Sheikh Fahad Al Thani ensured he would leave South Africa with more than just a few souvenirs, as he struck for consecutive valuable lots on the final session as more records were set at the Cape Premier Yearling Sale.
The young Qatari owner has packed it all in over the last fortnight, riding in a race on the beach at Surfers Paradise in Australia ahead of the Magic Millions and scaling Table Mountain upon his arrival in Cape Town.
His Qatar Racing operation missed out on Saturday’s sales-topper, the R6-million ($441,450/£356,600/€411,685) son of Trippi purchased by Coolmore, but all will be forgotten should lot 142, a Captain Al (SAf)-sired first foal of the useful South African race mare Orator’s Daughter (Aus) (Oratorio {Ire}) live up to his good looks. Consigned by Klawervlei Stud, he was knocked down for R4.5 million ($333,000/£265,500/€308,978).
Sheikh Fahad’s racing advisor David Redvers had not even finished the congratulations and documentation before he was active again, successfully bidding R3.25 million ($240,500/£191,750/€222,852) for another Captain Al as lot 143. Quite a few had designs on the Drakenstein Stud-consigned colt, named Frank Lloyd Wright, out of Pacific Dynasty (SAf) (Dynasty {SAf}).
“We are completely new to this,” said his advisor, David Redvers. “It was our first visit to the sales and they will be Sheikh Fahad’s first horses in South Africa. We wanted to leave with the best horses we could, and unfortunately we were underbidder on the big one yesterday, but these are two of the nicest at the sale.”
Continued Redvers, “We have been involved in a partnership in Europe with Markus Jooste, who was keen for us to come over. Markus will probably be involved in the first one, but all that will be ironed out later.”
Redvers declined to mention which local trainer would be appointed, adding, “The horses will stay down here and I suppose we’ll see how they get on. Of course there’s the possibility that they could end up being good enough to race elsewhere later on, but we’ll see. It’s exciting to be involved in a new venture.”
The Sheikh’s contribution helped push the sale, first held in 2011, to a new record aggregate of R155,225,000 ($11,421,000/£9,225,750/€10,635,280) and average of R699,212 ($51,450/£41,550/€47,902) (+16.5%). The median also rose from 2016’s figure to R387,500 ($28,500/£23,050/€26,547) (+3.3%).
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