Back last night from a fabulous two days at Goffs Ireland with Jon and Jack Hughes and Alan Stickley and fantastically looked after by Gerry Hogan and PJ Colville. Although we bought a Mahler 3 year old Gelding on Day 1, we hoped that we would find even more value yesterday and that proved to be the case with us successfully purchasing three horses and great that two of the vendors specifically said that they were thrilled their horses were coming to such a nice yard and one that does well at Cheltenham too! Let’s hope these do as well.
Three are for sale with two of those ear-marked to be partnered out. We were in the car and on the way home when our exciting recent Ludlow bumper winner, Back on the Lash’s half brother, by local Batsford Stud’s Passing Glance, went through the ring. However we watched on the phone and Jon did well not to crash when the hammer went down and we cheered as Gerry Hogan purchased him for Mark Boothright and Grahame Lovett who already own Lash and Mark used to own the mare, Giovanna, too.
Such a fun couple of days and some lovely horses are heading our way arriving early on Saturday morning and they will have some time out in the field before going to be broken in. They will have had a busy few days being pulled out and trotted up endlessly and will need time to get over that. More about the horses for sale in the next Newsletter out over the weekend. Do get in touch to find out about those and also if you are not yet on our email distribution list.
Great to have Stuart Baikie and Paul & Geraldine Townend in first lot today to watch Forecast on the gallops and then schooling on the loop. He’s had a year off but we hope it’s chilled him out more, he’s always been quite buzzy, and he’s certainly muscled up and looks great.
Late morning Torben & Siri Dal and Jon & Jack Hughes were here to watch their Zebedee 2 year old Sarasota Star, who they share, on both the circular loop and the straight gallop. He’s got a lovely attitude and is very straight forward for a 2 year old. They seemed as thrilled as we are with him and we went on to Russells in Broadway where we had a gorgeous lunch and Andrew Riley and his team looked after us superbly. We bumped into owner David Robinson whilst there too – I think he’s part of the furniture!
I can’t let the Blog pass without a huge congratulations to Mark Boothright and Elouise Renouard on their engagement – on the same day they purchased Back on the Lash’s 1/2 brother so a double celebration!