Image: R&S
Alcohol-free is heading to Australia… and, no, there doesn’t need to be a rush on bottle shop shelves.
Alcohol Free, a daughter of No Nay Never, became the second most expensive thoroughbred ever sold at auction in Europe yesterday when she was brought down by BBA Ireland’s Michael Donohoe, sitting next to Yulong Investments’ Yuesheng Zhang , for 5,400,000 lei.
Alcohol Free, a winner of six races that included four Group 1s for trainer Andrew Balding, was always going to be one of the focal points of the auction, but the final purchase price still stunned those in the Park Paddocks auditorium.
“It’s impossible to value those colts off the track,” Donohoe told the Racing Post. “They are collectors items because they don’t come on the market very often. I’m like Picasso, I’m a rare commodity. I had a figure in my head and I was bidding pretty hard, so that would indicate I had some gas left in the tank!”
“She was bought for a partnership and will continue to race in Australia,” added Donohoe. “She checked extremely well for a filly that has a lot of miles on the clock, her reports were exemplary. (No alcohol competed fifteen times).
“I think there are 87 races in Australia that are worth a million plus so the prize money there is big and she is that kind of chick. She won the July Cup over six furlongs with a mile to go so there will be plenty of options for her. Fair play to Andrew Balding and guys, they did a great job with it.
“The partners already have horses interested in training and breeding in Australia and she will obviously make a fantastic broodmare at the end of her racing career,” concluded Donohoe.
And there are already plans to post her alcohol-free racing career, with her new links suggesting she is likely to be covered by Frankel following a campaign in the southern hemisphere.
“It’s time for someone else to take her on and she’ll make a nice foundation mare,” said David Bowe, the stud manager of the filly’s former owner, speaking to the Racing Post.
“It’s a matter of time. If it had been five years earlier, she would never have come into the ring and we would have grown out of her ourselves, but it’s the end of a wonderful journey.”
This was Alcohol Free’s second appearance on a sales circuit, having been bought by Bowe as a ten-month-old colt at Goffs in 2018 for €40,000.
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