€310,000 Punchestown purchase set to debut for Elliott and Gigginstown in race commemorating trainer's uncle

Our resident bloodstock experts profile the well-bred eyecatchers and expensive purchases set to grace the track.

MA JACKS HILL 

(Willie Elliott Memorial (Pro/Am) Flat Race, 3.40 Fairyhouse, Saturday)

What's the story?

Ma Jacks Hill had been set to make his debut under rules before, but all being well Saturday should be lift-off day for the four-year-old, who cost a punchy €310,000 at the Goffs Punchestown Sale in May.

That was a considerable mark-up on the €13,000 he had cost as a store at Tattersalls Ireland just under a year before. In between times, running for trainer Ciaran Fennessy, he had unseated his rider at Quakerstown when disputing the lead three out, but then made no mistake to get off the mark at Dromahane a handful of days before his appearance in the Punchestown sale ring.

Gordon Elliott signed the docket then, and he makes his first appearance for the yard in the silks of Gigginstown House Stud in the bumper at Fairyhouse. The race is run in memory of Elliott’s uncle Willie, and the Cullentra House maestro will be keen to repeat his success of last year with Jalon D’Oudairies.

How's he bred?

Ma Jacks Hill is by Anngrove Stud sire Famous Name and was bred by Andrew Tyrrell out of the Milan mare Peig Alainn, her sixth foal. The dam was a maiden pointer herself but well-related being out of an unraced half-sister to the prolific winner Watson Lake, the Grade 1 Drinmore Chase winner who also landed four Grade 2s.

The rules debutant is a half-brother to a couple of winners by Jeremy, namely Jemima P and Boghlone Honey.

Who does he face?

At the very same sale at which Ma Jacks Hill was acquired by Elliott for Gigginstown, so too was Koktail Brut, for the also not inconsiderable sum of €250,000. By Cokoriko, he is a half-brother to Grade 3 Munster National winner Gevrey and won his only point-to-point start at Castletown-Geoghegan. Koktail Brut has also been declared for Sunday at Fairyhouse.

A third Elliott runner is William Butler, a son of Yeats out a bumper and hurdle winner.

Point-to-point runner-up You Proof, a €70,000 vendor buyback at the Derby Sale, makes his debut for Willie Mullins, while the Emmet Mullins-trained Faithful Follower was runner-up to the Elliott-trained Classical Creek in a bumper at Down Royal in early November - that should mean that Elliott has a fair idea of how dangerous a foe Faithful Follower will be to his runners. 

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