We
were delighted to go to The Brightwells sales at Cheltenham racecourse in
November to secure the purchase of Kavanaghs Corner (stable name Casey). Casey is a cracking 5 yr old by Coroner and
has been purchased for Bridget O’Flynn and Norman Cahill. Bridget and Norman are past owners with the
yard and owned the lovely Outside The Box with us a few years ago. It is great to welcome them back as owners.
Kavanaghs
Corner came 2nd in his latest point to point in Ireland on 8th
November and was beaten only a neck by the winner, Stiletto. Incidentally Stiletto was also at the sales
and was the top lot of the day going for a whopping £130,000 so we think
Kavanaghs Corner was relatively good value!
Casey was flying after the last and in another few strides he would have
won the race as Stiletto was tiring.
Sometimes the winner of these point to points isn’t necessarily the best
horse in the race and we obviously hope this is the case here. Casey jumped like a buck and put his head
down and battled which showed he tries very hard. Talent is a waste if that person or animal
doesn’t try. His battling spirit is
something that really caught our eye.
Norman
& Bridget gave us a very simple order….a future 3 mile chaser who goes in
the soft and can go on to win the Gold Cup followed by The Grand National – no
pressure then! What we do know is that
he should be a future 3 mile chaser and that he definitely likes it soft as is
was soft to heavy when he ran in Ireland.
He
is taking his time to settle into his new environment and has now finished his
quarantine and is in the main yard. He
is the type of horse that once he has done something once or twice he then
trusts the situation and starts to settle.
Physically he is one of the strongest horses I have ever sat on which is
fantastic. He is a powerhouse in
everything he does; even walking around the walker he shows great power. We are hoping that he will run
January/February time.
I
have been looking for quite a long time for the right horse and have visited
Ireland twice and seen over 25 horses but nothing really grabbed my eye and the
one that did had a price tag of £100,000!
I gave Norman & Bridget a list of 10 horses at the sales that I
liked from looking at their point to point videos and form. Out of those 10, they actually picked out
Kavanaghs Corner beforehand. We took our
friends, Tor & Roly Rickcord to the sales and Tor is a good judge of a
horse as she produces young ponies, breeds a bit and has also competed eventing
and she took herself off to have a look at a few horses. Lot 49 caught her eye from a distance and she
went over and had a good look at him without knowing that he was on our
shortlist. She came back and begged me
to go and look at lot 49 (he was the last on my list to look at) and we loved
what we saw. Buffy, our vet, was at the
sales and vetted a few for us and it has to be one of the first times that she
has said there was nothing wrong with Casey and that we would want to get him
so there was quite a bit of fate surrounding his purchase! To be honest we never thought we would get
him as there were so many trainers and buyers pulling him out. He hardly ever stood in his box!
Kavanaghs Corner was sold at
Brightwells by Aidan Fitzgerald from his Cobajay Stables in Carlow,
Ireland. There was an excellent article
on Aidan in the Irish Point to Point Weekly about how he takes his time with
his youngsters and that patience and a good feeding regime works well for
him. He has sold some excellent
youngsters to top trainers (Bordini who won his bumper and is in training with
Willie Mullins, Thomas Edison – winner of the Galway hurdle this year, Glencove
Marina, Roberto Goldback, Vic Venturi, Last Instalment, Hidden Cyclone etc) and
his approach to his horses is something that stands Casey in even better
stead. Hopefully Casey will be lucky for
everyone and especially his owners Bridget & Norman. It is a pleasure to have him in the yard.
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