Owner David Kelly does not profess to have all the answers. However, the results the chartered accountant has been enjoying on the racetrack in recent years suggest that he is asking all of the right questions. Or at least that he is looking in the right places in his pursuit of big-race riches.In an era where big-money owners dominate the top end of the yearling sale market, Kelly has quietly built up a team of horses to take on the powerhouse operations through his own judgment, sound advice from a trusted few and good old well-timed opportunism. There can be no better example of that than £9,000 Goffs Go purchase Oh Cecelia (Starspangledbanner), who lines out in Wednesday's Listed Yeomanstown Stud Irish EBF Stakes with black-type already secured.Kelly said, “I have a huge interest in bloodstock and pedigrees so that's what I love looking at outside of work. I had my first horse in training with David Myerscough back in 2007 so I have been in the game for 20-odd years or so. What did Tiger Woods say? 'The more I practice, the luckier I get,' or something like that. I'd like to think that, over the years, I have developed a bit of knowledge of pedigrees and a good eye for a horse but I don't attempt to think that I am an expert. You need to have good people around you and Ken Condon, Dermot Farrington and David Cox have advised me well. But luck has to come into it and there was an element of luck in getting Oh Cecelia as well.”Oh Cecelia showed immense promise for her previous handler Jack Davison, for whom she won a competitive Cork maiden before being thought highly enough of to take in a tilt at Royal Ascot, where she ultimately disappointed in the Albany Stakes. From there, her form tapered off, and she appeared on the Goffs Go platform back in January.Recalling what piqued his interests in the filly, who is now worth many multitudes of that initial outlay having climbed almost 30lbs in the ratings and finished a narrow second in a Group 3 contest for his long-time ally Condon, Kelly said, “I am a fan of online sales, especially when you are selling a horse as it can be cost efficient. The best horse I ever bought before Oh Cecelia was a filly called Needle Lace (Golden Horn), who I bought for 15 grand. She won three times for me before we had to retire her. As luck would have it, her half-brother became Rosallion. Baroda Stud sold her for me at the Sceptre Sessions at Tattersalls for 200,000gns so that was a great result.”He added, “Oh Cecelia was a similar one because I saw her in the Goffs Go online sale back in January. I think a lot of buyers are wrecked from the sale season by the time January comes around and a lot of people are not up early in the morning when it comes to sales around that time of the year. I spend a lot of time on planes so I am always looking through catalogues and what immediately attracted me to Oh Cecelia was the fact that she was a winner as a two-year-old in Ireland. Everyone knows how hard it is to win any race in Ireland, not to mention a two-year-old maiden. So that was a positive.“She also ran in the Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot but her form tapered off a little. She had a bit of a profile to start with but, what I also found very interesting was that she is by Starspangledbanner, who was in store to have a big year with horses like Precise and more to run for him. Starspangledbanner has gone on to have an incredible year and is now an elite sire. I can remember ringing her former trainer Jack Davison to ask him about her and, credit to Jack, he told me that she was absolutely fine but may benefit from a change of scenery. He told me that she was going to the sale without a reserve and we bought her for £9,000. I was prepared to pay a lot more.”Kelly admits that Oh Cecelia's surge in form has usurped even his own wildest dreams given he had humble expectations to begin with. Winning a little race on softer ground was the main objective when he struck the winning bid back in January so fair to say that Condon, a Group 1 and Classic-winning trainer, has exceeded the brief.“My instruction to Ken was, 'let's get her out good and early on the soft ground and, if she isn't up to scratch, we can move her on,'” Kelly explained. “That was the plan. She won on her first and third runs for us and then got black-type in a Listed race at Cork before being beaten a head into second in a Group 3 at Naas. She's been unbelievable. She would like a shower of rain ahead of Naas on Wednesday but we are going to run regardless because it's all upside with a filly like this. Ken tells me that she is climbing the stable walls at home so, when a filly is in good form, it can be hard not to run them. For breeding purposes, she has reached a good level already. She's definitely better on soft ground so we could have a very exciting end-of-season campaign with her. Regardless, hopefully she will get to the Sceptre Sessions at the Tattersalls December Mares Sale. We were there before with Needle Lace so it would be very exciting to go back there with Oh Cecelia.”He added, “The first horse I had with Ken was a filly called Elusive Beauty (Elusive Pimpernel). She became a stakes filly with Ken and is the reason why I use the word beauty when naming a lot of my horses, because she was so lucky for us. But as the saying goes, form is temporary and class is permanent. That's the phrase I would use to sum up Ken Condon. He's a top-class trainer. All he needs is the ammunition. Ken grew up in the John Oxx school of racehorse trainers so he has incredible patience and is also an excellent man to place his horses as well. He's had a few quiet years but I am delighted to see him having a good season this year.”Should Oh Cecelia run to her best form on Wednesday, she could kick-start a memorable week for Kelly, whose Johnny Murtagh-trained Bellewstown maiden scorer Celtic Moon (Thunder Moon) is the star attraction at the upcoming Goffs Go Late July Sale.Kelly said, “She's another one I bought myself. She came from Orby 2 at Goffs and I was actually away in Spain at the time. I was scanning down through the horses that didn't sell and I liked the look of this Thunder Moon filly who didn't make her reserve with Baroda Stud. I texted Padraic Gahan to see what the story was and he told me that she was a lovely filly, only that her sire, who obviously hadn't any runners at this point, could have held her back a little. She's a beautiful, clean-limbed filly.”He added, “She is the highlight of the Goffs Go sale this month. I have done well as a buyer on that platform so maybe I will do well as a seller as well! To be honest, Johnny always liked her and she made a pleasing debut for us when fourth at Leopardstown. When we went to Bellewstown, Johnny was confident and I thought she won impressively on the day. That race had been won by Pretty Gorgeous, a subsequent Group 1 winner, in the past. So she won it well and her best furlong was her last furlong. We had good, solid interest after the race but didn't get a deal done so, the way we looked at it was we would put her in the online sale and, if she sold, great. She has a good profile so I would imagine there should be good interest from America and beyond. She's going in there with a healthy but realistic reserve and, if she doesn't make it, we will kick on with her. She is a nice filly to have.”Win, lose or draw at Naas, Kelly is convinced that we will not see the best of Oh Cecelia until she returns to softer conditions. To that extent, he is not ruling out a tilt at a Group 1 towards the end of the season. That would pose the ultimate question but Kelly is making a habit of coming up with the right answers.He concluded, “She's not breaking my heart, as it goes in the famous song, anyway. The amount of fellas who have told me they underbid her on that online sale – it must be close to 100 at this stage! We have had a few offers for her already but we think there could be a bit of fun to be had with her before the sales. Breeding is not my core interest so she will be there to be bought at the end of the year. The goal is to win a Listed or even a Group race. If she could do that, wouldn't it add another X to her value? She's definitely in bonus territory. Not in my wildest dreams did I think we'd be in this position when I bought her for only nine grand. It is the same with Celtic Moon for €18,000. Beyond Wednesday, don't be surprised to see Oh Cecelia turn up in a Group 1 on softer ground before the season is out. She's in the Flying Five, for example, and there are plenty of other options. It's good to dream. Why not? We've nothing to lose and everything to gain.”The post Oh Cecelia Bids To Kick-Start Big Week For Sharp-Shooting Owner David Kelly appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.