Shamrock Bay and Tribal Nation headed Down Under
Shamrock Bay (Cable Bay), a three-time winner and rated 91, will continue his career with trainer Dom Sutton in Melbourne after being purchased by Noel Fehily and Dave Crosse for 210,000gns (approx. AU$444,720) at the Tattersalls Autumn Horses in Training Sale on Tuesday.
“He has been bought for trainer Dominic Sutton, who is training at Flemington,” said Crosse. “We look after Nick Sutton’s horse here, who is his father. We tried on a couple of horses yesterday, hopefully, this horse will be lucky and this will be the first of many.”
Crosse added: “Neither of us have been Down Under, with a bit of luck this guy will take us for a day! Dom is a young trainer and has been training for just two years. He started from scratch and has had great success already, and is definitely a trainer on the up and it is good to be associated with him.”
On the process of sorting a shortlist and selecting Shamrock Bay, Crosse outlined: “We have been on the ground picking horses and putting them to him [Sutton] in the middle of his night.
“This horse did not run as a two-year-old, then won his first two starts. He is a horse who has needed time and he will be better with more time again, he is still a little ‘bum high’ despite being a four-year-old. We just loved the way he goes about his races, he has plenty of gate speed, we think he is progressive, will go forward again in Australia and he goes on fast ground.”
Tribal Nation (Wootton Bassett) will join Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott’s powerful stable after bringing 200,000gns (approx. AU$423,490), with Tulloch Lodge teaming up with McKeever Bloodstock for the three-year-old gelding.
The son of Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) has run eight times and won once, but has never finished in a lower position than sixth, has never been rated lower than 90 and has been running in some of the most competitive handicaps in Britain and Ireland.
He has been in training with Joseph O’Brien, and was bought today by Johnny McKeever.
“He ran well in the Britannia which is a race we have had good success coming out from,” said Waterhouse and Bott’s bloodstock manager Claudia Fitzgerald.
“He is a young horse, has lots to give and is relatively lightly raced, he is by Wootton Bassett and we have had great success with horses by him, they are not easy to buy! I actually thought this horse was super buying at 200,000gns.
“He has been running over shorter than perhaps we’d look for [seven furlongs and a mile], but he looks like a horse who will stretch out, especially when we get him to Australia and the sun on his back!”