KAYHAN Ozcan’s Turkish-based Turquoise Bloodstock paid €41,000 at last year’s Goffs November Sale for the winning Lope De Vega (Shamardal) mare Wondrous Words from the Ballylinch Stud draft. She was in foal to Make Believe (Makfi), carrying a colt who was born on May 3rd.

If you looked at the pedigree page in November, you would see an eight-year-old whose first foal won at two, the second was unraced, her yearling colt had lost money when resold just weeks earlier, and a colt on the ground who was not in any of the foal sales. A May 31st covering was okay as long as the mare didn’t go over her time. Potential buyers might have questioned why Ballylinch Stud was selling her.

No farm can keep every mare they own, not even one as big as Ballylinch. Now with the benefit of hindsight, Wondrous Words was a bargain, as have all of her stock sold to date been. Two weeks’ time will hopefully provide a windfall too for Tom Howley’s Brook Lodge Farm. More of that anon.

Wondrous Words is one of three winners for the Group 3 two-year-old winner Wonderfully (Galileo). Ballylinch spent $1.8 million to purchase her at the 2015 Keeneland November Sale. She is one of six stakes winners out of the listed winner and Group 2 Prix Robert Papin second Massarra (Danehill), a full-sister to Kodiac and a three-parts sister to Invincible Spirit (Green Desert). Interestingly, it is also the female line of Mishriff, the best runner sired by Make Believe.

Ballylinch Stud

Trained by Roger Varian, Wondrous only raced six times, winning once and being placed in four. Her first foal, Wondrous Ways (Mehmas), won at two for Ballylinch and Ollie Pears. She failed to sell on three occasions she was sent for sale. Dark Lucinda (Dark Angel) followed and sold to Paddy Twomey in Book 1 of the 2024 Orby Sale for €40,000 – less than a third of the sale average. Ballylinch retained an interest in the filly, thankfully, and she won on her three-year-old debut back in May, but was unplaced at Royal Ascot on her only other run.

Next was Trean (Bayside Boy), and this loss-making yearling pinhook was snapped up by Kevin Ross Bloodstock for €20,000 in Book 1 of last year’s Orby Sale (the sale average was €133,569), joined Paddy Twomey, and on Saturday picked up a winners’ cheque for €539,750! Third to Haffner (who on Saturday won the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes) in the Group 3 Acomb Stakes, and was fourth in the Group 1 National Stakes, maybe Trean can do even better than Twomey’s previous winner of the Goffs Million. She is One Look, a dual Group 3 winner and twice Group 1-placed.

Tom Howley

I mentioned Tom Howley earlier. In Book 2 of the upcoming Tattersalls October Yearling Sale he will resell a Sea The Moon (Sea The Stars) half-brother to the three winners mentioned, having spent €35,000 in February to buy him at Goffs. With so many important updates since February, including Sea The Moon siring the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains-French 2000 Guineas and Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois winner Rayif, Howley must be looking forward to October 14th.

Finally, a mention – as I seem to do every week now – for Trean’s sire Bayside Boy (New Bay). The winners keep rolling in, he has six stakes horses, three stakes winners, while he and Persian Force (seven stakes horses) are making a race of it, with others, to be the champion first-season sire in Europe.

WHEN professional footballer Ryan Kent spent £50,000 at this year’s Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale on a son of Sergei Prokofiev (Scat Daddy), there was an update to the catalogue page, saying that the two-year-old half-sister, by Blackbeard, a son of No Nay Never (Scat Daddy), had been placed. It was not the type of news that was going to have a significant bearing, but everything helps.

That placed run was in fact a fair effort, beaten a head on her debut by Speed Of Sound, a musically-named filly owned by Phil Cunningham who next time out ran third to Sun Goddess in a valuable sales race, Harry’s Half Million by Goffs. Kent must have been pleased when, a month after that first placed start, the half-sister who is named Pensando A Te (Italian for thinking of you) built on that promise and won a four-runner maiden at Ascot. A win is a win.

Roll on three weeks, and last Friday the Marco Botti-trained Pensando A Te stepped up to beat eight others and land the Group 2 Rockfel Stakes, beating Group 3 Prestige Stakes winner Light Of Dream by a short head, with the group-placed Ruby Moon in third. Four years ago the subsequent Group 1 Fillies’ Mile winner Commissioning took the Rockfel honours. Botti said: “[Pensando A Te] definitely has the ability to be a classic horse, while there is a lot of speed in the family.”

Most important

Bred by Andrew and Jane Black’s Chasemore Farm, Pensando A Te is the fourth and most important winner for The Gold Cheongsam (Red Clubs). Trained by Jeremy Noseda, that filly well and truly justified her yearling purchase price of 75,000gns when earning more than £200,000 in a valuable two-year-old race at Doncaster, sponsored by Weatherbys Insurance. That was one of four wins she posted in a 19-race career, and at three she got small blacktype in the Listed EBF National Stud Boadicea Stakes.

Some of the speed horses Botti referenced in his post-race comments include the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp winner The Platinum Queen (Cotai Glory), the smart Irish sprinter Tiger Royal (Royal Academy) who won the Group 3 Weatherbys Ireland Greenlands Stakes, and Group 3 Princess Margaret Stakes winner Sacred Angel (Dark Angel) who was less than two lengths behind Porta Fortuna in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes. The Platinum Queen’s half-brother Seagulls Eleven (Galileo Gold) stretched to a mile to win the Group 3 Diomed Stakes.

Chasemore Farm

This year, Chasemore Farm welcome a full-sister to the yearling sold in August at Doncaster, while The Gold Cheongsam visited Cheveley Park Stud’s second season sire, Vandeek (Havana Grey) this spring.

With a 35% strike-rate of winners to runners, Blackbeard has made a hugely promising start with his runners, though Pensando A Te is his first blacktype winner, and only his second, after the Italian listed-placed Crazy Beard, to reach the frame in a stakes race. That said, he has any number of highly-rated performers, among them Joseph O’Brien’s once-raced Benjamin Hornigold who comfortably won the Convivial Maiden Stakes at York, Brian Meehan’s San Jose who was impressive most recently when winning at Ascot, and the dual winner Minster Man for Robert Cowell. This year Blackbeard covered 168 mares.

At two, the only season he raced, Blackbeard won six of his eight starts. He ended the year with wins in the Group 1 Prix Morny from Persian Force, with whom he is now doing battle for first-season sire honours, and the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes, with Persian Force further in arrears in third place.