Europe’s first breeze-up of the year unfurls on the Rowley Mile, where racing arrives later in the week.
The British seasons are switching. Jumps are giving way to Flat.
The Grand National was on Saturday and, though the jump season won’t officially close for a week or so (champion trainer and jockey honours are to be awarded at Sandown on Saturday 25th April), the Flat turf season had its traditional start a couple of weeks ago and its first major races will be staged during the Craven Meeting this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
That meeting, of course, unfurls on Newmarket’s Rowley Mile racecourse, beside which lots gallop on Monday as traders ‘try before they buy’ in the Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale, selling for which is after racing on Tuesday and Wednesday.
When Believing crossed the line in last year’s Al Quoz Sprint, she became the sale’s fifth individual Group 1-winning graduate, after top-level victories from Cachet, Native Trail, Hotazhell and Vandeek. There’s every chance a future high-class performer could charge towards the attendees of Monday’s breeze.
Mocklershill, last year’s leading consignor, once again brings one of the largest drafts, its offerings including a colt by the well represented Havana Grey (Lot 163) from the immediate family of the Group 1 winners Passage Of Time and Timepiece.
While many a European stallion is responsible for several lots, there are gems to be found under sires responsible for only a few lots each. Justify’s sole representative, for example (a colt, catalogued as Lot 179), is out of a half-sister to the Group 1 winners Alpha Centauri, Alpine Star and Discoveries.
Lot 120, consigned by Tally-Ho, is another two-year-old sure to garner attention, being both a full-brother to the Prix de l’Abbaye winner The Platinum Queen and a half-brother to the Group 3 winner and Group 2 second Seagull’s Eleven.
Other lots of interest include:
Lot 22, a Too Darn Hot hot colt whose second dam is the Oaks heroine Taghrooda.
Lot 33, a Harry Angel half-brother to Keeneland's Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup heroine Lush Lips.
Lot 138, a Minzaal half-brother to the Prix Robert-Papin hero Atomic Force.
Trade begins at 5:45pm on Wednesday with the breeze at 9:30am on Monday.
The catalogue can be viewed here.
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