3 minute read
Asfoora to be joined in Ballarat by younger half-brother after Dwyer commits.
Most would have expected Henry Dwyer to be front and centre at Magic Millions' Morphettville sale complex when Lot 100 went through the ring at the Adelaide Yearling Sale on Tuesday.
The colt is half-brother to Dwyer's stable star Asfoora, a daughter of Flying Artie, and the Ballarat trainer also bought the Group 2 winner and last-start Oakleigh Plate placegetter's younger half-brother for $120,000 at the same sale last year.
But not being in Adelaide did not stop Dwyer adding another member of the family to his team, enlisting someone onsite to go to $180,000 for the colt by Ilovethiscity.
"I was only interested in one horse and didn't see the need to go over to buy him because I've seen him on the farm at Noor Elaine," Dwyer said from his office in Ballarat.
"Asfoora was passed in (for $24,000) at the sales and she was always going to take a bit of time, but I bought the second foal out of the mare last year, who was by Akeed Mofeed, and he was a bigger, heavier sort of colt.
"He's been broken in and we haven't put any pressure on him. We like him and he looks to have nice ability, but we haven't really tried him.
"This bloke is probably the nicest foal the mare has produced. He's definitely a racier model than last year's model and he's certainly more forward than Asfoora was at a similar stage."
The Ilovethiscity colt is the third foal from the I Am Invincible mare Golden Child, whose fourth foal is a weanling by Dirty Work.
They have all been bred and prepared for sale by Noor Elaine Farm, who will retain an interest in the Ilovethiscity colt, who Dwyer thinks has the attributes to get to the track as a juvenile.
"He's quite forward and quite mature, he's got a good body and he seems mentally quite forward as well," he said.
"He'll go back and be broken in by Noor Elaine farm, by Tim Jackson, and it wouldn't surprise me if we can get him up and going early."
Asfoora's half-brother was one of the highest-priced lots in the first half of Day 1, bettered only by the $220,000 Capitalist colt (Lot 87) who was bought by Hong Kong agent George Moore at the time he went through the ring.
A colt by Shamus Award from Il Sogno (Elvstroem) also sold for $180,000, to TFI, while Sullivan Bloodstock's Saxon Warrior filly sold to Proven Thoroughbreds and Kerry Parker for $170,000, the same amount Phillip Stokes and Connolly Bloodstock paid for a filly by Strasbourg.