sands of mali x catadalya

Ahead of our filly making her debut at Newcastle, we knew that she had plenty of ability based on her last two pieces of work in Malton.

She had pulled 15l clear of another 2yo on her first piece of fast work before impressively pulling clear of another 2yo filly who ran to a mark of 80 on debut at Doncaster.

Going into the race we had concerns about the six furlongs on a testing surface as she certainly isn't slow and we knew it would be ran at a strong tempo based on the large field that declared. We were also mindful that this was one of the strongest restricted novices that has taken place in the north so far in 2026 with connections seeking an alternative to the rattling fast ground that is currently on offer at the vast majority of race courses around the UK. There was indeed four last time out winners in the field whilst we were also made aware of at least three other sets of connections who fancied their horse and where indeed backing them in the market.

Having been a step slow away, our filly was caught on the flank and with a fairly strong wind blowing down the track, we can excuse her greenness as she still looked a little raw throughout the first half of the race. Ben described her as learning on the job but he was impressed with how she went through the field late and he felt that we were a certainty to win next time in a similar race.

We will be targeting a €10,000 IRE Incentive on our next run and have highlighted half a dozen options in the north of England in the first half of August.

The exciting part for us is that we fully expect her to improve again once she gets on the grass, she has plenty of gears and once we get some rain, she should prove to be a very exciting filly.

 The 2026 Breeze Up Sales have been much weaker than recent years and that was definitely the case at this sale as their was tremendous value on offer. This filly was high up on Nick's shopping list and we were keen to secure her.


This filly stands around 15'3 and was well recommended by the consignor to Nick who has been monitoring the horses the vendor has produced over the last five years. In 2025 over half of the horses he sold ended up rated above 80 with several reaching levels in the 90s.  She produced a very good breeze recording splits of 10.94 (39th of 206) and 10.22 (27th of 206) with a gallop out of 4.07 (45th of 206) and recording the 27th fastest breeze on the day.


This was a lovely consistent breeze in the top 15% of the horses who galloped. Nick has never seen Shanaville Stables record a time higher than this percentile which suggests this filly is well above average to come from a consignor whose horses step forward on the racetrack from their breezes.


Shanaville Stables breezed three horses on the day with the other two recording times of 26.15 and 26.5 which were significantly slower than our filly who recorded a time of 25.23.


She was well bought at £27,000 and the vendor was hoping for alot more than that when he arrived at the sale. Sands of Mali has done very well at stud, and is standing in 2026 for 22,500 Euros such is the regard he is held in amongst breeders.


This Goffs Sale has been kind to us over the years with the likes of Marshman, Cool Molly and Glamis Road all coming from the sale in recent years.


She joins Brian Ellison who trained Mossvale Diva for us from the breeze ups in 2025 and Brian has high hopes for Temple of Athena in 2025 who is currently rated 89 having been bought for just 13,000 Euros as a yearling.