By Sam Turner
The Shadwell Estate rebuild moved up a gear on day three of the Tattersalls Book 1 yearling sale when the organisation secured the day’s sale topper, a daughter of Frankel and Cheveley Park winner Millisle for 1,600,000gns.
The purchase took the number of Shadwell purchases at the marquee sale to seven, all fillies, and there was no disguising the delight of long-standing racing manager Angus Gold following the capture.
“She is a lovely first foal, I saw her on the farm and loved her, I loved her every time we saw her here as did Sheikha Hissa,” said Gold.
“We knew she’d make a lot of money, but we need some fillies for the stud and a first foal out of Cheveley Park Stakes winner and by a great stallion, it was sort of fairly self-explanatory.
“She seems very athletic, very well-balanced and has a very good mind, so now she has got to be able to run!”
Their latest buy is part of the Shadwell rebuilding process and Gold added: “It is a period of rebuilding, it is a long-term project for Sheikha Hissa.
“We have been lucky this year with the older horses, and Sheikha Hissa is happy to take a different route to her father Sheikh Hamdan who did not like to keep the older horses and she is prepared to if we think there is more to come, and she has been rewarded with a Group One winner.
“It is exciting times for the stud, but you have to keep regenerating.”
He added of Sheikha Hissa’s ever-growing passion for the sport: “She has loved coming here, she can stand looking at the horses all day if someone did not come and move her!
“She loves coming to see the yearlings, we saw them all Monday and she has been back over the three days to see horses again. She is picking it up very quickly, like her father, and really enjoys the business.”
On the track, the prospect of a warm spell in England has encouraged joint-trainer John Gosden to target Ascot’s Qipco Champion Stakes on October 21 with the Shadwell-owned Mostahdaf.
A trip to Santa Anita and a date with the Breeders’ Cup Turf was originally on the table for the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and Juddmonte International winner, but unseasonably dry weather has encouraged connections to consider a possible switch to the 2000m feature later this month.
Speaking to the Racing Post, Gosden said: “Mostahdaf breezed nicely on Wednesday morning and we are on weather watch, but we are looking towards the Champion Stakes providing the ground is in his favour.
"He won on soft as a three-year-old, but all his best form has been on a sounder surface so we are hoping for this heatwave they say is coming. If it did turn wet I suppose they have the option of running on the inner track, but hopefully he can run there.
