Recent £70,000 Goffs UK Doncaster Breeze-Up purchase Tiger Belle made a winning start to her career when landing the Irish EBF Median Auction Sires Series Maiden under Ronan Whelan for owners Shamrock Thoroughbreds in Cork on Wednesday evening last.

Having broken speedily from the gates, the Cotai Glory filly raced prominently over the far side of the track & had a good tussle with market leader, the Paddy Twomey-trained Jenni before Ronan asked her for an effort just under 2 furlongs out where she battled on well to keep her head in front to win by a neck.
Speaking afterwards, Ado said, “We bought her at the breeze-ups off Con Marnane a few weeks ago, he said she was very fast and she is. She’ll be Royal Ascot bound now.

We worked her with a couple of good fast sprinters we have and she didn’t disappoint us. She had been to the Curragh a couple of times. She’s lightening out of the gates, very professional, she’s a very fast filly. She stayed at it well and she’s only going to improve. She’s one of the fastest two-year-olds I’ve ever had.

“We’ll definitely chance Royal Ascot and she’ll go to the Queen Mary. She looks cheap now, there are times you buy these at 70,000 pounds and they are dear. At the breeze-ups you can be lucky and unlucky. We do a lot of research at them. She’s a real two-year-old and that’s why we bought her, because we wanted something for the likes of Ascot.

You don’t buy big strapping horses when you are buying a two-year-old for Ascot, they are sharp types. That’s what a lot of the breeze-up sales are about, if you want to race quickly.

We have another one or two at home and they are nice. A bunch of them worked the other day and they aren’t too bad.”