Golden years

Martin Steven grabs a snapshot of the last 50 years of the bloodstock industry with Adrian Nicoll, who this year celebrated his half century as a bloodstock agent with BBA Ireland

Photography courtesy of Tattersalls and Coolmore

IT MAY have been 50 years ago, but Adrian Nicoll can still vividly recall his successful job application to work at BBA Ireland. It helps that the occasion was set against the backdrop of one of the greatest equine feats on the Irish Turf.

Nicoll, the son of Olympic bronze medalwinning show jumper Henry, was 21 and based in South Africa but holidaying in Britain when BBA agent Sir Mordaunt Milner gave him word that the company’s Irish arm was looking for new blood.

So Nicoll met BBA Ireland’s legendary founder Tom Cooper at Royal Ascot in 1970, with Cooper inviting the young horseman to Kildare for a formal interview at a time of his choosing. Nicoll opted for the following Saturday when Nijinsky would attempt to become only the third colt to complete the English and Irish Derby double reasoning that, if he didn’t get the job, at least he’d have seen a good horserace.

Nijinsky stormed to victory at The Curragh and Nicoll got the job. Both went on to exert an influence on the thoroughbred breed.

Nijinsky, of course, sealed the English Triple Crown by winning the St Leger and then siring champions such as Caerleon, Ferdinand, Golden Fleece, Kings Lake, Lammtarra, Shadeed and Shahrastani.

Nicoll, meanwhile, played a part in organising the first stallion shuttles to Australia and continued to do so until the 1980s, when the momentous deal to send Danehill down under was struck. He has also purchased numerous Group 1 winners and their dams in both hemispheres.

Nicoll is no longer a partner in BBA Ireland, having sold his stake in the company in recent years, but he might be called an emeritus BBA Ireland agent. And although he has wound down a little, he still buys horses for a select number of clients in Europe and Australia.

“I started in the pedigree department, as most people do when they join a bloodstock agency,” Nicolls remembers of his introduction to life at BBA Ireland. “Then I went onto nominations, and that was a different world to what we know now.

“In those days we managed something like 20 stallions at 20 different stud farms. And the stallions were covering 45 or 50 mares - 40 for shareholders and five or ten for the stud. All that diversity has gone. The two main stallions at the time were Red God at Loughtown Stud and Sovereign Path at Burgage.

“I was also being shown the ropes at the December sales in the early days. Tom Cooper was a great mentor, no doubt about that. He was a marvellous judge of horses and renowned for his integrity. He was far too young when he died at only 64.”

A big turning point in Nicoll’s career came in 1974 when he accompanied Jonathan Irwin, a partner in BBA Ireland until he left to run Goffs when the auction house moved to Kildare the following year, on a trip to Australia to explore what was then a burgeoning bloodstock market.

Robert Sangster joined the journey at London. Already acquainted with Irwin, he invited the BBA Ireland duo to play cards and backgammon with him in the first-class section at the front of the plane. Nicoll had not known Sangster until then, but they went forward as great allies, especially in their ventures in the Australian bloodstock market.

“Robert and I became good pals, and when John Magnier innovated shuttling stallions to Australia – initially with Mount Hagen in the late 1970s – I helped locate studs for the horses,” he says. “A lot more followed, including the likes of Green God and Deep Diver, although Godswalk was the first one of any consequence; later followed Danehill.

“We sent a lot of mares down there in the 1980s too. Some of those were absolute champions, especially Princess Tracy, who ranks as one of the greatest foundation mares in Australia.”

Princess Tracy, a daughter of Ahonoora bred and originally owned by Sangster in Ireland, produced Group 1 winners Danasinga and Tracy’s Element and Group 1-placed Cullen and Towkay. Her descendants include elite performers Alligator Blood, Master Of Design and Typhoon Tracy.

“Robert was a huge help, particularly in Australia,” Nicoll says. “He was a great trader. Not only did he buy horses but he also sold them.

