She failed to add to her debut success at Windsor but showed useful form at two, notably when runner-up in a Group 3 at Chantilly.
The 600,000 guineas paid for a daughter of Night of Thunder, who beat Kingman in the 2000 Guineas, at this week’s sale is therefore the second highest price for a filly in the sale’s history. Her dam, Guana, a daughter of Dark Angel, was unraced but she comes from a well-established family of sprinters going back to the likes of Molecomb winner Millyant, Flying Childers winner Prince Sabo and Gimcrack winner Abou Zouz who were all speedy two-year-olds. There’s a more recent Molecomb winner in the family too as Guana’s son Rumble Inthjungle won the Goodwood race in 2018 and went on to finish third in the Middle Park Stakes.
Guana has bred four winners in all, the other one of note being Great Prospector who did well for Richard Fahey at two, winning on his debut at Nottingham before being placed in the Superlative Stakes at Newmarket and the valuable sales race at the Ebor meeting.
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