Alcohol Free is heading to Australia … and, no, there doesn’t have to be a rush on the bottle store 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 knocked down to Michael Donohoe of BBA Ireland, sitting beside Yuesheng Zhang of Yulong Investments, for 5,400,000 gns.
Alcohol Free, as a winner of six races, which included four Group 1’s 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 blue-chip fillies off the track,” Donohoe told the Racing Post. “They’re collector’s items because they don’t come on the market very often. They’re like Picassos, they’re a rare commodity. I had a figure in my head, and I was bidding pretty strong, so that might’ve indicated I had some petrol left in the tank!”
“She’s been bought for a partnership and she’s going to race on in Australia,” added Donohoe. “She vetted extremely well for a filly who has plenty of miles on the clock, her reports were exemplary. (Alcohol Free has raced fifteen times).
“I think there’s 87 races in Australia worth a million-plus, so the prize-money on offer there is big, and she’s that type of filly. She’s won the July Cup over six furlongs, then she stays a mile too, so there’ll be a lot of options for her. Fair play to Andrew Balding and the guys, they did a great job with her.
“The partners already have horses in training and breeding interests in Australia and obviously she’ll make a fantastic broodmare at the end of her racing career,” concluded Donohoe.
And there are already plans for Alcohol Free post her racing career with her new connections indicating that she would likely be covered by Frankel following a southern hemisphere campaign.
“It’s time for someone else to have a go with her and she’ll make a nice foundation broodmare,” said David Bowe, stud manager to the filly’s former owner, talking to the Racing Post.
“It’s a time thing. If it were five years earlier, she would’ve never come to the ring and we’d have bred from her ourselves, but it’s the end of a wonderful journey.”
This was Alcohol Free’s second appearance in a sales ring, having been bought by Bowe as a ten-month old foal at Goffs in 2018 for €40,000.
