'Everyone seemed to like him' - Stormin' Norman happy with Oak Tree Derby Sale trade topped by €170,000 son of Doctor Dino

Norman Williamson has transferred his silky smooth skills as a jockey to that of a master pinhooker and excellent judge of young horses, be that on the Flat or over jumps, with Classic winners Native Trail and War Of Will and toppers of the Derby Sale all coming under his tutelage at Oak Tree Farm in County Meath.

With avenues leading to the best young jumps horses becoming increasingly crowded, the Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle-winning rider has taken a different route to the well, purchasing a select few two-year-old French store horses at the sales last July. That trip to Deauville was an expensive one but yielded a bountiful harvest at Tattersalls Ireland on Wednesday.

Williamson's beautifully bred Doctor Dino gelding, named Bouffon Has, was a bold pinhooking purchase at €95,000, but he well knows the truth of the phrase fortune favours the brave, and so it was in the sales ring where Mags O'Toole went to €170,000 on behalf of an undisclosed client for the half-brother to Botox Has, winner of the Grade 2 Rendlesham and West Yorkshire Hurdles last season for Gary Moore.

"The Doctor Dino gelding cost plenty, but he's a gorgeous horse with a great pedigree and thankfully he turned back in here as a beautiful horse," said Williamson. 

"Thank you to Mags O'Toole and to Ross Doyle too, who I think was the underbidder. Let's hope he goes on. For a Doctor Dino I thought he was a really good mover and a good looker; everyone seemed to like him."

Successful bidder O'Toole proffered a rueful smile when reflecting on the bidding action. 

"We should have bought him last year when we saw him in France so we have had to give Norman the icing on the cake, but at least we have him now."

The Doctor Dino gelding sold by Norman Williamson for €170,000 at the Derby SaleCredit: www.healyracing.ie

The gelding, whose dam Bournie, by Kahyasi, was Listed-placed over hurdles at Auteuil and Cagnes-sur-Mer, was joined on the ferry from Normandy to Meath by a Motivator filly, who almost doubled her purchase price of €47,000 on Wednesday when bought by Ryan Mahon and Dan Skelton for €90,000.

Of the half-sister to a pair of winners, Williamson said: "I absolutely fell in love with the Motivator filly when I saw her and I thought she'd transform for a year, and she did. 

"She's a beautiful-moving filly, and is going to a top trainer. She's scopey and looks as though she'll jump a fence eventually." 

Neither Williamson nor Skelton have much previous experience with the progeny of the 2005 Derby winner who sired last year's French sensation Jigme.

"She is a lovely filly,; big, scopey and a very fluid mover with a nice pedigree," said Mahon. "I loved her, as did Dan [Skelton]. She is the first by the sire we have bought and hopefully she is lucky."

Laska D'Airy's dam is an Anzillero half-sister to Quaska D'Airy, who won the Listed Prix Sytaj Chase at Auteuil.

Williamson had a more familiar route to success with the first of three Oak Tree Farm stores through the ring on Wednesday morning as he had purchased the Jukebox Jury gelding as a foal in this ring for €46,000 from the chestnut's breeders Kenilworth House Stud.

Out of Turica, a Flemensfirth half-sister to the multiple Grade 1-winning chaser Carlingford Lough, the Tolworth Hurdle and Ryanair Chase winner Thisthatandtother, and The Tother One, who was Grade 1-placed, he doubled his foal price when bought by the Monbeg Stables team for €92,000

They too were following a familiar route to what they hope will be success as 12 months ago they purchased a Jukebox Jury gelding bred on the same cross as this one from Williamson. Named Theflyingking, he won a four-year-old maiden on his point-to-point debut in April.

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