By Adam Houghton
And breathe. If you listen carefully enough, you can almost hear the collective exhale from all of those invested in the bloodstock industry and its transfer market, as we near the conclusion of another dizzying year on the merry-go-round that is the European sales calendar.
The relentless nature of it can have a bewildering effect at the best of times, but this year the sums changing hands were often so astronomical that you could be forgiven for mistaking what were you watching for a mirage. Only during the Sceptre Sessions at the Tattersalls December Mares Sale, when auctioneer Alistair Pim referred to his relationship with Amo Racing founder Kia Joorabchian as “a bromance”, were we sure that we'd been right all along.
That exchange occurred during the sale of this year's Irish Oaks winner You Got To Me (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) for 4,800,000gns, on what was the highest-grossing day in European auction history with turnover of 55,168,500gns. Remarkably, it came just four days after another extraordinary session at Park Paddocks during the December Foal Sale, when the total spend of 30,906,000gns was a record for a single day at a European foal sale.
So many people put in so many hours of hard work, to make days like that happen, that it becomes an impossible task to do all of their stories justice. Of course, it's the job of those on the press bench to try, but the thing about merry-go-rounds is that you often don't have a chance to stop and reflect on all of the events that played out until you eventually step off it.
Now, back on terra firma, there was one result from that record-breaking day at the December Foal Sale that we felt it important to go back and acknowledge. To recap, it was another session dominated by the Amo team who topped the buyers' list, just as they already had done at Book 1 of the October Yearling Sale and as they would later do at the December Mares Sale.
When it came to the weanlings, Joorabchian spent a total of 4,675,000gns on a group of four, headed by Whitsbury Manor Stud's Frankel (GB) filly out of Suelita (GB) (Dutch Art {GB}), making her a full-sister to the Classic winner Chaldean (GB), who equalled the long-held record-high price set by Padua's Pride (Ire) (Caerleon), way back in 1997, at 2,500,000gns.
Naturally, it was a transaction which attracted plenty of media attention, but it also had the unintended consequence of rather marginalising the sale of another Frankel filly who had gone the way of Amo just two lots earlier, that consigned by Hazelwood Bloodstock on behalf of breeders Fiona and Mick Denniff.
At 850,000gns, the sale was the most lucrative result the Denniffs have been involved in at public auction in over two decades of breeding racehorses, but Fiona is philosophical when reflecting on the circumstances that rather robbed them of their moment in the sun, with any lingering regrets felt more for the filly's sake than her own.
Another Frankel foal to light up the sales ring at the #TattsDecember Foal Sale as @amoracingltd pays 850,000gns for the filly out of the Listed winner Auria, sold by @AdrianOBrien2's Hazelwood Bloodstock. pic.twitter.com/OpK3ME1GvF
— Tattersalls (@Tattersalls1766) November 29, 2024
“We did always love that filly,” Fiona says of the first foal out of their homebred Listed winner Auria (GB) (Muhaarar {GB}). “She was a complete mini-me of her mother but with the most delightful temperament. Everything we asked of her, she delivered and delivered. We went in hoping that she would be appreciated the way we appreciated her.
“I must admit that we went to look at some of the other Frankels, and we thought that we looked very favourable against them, but to make the kind of money she made was stunning. I think I'm still a bit shell-shocked.”
She continues, “It was just a shame for her that she was two lots before the Suelita filly because she got kind of lost. I understand why–the Suelita was the big one–but it seemed a shame for the filly because she was so nice and she deserved her moment in the spotlight which she probably didn't get.”
The Denniffs themselves are no strangers to the spotlight, having bred a whole host of talented winners at their Nottinghamshire stud, many from the immediate family of the Frankel filly.
Auria herself is a half-sister to the multiple Group 2 winner Beat The Bank (GB) (Paco Boy {Ire}), as well as the G3 Chipchase Stakes heroine and G1 Sprint Cup third Chil Chil (GB) (Exceed And Excel {Aus}). Their dam, the Listed-placed Diktat (GB) mare Tiana (GB), is one of 12 winners out of Fiona and Mick's beloved Hill Welcome (GB) (Most Welcome {GB}), the mare who has done so much for them since they bought her for just 3,000gns at Doncaster back in 2001. Now 26, Hill Welcome is reportedly still going strong in retirement, “rugged up and pampered”.
