wildenstein dispersal 5yrs on The Queen: Beauty Parlour (Deep Impact), winner of the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and runner-up in the Prix de Diane, was sold in-foal to Kingman for €1.6 million, bought by White Birch Farm
Dispersal sales offer unique opportunities for breeders and investors, and five years ago the Wildenstein Stables Dispersal took place at the Goffs Orby and Breeding Stock sales. Already two Grade 1 winners and a juvenile Group 1 performer have emerged – Martin Stevens takes a look at what has happened over the last five years
A
COMPLETE DISPERSAL of a major breeder’s stock is the holy grail for buyers and sales companies alike. Owners and breeders relish being able to buy lots from families who haven’t come onto the market in years, confident that the horses are being moved on for no other reason than the vendor’s farm is winding down. Auction houses, meanwhile, will not only receive all the extra commission generated by those sales, but they can also expect other lots in the sale to attract more interest, on the principle that a rising tide lifts all boats. Sadly, those dispersals are often after a prominent breeder’s death, and we will be seeing one such through the remainder of this year and into next as many of the horses who have, would have or would have produced stock to run in the blue and white colours of Sheikh Hamdan are to be sold to new homes and stud farms. The continuing ongoing results of the Wildenstein dispersal reveals just what opportunites such a scattering of stock can create. Five years ago Goffs won the right to conduct the truly momentous dispersal, as David Wildenstein brought the curtain down on decades of racecourse success enjoyed by his uncle Alec and grandfather Daniel by putting the majority of the Wildenstein Stables horses on the market. “I was tipped the wink by Christy Grassick
74
www.internationalthoroughbred.net
at Coolmore, who is also a board director at Goffs,” recalls the company’s chief executive Henry Beeby. “He mentioned to me that this dispersal would be coming, and that I should sharpen my pencil and be prepared to make a move for it. “I spoke to David Wildenstein at some length, we gave a presentation, and there was some to-ing and fro-ing. That year, during yearling inspections when I was waiting to hear if our bid had been successful, I did something I’ve never done before – I took a phone into the field. Usually I’d think it was disrespectful to the person whose horses you’re looking at. “I said to Hamish Alexander, who was inspecting yearlings with me, to carry on looking at the horses, and so it was in the middle of a field in County Kildare that David Wildenstein agreed to use Goffs rather above any other auction house to stage the dispersal.” And so the Wildenstein Stables dispersal, excluding the Ballymore Thoroughbred horses owned by Diane Wildenstein, commenced at the Goffs Orby Yearling Sale in September 2016. The Castlebridge Consignment presented the lots to the sale, just as they had for the Paulyn Dispersal in the same sale ring three years earlier. Some 17 yearlings were sold, ranging in price from the €1.4 million paid by Godolphin for the Dubawi colt out of Poule d’Essai des Pouliches heroine Beauty Parlour
Her 2016 foal Blowout (Dansii) is a Grade 1 winner of this year and is a Breeders’ Cup hopeful
