Angus Gold had the honour of purchasing the first progeny of Frankel at auction in Australia when he paid $610,000 for a chestnut filly out of Gr1-winning South African mare Chocolicious (Kahal) on day two of the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale in Sydney.
Mike De Kock – to train the filly
Consigned by Three Bridges Thoroughbreds, the Northern Hemisphere-bred filly (Lot 237) will be trained by champion South African trainer Mike de Kock on behalf of Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum’s Shadwell Stud.
“He’s [Frankel] the greatest horse that I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing on a racecourse, so obviously that had a lot of appeal. Also the mare herself was very tough, very fast in South Africa. She won a Gr1 as a 2YO and was by a horse called Kahal, who interestingly enough Sheikh Hamdan bred.”
Chocolicious wins the Gr1 Allan Robertson Championship
He added: “She looks much more precocious than any Frankel that I’ve seen so she looks like she should be a 2YO. Hopefully the magic of the De Kock team can turn her into a good race filly.”
Gold also offered an opinion on Frankel’s prospects of making it as a top-class stallion. “I think he’s up against it because he was such a freak of a racehorse,” he said.
Frankel -‘like a cheetah when he moved’
“I think the market expectation, and people’s expectation is almost overbearing. He was the supreme athlete. In my experience I’ve never seen a horse get his hocks under him as far as he did when he galloped…he was like a cheetah when he moved.”
He added: “We are all mad about him obviously and I hope that he is a very good stallion, but he has big shoes to fill in terms of his own success as an athlete.”
Meanwhile, Cressfield’s Frankel offering out of Jeu De Cartes (Lot 357) was secured by Kastumi Yoshida for $850,000.
The filly is the first foal of a half-sister to Nom De Jeu, and will race for Yoshida’s Northern Farm in Japan. The filly walks very well and she is the Frankel we wanted. The dam line has produced some top stayers so she is well-suited to racing in Japan,” said Yoshida.
The first progeny of Frankel to be sold in the southern hemisphere occurred at Karaka in January when the Pencarrow Stud-consigned colt out of Our Echezeaux was purchased by Adrian Nicoll of BBA Ireland on behalf of a high profile syndicate comprising Coolmore, Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum, the Niarchos Family, and Apollo Ng for $1.3 million.
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