At 3.35pm on Thursday, Elusive Pimpernel consolidated his position as a leading contender for the 2000 Guineas on May 1 with a resounding success in the G3 Craven Stakes at Newmarket. Just hours later another son of Elusive Quality was grabbing the headlines on the bloodstock pages when topping Tattersalls’ Craven breeze-up sale for 4000,000gns, the equivalent of more than $650,000. The colt is the first foal of G3 Matchmaker Stakes winner Love Match (Partner’s Hero) and was consigned by Mocklershill. He was bought by Fawzi Nass on behalf of a Bahrain-based owner to be campaigned in Britain.
Elusive Quality has never stood in Europe but the Darley America stallion’s talents have been amply illustrated across the Atlantic by his son Raven's Pass, winner of the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes before his Breeders’ Cup Classic success, and the G1-winning juvenile Elusive City, who went on to become Europe’s leading first-season sire.
He was not the only American stallion in demand during the week at Newmarket as a colt by Medaglia d'Oro was also in the top five lots of the sale when fetching 200,000gns ($325,253), hardly surprising when one recalls that Passion For Gold, a G1-winning juvenile by the same sire, hailed from this sale last year.
