‘Graham’s thrilled and the accountant is delighted!’ - famous farm back in clover after 4,400,000gns Frankel filly stars at Tattersalls

Newsells Park Stud is no stranger to success at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale. Even so, the 4,400,000gns sale of the Frankel filly out Aljazzi to Amo Racing represented unprecedented territory for the blue-chip Hertfordshire nursery.

Before Tuesday the most expensive yearling Newsells Park had sold at Book 1 was the Group 3-winning Sir Isaac Newton, a son of Galileo and blue hen Shastye who fetched 3,600,000gns from MV Magnier in 2013.

Reflecting on the session-topping transaction, general manager Julian Dollar said: “I know everyone says I can’t value a horse, and obviously I can’t, but I dreamt that if we were really lucky she might make 1,000,000gns. That would have been great because it’s a nice round number, but that was just unbelievable.

“It just shows what can happen when two people want a horse. I’ve never had a horse vetted as much, she had 20 vets. I said to Graham [Smith-Bernal, Newsells Park owner] that if we could keep a couple, this filly and the Dubawi from earlier [sold to Richard Knight for 925,000gns] were the ones to keep. Hopefully she’s a good filly for team Amo Racing, and I’m very grateful to Mitsu [Nakauchida] for filling the role of underbidder.”

Asked to expand on his recollection of the seven-figure bidding battle, Dollar said: “You’re standing there wondering where it might go to. I was very happy at a million and then of course you think where might it stop? Then there’s almost a stupid feeling that you’re disappointed that it’s finished! It was unbelievable. Graham’s thrilled and the accountant is delighted!”

The filly is out of Aljazzi, a daughter of Shamardal who won the Group 2 Duke of Cambridge Stakes in 2019. The dam was bred and raced by Saleh Al Homaizi and Imad Al Sagar, and was added to the Newsells Park broodmare band in 2018 at the not inconsiderable cost of 1,000,000gns.

Explaining the circumstances around Aljazzi’s purchase, Dollar said: “We’d had a good sale [at Book 1] a few weeks before, and I said to Andreas Jacobs [previous stud owner] that there’s a filly in the Autumn Horses-in-Training Sale that shouldn’t be in here and she might just get missed a bit.

“He was brave enough to let me go to a million, which was absolutely our limit. Although her first foal by Galileo didn’t quite meet expectations, this was always just a stunning filly.”

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The Jacobs family sold Newsells Park to tech entrepreneur Graham Smith-Bernal in a lock, stock and barrel deal in June 2021. The sale of the Frankel filly caps a fruitful year for the operation, which also co-owns Irish Oaks heroine You Got To Me with Valmont.

In reflecting on Tuesday’s success, Dollar revealed how close the farm and its stock, which includes a high-end broodmare band and stallions like Nathaniel and Without Parole, came to being sold off.

“Graham is one of life’s true enthusiasts,” he said. “He absolutely loves racing and adores Newsells Park Stud, and I really think the industry is lucky to have people like him. He puts his heart and soul into the farm.

“If it hadn’t been for Graham, Newsells Park Stud wouldn’t exist any more and it would have been broken up into little bits. Thanks to Graham he kept all the team, all the mares and the whole operation going. There was nobody else at that stage.

“It was a difficult time with Covid and Ramadan was on, so it was tricky for potential buyers. If we hadn’t sold it by July we were going into a dispersal. He deserves a lot of credit for stepping in to buy it.”

Newsells Park finished day one clear at the head of the consignors’ chart with seven lots sold for 6,895,000gns.

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