Green Desert Colt Sets Tatts' Breeze-Up Mark

A record-breaking 625,000 guineas Green Desert colt out of Park Hill Stakes (Eng-III) winner Alexander Three D (Ire) (Pennekamp) provided the icing on the cake in Newmarket Thursday night at the concluding installment of a fantastic renewal of Tattersalls' Breeze-Up Sale.

There was a 70% rise in turnover to 10.7 million gns, a record figure, as was the 73,034gns average and 50,000gns median, both up 43%. There were 28 six-figure lots, compared to 19 a year ago.

Willie Browne's Mocklershill Stables, which turned over an amazing 3.079 million gns of the sale turnover, consigned the sale-topper, who had been bought for 310,000gns as a yearling.

Hiroaki Akita, manager of Katsumi Yoshida's Northern Farm in Japan, signaled the successful bid but only after seeing off Mags O'Toole, Richard Frisby and finally agent Dick O'Gorman, who has in the past helped Sheikh Mohammed's buying team.

"He was the one we really wanted," said Akita. "We were very impressed by the canter on Tuesday, he was strong behind with a great punch, that's what we really liked. He won't be pushed at all and we haven't decided on a trainer yet."

Browne's great week continued shortly afterwards when selling a Galileo colt out of Sometime (Ire) (Royal Academy), a daughter of the great mare Alidiva, for 390,000gns. The chesnut had been unsold for $130,000 at Keeneland in September.

Co Meath trainer Ger Lyons outbid Peter Doyle for the colt, who has been bought on behalf of a Galway-based owner who is building up Glenview House Stud.

New Jersey-based businessman Ahmed Zayat went to 280,000gns via Blandford Bloodstock's Richard Brown for a Danehill colt consigned by Mocklershill.

"It is not often that a sale completely rewrites the record books, but the 2006 Tattersalls Breeze-Up has done just that," said Tattersalls chairman Edmond Mahony. "Only five years ago the aggregate at this sale was just over 2.5 million guineas, the average was a touch over 23,000gns and the top price was 82,000gns.

"Based on the catalogue and the number of group I performers that have come from this sale in recent years it would be fair to say that we approached this week with a measure of optimism," he said. "But it would also be fair to say that we would not have predicted such massive rises across the board.

"The 625,000gns record-breaking Green Desert colt bought by Katsumi Yoshida's Northern Farm was obviously the individual highlight of what has been a truly memorable sale, but the feature of the trade which has given most cause for optimism has been the depth of the demand," Mahony added. "Ten different buyers of the top ten lots and 28 lots making 100,000 guineas or more is a graphic illustration of a market with genuine strength in depth and it has been hugely encouraging to see such diversity among the buyers."

COMPARATIVE FIGURES
Thursday
YR/CAT/OFF/SOLD/AGG/AVG/MED
2006/104/86/72/5,080,000/70,556/46,000
2005/ 94/80/58/2,905,000/50,086/30,000

Total Sale
YR/CAT/OFF/SOLD/AGG/AVG/MED
2006/206/175/147/10,736,000/73,034/50,000
2005/193/172/124/6,333,000/51,073/35,000