Goffs November Gets Underway Monday

[Wandering Eyes]

Five days of selling at Goffs’s Kill Paddocks gets underway on Monday with the start of the Goffs November Foal Sale. Part I of that section will take place from Nov. 18 through 20, its rising tide format meaning the choicest lots will take their turns in the ring on Wednesday. Attention will shift to fillies and mares on Nov. 21 for a stacked opening session of the Goffs November Breeding Stock Sale, which will conclude the following day followed immediately by the 204 foals that make up Part II of the foal sale.

It is perhaps a sign of things to come that the alphabetic ordering of the sessions has already intervened to place one of the expected highlight colts, a son of Dubawi (Ire) out of the Classic winner and excellent producer Nightime (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), towards the end of Wednesday’s session, indeed, as night is falling. Catalogued as lot 745 as part of the Castlebridge Consignment draft, the chestnut perhaps best embodies what Goffs is all about in being quintessentially Irish: he is out of the G1 Irish 1000 Guineas winner Nightime, who was bred and raced by the late great Irish racing matriarch Marguerite Weld. The Weld family has sold six high-profile foals or yearlings out of Nightime, headed by this year’s G1 Grosser Preis von Baden romper Ghaiyyath (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) for €1.1-million as a Goffs November Foal, and another son of Dubawi who will, like Ghaiyyath, wear the Godolphin blue after selling for 700,000gns last year. It would be completely remiss, of course, not to mention that Lot 745 is also a half-brother to Zhukova (Ire) (Fastnet Rock {Aus}), who won the GI Man O’War S. and a pair of Irish Group 3s for Dermot Weld before selling to Godolphin for 3.7-million gns in 2017.

That likely standout is, however, far from the only foal that will spark bidding wars on Wednesday. Kilcarn Park’s Invincible Spirit (Ire) colt (lot 728) was the subject of a dream update on Oct. 19 when his half-brother Donjuan Triumphant (Ire) (Dream Ahead) secured a Group 1 win before retiring to stud in the G1 British Champions Sprint S. The catalogue also includes a pair of siblings to top 2-year-olds of 2019: Ringfort Stud’s Galileo Gold (Ire) half-sister to G2 Gimcrack S. victor Threat (GB) (Footstepsinthesand {GB}) (lot 661), and Whitehall Stud’s full-brother to G2 Superlative S. winner Mystery Power (Ire) (No Nay Never) (lot 672), himself a graduate of this sale. Kiltinan Castle Stud offers a Sea The Stars (Ire) filly (lot 675) whose dam is a half-sister to Millisle (Ire) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}), winner of the G1 Cheveley Park S. since the publication of the catalogue.

Other attractive pages include a full-sister to Group 2 winner and sire Lilbourne Lad (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}) (lot 561); a Kodiac (GB) half-sister to Irish champion 2-year-old filly Viztoria (Ire) (Oratorio {Ire}) and the dam of multiple Australian group winner Fifty Stars (Ire) (Sea the Stars {Ire}) (lot 588); another Kodiac filly, this time a half-sister to stakes winner Smuggler’s Moon (GB) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}) (lot 603); a pair of colts by Kingman: lot 615, out of a full-sister to Group 1 winner Prince Arch (Arch) and lot 655, out of the multiple stakes-winning Flying Fairies (Ire) (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}); a Dark Angel (Ire) half-sister to Classic winner Just The Judge (Ire) (Lawman {Fr}) (lot 658); a Camelot (GB) half-brother to Italian Classic and/or Group 1 winners Charity Line (Ire) (Manduro {Ger}), Final Score (Ire) (Dylan Thomas {Ire}) and Cherry Collect (Ire) (Oratorio {Ire})as well as G1 Irish and G1 Yorkshire Oaks winner Sea Of Class (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) (lot 681); a Lope De Vega (Ire) half-sister to dual Group 3 winner and four-time Group 1-placed Venus De Milo (Ire) (Duke of Marmalade {Ire}) (lot 687); a Dark Angel (Ire) colt out of Moyglare Stud’s regally bred Mad About You (Ire) (Indian Ridge {Ire}) (lot 722), and also from that same family an Invincible Spirit colt out of the multiple Group 3-winning Profound Beauty (Ire) (Danehill) and half-brother to the stakes-winning Rose De Pierre (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) (lot 763).

Sires with first-crop foals catalogued at Goffs include Almanzor (Fr), Caravaggio (Ire), Churchill (Ire), Decorated Knight (GB), Galileo Gold (Ire), Highland Reel (Ire), Mondialiste (GB), National Defense (GB), Postponed (Ire), Profitable (Ire), Ribchester (GB), Time Test (GB) and Ulysses (GB).

The six on offer by the G1 Coral-Eclipse S. and G1 Juddmonte International winner Ulysses during Part I of the sale include a half-brother to G2 Champagne S. winner and G1 Dewhurst S.-placed Seahenge (Scat Daddy) (lot 666). Dual Group 1-winning sprinter Caravaggio’s 15 include a half-brother to dual Grade I winner Wigmore Hall (Ire) (High Chaparral {Ire}) (lot 714); G1 King’s Stand S. winner Profitable’s 30 catalogued include a half-sister to last year’s G1 Middle Park S.-second Jash (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) (lot 736); and seven-time Group 1-winning star Highland Reel has 21 on offer, including a half-brother to three stakes-placed winners (lot 737).

