Last week was unproductively busy as I wasted quite a lot of it at Tattersalls October Sale. Well, I didn't waste it because time spent at a sale is never wasted, but it didn't take too long before I realised that I'd be getting my eye in rather than signing any dockets. The strength of Book One (ie last week) was mind-blowing, with a higher aggregate and more six-figure sales than last year. Which is truly remarkable. Not all the horses, though, fetched surprisingly large sums: quite the reverse, in fact, in the case of the extremely attractive and good-walking full-sister (pictured at the top of this paragraph) to last year's 1,000 Guineas heroine Natagora
(pictured returning to the winner's enclosure after that great triumph), who realised 'only' 80,000 gns, and also of the seemingly very nice (I only saw her from a distance) filly by Storm Cat ex the Cheveley Park Stakes winner Airwave. I watched her go through the ring while seated next to Mrs Candy, whose husband Henry of course trained Airwave to her greatest victory, and she correctly predicted that interest in the filly might be a lot less than I, for one, was anticipating - and she was right, as the filly was led out unsold at 88,000 gns.
What was very nice, though, was that the Natagora filly (who, although looking nothing like her sister, will, I predict, be very successful) was bought by our friend Sylvain Vidal, on behalf of the owners of this year's Prix du Jockey-Club winner Le Havre. Sylvain, as regular readers may recall, is the proprietor of Haras de la Cauviniere in Normandy, home of my mare Minnie's Mystery and her offspring, and he recently welcomed Le Havre there as the first stallion which he has stood - although far from the first he has handled, because he was Kingmambo's stallion-man in Kentucky for a time earlier in his career. Anyway, I was delighted that he was the purchaser of what I believe to be a bargain - but then, as the biggest fan of Natagora (pictured here looking less like a 1,000 Guineas winner), I might be biased!
Last week ended with our having a trip to York for Batgirl's debut. She didn't appear to show very much, but I wouldn't be too concerned about that. She's a lovely filly, but quite big, and big two-year-olds often don't show their true colours until a bit later on. She was also a bit green, but not in the sense of being silly: she behaved impeccably throughout (other than taking an awfully long time to be loaded back onto the horse-box to come home, which was rather irritating at the time), as this photograph of her and Taigdh O'Shea in the parade ring suggests. Other than the pleasure of giving a nice horse her debut and seeing her conduct herself very well, two other aspects of the day stick in my mind. Firstly was that that day was the occasion of Dale Gibson's retirement, and I was delighted to be there to salute him and shake his hand. Dale (pictured in the parade ring before our race, in which he had his penultimate ride, on Meetings Man) has been, of course, the model jockey for more than two decades now.
He has been a byword for professionalism, integrity, common sense and decency and, while there are plenty of jockeys whom I respect, I can truthfully say that there has never been one whom I have respected more than Dale - in fact, I'd be hard pressed to name any human whom I respect more than him. I particularly enjoyed two things he said last weekend. Firstly, when asked to review his career, he said that, "I gave it 100%, 100% of the time"; he can say that truthfully, and how many others could ever say the same thing? (I know that I couldn't). Secondly, Dale reflected on his final day thus: "I feel honoured and flattered by the way York have looked after me - it's as though I'm a superstar, which I certainly am not". That latter statement may or may not be true, but if stardom was measured by respect earned, that's exactly what he'd be. I'm only sorry that the tally of winners which he rode doesn't include any trained by me: the nearest we can to putting him on one was when he rode Il Principe into second place at Hamilton Park in August 1997, beaten by the Jonjo O'Neill-trained Globe Runner who was, coincidentally, ridden by the jockey who had his first ride in the same race as Dale had his: Tony Culhane.
My other memory of the day at York actually ties in with one of those things which Dale said, because we were also treated extremely well by York.
Tony Fordham, Batgirl's owner, had contacted the course in advance to ask a few of the questions which an owner might ask in advance of his first day's racing with a runner, and the response was astonishing: William Derby, the clerk of the course, bent over backwards to make the party welcome, even providing the use of a box in the original County Stand, and I'd just like to put on record how very much appreciated his hospitality was. The box gave a great view over the course, and it was from its balcony that I took this photograph of Dale cantering to post for his last ride, on Upton Seas.
We now have two more race-days to look forward to, with Stardust Memories due to head to Nottingham tomorow and Ethics Girl set to run at Wolverhampton on Saturday evening. The excellent Steve Drowne is set to ride both, so let's hope for two good runs. I'm expecting Stardust to run a much bolder race than on her debut, and I'd be disappointed if Ethics wasn't very competitive: as this photograph taken a few days ago indicates, she is still in very, very rude health and form!
I'm looking forward to those two outings, but in a very busy week it already feels as if we've had a couple of winners, because we've welcomed a couple of yearlings here which I hope and believe are cracking prospects.
Jason Hathorn has put together a couple of syndicates and these two fillies are for them. It's a worrying responsibility spending other people's money at the sales (particularly if, as I outlined in Sunday's Racing Post, one is then going to train the yearlings, so that if they fail to cut the mustard one is responsible for the disappointment whichever way one looks at it) but this time I genuinely feel that these two lovely fillies, who come from two good studs (Burton Agnes and Langton) give us at least a sporting chance of having a couple of decent horses running from the stable next summer and onwards. Emma has taken some lovely conformation shots of them, so I'll content myself with these head shots.
The first one we bought, the Tobougg filly from the Front Row family which has produced so many good winners (many of them trained by the late Ryan Jarvis and, more recently, his son William) is pictured at Tattersalls, while the second one, the Bertolini filly from a Last Tycoon half-sister to the lovely former John Dunlop inmate Right Wing, is shown moments after her arrival here; is she licking her lips in anticipation of what lies ahead, or was it just me doing that?
So that's lovely to have these two fillies here. No doubt I'll be writing plenty about them in the future, and I suspect that I might also write a bit about some of the yearlings which we saw but didn't buy. Two who stick very much in my mind are a couple of the Encosta De Lagos which I saw. The first one shown here is the half-sister to this year's Haydock Park Sprint Cup winner (and last year's Royal Ascot and Ayr Gold Cup winner) Regal Parade,
while the second is a lovely colt from the immediate family of the mighty Montjeu. I will be surprised if it turns out to be the case that neither makes her/his way to racing at a higher level. And on the subject of Encosta De Lago, I can't end without saying how much pleasure we took from the fact that Encosta's compatriot Michelle Payne, who was so helpful to us when she was in Newmarket in the summer, rode her first Group One winner when winning the Toorak Handicap on the Bart Cummings-trained Allez Wonder at Caulfield last Saturday.
As she (pictured here in the summer in Luca's string, alongside another antipodean visitor, Brad Rawiller) is due to ride the mare again this Saturday in the Caulfield Cup, could she be about to double that tally? We'll have to wait until the early hours of Saturday to find out - and find out we shall, courtesy of the excellent coverage which ATR gives us.
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