Some of the country’s leading point-to-point handlers began the process of assembling their 2021 team of four-year-old’s as the store sales belatedly got underway at Doncaster on Monday afternoon.
Day one of the Goffs UK Summer Sale saw 55 supplementary stores offered ahead of the main sale taking place, with the horses comprising those that had originally been catalogued in either the Tattersalls Ireland Derby and May Sales or Goffs Land Rover Sale, but were moved to this new sale as they were either British based or from vendors who would encounter serious logistical issues by the proximity of the rescheduled Derby Sale to the upcoming flat yearling sales.
The Doyle brothers and their Monbeg Stables signed for the most expensive lot that is bound for the point-to-point fields, going to £60,000 to secure lot 614, a son of Flemensfirth from the Derby Sale catalogue.
Notably, he is out of a half-sister to Willie Mullins’ record breaking hurdler Hurricane Fly who amassed an incredible 22 Grade 1 races throughout his racing career.
Fellow Wexford handler Matthew Flynn O’Connor was among those that signed for lot 612, another Derby Sale entry.
The Shantou gelding is out of an Oscar mare that is the daughter of Nick Gifford’s Listed winner Pennyrose Bay and Flynn O’Connor secured him for £39,000 alongside Mikey Doyle and Hamish Macauley.
Leading handlers Colin Bowe and Denis Murphy combined to secure another Derby Sale entry in the French-bred Au Fleuron (lot 638).
Costing £37,000 his is a son of the Haras de la Baie-based Crillon and so shares his sire with the former Champion Hurdler Buveur D’Air.
The pair also teamed up to purchase lot 606, a son of Soldier Of Fortune from the Land Rover Sale catalogue for £27,000.
His dam, who was placed in Grade 3 company for Arthur Moore, has already produced a winner for Bowe, as the Champion Handler sent out her first foal, Western King, to dead-heat in a four-year-old maiden at Dromahane with Shake The Bucket.
The main Goffs UK Summer Store Sale takes place on Tuesday, with a number of last season’s point-to-pointers then being offered for sale on Wednesday as part of the Horses in Training section of the catalogue.
