In the midst of a banner year for its graduates, the team at Norelands Stud is understandably on good terms with itself ahead of the Goffs Orby Yearling Sale, with a full-brother to Royal Ascot-winning juvenile King Of Cloughan (St Mark's Basilica) featuring in another “select” Book 1 offering from the Co. Kilkenny farm.“The Orby is very important,” said Hamish McCalmont, whose family first established Norelands as a stud farm back in 1912. “We've obviously had a very longstanding relationship with Goffs. We're all breeding these horses in Ireland and we should be selling them here. We've always supported them with a good few horses and our clients are also keen to do that. Three-quarters of the yearlings we're sending this year aren't horses that we bred ourselves, they are our clients' horses.“We like to send a good few to the Orby and we'd love that to continue in time. You can send horses abroad to sell them and a lot of the time they are bought by Irish clients, you know, trainers and owners. It makes sense to sell some good ones here and they've done great recently bringing buyers over from America and more international buyers.”It was an American buyer who came away with one of the leading lights from the Norelands draft in 2024, a Sea The Stars filly out of the Dawn Approach mare Miss Aiglonne. Purchased by bloodstock agent Andrew Cary – on behalf of owner Wells Watson – for €460,000, the filly is better known today as Johanna Walsh, who provided the Norelands team with a day to remember when winning July's Irish Oaks by four lengths.“Johanna Walsh has been very special this year,” said McCalmont. “It goes without saying that we're very appreciate that Mrs Tsui of Sunderland Holdings has a lot of her mares here. She obviously bred Johanna Walsh, who was born here and was an amazing filly from day one. She always had that incredible action, just a beautiful filly, really.“Mrs Tsui decided to send her to Goffs and the second she got up there she was incredibly busy with lots of people coming to see her and lots of vetting activity. Eventually, she was bought by Wells Watson and sent to Joseph.”He continued, “Her first couple of runs, she showed a bit of ability, but she's really improved throughout the year. What she did in the Irish Oaks was spectacular, really, and we feel very proud to have produced a horse on the farm for Mrs Tsui that can go and do that. In recent years we've had great success ourselves, but to be able to have success for our long-term clients is really special.”This year, Norelands will offer two more yearlings bred by Mrs Tsui at Book 1, plus the aforementioned sibling to the Listed Windsor Castle Stakes hero King Of Cloughan, who will bid for more riches at the Curragh on Saturday when he lines up in the €1-million Goffs Million. The son of St Mark's Basilica was a €110,000 purchase by Carrignog Racing at Book 1 last year.“We've six going to the Orby this year,” McCalmont added. “We like to keep it quite tight. We don't want to send 10 or 20, we're only sending a select few. We're sending two for Mrs Tsui, a Sea The Stars colt and a Sea The Stars filly. We also have two New Bay fillies, an Invincible Spirit colt and then King Of Cloughan's full-brother by St Mark's Basilica [lot 159]. He is a very special horse and looks a real two-year-old. He's very strong and he's got a lot of bone. He's ready to go.“The Sea The Stars colt out of Royal Mila [lot 233] is very special but will take more time. Royal Mila was a very good race filly and this is the first foal bred by Mrs Tsui. We expect he'll be quite popular.“Then, we have two very nice New Bay fillies, one out of a German Group 3 mare [lot 379] and one from the family of Wingspan, Hydrangea and Hawk Mountain [lot 329]. She's an amazing mover, out of a Galileo mare. She should be really popular with people wanting to get into that bloodline.”The post Goffs Graduates Johanna Walsh and King Of Cloughan Flying the Flag for Norelands appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.