“We can stand over the Goffs November Sale and say it’s a true market leader,” said Goffs Group Chief Executive Henry Beeby. “It’s the first choice for the overwhelming majority of the leading Irish breeders. They see the merit of the sale; the majority don’t see the need to travel a foal, and it really is a market-leading sale.

“We have a very good Part 1 of the foal sale on a rising tide again, starting on Monday and getting better each day. There is opportunity to be had on all three days; there are some great pinhooking opportunities. The Part II foals went very well last year and we’ve kept that quite tight so that there is opportunity there without keeping people too long. We’re really quite pleased.”

As Beeby alluded to, the Goffs November Foal Sale has been a hotbed for pinhookers. Foals bought out of last year’s sale that turned a profit as yearlings this year include a Sea The Stars colt bought for €260,000 and flipped for 625,000gns; a son of Australia purchased for €56,000 and pinhooked for €525,000; an Invincible Spirit colt bought for €155,000 and re-sold for 500,000gns; a Night of Thunder filly that turned €77,000 into 425,000gns; and an Awtaad (Ire) colt purchased for €58,000 that realized €400,000. There was also success to be had in the middle market: a Nathaniel (Ire) filly bought for €35,000 returned €170,000, while an Exceed and Excel (Aus) filly bought for €30,000 made £115,000. At the lower end of the market, a son of Night Of Thunder bought for €5,000 fetched €65,000, while a colt by Prince of Lir (Ire) turned €7,000 into €40,000.

“I think there is great opportunity for both foal pinhookers and end users, and we hope to see all of them there,” Beeby said. “It’s imperative; if we want to compete and have an international marketplace for Irish breeders, we have to have the very best. It’s a very big deal and it’s a very competitive marketplace. The European sales are a competitive space and we’re competing well, I think, and providing a very good service. Happily those breeders are making the choice, they’re seeing what we’re doing and the passion that our team has and the really hard work that goes into it.”

Sandwiched between the two foals sales is the Goffs November Breeding Stock Sale, where 367 fillies and mares will be offered. The sale has become a reliable source of the dams of future Classic and Group 1 winners. Kew Gardens (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Harzand (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) have been poster children in recent years, and this year Romanised (Ire) (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}) graces the cover of the catalogue. He won last year’s G1 Irish 2000 Guineas and boosted his profile in 2019 with victories in the G1 Prix Jacques le Marois and G2 Minstrel S. His dam, Romantic Venture (Ire) (Indian Ridge {Ire}), was bought for €40,000 from Moyglare Stud at the 2008 Goffs November Breeding Stock Sale.

While Beeby admits that this year’s sale lacks a standout of the ilk of Chicquita (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}) (€6-million in 2013) and Beauty Parlour (GB) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) (€1.6-million in 2016) that come with dispersals like Paulyn or Wildenstein, he acknowledged it is a “good, consistent” catalogue once again well-supported by Europe’s leading owner-breeders like Godolphin, Derrinstown Stud and the Aga Khan, while The Castlebridge Consignment is among those that bring a typically strong draft. The latter’s consignment includes four mares raced by the Coolmore partners and now carrying their first foals: dual Group 3 winner Actress (Ire) (Declaration of War) in foal to No Nay Never (lot 1001); Snowflakes (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), a winning full-sister to four-time Group 1 and Classic winner Winter (Ire) in foal to US Navy Flag (lot 997); the G1 Irish 1000 Guineas second Could It Be Love (War Front), a half-sister to U.S. champion sire Uncle Mo, in foal to Australia (lot 1000); and Julienne (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), a winning half-sister to Group 3 winner Empowering (Ire) (Encosta de Lago {Aus}) in foal to Fastnet Rock (Aus) (lot 995).

Also catching the eye on paper is Height Of Elegance (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) (lot 861), a 7-year-old three-quarter-sister to the high-class producer Sequoyah (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells) and champion Listen (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells) in foal to Caravaggio; Dufay (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) (lot 924), a daughter of G1 Fillies’ Mile winner White Moonstone (Dynaformer) in foal to Invincible Spirit; and Steel Princess (Ire) (Danehill) (lot 971), the dam of Grade I winner Sarah Lynx (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}), Group 3 winner Sugar Boy (Ire) (Authorized {Ire}) and stakes winner Steel Prince (Ire) (Nathaniel {Ire}).

“More Group 1 success in 2019 was the pinnacle of another year where we saw progeny of November mares win consistently around the world,” said Beeby. “Goffs November Breeding Stock is a sale with huge international appeal and we believe this year’s catalogue is packed with potential. We have reduced the numbers slightly this year, with quality over quantity very much in mind, to produce a catalogue of real strength and depth.”

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