Blue Point

A large part of the fun that comes with following racing and the bloodstock game is predicting the future. Who will win the Derby? Who might top the Orby Sale? What freshman sires are here to stay and which ones will drift into the abyss? Well, we've looked deep into the TDN Europe crystal ball for 2023 to see if we can come up with the answers to the burning questions for the year ahead. Enjoy! January If you think he had a good Christmas, wait until you see how...

First job in the Thoroughbred industry? I started riding for Stephane Cerulis during the summer holidays back in Belgium when I was aged 14. Biggest influence on your career? Criquette Head. She is like a second mum, the best advisor and most importantly she made me fall in love with training. Favourite racehorse of all time, and why? Treve. I was lucky enough to ride her while she was in training which was a fantastic experience. Who will be champion first-season sire in 2023? Blue Point. Greatest race in the...

TDN: First job in the Thoroughbred industry? Believe it or not, the one I'm in! I have worked for Tattersalls now for 22 years, having answered an advert for a marketing executive in the Racing Post back in 2000. I had previously run a very amateur racing website called Ausracing, but since it brought me no income, it could hardly be called a job. TDN: Biggest influence on your career? Always a hard one, but perhaps it was the friend who took me to Sandown racecourse in Melbourne's Eastern suburbs...

By Brian Sheerin and Emma Berry   After a hectic few months perusing this year's foal and yearling crops, we asked the buyers to share their thoughts on the young stallions with first foals and yearlings.  Dermot Farrington, agent: "If you look at the list of people who have bought yearlings and foals by Advertise, it's a long time since a young stallion has attracted the who's who of the bloodstock world, and that's exactly what he has done. Whether it be yearlings to breeze, yearlings to race or foals...

The insatiable demand for foals was evident in the figures recorded at Goffs last week with turnover rising 16% to €29,561,000 and the average climbing 16% to €40,110. At the top end of the market, Kingman (GB) dominated with three foals by the Juddmonte-based stallion selling for a combined €1,540,000 and one of Europe's leading pinhookers Philipp Stauffenberg signing for the €550,000 top lot by the sire.  Tally-Ho Stud may be best known for being sellers but they pipped Stauffenberg for the biggest spenders title by signing for 19 foals...

As he prepares his runners for the upcoming flat season, Jim Bolger is also keeping a watchful eye on his breeding stock. The master trainer may be juggling the education of his runners with the oversight of his broodmares and youngstock, but Bolger has proven mighty adept at this kind of multi-tasking in the past: as has been well-documented, Bolger breeds many of his own runners, often going back two or three generations on both the top and bottom of the pedigree. His 2021 G1 2000 Guineas and G1 St...

In the latest edition of our Value Sires Series, we arrive at stallions with their first yearlings in 2022. The Darley duo of Too Darn Hot (GB) and Blue Point (Ire) retired as the two breakout horses of this group on fees, and that is how they wound up their first sales season. Too Darn Hot, the beautifully bred son of Dubawi who was a champion at two and three, retired at £50,000 at Dalham Hall Stud, and his 11 foals sold last year averaged €131,148/£111,964-the best foal sale average...

For any breeder of Thoroughbreds, the opportunity to watch one's carefully cultivated lines thrive across generations must be one of the greatest rewards that can be derived. The team at Darley can take pride, then, in fact that it has three Group 1-winning stallions by its own sires with their first crops to sell at the upcoming foals sales. Masar (Ire) will be remembered as a true game-changer for Godolphin on the racecourse. By emulating his sire New Approach (Ire) in winning the G1 Derby, Masar became the first blue...

We kicked off our annual Value Sires series earlier this week with a look at the new class of sires entering stud in 2021, and today we move on to the group with their first foals set to hit the ground in the coming months. While it is not always a straightforward task to pinpoint value in unproven sires, the ripple effects of the global pandemic make the exercise a little more interesting this year. While it has become the norm for some young sires to get fee cuts in...

Beach Frolic (GB) (Nayef) (lot 1731), the 9-year-old dam of this year's champion 3-year-old Palace Pier (GB) (Kingman {GB}), is headed to join the Coolmore broodmare ranks after MV Magnier went to 2.2-million gns to secure her at the Tattersalls December Mares Sale on Tuesday. Beach Frolic was offered by Highclere Stud in foal to Blue Point (Ire).

The first chapter of the story of Palace Pier (GB) (Kingman {GB}) was written 20 years ago when John Warren bought the listed winner Miss d'Ouilly (Fr) (Bikala {GB}) from Jean-Luc Lagardere at the Tattersalls December Sale for 50,000gns. The Night Shift foal she was carrying at the time became known as Night Frolic (GB), and she has established her own important branch of an accomplished family at Highclere Stud.  For Palace Pier, the tale is far from complete. This season's champion miler will remain in training for 2021, but...

If there is one adjective that embodies everything about Shamardal, it would have to be 'class.' That magic yet highly elusive ingredient that separates a great Thoroughbred from the field has permeated every aspect of his being from the time his blue chip mating was planned, through to his own quartet of Group 1 successes on the racecourse and on to his sons and daughters, who made an immediate impact on the track with Classic winners in Europe and Australia in his first crop and whose dominance was emphasized last...