Making the most of opportunities

Dispersal sales offer unique opportunities for breeders and investors, and five years ago the Wildenstein Stables Dispersal took place at the Goffs Orby and Breeding Stock sales.

Already two Grade 1 winners and a juvenile Group 1 performer have emerged – Martin Stevens takes a look at what has happened over the last five years

A COMPLETE DISPERSAL of a major breeder’s stock is the holy grail for buyers and sales companies alike.

Owners and breeders relish being able to buy lots from families who haven’t come onto the market in years, confident that the horses are being moved on for no other reason than the vendor’s farm is winding down.

Auction houses, meanwhile, will not only receive all the extra commission generated by those sales, but they can also expect other lots in the sale to attract more interest, on the principle that a rising tide lifts all boats.

Sadly, those dispersals are often after a prominent breeder’s death, and we will be seeing one such through the remainder of this year and into next as many of the horses who have, would have or would have produced stock to run in the blue and white colours of Sheikh Hamdan are to be sold to new homes and stud farms.

The continuing ongoing results of the Wildenstein dispersal reveals just what opportunites such a scattering of stock can create.

Five years ago Goffs won the right to conduct the truly momentous dispersal, as David Wildenstein brought the curtain down on decades of racecourse success enjoyed by his uncle Alec and grandfather Daniel by putting the majority of the Wildenstein Stables horses on the market.

“I was tipped the wink by Christy Grassick at Coolmore, who is also a board director at Goffs,” recalls the company’s chief executive Henry Beeby. “He mentioned to me that this dispersal would be coming, and that I should sharpen my pencil and be prepared to make a move for it.

“I spoke to David Wildenstein at some length, we gave a presentation, and there was some to-ing and fro-ing. That year, during yearling inspections when I was waiting to hear if our bid had been successful, I did something I’ve never done before – I took a phone into the field. Usually I’d think it was disrespectful to the person whose horses you’re looking at.

“I said to Hamish Alexander, who was inspecting yearlings with me, to carry on looking at the horses, and so it was in the middle of a field in County Kildare that David Wildenstein agreed to use Goffs rather above any other auction house to stage the dispersal.”

And so the Wildenstein Stables dispersal, excluding the Ballymore Thoroughbred horses owned by Diane Wildenstein, commenced at the Goffs Orby Yearling Sale in September 2016.

The Castlebridge Consignment presented the lots to the sale, just as they had for the Paulyn Dispersal in the same sale ring three years earlier.

Some 17 yearlings were sold, ranging in price from the €1.4 million paid by Godolphin for the Dubawi colt out of Poule d’Essai des Pouliches heroine Beauty Parlour to the €5,000 given by Tim Easterby for a Pour Moi colt out of a three-parts sister to Aquarelliste.

Raging Bull: a yearling purchase out of the Mr Greeley mare Rosa Bonheur. The 2015-born colt by Dark Angel is now a three-time Grade 1 winner and earner of over £1.1 million in prize funds. He is due to start his breeding career at Gainesway Farm at a fee of $10,000

As it turned out, Airplane, as Easterby’s bargain basement purchase was named, won twice as many races and a little more prize-money than Being There, Godolphin’s seven-figure Dubawi acquisition who won a Newmarket maiden at two for Charlie Appleby but did little thereafter.

Jeremy Brummitt snagged a bargain when signing at €50,000 for an Orpen filly out of the Gold Away mare Premiere Danseuse – she was resold by Johnny Hassett’s Bloodstock Connection to Blandford Bloodstock for €190,000 at the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale. Named Pretty Baby, she was trained by William Haggas to win five races, two at Group 3 level.

CHINA HORSE CLUB also did well to secure Paths Of Glory, a Mastercraftsman colt closely related to Pretty Baby, for €60,000. He won four races and climbed to a BHA rating of 98 for Hugo Palmer before moving to Australia, where he won a Group 3 at Randwick for Richard and Michael Freedman this April.

But what turned out to be the most significant yearling transaction in the dispersal, for more than one reason, was Eugenio Colombo’s purchase of a son of Dark Angel and the Listed-placed Mr Greeley mare Rosa Bonheur for €90,000.

The colt was named Raging Bull, was shipped to the US to join the barn of Chad Brown, and carries the colours of Peter Brant – more of whom later. He has won seven of his 21 starts, including the Hollywood Derby (G1) at three, the Shoemaker Mile (G1) at five and the Maker’s Mark Mile (G1) this year at six, and has hit the board in another six Grade 1 events.

He is due to start his stallion career at Gainesway next spring.

“Raging Bull is a knockout physically,” says Gainesway’s general manager Brian Graves. “His six triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures and his performances over 14 Grade 1 events are impressive.

“His sire Dark Angel has become one of the most influential sires in international racing.”

A one-off horses in training section was tacked onto the end of the Orby Yearling Sale that year to accommodate the two and three-year-olds in the Wildenstein Stables Dispersal.

Results from this part of the auction made it clear that Brant – an industry kingpin in the 1980s and 1990s who co-owned Kentucky Derby (G1) victor Swale, bred another Kentucky Derby winner in Thunder Gulch and raced Triptych in the latter stages of her career – was determined to buy his way back into the upper echelons of the sport.

Joseph Allen, acting on behalf of Brant’s White Birch operation, bought the top lot Pavini, a daughter of Dubawi and the Group 2 winner Peinture Rare, for €600,000, Azzedine, a Dansili half-brother to Prix du Moulin runner-up Akatea, for €300,000, and Painter’s Muse, a Smart Strike half-sister to Pavini, for €60,000.

Alan Quartucci also successfully bid €270,000 for Asterina, a Dalakhani half- sister to Azzedine and Akatea, and Colombo signed at €90,000 for the Elusive Quality filly Andira, both on Brant’s behalf.

