Bowe tops the sales at Aintree

COLIN BOWE and his Milestone Stable completed a remarkable double at the Goffs Aintree Grand National Festival sale in the famous parade ring after racing, as he topped the rankings and the £300,000 mark for the second year running with a horse that had made a winning debut at Monksgrange, Rathnure.

Madison to Monroe, a four-year-old roan gelding by Presenting-Caltra Princess, was sold for precisely £300,000 to Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning owner Alan Potts, and Jessica Harrington is the likely trainer. The horse had won its debut point-to-point by eight lengths on March 26.

At the inaugural Goffs Aintree sale last year, Bowe put up Samcro after his Monksgrange success and got a cool £335,000 from Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown operation. Gordon Elliott has taken it easy with him after he won a Listed bumper first time out.

Bowe also sold Overworkedunderpaid (by Getaway) for £82,000. This one had won at Castletowngeoghegan on April 2 after two previous placed efforts.

Just 23 lots were offered this time; six of those sold were four-year-old geldings from Wexford yards and they fetched over £860,000 in total.

Second best in the sale was Donnchadh Doyle’s Some Man (by Beat Hollow) which got £165,000. This one was an impressive debut winner at Portrush, Co. Antrim, on March 25 and is related to Gold Cup winner, Denman.

Doyle also sold Locker Room Talk (by Beneficial) which had finished second on debut at Ballynoe on April 2, for £135,000, to Gearóid Costelloe for trainer Rebecca Curtis.

Michael Goff’s Moate Stabes at Clondaw, Ferns, sold two - he actually got £95,000 for Daly Tiger (by Tiger Groom), which fell at the last fence on his debut at Horse and Jockey in early March but had impressed up to that point.

His other sale was Fullathesea (by Champs Elysees), a runaway winner on debut at Maralin up north on March 18, and he got £85,000.

Just one sale illustrates that there are still bargains out there for those with a keen and shrewd eye. Aidan Fitzgerald from Borris in Carlow won the four-year-old mares’ maiden at the Rathnure meeting on March 26 by eight lengths with Kupatana (by Westerner), ridden by Harley Dunne.

He bought her at a Goresbridge sale for €1,700, and she went at Aintree for £120,000. That’s the way to do it!