Grangemore Stud

Thirty-five years after setting up in the stallion business, Gay and Annette O'Callaghan's Yeomanstown Stud can look forward to an extra special Christmas celebration as the family toasts its homegrown hero Dark Angel (Ire), the 2024 champion sire of Britain and Ireland.  For anyone who has watched the tenacity with which Gay works the sales in tandem with his sons David, Guy and Robert, and often with Peter back over from America, it is easy to predict that the celebration won't last long. For soon there will be mares to...

Anthony Stroud signed for the first lot to make a million during Wednesday's second session of Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, with Grangemore Stud's Dark Angel (Ire) full-sister to the G1 Queen Anne Stakes and G1 Prix Jacques le Marois winner Charyn (Ire) selling for 2,900,000gns. Stroud bought the filly on behalf of Godolphin, with Amo Racing, who made three seven-figure purchases on Tuesday, filling the role of underbidder. Lot 183 is out of the Listed-placed Kodiac (GB) mare Futoon (Ire), who is also responsible for the...

NEWMARKET, UK -- A sister to Alpinista (GB)? How about one to St Mark's Basilica (Fr) or Charyn (Ire), or a brother to Hurricane Lane (Ire)? Then there are the first foals, by Dubawi (Ire) no less, of Lady Bowthorpe (GB) and Glass Slippers (GB), or the first foal from Wonderful Tonight (Fr), by Frankel (GB), with those two top stallions accounting for 10 per cent of Book 1 entries between them.  Camelot (GB) leapfrogged Dubawi on Sunday to be head of the sires' table for Europe when his daughter...

Nurlan Bizakov's 250,000gns Tattersalls October Book 2 yearling Charyn (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}--Futoon {Ire}, by Kodiac {GB}) ran third to Roger Varian-trained stablemate Sakheer (Ire) (Zoffany {Ire}) in last month's G2 Mill Reef S. and continued his progression with a career high in Saturday's G2 Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte at Chantilly. He had earlier followed up an Aug. 7 debut triumph at Haydock with a narrow defeat at Newmarket in his penultimate start later that month. The eventual winner was sent forward from an early fifth to track the leaders in...

Those who work in racing know all too well the endless hours devoted to getting horses ready for the racecourse, and fans of the sport were able to see that for themselves during the first National Racehorse Week in Britain. The brainchild of National Hunt trainer Richard Phillips, the inaugural week-long spotlight on the racing industry included racing stables being open to the public all over the country, starting at Epsom and Malton, and culminating in Newmarket's popular Henry Cecil Open Weekend. It can be deemed a huge success. This...

NEWMARKET, UK--It's Fairyhouse, but not as we know it. For the second year running the Tattersalls Ireland September Yearling Sale has gone on tour to Newmarket, with just shy of 600 youngsters catalogued to sell over the next two days.  The claim of Tattersalls Ireland's CEO Simon Kerins that the September Sale has something for everyone is fully backed up by two notable graduates of the sale on the track this year. This time last year Go Bears Go (Ire) (Kodi Bear {Ire}) was plucked from Micheal Ryan's Al Eile...

The collective noun for O'Callaghans is unknown, but at bloodstock sales around the world they can often be found travelling as a pack. An intimidating force perhaps, the Yeomanstown O'Callaghans--not to be confused with their cousins, the equally successful Tally-Ho ones--are a close-knit clan who have made a prosperous business of breeding and trading horses with a little help from sire sensation Dark Angel (Ire). Away from the sales, though, the brothers are scattered around Ireland and, at Grangemore Stud, Guy O'Callaghan is quite clearly doing his own thing. "It's...