“She has been incredible,” Fiona adds of Hill Welcome's legacy. “For someone to be able to go and buy a mare for that kind of money, and to produce the family that she has produced, it's extraordinary. We feel so lucky and so blessed–words fail me really.”
The Frankel filly is not the only member of the Hill Welcome dynasty to have provided the Denniffs with a significant result in the sales ring this year. At the Goffs Premier Yearling Sale they sold a Havana Grey (GB) colt out of Guarded Secret (GB) (Bated Breath {GB})–one of Hill Welcome's few offspring not to win a race–for £140,000, after which an emotional Fiona needed her husband to do most of the talking as she blinked back the tears during the post-sale media debrief.
“That was because we'd lost the mare [Guarded Secret],” Fiona is able to muster now. “We bred her and bought her back, and I just thought it was sad because she was a young mare. That was why I was so emotional that day, quite unlike me really. If you'd spoken to us after the Frankel foal, I wasn't anything like as emotional.”
Despite the sad loss of Guarded Secret, the Denniffs still have eight mares descended from Hill Welcome on the farm, many of whom they sold as foals or yearlings, before buying them back in their later years.
The latest example of that practice is the three-year-old Cuban Melody (GB) (Havana Grey {GB}), who is out of the five-time winner Jacquotte Delahaye (GB) (Kyllachy {GB}). She in turn is out of Hill Welcome's Group 3-placed daughter Mary Read (GB) (Bahamian Bounty {GB}), whose other progeny include the soon-to-be-pensioned Dubai Bounty (GB) (Dubai Destination), the dam of the high-class sprinter Kachy (GB) (Kyllachy {GB}) among others.
Having been sold to Highclere for 155,000gns at Book 2 of the October Yearling Sale, Cuban Melody won once in eight starts for Andrew Balding, before being reacquired by the Denniffs for 34,000gns at the December Mares Sale. The decision to do so wasn't taken lightly, having committed to reducing their number of mares earlier this year, but the Denniffs devotion to this family is such that they simply couldn't turn the opportunity down when it came to the crunch.
“There aren't many of them that have escaped me!” Fiona jokes of their monopoly on the family. “I went to see Cuban Melody twice and I thought 'no, I mustn't buy another one back because I need to stick with my reduction in numbers'. But I just couldn't walk away from her. She's beautiful and we loved her before we sold her.”
She adds, “We did cut back a lot this year. I have to keep one eye on the economics and I think everyone in the industry, as a whole, will be reducing a little bit. But then I'm retiring Dubai Bounty. She's not getting any younger, so she'll have her final foal in the new year and then Cuban Melody can step into her shoes as it were.”
Succession plans might already be in place when it comes to the broodmare band at home in Nottinghamshire, but who each of them will be visiting next year in terms of stallions is still very much up in the air, according to Fiona. The only mating arrangement said to be set in stone is that for Auria, who will understandably return to Frankel in 2025, having been covered by his 2,000 Guineas-winning son Chaldean this season.
It's the logical choice given what played out with the Frankel filly at the December Foal Sale, although anyone with even a basic understanding of the Denniffs' usual way of doing things would argue that the decision to send Auria to the Juddmonte behemoth was out of character in the first place.
Indeed, embark on a quick scan of the stallions whose names appear in parenthesis throughout this article, and you'll soon discover that the Denniffs have an affinity for those with more of a sprinting background–albeit few would argue that Frankel probably would have won a July Cup had he been given the opportunity to try.
“It was a complete departure,” Fiona says of the decision to send Auria to Banstead Manor. “But she was a very good racemare and I wanted to get her to the best stallion that I could possibly get her to. That is Frankel really, isn't it?
“I think people forget that Frankel had a lot of speed. He was the most fabulous racehorse and when we were able to send her there it was a no-brainer.”
She continues, “I've not really changed what I do. Yes, the thing with Auria would suggest I'm going down a different route, but that's possibly just a natural progression with us trying to improve our own pedigrees and to find what will suit them.
“But I've always liked sprinters and, when we started, you couldn't have gone and bought a deep, middle-distance pedigree for three grand. It would have been impossible and I think that would still be the case. I couldn't go clutching my three grand and buy a good enough pedigree that would produce me a middle-distance family.
“That is why I started with sprinters. We wanted to hit the ground running and I think with a sprinter you can do that. You need to invest a little bit more into middle-distance horses because they just take a bit longer–that's just a fact.”
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