As bargain buys go, Kentucky Belle is looking like one of the best mare purchases that I have made to date…
I always thought that that accolade would be held by Molly Brown who I purchased barren on behalf of a client and sent to Exceed And Excel and the resulting progeny was Temple Stakes Group 2 winner Priceless. Kentucky Belle might just have gone one step better.
For one, Kentucky Belle was cheaper, albeit only a small bit cheaper coming in at just 4,500gns from the Tattersalls 2019 February sale. Having visited Night Of Thunder the resulting progeny, a colt went to the Goffs UK yearling sale and sold for 92,000gns to Sam Sangster. Myself, owner and breeder Elaine Chivers and consignor Matthew Darling were delighted with this result but that has since been eclipsed by the horse himself, Isaac Shelby on the track.
Having spoken with his purchaser Sam Sangster at the Arqana breeze-up sale I felt we were in good shape when Sam described as either ‘very good’ or ‘a bit special’ – he duly won on debut at Newbury and quite rightly his trainer Brian Meehan and Sam gave him the time and bypassed Royal Ascot waiting for the Newmarket July Festival. In Newmarket, they gave him entries in both the July Stakes over 6f and the Superlative Stakes over 7f and opted for the 7f event which he won in hard-fought style under Sean Levey with Charlie Appleby’s Victory Dance a head behind in 2nd. The Superlative Stakes is a Group 2 and by the sound of it, Isaac Shelby will be given Group 1 entries ahead including races like the Dewhurst and even the Breeders Cup Juvenile.
Kentucky Belle has a yearling colt by Al Kazeem, bred on similar lines to Isaac Shelby and is in-foal to the Whitsbury Manor Stud stallion, Sergei Prokofiev. Many congratulations to her owner Elaine Chivers who has been a big supporter of mine and I am delighted to see her breed such a good horse.