Kayf Tara (GB) may be gone, but his exploits are certainly not forgotten and late in the day at the Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale his three-year-old son consigned by Timmy Hillman's Castledillon Stud brought the hammer down at €265,000. Becoming the highest-priced store horse of the year, the the full-brother to the winning point-to-pointer Romeo Coolio (GB) was bought by Eddie O'Leary and Gordon Elliott.
Hillman, who topped the Derby Sale for this first time, said of lot 397, “We bought him privately off Will Kinsey and it was through Covid so it is all due to him. He was a smasher at the time. He has done nothing wrong at all and let's hope he is lucky for his new owners.”
Haras du Mesnil's Doctor Dino (Fr) is a stallion with an increasingly lofty reputation among the National Hunt ranks, and he provided not only the second-top lot of the concluding day but four of the top ten lots across the whole sale.
Johnny Collins of Brown Island Stables pulled off a major touch when selling the three-year-old gelding (lot 249) out of Countess Comet (Ire) (Medicean {GB}) to Ian Ferguson for €240,000. Collins had only had the relation to Group 2-winning stayer Air Pilot (GB) (Zamindar) in his care for five months, having bought him at the Goffs UK January Sale from Mill Farm Stud for £58,000.
“There was no imagination when I bought him, it was only a matter of keeping him for a few months, he was a lovely three-year-old then,” he said. “I bought him to come here, I was wanting something by this stallion. I had been trying to buy one by him in France and I could not get them.”
Collins added, “This gelding is by an amazing sire and is an incredible mover. He is the same horse in January as he is now – he came from a good farm and was well prepped, I was just in the right place at the right time.”
Collins also bought the Nathaniel yearling-half-brother to the Doctor Dino gelding in January for £20,000. On Thursday at the Derby Sale, his Brown Island Stables was responsible for another of the top lots, a daughter of the rising French sire Beaumec de Houelle (Fr), who stands at Haras de Montaigu. The grey filly (lot 226) is already named Kisuton Enki (Fr) and was bought by Bobby O'Ryan for €160,000.
Britain's champion jumps trainer Paul Nicholls snapped up two of the day's more expensive lots with bloodstock agent Tom Malone. The pair went to €165,000 for lot 269, a three-year-old Authorized (Ire) gelding out of a winning full-sister to the dual Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Al Boom Photo (Fr) (Buck's Boum {Fr}) from Ballincurrig House Stud.
A fall in clearance rate to 81% from a stellar 93% last year also led to reductions in other sectors. Twenty-one fewer horses sold this year brought the aggregate down to €16,075,000 (-14%), with the average of €53,583 down by 7% and the median also dropping by 14% to €43,000.
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