Blue Point

Well, that was good. The jam-packed car parks at Kildare Paddocks translated into rip-roaring trade on the opening day of the November Foal Sale as the momentum gathered up towards the end of the yearling season carried over into what proved a memorable Monday for vendors at Goffs.  And the €90,000 top lot by Blue Point (Ire)? It came at a time where the vendor needed it most. Rob Tierney might be best known as the face of Noel O'Callaghan's Mountarmstrong Stud. Together, the pair have enjoyed many good days....

Top sprinter Big Evs (Ire) will stand at Tally-Ho Stud next season. The son of Blue Point will retire following his run in the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar, a race he is a general 8-1 chance for.  Big Evs is the leading sprinter of his generation, a Group 1-winning two-year-old who has beaten some of the best older horses in a series of top-class efforts this season at three for trainer Mick Appleby. Sourced by Conor Quirke on behalf of Paul and Rachael Teasdale's RP Racing...

It's been tricky to focus on the racing of late with all the theatrics at Tattersalls, so let's call this fourteen days and attempt a catch-up in the brief period between the sales starting up again at Arqana on Tuesday. The extraordinary prices of Books 1 and 2 at the October Yearling Sale tell only half the story, and we all know that in any sales season there are tales of the haves and the have-nots. Perhaps the most interesting element of the top end is what feels like a...

Joseph O'Brien was the big winner on day one of the Goffs Orby Sale with the trainer coming away with a number of six-figure yearlings, including the €850,000 Blue Point (Ire) half-sister to Classic contender Bay City Roller (Ire) (New Bay {GB}).  Billed as one of the highlights of the sale, the sister (lot 114) to the unbeaten G2 Champagne Stakes winner was bought by European clients Agrolexica International Trading BV, who confirmed that the filly would be on her way to Owning Hill.  The sale-topping figure almost brought Tom...

Arqana's August Sale bursts from the stalls next Friday which means it will be Christmas before we know it. It also means that over the three days which follow the spotlight will be shone on some of the finest yearlings from France and beyond as the European yearling season gets underway in its customary fashion of part-holiday/part-serious business in Deauville. In the days building up to the sale, we will be profiling some of the largest drafts at Arqana, beginning with Anna Sundstrom's Coulonces, which has 20 set to go...

Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James's Palace Stakes winner Rosallion (Ire) (Blue Point {Ire}) "is not finished" for the season, according to trainer Richard Hannon, despite conflicting reports appearing elsewhere in the media. Rosallion was a last minute withdrawal from the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood last week and Hannon admitted to being unsure whether the horse would be seen on a racecourse again this season when asked about the colt's next target. Next month's Prix Du Moulin at ParisLongchamp was mooted as a suitable option for Rosallion's comeback, but that...

We're not quite halfway through the Flat season but Royal Ascot feels like a pivotal point. It's not just the fact that it coincides with the summer solstice (even though summer has really only just arrived in these parts) but it includes the first properly meaningful two-year-old contests along with a set of races for the Classic generation which start to underline the really serious prospects. While the yearling sales may tell one story of the popularity of stallions, one only needs to peruse the stakes race results on a...

It was a day that had everything. From Rosallion landing the St James's Palace S. to yet another Australian sprinter showing the Euros how it's done, day one of the royal meeting did not disappoint. Here are some of the talking points.   Faux Pas For The French Anyone who backed the French raiders Big Rock (Fr) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}) and Facteur Cheval (Ire) (Ribchester {Ire}) in the Queen Anne knew pretty early that they were not going to get off to a winning start at the royal meeting....

They say that good things come in threes. The team at Dalham Hall Stud could be forgiven for bending that old adage a little to say that good things come from Reem Three.  This time 12 months ago one of the breeding stories of Royal Ascot week came in the very first race when Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum's homebred Triple Time (GB) (Frankel {GB}) won the Queen Anne S. to become not just the second Group 1 winner for his dam, Reem Three (GB) (Mark Of Esteem {Ire}), but...

If you are a racing tragic, and I'd like to think that most TDN readers fall into this celebrated bracket, it is impossible to have a day off at the moment. Trials, Classics, they come thick and fast in these heady weeks of spring. We've waited winterlong, starved of any meaningful action, and now it's hard not to feel a little queasy at the veritable feast of racing which is set before us, course after course after course. There's barely even room for the Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding Maiden Hurdle. ...

Star Bloodstock, the consignment that unearthed talents like Malavath (Ire), A'Ali (Ire) and more, is set to wind down its breeze-up operation and concentrate entirely on producing future top-notchers on the racetrack instead.  The shift in focus has reaped immediate rewards with the aptly-named Make Haste (GB) (Blue Point {Ire}), a leading Royal Ascot contender after posting a stunning debut success at Naas for trainer and breeze-up consignor Diego Dias, being snapped up by Gainesway and LNJ Foxwoods.  Bought by Byron Rogers, Star Bloodstock and Dias at the Tattersalls Book...

The search for the next Vandeek (GB) (Havana Grey {GB}) just became a whole lot tougher. That's not to say that separating potential Group 1 winners apart from the near-200 horses who breeze up the Rowley Mile is an easy task to start with.  However, the howling wind, vertical hailstorm and torrential rain added a whole new dimension to the breeze at this year's Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale.  They tell us year after year that the times don't matter. That they only serve as just another piece of the jigsaw...