“I remember when Robert won the Golden Slipper with his homebred Marauding. A gentleman congratulated him and said, ‘I’d love to buy some mares off you’.

“Robert surprised him by replying, ‘You can!’. We duly sold him 20 mares, one of whom was Princess Tracy.

“Robert was another who died far too young. He was a great friend and I was very fond of him.”

Nicoll has also enjoyed plenty of luck buying yearlings in Australia. Most memorably, in 2005 his purchases Serenade Rose and Lotteria won a pair of Group 1s and a Group 2 between them in the space of one week at the Melbourne Cup Carnival.

“Australia has been a big place for me,” says Nicoll. “I think it’s the best racing country in the world at the moment. The prize-money is sensational.

“I own a share in Personal, one of the leading three-year-old fillies in Australia, and we got more money for finishing second in the Schweppes Thousand Guineas than a friend of mine did for winning two Listed races and a Group 3 in England.”

Above, Godswalk was one of the stallions Nicoll helped to shuttle to Australia, but it was Danehill (above) who changed everything

Nicoll has not only signed for many southern-hemisphere stars of the Turf, but he has also bought several top-notchers in Europe on behalf of Australian clients – from the brilliant filly Kooyonga for Joe Throsby to Cabaret, the dam of 2,000 Guineas (G1) hero Magna Grecia and this season’s Dewhurst Stakes (G1) winner St Mark’s Basilica, for Bob Scarborough.

“One of the first Australian-owned yearlings I bought was for Joe,” says Nicoll. “I met him at Saint-Cloud with Bart Cummings in 1974.At the Goffs yearling sales the following year I saw a Native Prince filly out of a half-sister to Dignitas, who had been the leading first-season sire in Australia around that time. “I rang Joe and put her up to him and he said, ‘Fine, you can go to Ir15,000gns for her’.

“We managed to get her bought for just Ir7,400gns. “She was Piney Ridge, who was beaten a short-head second in the Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot and won the National Stakes at Sandown when it was a Group 3.

“He later ended up with the exceptional filly Kooyonga. She won four Group 1s, including the Irish 1,000 Guineas and Coronation Stakes, and is one of only three fillies to win the Eclipse alongside Pebbles and Enable.”

Cabaret, a 13-year-old daughter of Galileo who won the Silver Flash Stakes for Coolmore and was signed for by Nicoll at the Tattersalls December Mares’ Sale in 2011, is among a small band of blue-chip mares in Europe owned by Scarborough, a former chairman of the Moonee Valley Racing Club.

Another mare bought by Nicoll on behalf of Scarborough is Bewitched, a multiple Group 3-winning daughter of Dansili who is the dam of Jessica Harrington’s classy twoyear-old Australia filly Oodnadatta, owned in partnership by Scarborough and Coolmore.

Oodnadatta (green), a Breeders’ Cup runner for trainer Jessica Harrington. She is out of Bewitched, who was bought by Nicoll for Australian owner Bob Scarborough

Above, Nicoll with John Magnier Below, Robert Sangster, seen here with Lester Piggott. The big-time owner and Nicoll became great friends

“She was kind of obvious,” Nicoll says of Cabaret. “Bob likes buying stakes winners, she was by Galileo and in-foal to Danehill Dancer, and she’s a great-looking individual.

“She cost us 600,000gns and got off to a great start as we sold the Danehill Dancer foal for 525,000gns. The filly was named Prance and trained by David Wachman - unfortunately she did a hind joint and had screws put in, but for which she would have been much better. Floors Stud sold her Lope De Vega yearling colt for 400,000gns this autumn.

“Magna Grecia was always a gorgeous horse from day one, hence he sold for 340,000gns as a foal, and then there was St Mark’s Basilica, who made 1,300,000gns. Bob retained the Siyouni full-brother to St Mark’s Basilica at Book 1 in October [he was a vendor buyback at 650,000gns]. He thought people probably wouldn’t have enough money for him, and he was proved right.

