By Emma Berry
The final day of the Tattersalls December Mare Sale is usually a low-key affair. Take last year for example. That Thursday, 78 mares were sold for just shy of 280,000gns, a sum that wouldn't come close to buying even one of the headline acts during the sale's blockbuster Tuesday session. But Tattersalls prides itself on catering for all levels of the market and plenty of smaller breeders stay through to the end of the sale in the hope of finding a bargain.
That was indeed the case for Domenico Zammitti, a regular visitor to Newmarket from his native Sicily, who sat in the ring that Thursday morning and decided he liked the look of lot 2279, a scopey grey mare by Oasis Dream (GB) offered by Ringfort Stud. The fact that she had won four races herself and was already the dam of two winners makes it scarcely believable that she was sold for just 1,200gns, but it is an example of just how tough the market can be at the lower end. The then 10-year-old mare Shena's Dream was carrying a foal by Haatef and was subsequently exported to Sicily to Zammitti's residence, where she duly foaled a filly the following April.
Just over two months later, the pedigree of both mother and daughter received a boost when the mare's 2-year-old filly Miss Amulet (Ire) (Sir Prancealot {Ire}) broke her maiden on her third start at Cork in July. One update led to another, when Miss Amulet beat the evens-favourite Frenetic (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) in the listed Marwell S.at Naas in August, and so it went on. Just over a fortnight later she romped home on the Knavesmire to give Ringfort Stud a memorable York Ebor meeting when Miss Amulet's G2 Lowther S. win followed the G2 Gimcrack S. victory of Minzaal (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}), providing plenty of reflected glory for her breeder in consolation for her having been sold as a foal for just €1,000.
Miss Amulet's subsequent exploits for trainer Ken Condon, with Group/Grade 1 placings in the Cheveley Park S. and Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, have not just enhanced her own profile, but that of her dam and her half-sister, who will be making a reappearance at Tattersalls this December. For Shena's Dream, her daughter's success means an instant upgrade in catalogue placing from Thursday to Tuesday, when she will be offered as lot 1602. She should know her way around Park Paddocks by now, as she will be stabled back in the Wall Boxes, just one row down from where she was last year but this time being sold by Luca and Sara Cumani's Fittocks Stud, who will also offer her Haatef filly as lot 817 on the Friday of the December Foal Sale.
“We were contacted by Franca Vittadini, who is the Italian representative for Tattersalls, to ask if we would sell the mare and foal for Mr Zammitti and they arrived with us in early October,” said Sara Cumani.
“The owner's normal modus operandi is to buy inexpensive mares at Tattersalls, take them back to Sicily and then race the foals they produce at Siracusa.”
Luca Cumani added, “Nico Zammitti was a top-class tennis player and he's very excited about this. He follows all the racing and updates on the internet. He has about six acres and basically he keeps the horses in his back garden.”
The sales fortunes of Shena's Dream's offspring have already been lifted by the success of Miss Amulet. In September, Ringfort Stud sold her El Kabeir filly at the Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale for £45,000, the fourth-top price of the one-day sale.
“The yearling has joined Michael Bell in Newmarket, which is great news,” said Sara Cumani. “Shena's Dream herself is a very straightforward and attractive mare and is a great walker. We are very pleased to be bringing her and her foal to the sale on behalf of Mr Zammitti.”
Shena's Dream, who wasn't covered this year, is one of two Oasis Dream mares bred by Pat O'Kelly's Kilcarn Stud to have produced a group winner this season. The Jim Bolger-bred Melbourne Cup winner Twilight Payment is out of the Kilcarn graduate Dream On Buddy (Ire), who also makes an appearance on one of the pages of the December Mare Sale as her daughter Bandiuc Eile (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}) is being sold through Bolger's grand-daughter Clare Manning of Boherguy Stud.
Fittocks Stud is also selling a homebred daughter of Oasis Dream (lot 1548), the 3-year-old Blue Dawn (GB), who is out of a half-sister to G3 Nell Gwyn S. winner Fantasia (GB) (Sadler's Wells), and the Cumanis will offer just two foals at Tattersalls, both during Friday's session.
The second to take to the ring will be lot 944, one of three Dubawi weanlings in the sale and a half-brother to Australian Group 1 winner Best Of Days (GB) (Azamour {Ire}), who also won the G2 Royal Lodge S. in Britain.
Out of the German listed winner Baisse (GB) (High Chaparral {Ire}), the colt is being sold on behalf of his breeder Gerhard Schoeningh, the owner of Germany's Hoppegarten racecourse. His full-sister was offered as a weanling at Tattersalls two years ago and was the second-top lot of the sale when sold to Godolphin through Stroud Coleman Bloodstock for 725,000gns.
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