Walk In The Park All The Rage At Cheltenham Sale
Demand for the progeny of Walk In The Park remained high at the Tattersalls Cheltenham February Sale, where a trio of point-to-point winners each sold for over £200,000.
Mt Fugi Park (5g Walk In The Park - The Real Athlete, by Presenting) lived up to expectations on his sole start for Donnchadh Doyle, with the well-supported favourite delivering in good style at Bellharbour. One of the highlights of Thursday’s catalogue, the imposing bay attracted the attention of Tom Malone, Milton Harris and Kevin Ross in the ring, but was eventually knocked down to Matt Coleman and Jonjo O’Neill for £290,000.
“He’s what you’re trying to buy when you buy a National Hunt horse,” Matt Coleman later said. “He’s by one of the top stallions, is a great-looking horse and was well recommended.”
“He’s a gorgeous horse with very good movement,” the successful consignor added. “Of course, he’s by Walk In The Park out of a Presenting mare, so I was very fond of him at the store sales. I gave a good bit for him at the time but that’s a great price for him today so I’m very happy.”
Sean Doyle was another to reap the rewards with a son of Walk In The Park, as he sold impressive debut winner Leader in The Park (5g Walk In The Park - Supreme Breda, by Supreme Leader) to Highflyer Bloodstock and Ben Pauling for £250,000.
The half-brother to Benefficient won by all of 56 lengths at Tallow, but Highflyer’s Tessa Greatrex is convinced there’s further improvement in her purchase. “He’s a horse I saw privately around this time last year,” the agent revealed. “The Doyles were very pleased with what he was doing then but he was a very backward horse. He still looks like a big shell of a horse but I particularly liked him that day and he did his job in his point-to-point. He’ll get a summer off and we’ll bring him back next year.”
After suffering the role of underbidder for some sought-after lots, Milton Harris’ patience was rewarded when securing Colin Bowe’s highly-regarded winner Walks Like The Man (5g Walk In The Park - Nifty Nuala, by Saddlers’ Hall) for £225,000.
After co-signing with Avon Racing, Harris said, “He looked like a proper specimen, he’s got a good pedigree and he looks the real deal. The idea is we’ll run him in a bumper towards April time, then turn him away.”
Walk In The Park was also responsible for the highest-priced mare of the sale in Longhouse Legacy (5m Walk In The Park - Staraba, by Astarabad), who was knocked down to Brookhouse Racing for £175,000.
Related to the great Douvan (Walk In The Park), the Sam Curling-trained bay shaped like a smart prospect when justifying short-priced favouritism at Bellharbour earlier this month.