“Cabaret is in-foal to Kingman, carrying a colt. Hopefully, one day we’ll get a filly who Bob can keep and breed from.”

Nicoll also had a hand in another of this autumn’s major Group 1 winners in Europe having purchased Hazel Lavery, the dam of Queen Elizabeth II Stakes hero The Revenant, as a yearling to race for a partnership including Scarborough.

The daughter of Excellent Art, bought as a yearling from Book 1 in 2010 for 100,000gns, was originally conditioned by Nicoll’s longtime collaborator Barry Hills until the trainer passed the licence to son Charlie.

She took the scalp of Noble Mission to win the Group 3 St Simon Stakes and was later sold as a broodmare for handsome profit.

Alongside the Australian exploits, it is Nicoll’s association with Barry Hills for which he is best known. The first Group 1 winner he sourced for the master trainer was Middle Park Stakes (G1) scorer Gallic League, and that colt was followed by the likes of Dark Angel, Hula Angel and Red Clubs, along with numerous other smart performers.

Nicoll also bought Just The Judge for Charlie to train, and the daughter of Lawman became a third Irish 1,000 Guineas winner for the agent after Kooyonga and Hula Angel. “It’s been a very lucky race for me,” he says.

Oh, and there was Alexander Goldrun, too. Nicoll gave just Ir40,000gns for the Gold Away filly who went on to win five Group 1 races and nearly £2 million in prize-money for trainer Jim Bolger and owner Noel O’Callaghan.

FROM BARGAIN BUY Piney Ridge to big-money broodmare Cabaret and all the Group winners and stallion deals in between, it has been quite the half-century for Nicoll. During that time he has also witnessed enormous change in the bloodstock industry.

“If someone in 1970 had been told what it was like today, they wouldn’t believe you,” he says. “It’s been turned inside-out.

“For a start, there’s far more emphasis on conformation than in the early days. Back then the top yearlings were all horses with big pedigrees. These days if you have a well-bred yearling who doesn’t come up to scratch physically, they’re back with the rest of them.

“The whole showing of horses and methods of preparation have become far more professional, as have the standards applied to purchasing.

“Tom Cooper used to buy all of Vincent O’Brien’s horses, but there was no such thing as X-rays at the sales in those days. Coolmore’s vet Bob Griffin would come out and look over the horse, maybe put a stethoscope on it and that was that. There was no vetting, no wind testing. It’s come a long way since then and rightly so, as there is so much more money involved.”

Nicoll attributes many of the advances made by the industry to Magnier, another friend and mentor.

“I was very lucky to meet him early on in the piece,” he says. “He was light years ahead of his time. I’d stay with him on weekends when he was living at Grange Stud, and we’d go hunting on Sundays. In fact, it was on one of those hunts where I first met Barry.

“We were also very lucky that we had the stallion tax exemption in Ireland as it really allowed the industry here to get going. Ireland was way behind in the late 1960s and early 1970s and now it’s among the best in the world.”

Nicoll is not one to bang on about the good old days but, if there is one area in which the past outscores the present, it lies in the fact that professionalism has been won at the expense of pleasure.

“Without a shadow of a doubt the 1970s and 1980s were a lot more fun than now,” he says. “There were just so many more individuals who owned horses.

“I even got involved in Northern Game, a jumper who won the Triumph Hurdle, with John Horgan and Frank Conroy, Flash’s father.

“Those two were mighty characters, the sort you don’t find much these days.

“And Robert, of course, was something of a legend. People followed him around; he loved a bet, liked the women. He livened up the industry.”

There is still fun to be had, though, as Nicoll is finding as partowner of Personal and with plans to return to Australia to buy more yearlings next year if current events allow.

It is very much a case of 50 not out.

Above, St Mark’s Basilica wins the Dewhurst (G1). The half-brother to Magna Grecia is out of Cabaret, who was purchased by Nicoll for Scarborough