Rare Ready to Run purchase reaps big rewards

Sydney trainer Joe Pride and Kiwi owner Leighton Howl have made relatively rare appearances at Karaka’s Ready to Run Sale and even fewer in tandem, but their joint purchase from the 2022 edition of the sale has taken them to Group One heights.
Ceolwulf stamped himself as a bright young talent with second placings in the Gr. 1 Rosehill Guineas and Australian Derby last autumn, and his reputation has soared even higher since then. The four-year-old produced a scintillating finish reminiscent of his own sire Tavistock in his racing days, charging home from the back of the field to win Saturday’s time-honoured Gr. 1 Epsom Handicap at Randwick.
Now the winner of more than A$1.69 million in his 13-race career, Ceolwulf was bought by Pride and Howl for $170,000 at Karaka nearly two years ago.
He was offered at the Ready to Run Sale by Riversley Park on behalf of his breeders Cambridge Stud. Ceolwulf is the first foal out of the unraced Shamardal mare Las Brisas, who was bought by Cambridge Stud for 50,000 guineas from the 2018 Tattersalls December Mares Sale at Newmarket.
Ceolwulf was just the second Karaka Ready to Run purchase for Pride and his first in six years. Excelling, who he bought for $50,000 in 2016, won twice in an eight-start career in Australia, then carried on to Singapore and added another six wins including the Merlion Trophy. He earned over $400,000 in stakes.
Auckland-based Howl’s list of Ready to Run Sale purchases is not much larger than Pride’s, albeit even more impressive.
“Joe had hardly ever been to the Ready to Run Sale before, while I haven’t bought many horses there myself but have had a bit of luck with the sale,” Howl told RaceForm this week.
“I went there in 2013 with my good friend Danica Guy, where we managed to make $140,000 on a pinhook. We then paid $17,500 to buy a son of Rios that we named Gaultier, and he went on to win the Gr. 1 Levin Classic.”
Pride and Howl’s association dates back more than a decade, beginning with a high-class Kiwi export who won a Group One classic in Australia as a three-year-old. That was exactly the type of horse Pride wanted when he set his sights on the 2022 Ready to Run Sale.
“My relationship with Joe started with Miss Keepsake, who went across to Australia and won the Queensland Oaks in 2010,” Howl said. “She stayed in Australia after that win and joined Joe’s stable, and that’s when I first met him.
“I later sent him across another New Zealand horse named Arraignment, who was a Saturday winner at Rosehill, and then he did a great job in recent years with Mach Schnell.
“So we’ve formed a pretty good partnership, and leading into that 2022 Ready to Run Sale, Joe dropped me a line and asked me for my view on the sale. It wasn’t one he’d had much involvement with before, but he was keen to find a good Kiwi-bred horse that could be a Derby or Guineas type. That was the brief.
“Joe had a list of 30-odd, I had about the same, and we cross-referenced them. The good news was that the Tavistock colt out of the Shamardal mare was on both of our lists.
“I thought he might be something quite special. We got him out of the box, and Joe fell in love with him straight away. I’d looked at a lot of Tavistocks over the previous decade or so, and I said to Joe that he was probably the best one I’d seen.
“He is probably the only Tavistock that looked like his sire when he was an actual racehorse. He had a lot of quality about him and, to be honest, I thought he was probably the best Tavistock I’d ever looked at.
"What's odd is he was from the last crop, and the third last one to go through the ring, I wasn't leaving the complex without him, Joe loved the horse from day one, and he had seen plenty over the years to and trained a couple of good ones. We both agreed the cross with the Shamardal mare may produce something unique. And that has been the case so far.
“Joe’s always been very excited about him. He ran great races in the Rosehill Guineas and the Derby in the autumn, and what he did in the Epsom on Saturday was quite special. His next target is likely to be the King Charles III Stakes (October 19).”
Unsurprisingly, the Ceolwulf success story has sold Pride and Howl on the Ready to Run Sale concept.
“Joe’s coming across for the Ready to Run Sale again next month, having a crack at finding another potential Derby or Guineas-type horse,” Howl said.
Ceolwulf is the 11th individual Group One winner for Tavistock, joining Volkstok’n’barrell, Werther, Tarzino, Tavago, Asterix, Johnny Get Angry, Entriviere, Ruthless Dame, Pinarello and Toffee Tongue.
Ceolwulf comes from the final crop of Tavistock, who died at Cambridge Stud in December of 2019. As Howl points out, he bears striking resemblance to his late sire, both in appearance and in defying a stamina-laden pedigree to excel over shorter distances.
In Tavistock’s case, that came with 1400-metre Group One triumphs in the Mudgway Partsworld Stakes and Waikato Sprint. He is the only Group One winner over less than 1600 metres for his influential sire Montjeu.
“It’s actually quite uncanny how much he looks like Tavistock did when he was a racehorse,” Howl commented. “There’s a remarkable resemblance.”
Since foaling Ceolwulf in the spring of 2020, Las Brisas has produced a filly by Almanzor (foaled in 2022) and a colt by the stud’s Group One-winning son of Snitzel, Sword Of State, who was born last month.