Release

There were plenty of fireworks during the one and only session at the Tattersalls Guineas Breeze Up Sale with five lots selling for six-figure sums and an EXCEED AND EXCEL filly selling for 470,000 guineas, the second highest price for a filly at a European breeze up sale. The sale, which is in only it’s second year, saw 80 lots sold for 3,833,000 guineas which makes it the second highest grossing breeze up sale in Europe in 2008, behind the Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale. The turnover was up 80% on the 2007 figure whilst the average and median rose 71% and 30% to 47,913 guineas and 30,000 guineas respectively.

Sale Results

The top lot of the day came late in the afternoon when lot 134, the chesnut filly by EXCEED AND EXCEL out of the WOODMAN mare BOIS DE CITRON was knocked down to bloodstock agent Dick O’Gorman for 470,000 guineas. The filly, who was consigned from John Hassett’s ‘The Bloodstock Connection’, gave her owners plenty of reason to celebrate, having been purchased as a yearling for only 20,000 guineas. The filly, whose price represents the second highest for a filly at a European breeze up sale, is from the first Northern Hemisphere crop of Darley Stud’s Group 1 winning son of DANEHILL who already has five Group/Listed winners amongst his first Southern Hemisphere runners. O’Gorman landed the filly after seeing off the efforts of agent Jamie McCalmont who was stood alongside Coolmore’s Michael Tabor and Paul Shanahan as well as bloodstock agent Tony Nerses.

O’Gorman also signed for lot 95, the colt by JOHAR out of the POLISH NUMBERS mare DIPPERS, who was knocked down for 370,000 guineas. Consigned from Willie Browne’s Mocklershill Stables, O’Gorman once again saw off McCalmont and the Coolmore team of Tabor and Shanahan as well as Charlie Gordon-Watson, who was stood with Derby winning owner Saeed Suhail. The sale represented a massive result for Browne, with the son of JOHAR having been purchased as a foal for $40,000.

The O’Gorman name was certainly to the forefront during the Guineas Breeze Up Sale with Dick O’Gorman’s niece Emma O’Gorman enjoying a successful day as consignor of the third and fourth highest priced two-year-olds under her Seven Springs Stables banner. Emma O’Gorman, who runs Seven Springs with her partner Armando Duarte, consigned lot 15, a daughter of MR GREELEY out of the VERBATIM mare MARIAMME, who was knocked down to Blandford Bloodstock’s Richard Brown for 155,000 guineas, having been purchased as a yearling for $80,000. The Seven Spings team were also responsible for Lot 40, another daughter of EXCEED AND EXCEL who was knocked down to Lambourn based trainer Marcus Tregoning for 150,000 guineas, a massive return on the 22,000 guineas that the filly had cost at Book 3 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale.

At the conclusion of the 2008 Tattersalls Guineas Breeze Up Sale, Tattersalls Chairman Edmond Mahony commented;

“This is only the second edition of the Guineas Breeze Up and already it has achieved turnover second only amongst European two years old in training sales to our Craven Breeze Up. We felt that the outstanding Craven Breeze Up two weeks ago would benefit this sale, but not to the extent we have seen today and it would be fair to say that the sale has come of age quicker than anyone could have anticipated.

“Racecourse achievements and the support of vendors are the crucial elements in the development of any new bloodstock sale and they have been the key to attracting buyers from throughout the world. We have had participation from throughout Europe as well as North America and Asia and it has been wonderful to see the vendors’ faith in this new sale rewarded.”
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