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This year’s Group 2 Coventry Stakes winner Berkshire Shadow represents a great value yearling purchase. He was bought at the 2020 Tattersalls October Book 1 Sale for 40,000gns and has already won £63,000 in prize-money earnings, and picked up a Tattersalls bonus worth £20,000
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Value to be had at yearling sales
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AST YEAR’S BOOK 1 took a little while to get warmed up, but it has taken little time for the the crop of 2019 to be proven on the
racecourse. Lot 25 by Dark Angel ex Angel Vision made 40,000gns and was subsequently named Berkshire Shadow. He won the Coventry Stakes (G2) at Royal Ascot, while Lot 37, by Gleneagles ex Astrantia made 25,000gns, was subsequently named Velocidad and won the Group 2 Airlie Stud Stakes at the
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end of June. Every major player in the industry inspected both as yearlings at Park Paddocks, but it was Andrew Balding and Donnacha O’Brien who stepped up to buy two great value yearlings at a sale in which the stock sells for an average of nearly a quarter of a million pounds. October Book 1 yearlings are all qualified for a £20,000 bonus, irrelevant of the sex of the horse. There are X-rays in the repository for 99 per cent of the yearlings and there is bags of time
www.internationalthoroughbred.net
to inspect the already-inspected and graded pedigrees and individuals. But it never ceases to amaze me that such value is available. The two yearlings had different routes. Berkshire Shadow was one of the Cheveley Park Stud draft, the Newmarket powerhouse whose 144 mares,106 horses in training and 87 yearlings dominate British breeding. With Chris Richardson at the helm it is easy to see why Cheveley Park has churned out relentless
group winners year on year given the attention to detail and the dedication of the former head of Niarchos Stud in the US. Velocidad was raised at Bugley Stud, which is nestled away in the depths of the south-west British countryside, run by Anthony and Marie-Anne Penfold with a handson approach. The former Newgate Stud empresario Penfold is familiar with the Prince Fahad family of Ramruma and Strategic Prince having developed it over decades, first for the Saudi Prince and then
