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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
FAIRYHOUSE, IRELAND – Believe it or not, there are some people out there who think the yearling sales are just one big fugazi and that, had you adopted a method of throwing darts at the catalogue, you may well enjoy the same amount of luck – or despair – on the racetrack. Sheila Lavery, Tom Mullins, Paul Flynn, Danny Murphy and Sean Davis operate at the coalface of the industry in Ireland and can pour cold water on the idea of the yearling sales being one big game of chance pretty quickly. These trainers will be putting their hard-earned cash on the line at this week's Tattersalls Ireland September Yearling Sale and know better than most that one or two bad decisions could be detrimental to their business. You wouldn't be overegging the pudding by saying this sale really is make or break for a lot of handlers. How things play out at Fairyhouse, which is realistically one of the few Flat yearling sales in this country where the smaller man or woman can get a look in, will determine how their business will look over the next 18 months or so, particularly for those with one eye on trading. There are few trainers better at making their money stretch at the sales than Lavery and Mullins, yet both trainers have been extremely open about the fact they are feeling the pressure in the build-up to this year's yearling sale season given they have sent out just three winners apiece on the Flat. Sheila Lavery | Tattersalls Lavery explained, “I've had a really tough year. The horses are running well but they are mediocre. I sold a homebred River Boyne colt to OTI Racing out of a barrier trial so that has taken the pressure off a little bit. But apart from that, it has been tough. When you only have 24 horses and four of those need wind operations and two fractured their pelvis, that cuts into things. Some of our owners made a lot of money this year, so I am delighted for them, but the flip side of that is we have sold a lot of highly-rated horses. We sold the likes of Kortez Bay, Torivega, Vestigia and more. They'd all have won two or three races a year so I am having to rebuild myself.” Like Lavery, Mullins has mastered the craft of unearthing diamonds in the rough and has won 18 Irish maidens in the past decade. What's remarkable about that statistic is that Mullins, a brother to the dominant champion National Hunt trainer Willie, only shifted over to the Flat because he found the store horses harder and harder to buy at public auction. None of those Flat maiden winners cost more than €30,000, confirming Mullins's status as one of the shrewdest judges on the sales circuit. “This would be my worst year in both spheres by a long way,” Mullins shared. “I only managed to buy one yearling last year because, just like the stores, I found that they were very expensive. It was actually the first year where I didn't buy four or five yearlings. The day of a trainer getting a load of orders is gone, though. Willie Mullins mightn't even get orders for a Derby or a Land Rover Sale. I think the bloodstock agents are getting orders alright.” He added, “The whole game is changing. Things haven't budged at the bottom for 10 or 15 years but the costs have doubled if not trebled. That's why the lower end of business is simply not viable because the prize-money has not come up in any way, shape or form. With the costs involved in getting a horse to the track, you need to buy to trade and, in all reality, you need to be selling a horse or two every year in order to survive in this business.” More recently, Mullins has had Stela Star (Epaulette) [€23,000 yearling purchase] and Mythical Reel (Highland Reel) [€16,000] traded to America while the 107-rated Belle Image (Kodi Bear), whose Dark Angel filly happens to sell here this week [lot 352], was sourced by Lavery for €50,000 in 2019. “I look at as many horses as I can and I usually go with my first impression on a horse,” Lavery said of her approach to the sales. “Any time I have gone against that, it hasn't gone well for me. Like, I can't buy a horse out of the back ring. I need to have seen that horse leaving his or her stable so I can get a feel for the individual. And if my initial feeling isn't positive, I usually always walk away. One thing I will never look at is a yearling out of a mare who has never run or never bred a runner, even if it is a first foal, because there could be a soundness issue. “Belle Image, who finished fourth in an Irish 1,000 Guineas, came out of this sale, as did Vestigia, who won a couple of races before being traded on. Prince Of Naples was another we sourced here and he was sold on for a