‘I wasn’t expecting that’ – No Nay Never colt proves popular at Premier
No Nay Never (Scat Daddy) is one of Coolmore’s siring stars … in Ireland.
He has a resounding 8.14 per cent stakes-winners-to-runners ratio globally, and has nine Group 1 winners to his name … in the northern hemisphere.
The 15-year-old stands for €100,000 (approx. AU$166,000), making him the most expensive of Coolmore’s 21 stallions in Ireland – by a comfortable €40,000.
In Australia, however, it’s a vastly different and bleaker story.
No Nay Never has at least had one elite victor here – Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) queen Madame Pommery – but she’s one of only three black type winners he’s had from 152 Australian runners.
Even his best horse worldwide, the quadruple Group 1-winning mare Alcohol Free, seemed to fall under his Australian spell once brought to this country after a $10 million purchase by Yulong, with her best result in five outings being a Group 2 fourth at Randwick.
A Group 1 winner in France at two, No Nay Never shuttled for four seasons to Coolmore Australia until 2019 and wasn’t asked back.
But while there’s rarely been a more pronounced Jekyll and Hyde story in shuttling history, as the old saying goes, they can all get a good one.
Trainer Clinton McDonald and his main bloodstock agent Shane McGrath are hoping they’ve found it, in the colt they bought for $420,000 at Inglis Premier on Monday.
It should be said that there’s a lot of the mare talking in this pedigree, in Setarhe (Footstepsinthesand). Her Persian name means “star”, and she did that justice on the track in Britain, winning at two over 1200 metres, running second in Royal Ascot’s Albany Stakes (Gr 3, 6f), and taking third in a Sandown Listed.
Australian mega breeder John Camilleri bought her, and he now has her two daughters, by Frankel (Galileo) – three-year-old Hear The Angels and two-year-old Sound Of Angels – awaiting their debuts.
Their younger brother was instead sent to Premier to be sold and on Monday he blew the room away – including the vendor.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” said Segenhoe Stud boss Peter O’Brien. “I thought he’d make $250k or $300k. But very rarely do you see a horse in the ring like that with so many people bidding on it.”
O’Brien estimated there were “about 25 people bidding on the horse”. While that may have been a slight exaggeration, it illustrates the superb type produced by sending Setarhe to No Nay Never.
Maybe he just likes playing at home.
When it was put to O’Brien that No Nay Never hadn’t shot any lights out in Australia, the Irish expat had to politely concede, “No he hasn’t – that’s true”, but added this colt was an outlier.
“He was just a unique one for me,” he said. “I go to Ballydoyle each year, and the good No Nay Nevers are like his type: strong, neat and fast-looking two-year-old types.
“To be honest, I was surprised with the level of interest, but he’s such a good looking horse I think people just ignored everything else and went on that.
“Plus the mother was a bloody good racehorse. It’s not often you have a horse at Premier who’s out of a mare who ran second at Royal Ascot.”
O’Brien said he and Camilleri had contemplated taking the colt to Magic Millions Gold Coast.
“But then we thought No Nay Nevers down here in Melbourne – a lot of internationals come to the Premier Sale, and the stallion is popular in Hong Kong,” he said of a sire who has ten winners including one stakes victor in the territory, from 20 runners.
“We really brought him down here thinking he’d end up in Hong Kong. But in the end he’s staying here.
“Clinton [McDonald] told me he thought he was the colt of the sale.”
McDonald, who according to O’Brien had “walked the legs off the colt” in pre-sale inspections, was thrilled with his purchase.
And after the trainer’s two Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) victories in three years with Hayasugi (Royal Meeting) and ten days ago with Streisand (Magnus), he’s hoping for more two-year-old success with this purchase.
“Shane found the horse and said, ‘Come and have a look at this colt’,” McDonald said. “I fell in love with him within ten seconds.
“He’s my style of horse – the way he moves. I saw him probably six times, and he looked exactly the same every time.
“When we’re looking for these horses, I need to see them with a purpose. Whether he was walking from A to B or B to A, he was really walking with conviction.
“So I thought he looks an early two-year-old. We’d hope to be having him racing in the spring.”
As for the pedigree?
“No Nay Never is a gun sire,” McDonald said. “Sure, he didn’t come back down here, but I’ve had one before and she was a very good filly.
“He’s a proper stallion, and the mare is very fast so it’s speed on speed.”
Camilleri now has a colt foal by Home Affairs (I Am Invincible) out of Setarhe, who’s now in-foal to Harry Angel (Dark Angel).
Meanwhile, O’Brien was delighted with the Premier sale, saying Segenhoe had had more inspections that in any of the other half dozen years they’d sent drafts to the auction.
“We’re 23 per cent up on footfall compared to any other year, which is huge. So all credit to Inglis. Everyone here does a great job,” said O’Brien, a fan of intimate Oaklands.
“The atmosphere in this sales ring is the best atmosphere of any sales ring in the southern hemisphere.
“Yesterday’s sale was just incredible, and we’re delighted with today. We’ve sold a Zoustar colt for $340k, a Tassort filly for $310k, and this boy for $420k. So we couldn’t be happier.”