Surrey Thunder sells for £294,000
From the Racing Post:
SURREY THUNDER RUMBLES FOR WALLER
There was a notable Antipodean presence at Park Paddocks, and no southern hemisphere buyer made a bigger impact than Guy Mulcaster, who added Surrey Thunder to the all conquering string of Chris Waller at 280,000gns.
The three-year-old advertised his credentials with some smart performances for Joseph Tuite, most notably when he readily landed the Listed Grand Prix de Clairefontaine on his penultimate outing.
“We thought he was the right sort of horse for Australia,” said Mulcaster from his position at the top of the stairs opposite the rostrum. “He hasn’t been over raced, he looks in great condition and is just a nice style of horse. We’re very happy to have secured him at that sort of money.”
Having shown his best form over 1m4f Surrey Thunder looks to have the tools required to make up into a Cup race candidate, though Mulcaster said the son of Le Havre had not been bought with any specific targets in mind.
“We’ve got plenty of good races in Australia and I don’t think he needs a mile and a half, we’ll just get him into the system and see how he comes out at the other end,” he said. “There aren’t too many horses like him that’ve actually turned up for the sale so we’re lucky to have struck early on.”
The sale of Surrey Thunder gave the Surrey Racing team of Clive Hadingham and Steve Grubb plenty of reason to cheer, with the horse having been added to the syndicate’s ranks at €67,000 at last year’s Arqana Breeze-Up Sale.
“He’s been good for us and given the syndicate a lot of good times,” said Hadingham, an investment banker by trade. “Unfortunately running a syndicate is an expensive business so we’ve had to sell to balance the books.
“We’re fans as much as anything else though and when we started the business we looked to buy mile and a half types as there is that resale option. We have National Hunt horses too, we’ve just bought a mare who’s with Nicky Henderson. We’re always looking at different angles.”
Surrey Racing have also enjoyed success with the likes of four-time winner Surrey Hope, though Grubb added that this was by far the syndicate’s biggest sales ring result, saying: “This is the first horse we’ve been able to sell at this level. Hopefully this will enable us to go and buy two or three others.”
Despite the Surrey monicker, Hadingham said the syndicate is comprised of members from far and wide, including Hong Kong, Switzerland, Ireland and the US.