The market demand for National Hunt foals remains strong, as the third session concluded on Tuesday with a colt by Walk In The Park (Ire) bringing €100,000 from Gerry Aherne and Charles Shanahan.
Sold as lot 509 from the consignment of Oliver Loughlin, the bay is out of Posh Trish (Ire) (Stowaway {GB}), a listed winner. Posh Trish was originally sold by Loughlin for €1,200 at the 2013 November NH Sale. He is one of nine foals to sell north of €80,000 over the sale so far, with only four achieving that milestone over the whole sale in 2022.
“As soon as this colt was born I thought I might hit the jackpot as he has looked a star from the start,” said Loughlin. “He is an image of her, a baby of her.”
He added of Walk In The Park as the second mate of Posh Trish, who he picked back up for €118,000 out of the 2020 November National Hunt Sale, “He is a good stallion, she was a good mare and the plan is always to bred the best to the best.”
“For us he is the best foal here,” said Aherne. “We probably will race him, but not yet decided for sure. The mare was very good and is very good-looking. Oliver is a good breeder and we have been lucky with him before.”
A colt by Kapgarde (Fr) (lot 643) from Clonbonny Stud attracted a winning bid of €92,000 from Jamie Codd later in the day. The first foal of the winning hurdler Cushuish (GB) (Yeats {Ire}), the colt's second dam is Grade 2-winning chaser My Petra (GB) (Midnight Legend {GB}). His dam is also a half-sister to Grade 1 hurdler My Drogo (GB) (Milan {GB}).
“We'll get him home before we make a plan, but he has all the options,” said Codd. “He could go racing, or he could end up coming back here to the Derby Sale. We had to stretch to get him, but he's a lovely horse and is the only one by the sire in the sale.”
Rounding out the top three was a €90,000 son of Nathaniel (Ire) (lot 722) from Peel Hall Stables. NBB Racing and Joey Logan picked up the third foal of Grade 2 Cheltenham winner Limini (Ire) (Pentre Celebre). Limini was also placed four times at the highest level over jumps.
“The foal is initially going stay in Ireland with Joey but will go to France as a racing prospect–hopefully he will make up into a good juvenile hurdler,” said NBB Racing's Nicolas Bertran de Balanda. “He is very racy and correct.”
At the end of day three, 173 lots of 234 offered (74%) sold for a gross of €4,283,500. The average stayed flat at €24,760, while the median rose 5% to €21,000.
The fourth session, containing National Hunt-bred foals, will be held at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
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