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Alcohol Free and Saffron Beach lead the way at Tattersalls
John Ingles looks at some of the some of the talking points from the December Sale where July Cup winner Alcohol Free sold for 5.4m guineas.
Timeform Top Rated
Timeform ratings won’t just point in you the direction of race winners. They also proved a good guide to the most expensive lots at the December Sale, with sale-topper Alcohol Free also boasting the highest Timeform rating (123) of more than a thousand fillies and mares catalogued to go under the hammer at Tattersalls over the four days. Like the vast majority of those who fetched the highest prices – 11 lots made seven-figure sums - it was racecourse performance, summed up by Timeform ratings, which was the main factor in placing such a high value on the fillies and mares in question.
Alcohol Free, for example, had cost just €40,000 as a foal but Group 1 wins for Andrew Balding and owner Jeff Smith at two, in the Cheveley Park Stakes, at three, in the Coronation Stakes and Sussex Stakes, and at four, in this year’s July Cup, resulted in her selling to BBA Ireland for 5.4 million guineas. Only Marsha had made more when knocked down for 6 million guineas at the 2017 December Sale after winning that year’s Nunthorpe.
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Close behind Alcohol Free in the Timeform ratings on 121 was the other headline maker Saffron Beach, she too proving a bargain buy as a foal at 55,000 guineas but selling for 3.6 million guineas after a year which saw her win at Royal Ascot in the Duke of Cambridge Stakes and gain the second Group 1 victory of her career in the Prix Rothschild to add to the Sun Chariot Stakes she had won as a three-year-old. Both fillies are due to race on in 2023, Saffron Beach remaining with Jane Chapple-Hyam but Alcohol Free destined to continue her career in Australia before a possible date with Frankel.
While their own exploits on the track this year made Alcohol Free and Saffron Beach the most sought-after lots in the sale, they also each had the selling point of being by sires who had particularly successful seasons. Alcohol Free is by No Nay Never who boasted an excellent crop of two-year-olds that included Little Big Bear, Blackbeard and Meditate, while Saffron Beach’s sire New Bay gained two more Group 1 winners when Bayside Boy and Bay Bridge won the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and Champion Stakes respectively on Champions Day at Ascot.
Buy one, get a Derby winner free?
In the long term, that must be what Coolmore are hoping after M. V. Magnier went to 1.9 million guineas for Desert Berry. The 12-year-old daughter of Green Desert from the family of Juddmonte Group/Grade 1 winners Byword and Proviso was the exception among the highest-priced lots in being an established broodmare rather than an elite racehorse. She had a Timeform rating of 74p after winning at Lingfield on the last of three starts in maidens and has produced five winners at stud, notably this year’s Derby winner Desert Crown.
Sold in foal to Desert Crown’s sire Nathaniel, Desert Berry should therefore deliver either a potential Derby colt for Coolmore in the spring or a filly who’ll be a very valuable broodmare prospect in the longer term regardless of how successful she might prove as a racehorse, especially given Nathaniel’s best offspring had been fillies until Desert Crown bucked that trend. Judging from Magnier’s comments after the sale, however, Coolmore are crossing their fingers that Desert Berry is carrying a colt. ‘She has a bred a Derby winner and from our point of view the Derby is everything, the most important stallion making race, the holy grail of racing.’
Twomey’s star fillies in demand
Paddy Twomey enjoyed an excellent season thanks mainly to the exploits of four-year-old fillies Pearls Galore, La Petite Coco and Rosscarbery so must have had mixed feelings seeing all three of them go through the ring at Tattersalls. Invincible Spirit’s daughter Pearls Galore, who beat Saffron Beach when winning the Matron Stakes on her latest start, ended up being bought back for 2.1 million guineas but her stablemates found buyers for a million guineas apiece.
La Petite Coco, by Derby winner Ruler of The World, continued the improvement she’d shown in her first season for Twomey when winning the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh on her reappearance. Her buyers were leading French owners the Wertheimer brothers which makes you wonder whether more than coincidence was at play given that they own the perfume company founded by ‘Coco’ Chanel.
Sea The Stars’ daughter Rosscarbery was a long way off a seven-figure price-tag when she began the season still a maiden but five wins from her first six starts (her defeat came when third past the post behind her stablemate in the Pretty Polly) for Twomey took her rating to a smart 113. As well as Group 3 wins in the Munster Oaks and Stanerra Stakes, she also made the frame in Group 1 company when beaten a neck in the Prix Jean Romanet and finishing fourth in the Irish St Leger.
Rags to riches stories from the Abbaye
Added as a wildcard, The Platinum Queen, a 57,000 guineas breeze-up buy in the spring, became another of the seven-figure lots when selling to Katsumi Yoshida for 1.2 million guineas.
Her future therefore ultimately lies as a broodmare in Japan but more immediately she looks set to continue her sprinting career in Britain with Roger Varian after a two-year-old season for Richard Fahey which established her as one of the speediest fillies in Europe of any age, something she proved against her elders when runner-up in the Nunthorpe Stakes and when winning the Prix de l’Abbaye. She became the first two-year-old to win the Abbaye since 1978, among the juveniles to have tried in the meantime being her own sire Cotai Glory who beat only two home in his first attempt in 2014.
The Platinum Queen was far from being the only Abbaye runner to fetch a big price, however, as Mooneista, a four-year-old daughter of Dandy Man and smart Irish sprinter Moon Unit, was sold for 850,000 guineas to Kia Ora Stud in Australia. Mooneista finished in rear in the Abbaye but put up some smart efforts earlier in the season, including when beaten a short head in the Sapphire Stakes in a bid to win the Curragh Group 2 contest for the second year running.
Another Irish filly to finish down the field in the Abbaye, Teresa Mendoza, fetched 280,000 guineas but the greatest rags-to-riches story from that contest was surely Mo Celita who took fourth place in the race for Adrian Nicholls’ stable for the second year running.
A daughter of Camacho who cost only €6,200 as a yearling and began her career in Ireland, she completed a hat-trick in sellers at Leicester, Thirsk and Beverley in the spring of 2021 before soon proving herself much better than a plater, with her sixth success that year coming in a listed race at Deauville. Bought by Hurworth Bloodstock, she changed hands for 380,000 guineas.
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