By Emma Berry
NEWMARKET, UK–There's no let-up in a sales calendar that becomes more packed every year, and the yearling action now switches to Newmarket, with the Tattersalls Somerville Sale sandwiched between last Friday's BBAG Yearling Sale in Germany, and a new French sale at Arqana this coming Thursday and Friday.
This is in effect only the second year of the Somerville, a sale that grew out of the Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale, which itself only existed for four years, having been moved to Newmarket during the first year of the pandemic.
That move coincided with a boost in both entries and returns, and the Somerville, with its focus on a sharper type of yearling more usually found at the Goffs UK Premier Sale, was born. Its debut last September could hardly have been more encouraging, and this year's sale is on the rise again in numbers. Even so, judging by a full car park and packed runways between the stable blocks at Park Paddocks on Monday, there should be plenty of people on the ground attempting to buy the yearlings offered from 10am on Tuesday.
As first-year results go, having the G2 Coventry S. winner Bradsell (GB) (Tasleet {GB}) as an early flag-bearer was a welcome boost, through sadly that 12,000gns purchase is now on the easy list after picking up an injury in his subsequent start in the G1 Keeneland Phoenix S.
Sold from Bearstone Stud, which offered seven yearlings at the sale last year, Bradsell was not the only star performer from that draft. The most expensive member, at 45,000gns, was a colt from the first crop of Havana Grey (GB). Like Bradsell, he too ended up at Archie Watson's stable. Now named Eddie's Boy (GB), he has raced eight times for the Middleham Park Racing syndicate, winning on debut, and later scooping the lucrative pot of the Weatherbys Super Sprint, as well as picking up some Listed black type when third in the Windsor Castle S. at Royal Ascot behind Little Big Bear (Ire) and again at Sandown in the Dragon S.
Farther afield, Marco Bozzi's 4,500gns purchase New Collection (GB) (Brazen Beau {Aus}) is now a Listed winner in Italy.
Bearstone Stud has returned to the Somerville Sale this year with a draft of nine, including two fillies by Tasleet and Havana Grey, as well as the half-sister to the aforementioned Eddie's Boy, who sells as lot 66 and is by Washington DC (Ire), one of Bearstone's three resident stallions. The stud's owner Terry Holdcroft was not alone among consignors in reporting hectic viewing sessions for Sunday and Monday.
“It's just been absolutely manic,” he said. “We've been very busy. We have five staff here and it's almost not enough but even if we'd brought a couple more there's not room to show them all at the same time. Yesterday it was unbelievable, we were almost having to ask people if they would like to come back later as there was a queue of people waiting to see them.”
Holdcroft added, “The sale has worked well for us and we used to go to Ascot previously, but we are putting better horses in now that it has moved to Tattersalls. It does come a bit quick for us after Doncaster, especially for the staff. But we have brought mostly sharp, 2-year-old types, which is basically what I try to breed, and it's what they are looking for in this sale, and at Doncaster of course.”
Holdcroft also issued an update on one of Bearstone's star graduates, Glass Slippers (GB) (Dream Ahead), winner of the G1 Flying Five and GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint two years ago.
“She's very much in foal,” he said. “She went to Dubawi and we're really looking forward to that.”
Eddie's Boy's sire Havana Grey is currently way out in front in the first-season sires' table with 30 winners of 45 races, and three stakes winners to his name. The most recent of those, and his first group winner, came last Thursday with Lady Hollywood's victory in the G3 Prix d'Arenberg at Longchamp. Her rising star of a young trainer, Alice Haynes, was among the many pounding the sale yards on Monday, and if she is on the hunt for another by Whitsbury Manor Stud's Havana Grey she will have 21 to choose from, including one from the farm responsible for breeding Havana Grey in the first place, Mickley Stud. The Shropshire farm offers lot 7, the third foal of the Listed winner Peach Melba (GB) (Dream Ahead) who already has a multiple winner to her name in Instinctive Move (GB) (Showcasing {GB}).
As outlined by Terry Holdcroft, there is a strong focus on speed and precocity in the catalogue, and just over 20% of those slated to sell are by first-crop sires, including Inns Of Court (Ire), Calyx (GB), Eqtidaar (Ire), Masar (Ire), Magna Grecia (Ire) and Land Force (Ire).
Graduates of the Somerville Sale are eligible not just for the £100,000 Tattersalls Somerville Auction S., which is to be run next August 26 over six furlongs of the July Course, but also for the Tattersalls October Auction S., staged over the same distance but slightly later and next door on Newmarket's Rowley Mile. The latter also takes in graduates of Books 3 and 4 of the October Yearling Sale.
With only 17 withdrawals at the time of writing from the 313 yearlings in the book, trade on Tuesday will be continuing long into the evening at Park Paddocks at this sale that seems unlikely to remain in its one-day format for much longer. Long viewing days and a lengthy sale session will seem worthwhile in hindsight, however, if the level of activity over the last few days is carried through on the day that it matters most.
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