profit. We've had a lot of luck at Tattersalls Ireland and even New Energy [second in an Irish 2,000 Guineas] was bought at the breeze-up sale here a few years ago as well.” She added, “I am not very good at selling myself and you really do need to buy horses on spec but I don't because I don't like owing people money. That's to my detriment, I think. I should be braver at the sales. I love going to the sales with orders and I am very, very comfortable at that because I know I am good at buying yearlings. But thankfully, I have a couple of orders for this week.” BBA Ireland's Mick Donohoe and Tom Mullins | Tattersalls Asked about his approach to sourcing talent, Mullins joked, “My approach to buying a yearling or my approach to staying in business as a trainer? The reason I have gone down the yearling route is because the National Hunt store has become too expensive. I was competing with the point-to-point lads in the ring, which wasn't going to work, and then I couldn't sell a bumper horse unless it came out and won impressively. I just found I couldn't buy the horse I wanted to buy at the store sales anymore and that, coupled with the fact Gordon [Elliott] and Willie are so strong, we turned our hand to the Flat. We're 50-50 between Flat and National Hunt now.” He added, “My roots might be in the National Hunt game but I'd never buy a Flat yearling who I think might do both jobs. Never. If I am buying a Flat horse, it's to run on the Flat. I am never thinking in the back of my mind, 'will this ever jump a hurdle?' I'd go as far as saying if I thought the horse looked like he could, I'd walk away. This week, I will be trying to buy a horse for the Flat. That's for sure. Any year I have come up here, I have found it very hard to afford a nice colt, so I'll more than likely be focussing on fillies. A nice, racy filly could be affordable, whereas a good colt might cost a lot of money, which I don't have to spend. I'd be a €40,000 man, maximum.” Davis is unique in that he shops at both ends of the market. A licensed trainer, he is also a prominent breeze-up handler and revealed that he would be changing tack with his approach toward the latter discipline. Davis explained, “The aim is to sell good horses at the breeze-ups so, when I looked at other consignors and how strong the whole breeze-up business has changed, I felt that I needed to become more competitive and buy a classier type. I am going to focus on quality over quantity this year. Over the past few years, we definitely had around 20 horses but this year I'd imagine I'll have 10 or 12.” He added, “I go to the yearling sales with an open mind. There could be a very nice horse that you know will only make €10,000 or €15,000 because of his page. You can't breeze a horse like that anymore because he won't get into any breeze-up sale. Those are the types of horses I can race so it's all about looking at as many yearlings as you can and then fitting them into each bracket.” Sean Davis: buys horses for various different disciplines | Tattersalls You could say Davis has the best of both worlds in that he can trade away with the sexier, and in many ways safer, horses at the breeze-up sales. Then, he can chance a horse like Iriseach, who he sourced for just 15,000gns at the Tattersalls Online breeze-up sale before selling on to America after getting the Ubettabelievit colt to finish fourth in a Navan maiden on debut just over a month later. Davis will be without long-time business partner Gary Halpin this year and opened up how he is striving to achieve the perfect balance between training, pre-training and breezing. “I was actually talking to Roger O'Callaghan about this on the phone the other day,” he explained. “We had a bad year at the breeze-ups last year but it was the horses-in-training that got us out of trouble. Thankfully, the breeze-ups went well for us this year, but the aim would be to get the breezing, the training and the pre-training working in tandem with each other. That's the aim – to be busy all year round and successful at everything you turn your hand to, not have one area of the business propping up another.” Davis added, “But I suppose I'm a small bit fortunate in that I am not just a breeze-up handler. We all know that even the breeze-up market has become incredibly selective so, whether it be a horse like Iriseach or a yearling that I like who may not be by a sexy stallion, I can run those types of horses and try and get them sold from off the track instead.” Paul Flynn: admits to being concerned about the private trade for form horses | Racingfotos.com And then there is Flynn and Murphy, two of the biggest characters in the game. The good news for the industry is that both