28 Oct Maher Lands Progressive Sea The Stars Gelding
It was no surprise to see a number of leading Australian-based buyers flexing their muscles on some of the top middle-distance prospects and Ciaron Maher added a potentially smart Sea The Stars gelding to his team Down Under in the shape of Shadwell’s 89-rated Mukhtalif. Will Bourne, who was assisted by Billy Jackson-Stops, landed the William Haggas-trained dual winner for 325,000gns. He said, “Mukhtalif is progressive and, having inspected the horse, you can see he’s a beautiful animal. We really like the fact that the stallion works in Australia. David Hayes had the Australian Cup winner Fifty Stars and Johnny McKeever bought the Metropolitan winner Just Fine out of this sale, and they’re both by Sea The Stars. This horse is a progressive stayer so he profiles perfectly for us and we’re happy to be taking him down there.”
Bourne added, “When you look at Ciaron’s results in the last two months, Royal Supremacy (Bought in partnership with JS Bloodstock) won a Metropolitan and our runners in the Melbourne Cup this week are from Europe, so we’ve just got to keep sourcing these horses out of here. We have a number that we try to hit, but buying this year has been very hard. We’re probably 10 horses down on where we’d like to be, that’s privately and through the sale ring. It’s been extremely difficult to buy the horses that you want at the right price, which hasn’t been helped by the Australian dollar. All these marginal factors, and more competition on tried horses, means it’s been really hard. That can affect our bloodstock portfolio so we’re keen to get a few here. Maher also struck for the 83-rated Zain Blue (Blue Point) at 150,000gns, taking his opening day spend to 475,000gns.
Publication: TDN Europe
Date published: 28 October 2025