31 May May ’24 Round Up
May started with the Tattersalls Guineas Breeze Up Sale. Three purchases were made, all colts, by Australia, Mehmas and Kodi Bear. The Australia will head into training with George Scott, the Kodi Bear to Harry Eustace and the Mehmas who cost 160,000 Guineas for Opulence Thoroughbreds will head to Andrew Balding.
From Tattersalls, the circus rolled on to Arqana for the last major Breeze Up Sale of the year – The top lot this year was a Justify colt of Norman Williamson’s that went the way of Godolphin for a steady €2,300,000. JS Bloodstock was responsible for four purchases, sadly nothing that broke the six-figure mark, let alone the seven-figure mark that Godolphin was spending. We bought four colts and a filly, the colts were by Galiway, Blue Point, Starspangledbanner and the filly, a Saxon Warrior. The Blue Point and the Starspangledbanner will go into training with Andrew Balding and the other two will go to Tom Clover.
Away from the sales, there were various excitements on the track for JS Bloodstock purchased graduates. Transitioning made his long-awaited debut, he was initially bought by Richard Knight as a yearling in 2022 but was one of many horses that wasn’t paid for, so we bought Transitioning privately at the beginning of 2023. He broke his maiden decisively at Doncaster and should give his owner a lot of fun throughout the summer.
Royal Supremacy was packed off to Italy after being supplemented for their Derby, a Group 2 event at Capanelle. Drawn slightly wide, he was stuck wide throughout the race but managed to tag onto the back of the eventual winner Borna. Borna kicked on in the straight and Royal Supremacy followed him home, beaten just two lengths and showing a lot of progression in just his fifth career start.
Isle Of Jura returned from a winter in the desert to grind out a win in a Listed event at Goodwood. Regular jockey Callum Sheppard was back on the big gelding and cruised around the top bend of Goodwood with any amount in hand, he wrestled his way out in the straight and made up significant ground in the final furlong to swoop over the top. He’ll now be bound for the Hardwicke at Royal Ascot.
The racing world in general, all eyes are on Royal Ascot. Every day seems to bring another maiden winner for Wathnan Racing who invested heavily at the breeze up sales and they’ll be going to Ascot with an army of decent 2-year-olds.
The 2000 Guineas did its usual thing of shocking everyone, the much-hyped City Of Troy was beaten with four furlongs to go by Notable Speech. Fresh off of a win in a conditions race on the All-weather, he picked up the pieces and looked very impressive when going away to win for Godolphin by one-and-a-half lengths ahead of Richard Hannon’s Group 1 winning two-year-old Rosallion.
The fillies edition also gave a shock result with a 28/1 winner in Kingman’s daughter Elmalka. The little filly had been placed at Group 3 level prior to the Guineas and wasn’t much considered in the betting for the race itself. There were some hard lucky stories in behind, with third place, Ramatuelle kicking for home too early and not seeing out the race. Tamfana, trained by the talented and understated David Menuisier, got caught in traffic and ran home for eye-catching fourth place.
Roll on the Derby and Royal Ascot.