Ryan Moore delays return from wrist injury
Ryan Moore’s expected return to the saddle has been delayed once more.
The champion jockey has been out of action since a fall at Windsor on August 9th. There have been various dates set for a return, which had included the Ebor meeting at York, but Moore has not felt sufficiently recovered from a wrist injury and now misses his one declared to ride at Brighton.
Moore was due to ride Profondo Rosso in the two-year-old maiden for Sir Michael Stoute, his retaining yard, and will now be replaced by Kieren Fallon. Moore has also given up his two booked rides for the meeting at Ffos Las on Wednesday.
He is currently in third in the table for this season’s jockeys' championship, 23 winners behind Paul Hanagan at the start of racing.
While Moore’s optimism about retaining his title has taken another knock there will be no shortage of that belief as the yearling sales season gets into full swing with a two-day auction at Doncaster Bloodstock Sales.
There will be nearly 500 lots passing through the ring of what is billed as the company’s Premier Yearling Sale, and Henry Beeby, the managing director of DBS, said: “I think people are quietly hopeful, there’s a really good buzz. The last two or three days the place has been packed; we think we’ve put together a really nice catalogue of individuals. We pick the horse first and the pedigree second and we’re getting a lot of good feedback about the quality of the horses.”
The feedback from the recent Arqana sale in France was that the Maktoum family, so often the barometer by which the breeding industry assess its fiscal climate, were not much in evidence.
However, Beeby was putting a brave face on a sale that rarely rocks the worlds with outlandish prices but regularly comes up with horses that go on to prove themselves on the track, such as Sole Power, who won the Nunthorpe Stakes at York last week.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a bonanza anywhere at the moment but I think we’re quietly hopeful of a solid trade and a good one selling really well,” Beeby said. “The Maktoums have a been great contributors to racing and sales over the last few years and long may it continue. Without them we’d be in a very difficult place. They were buying slightly less as we saw at Arqana, but we have Sheikh Mohammed’s team up here looking at the horses so we hope they’re attracted.
“But we do have a great depth of buyers here at Doncaster so we’d be very hopeful that we’ll have a strong enough trade and everyone we’d hope to see, virtually without exception, is here.”
What attracts many is the sale’s track record of providing quality that costs below the spending power of those without their own oil well and Beeby is quick to bang the drum when he said. “We’ve got a great record here for selling some horses who’ve gone on really well and have surprised a few people as little-money horses like Canford Cliffs who only cost 50 [thousand pounds], Strong Suit who cost 40 and Sole Power who cost 32 at this sale.”
Top lots for this year’s sale could include a Teofilo colt from Highclere Stud, and Newsells Park, who topped the sale last year with a Dansili colt who made £200,000, have a Dylan Thomas colt. And DBS will hope to recoup some of the outlay on the £300,000 juvenile race at York last week when they sell a half-sister to Wooten Basset, who won the race last and now goes for the Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury next month.
What every buyer at Doncaster hopes for a real money-spinner like Youmzain. He cost just 30,000gns and has won £3,394,269 in prize money. What he has not won is the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, finishing runner-up for the last three years, but his trainer, Mick Channon, is loading the cannon once more.
Speaking on his website, after the seven-year-old worked in the morning, Channon said: “He wasn't scintillating but I'd be worried if he ever was. He just enjoyed himself and today was the beginning really of his Arc build up. He's fit, it's just a question on keeping a lid on him until October when we'll try and get him to Longchamp at his peak once more.
"He's a seven year old entire and knows his routine inside out. The problem is that he's so well we need to do something with him to occupy both mind and body and as his preparation steps up you can see that he knows what's coming. It's a question of us keeping him safe and sound - his well-being is his own biggest problem at times as he can get fresh.
"With him we're wishing time away, which I suppose is a crime at my age. The Arc is such a big deal though that we just want to get there in one piece and at our very best."
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