The first sale of April was the Doncaster Lincoln Sale where I bought a colt and a filly to go out to Saudi Arabia and a filly on behalf of Peter Molony’s Rathmore Stud in Ireland.
Bahraini trainer Fawzi Nass came over to the Craven Breeze-Up sale for himself and to represent his friend Khaled Abdul Rahim. After inspecting every horse in the sale we settled on a fine big colt by Elusive Quality that had enormous presence and who had breezed very nicely. Hopefully he can prove to be a top performer as we had to go to 400,000 Guineas to secure him for Mr Rahim – thus becoming the sale topper. He will have a break at Aislabie Stud which will give connections the time to decide on a trainer. He has the size to be anything as long as we are patient. Fawzi Nass also bought for himself a nice Shamardal filly that will be trained by Bryan Smart.
The following week was the Doncaster Breeze-Up sale which was held in the backdrop of the Icelandic volcano disrupting air travel in and out of Britain. Fawzi Nass came up to the sale and bought an athletic colt by Kodiac for £42,000 which will go to Yorkshire trainer Bryan Smart. Bryan bought a Byron colt for a new partnership for £19,500. I bought a nice Ivan Denisovich colt for £10,000 for a client of Mark Usher’s who could not attend the sale.
At the Tattersalls Guineas Breeze-Up I bought three 2 year olds – a 28,000 Guineas colt by Elusive City for Richard Page to go to Bryan Smart, an Exceed & Excel filly for Mark Usher and a Shirocco filly to go to Hungary.
I found it noticeable that the combination of the Racing Post Yearling Bonus and the Racing Post Breeze-Up Bonus was a big incentive for buyers to get involved. Eight breeze-up purchases at the last 3 sales in April was more than I normally bought at these sales and I think can be linked to the two bonus schemes.
I may attend the Arqana Breeze-Up sale (Saturday 15th May) at Saint-Cloud in France depending on orders (in 2009; 97 horses sold for a median of €30,000) and the Gorsebridge Breeze-Up sale (20th May) in Ireland.
Aislabie Stud continues to be busy with another 4 foals born and another 7 confirmed in-foal plus others awaiting their first scan.