Buyers on the hunt for Cheltenham Festival winners need look no further than Goffs Land Rover Sale. Aisling Crowe previews the draft from Kilmoney Cottage Stud whose recent Land Rover graduates include Altior and Minella Rocco...
CHELTENHAM dreams are the strong undercurrent at the Goffs Land Rover Sale. Whether the immediate destiny is the point-to-point field or Land Rover Bumper, the power of a Cheltenham winner exerts an invisible pull.
Three years’ ago Kilmoney Cottage Stud, sent a trio of stores to Goffs and less than two years’ later two of those three horses were Cheltenham Festival winners – Minella Rocco in the National Hunt Chase and Supreme Novices’ victor Altior. This year both horses returned to Cheltenham and enhanced their reputations, and that of their nursery, with further success. Minella Rocco a close second in the Gold Cup and Altior eclipsing his rivals in the Arkle.
“We only consigned three horses at the Land Rover Sale that year and for two of them to win at the same Cheltenham Festival was fantastic and then for both of them to come back this year and do what they did, they are two good ones,” reflects Ciara Carty of Kilmoney Cottage Stud.
When the Nicky Henderson-trained Altior took on older, seasoned rivals including the Champion Chase winner Special Tiara in the Grade 1 Celebration Chase and dismissed them contemptuously, the impression of his brilliance was cemented.
Ciara says: “Altior is a special horse, to be able to pull out so fresh at the end of the season and beat the older horses in a Grade 1 is fantastic. Nicky Henderson has done a fantastic job with him since he got him, I think he knew what he had from the start and has trained him accordingly."
The potential he had shown in the years at Kilmoney Cottage had always promised stardom for the son of High Chaparral but so many elements need to fall into the correct place for that to be realised. Altior has done that spectacularly.
“No one ever knows how good a young horse is going to be but Altior always made his presence felt, he had that extra quality about him, that wow factor and it is great to see him showing just how good he is on the track. Not every horse with that air around them goes on to prove it on the track so it is brilliant that he has,” Ciara adds.
Minella Rocco and Altior are not the only successful chasers to have graduated from the Rathangan nursery. Before either of them went through the Goffs’ ring, there was Grade 1 Kauto Star Novices’ Chase winner Annacotty, who took a different route to victory. "Annacotty we didn’t put through the ring as a store,” Ciara explains. “We went point to pointing with him and then sold him. An awful lot of work goes into our horses before they go to the sales so that they will be ready for trainers to go on with. We concentrate on having small, high quality drafts for the sales”.
That work is recognised at the sales when the select Kilmoney Cottage draft is inspected. At last year’s Land Rover Sale, they were the first vendors to break the six-figure barrier when Aiden Murphy went to €110,000 for their son of Flemensfirth and their Beneficial gelding, bought by Tom Lacey is already a winner.
“The Flemensfirth gelding from last year hasn’t run yet but he is one to look forward to,” Ciara says. “Sword Of Fate (Beneficial) won a four-year-old bumper for Tom Lacey on his first run at the end of April.”
This year, their policy of a select, choice draft for Goffs Land Rover Sale is reflected in the two horses they consign. Their first lot through the ring will be Lot 44 a son of Getaway, whose first crops have been well-received. He is the first foal out of Maria Sophia, a half-sister to the Grade 2 winning-hurdler Jack Cool. His second dam is an unraced Sadler’s Wells half-sister to the four times Group 1 winner and Classic victor Alhijaz.
Ciara describes him: “The Getaway gelding is a sharp, good-looking individual. He is a real trainer’s horse and would be one for the Land Rover Bumper next year.”
Lot 142 is a son of Milan out of a half-sister to the Grade 1 Drinmore Novice Chase and Grade 1 Fort Leney Novice Chase heroine Cailin Alainn. The gelding is a half-brother to Jonjo O’Neill’s winning hurdler Lookout Mountain by Flemensfirth and his four-year-old Westerner half-brother Beyond The Law was purchased privately by Alan Potts after winning his point-to-point at Nenagh earlier this year. Beyond The Law was subsequently second in a bumper.
“He is a big, strong and well-balanced individual who will probably make a chaser but he doesn’t need time, he will come to hand quickly. Whatever he does before going chasing will be a bonus because he really looks like a chaser in the making,” is how Ciara describes the son of Milan.