trainers, who are never short of a line or two, are being rewarded by their owners for what has been a strong run of respective form. Murphy has sent out over 1,000 winners during stints in Macau, Singapore, Malaysia and the UAE. After spending five years working alongside Kieran Cotter upon his return to Ireland, he took out his own licence in 2023 and the winners have been flowing nicely since, with a career-best tally of 14 already on the board domestically. Two of those wins came with two-year-olds and, unsurprisingly, Murphy, who has a need for speed, will be looking for the sharper, racier model this week. Murphy said, “I'll be very busy this week, thank God. I have a few owners who are looking for something but I also plan on buying a few on spec as well. I've been lucky with two-year-olds and, it's funny, I don't look for the horses with these big walks. I actually think those horses are slow. I love fast horses. You can't beat a bit of speed and that's what I will be looking to buy next week. But I love the sales, even though I usually end up walking out Tatts Ireland completely skint!” A former National Hunt jockey, Flynn shares a lot in common with Mullins in that the foundations of his career were set in the jumps game. But he has successfully migrated over to the level, illustrated by the fact he has trained double-figure winners over the past four seasons, including 21 last year. No mean feat. Speaking about his new-found love for the Flat, Flynn, who it must be remembered burst onto the training scene by sending out Moon Dice to win the Galway Hurdle in 2011, said, “We had Ms Willpower (Inns Of Court) who won both of her starts for us before being sold to continue her career with Ralph Beckett. She was owned by a group of lads who want to go again this week. We actually bought her at this sale for €32,000 off Tally-Ho Stud a couple of years ago. We also have a filly, Silkie Sevei (Elzaam), who finished second in a maiden at Navan last week and she came out of Part 2 of this sale. So we've bought a few yearlings at Tatts Ireland and we've bought a few out of fields as well. We're always trying to find value and the plan is to try and buy four or five between Tatts Ireland and Goffs – I won't be going to any yearling sale in England because of the added expenses involved.” He added on his approach, “I am definitely not scared to buy a backward yearling. If I am not trying to sell it myself, and if the order is for a client who is patient, I'd buy a three-year-old type no problem. But we'll definitely try and buy something to trade on. I want to try and buy a colt if I can because I am not convinced by the American market right now. Whether they are getting a bit windy, whether it's the [Donald] Trump factor or whether the punters are not there, I don't know, but that avenue is definitely changing. I would have always sided towards fillies but I might try and buy more colts now, which I would have never done before. It would be easier to trade a colt abroad if they showed something.” Danny Murphy | Tattersalls Interestingly, Curragh-based handler John O'Donoghue made similar points in TDN Europe last week and, while we haven't entered panic stations just yet, the shortage of orders – from America in particular – for form horses is on a lot of trainers' minds heading into the sale this week. “I am not joking,” Flynn continued, “I have sold lots of horses down through the years to America where I wasn't even expecting a phone call. Now, they all worked out, but I wasn't expecting to get them sold and I did. It's a while ago now but I remember I ran a Jeremy filly [Jeremy's Legacy] in a maiden at Dundalk and she finished fourth. We got her sold to America after that and she ended up placing in a Group 3 and won nearly €100,000 in prize-money out there. That's a filly I wasn't expecting a dickie bird for. I don't really think the orders are there for that type of horse anymore.” As Noel Meade famously said, whoever wins in the sales ring usually wins on the racecourse. Winning in the ring doesn't always necessarily translate to spending the most amounts of money. What matters here is where your dart lands and Murphy speaks for everyone by sharing how he will be doing the legwork over the next couple of days in order to hit the bullseye. He concluded, “I am 63 years of age and, if you want to be successful as a racehorse trainer in Ireland, you've got to get out there and push on. In this game, nothing comes to you. You've got to go out there and get it. And that applies to the yearling sales as well, so we're excited about what we might find this week. We'll be trying our hardest anyway.” The post Meet The Smaller Irish Trainers Hoping To Win Big At Tattersalls Ireland appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