The dispersal continued at the Goffs November Sale, starting with 17 foals, all with mouth-watering pedigrees.

Joseph Allen once again put White Birch on the buyer’s docket for five of those lots, headed by a Dansili filly out of Beauty Parlour at €450,000.

Blowout, as she was named, has proved money well spent by winning five of her 14 starts for Chad Brown, including the Grade 1 First Lady Stakes at Keeneland in October. She might also distinguish herself further this autumn in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1).

Stone Age (green) finishing second to Atomic Jones in the Group 2 KPMG Champions Juvenile Stakes, he went on to finish second in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud (G1). He is out of the Anabaa mare Bonanza Creek, who was bought by White Birch for €270,000

THE TOP-PRICED FOAL did not end up being knocked down to Brant, though. It was instead Shadwell’s Stephen Collins who landed the stunning Siyouni filly out of Amerique, a Listedplaced daughter of Galileo and Aquarelliste, for €775,000.

Maqsad, as she came to be known after having her name changed from A Nous La Liberte, was sent out by William Haggas to win the Listed Pretty Polly Stakes by 5l and, although she didn’t show that level of form again, she has become a treasured member of the Shadwell broodmare band.

She gave birth to her first foal, a Kingman colt, in February and is back in foal to Sea The Stars.

However, it was the breeding-stock portion of the Wildenstein Stables Dispersal that created the most thrilling episodes of sales-ring drama, though, especially as Brant chose that moment to finally sweep into Kildare Paddocks.

The Grade 1 winner Blowout (Dansili ex Beauty Parlour) seen here winning the Grade 2 Churchill Distaff Turf Mile. She was a €450,000 foal purchase

There were 28 fillies and mares up for grabs, and White Birch signed for ten of those, including the most expensive of all, Beauty Parlour, at €1.6 million, Maqsad’s dam Amerique at €975,000, Beauty Parlour’s half-sister Blue Kimono cost him €675,000, Akatea’s dam Altamira was a €530,000 purchase, he went to €410,000 for Peinture Rare, while the Listed winner Lady Of Kyushu cost him €310,000.

Ironically, though, it was two of the three cheaper broodmare purchases who have done best for Brant in the breeding shed at this early stage.

Bonanza Creek, a winning Anabaa half-sister to Prix de Diane heroine Bright Sky who cost “just” €270,000, is the dam of this year’s Group 2 KPMG Champions Juvenile and Criterium de Saint-Cloud (G1) runner-up Stone Age, while Marunouchi, a winning daughter of Peintre Celebre, who was a relative steal at €90,000, has produced Agador, a 6l scorer in a Mont-deMarsan maiden for Jean-Claude Rouget in September on his sole start.

A few other breeders managed to bag themselves bargains, too

STALL PARTHENAUE from Germany bought Beata, a winning Silver Frost half-sister to Bonanza Creek and Bright Sky, for €88,000. The first foal she has produced is Best Of Lips, a son of The Gurkha who was the wide-margin winner of the Group 2 Union-Rennen at Cologne in June.

Crispin de Moubray gave €85,000 for Parade Music, a winning daughter of Giant’s Causeway, on behalf of Jean-Claude Seroul and that mare’s first foal is Morton, a New Bay colt who has won three races and finished a close second in Listed company for Jean-Pierre Gauvin this season.

Meanwhile, James McHale and Larry Stratton paid €55,000 for Venetian Beauty, an unraced Lear Fan full-sister to Prix de l’Opera winner Verveine.

She was already the dam of Listed-placed Vermont, and the purchase was gilded by Vengeur Masque, then merely a dual winner in France on her catalogue page but now the winner of two Group 3s and runner-up in the Group 1 Sydney Cup.

McHale and his father Chris have since bred this season’s Newmarket novice stakes winner and Sweet Solera Stakes (G3) third Value Theory by sending Venetian Beauty to Gleneagles.

In all, the Wildenstein foals brought €3,267,500 in revenue and the mares made €9,159,000. Added to the €7,817,000 amassed at the Orby Sale, the whole dispersal generated receipts of more than €20.2 million. Brant is estimated to have contributed €7.7 million to that total.

“We knew Eugenio was buying for Peter Brant at the Orby Sale, but we didn’t know then that Peter was going to get quite so stuck in, though it was wonderful that he did,” says Beeby.

“It was a nice tie-up. When Peter came to Goffs in November I went to greet him in the hospitality rooms we’d put aside for him. He said it was nice to meet me, and I replied that we’d met before. He looked at me askance, and I told him that I’d once worked for him and it really threw him.

“I explained that I was working for Fasig-Tipton when he bought a controlling share in the company in 1987, and he seemed to think that was vaguely amusing, or at least he was polite enough to say he found it amusing!

“I was an intern then, only 21 years old, and he gave a big speech that we all went and listened to on the eve of the sale. It was great to have him here, he seemed to enjoy it all, and although he hasn’t been back since he has done plenty of business with us, most notably through Demi O’Byrne.”

Reflecting on the delights of a dispersal, Beeby adds: “They’re great to get, but they only come up once in a while. We won the right to hold the Paulyn dispersal, we won the Wildenstein dispersal, but we missed out on the Ballymacoll Stud dispersal. Still, two out of three ain’t bad.

“Every auction house hopes to secure them, they’re a huge vote of confidence, and we were probably the outsiders of two, if not three, to get the Paulyn and Wildenstein dispersals. So it was pleasing that both vendors went on record saying they were delighted with how things went, they liked our service, and were pleased with the results.”

The hunt continues for the next heavyweight dispersal at Goffs. The sale of some of Shadwell stock as part of its downsizing in the wake of Sheikh Hamdan’s death, while not a total clear-out, will no doubt still attract plenty of buyers this winter.