The sales season and all the hard work that is asked of the staff is over and attention is turning to mares getting under lights and the first foalings. No rest and relaxtion there unfortunately!
For us, there a few early ones to foal down in January this year and so there is the prospect of some cold nights watching,waiting and delivering. As due dates are quite spread out this year, there will also be some hopefully balmy nights in May to enjoy!
The yearling sales were “so-so” for the stud but the HIT,Mare and Foal sales were fine. One exception was a no bid for a cracking individual by Monsieur Bond. The page was light but he will do just fine as a yearling next year. Who says the pinhookers never miss a trick!!
Given that we bred him, we were especially interested to see the first Wootton Bassett foals and they certainly didn’t disappoint. In fact, they were crackers and all sold for good money. He is clearly stamping them and we had to outbid Coolmore connections to buy his colt ex Misty Heights at Arqana. We will probably keep and run him personally rather than resell him through the stud. We hear he has an excellent book of mares for 2014.
We also have a new mare arrival as we purchased Bahama Spirit at Tatts. She is in foal to Nathaniel-who is a cracking good looker as well as having been a cracking racehorse. She will then go off to be covered by Intello.
The Al Kazeem syndicate manager, John Warren, very kindly offered the stud a share in the stallion which we jumped at the chance to take up. Also a cracking model and performer, we will send the winning Pivotal mare, Pinch of Posh ,to him.
The racing year closed with a win for Rivellino in taking fashion on the all weather. He is a classy horse who will improve more and we look forward to seeing him in the big Saturday sprints in 2014.
In the meantime, we wish you a happy and healthy 2014 and we will keep you posted with events at the stud and on the track in due course.