Great piece of nostalgia, what a great field, all classy performers, -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Mark Johnston was appointed as a new trustee of the Alborada Trust, after a trustees' meeting last week. The Alborada Trust was established in 2001 by philanthropist and distinguished owner/breeder Kirsten Rausing. Since inception the Alborada Trust has supported a broad range of domestic and international charities proving grants to those that evidence a solid track record of impact in their particular fields. It supports a number of global, domestic and local charities raging from medical research, international aid, equine veterinary research, higher education, racing charities and smaller charities operating in East Anglia. Johnston is the UK's winning-most trainer and he and his son Charlie train for Rausing from their base in North Yorkshire. Johnston's racing and veterinary expertise will complement the existing trustees skills matrix. Johnston replaces Newmarket-based bloodstock agent Tom Goff, who resigned after 12 years of invaluable service. For more information on the Alborada Trust and its initiatives, please visit there website. The post Mark Johnston Appointed Trustee To The Alborada Trust appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Cody Mo Wai-kit slotted a race-to-race double in fine style at Sha Tin on Sunday, scoring with talented three-year-old Motor before Emblazon landed a late betting plunge. Placed in two of his five Griffin starts as a two-year-old, Motor returned in a blaze of glory to record a comfortable victory in the Class Four Sam Shing Handicap (1,200m). Backing up a recent trial win at Conghua, the son of Fastnet Rock had a cosy run in the box seat before soaring to the lead under Derek Leung Ka-chun at...View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
What Warrnambool Races Where Warrnambool Racing Club – 2/64 Grafton Rd, Warrnambool VIC 3280 When Monday, September 22, 2025 First Race 1:30pm AEST Visit Dabble Warrnambool Racing Club is the destination for racing in Victoria on Monday afternoon with a competitive eight-race meeting set down for decision. With rain forecast leading into the meeting and on raceday itself, the track is likely to be in the Heavy range. The rail comes out 3m the entire circuit with action commencing at 1:30pm AEST. Best Bet at Warrnambool: Darth Invader Darth Invader has been knocking on the door and finds a maiden that sets up perfectly. He’s race-fit, draws barrier 10 to stay out of traffic, and maps to camp just off a genuine tempo before launching down the outside. The Shane Nichols & Hayden Black stable has him holding consistent figures at 1200m, while Lachlan Neindorf is riding confidently and suits horses that build through their gears. Darth Invader only needs even luck from the draw to put this away and graduate with authority. Best Bet Race 3 – #1 Darth Invader (10) 4yo Gelding | T: Shane Nichols & Hayden Black | J: Lachlan Neindorf (59.5kg) Next Best at Warrnambool: Tremamore Tremamore brings the right profile for a rain-affected Warrnambool 1400m. The Symon Wilde-trained gelding comes here fresh off a last-start victory and looks like he’s ready to hold form second-up. From barrier 10 he can track the on-speed pair, and the 3kg claim keeps him competitive under BM56 conditions. His recent runs read stronger than many of these; he handles give in the ground, and this looks a touch easier than some of his prior assignments. If Rose Hammond can blend into the race before the bend, Tremamore’s sustained gallop should prove too strong late. Next Best Race 6 – #2 Tremamore (10) 5yo Gelding | T: Symon Wilde | J: Rose Hammond (a3) (62kg) Best Value at Warrnambool: Seattle Hope Seattle Hope can bounce quickly second-up back to 1200m. He’s a proven winner around this grade, draws to stalk from barrier nine, and should appreciate a Softer deck given his past form on rain-affected ground. With Alana Kelly aboard and the Mitchell Freedman stable placing shrewdly at the ‘Bool, he looks the one to surge late if leaders overdo it. His fresh run was a forgive, and the step to a fairer run shape plays right into his preferred pattern. At double figures with horse racing bookmakers, he’s the each-way play to beat the market in the last. Best Value Race 8 – #4 Seattle Hope (9) 6yo Gelding | T: Mitchell Freedman | J: Alana Kelly (60.5kg) Warrnambool races quaddie tips – 22/9/25 Warrnambool quadrella selections Monday, September 22, 2025 1-5-7-8 2-3-5 1-2-3-5-7-9-10 1-4-5-9 Horse racing tips View the full article
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