13 minute read
Loop the Lope
Not many will look back at 2020 with pleasure, but the Flat racing year has given John O’Connor of Ballylinch Stud plenty to smile about.
He chats with Aisling Crowe about the progress the farm’s stallions have made as they propel the farm to the highest echelon
Photography courtesy of Ballylinch Stud
THIS YEAR has been a momentous one for Ballylinch Stud as both a stallion station and a breeding farm.
The young stallion roster, headed by Lope De Vega, is developing it into one of the most influential independent farms in Europe, while the farm recently celebrated its third Breeders’ Cup winner as a breeder.
At the helm remains John O’Connor, quietly steering the historic home of The Tetrarch into its current prime position as the home of some of Europe’s most exciting stallions.
Lope De Vega is the leader and established head of a quintet of very young stallions. Next to him is Make Believe, who has had just two crops of racing age, then come first-season sires New Bay and Fascinating Rock. Last year’s Arc hero Waldgeist joined the team and covered his first book of mares in the spring.
Lope De Vega hit the ground running with his first crop, and has been on a steep upward trajectory ever since, explains O’Connor.
“I suppose the big thing for him is that he kicked off really quickly – he was European champion first-crop sire and sired a European champion in his first crop [Belardo] so it gave him a very quick launch into his stallion career,”says O’Connor.
“His fee has steadily risen since then, but every year he has been over-full so he has always justified the fee rises. While they have been rising steadily, we have never jumped him by a big proportion so while his fee has been rising the market has always agreed that the figure was fair so we are happy with that.
“I think his sales average reflects the quality of mares that he is now covering.
“The list of mares coming to him in next spring includes some stellar names that I am delighted to see. When you see the list of mares covered in 2020, and particularly the ones coming in 2021, there are a lot of household mares amongst those mares.
“I think the big thing about Lope De Vega is that, as the quality of mares has risen, his results have in parallel. He started off very well obviously, but I think you will see that he will keep improving because he can handle a wide variety of pedigrees and stamina attributes.”
It’s no wonder that O’Connor is excited by the calibre of mares visiting Lope De Vega and the limitless potential for the future. A quick glance through the mares who were in his 2020 book reveals stars such as the 2019 Oaks winner Anapurna, Talent, Thistle Bird and Wuheida, and Group 1-producing dams such as Anna Law, Blanc De Chine, Lava Flow and Yummy Mummy.
Now the sire of 12 individual Group 1 winners after Lucky Vega’s success in the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf triumph of Aunt Pearl, a second winner of the race for her sire after Newspaperofrecord in 2018, and still just 13, what factors lie behind Lope De Vega’s ascent from a very good sire to the ranks of elite stallions?
O’Connor, always an engaged and thoughtful conversationalist, pauses to consider for a few moments.
“I think it is the level of athleticism he transmits,” he says. “When I make yearling notes, and I look at lots of Lope De Vegas, consistently I will write, ‘Great mover, very good walker, great easy walk’. That will be a consistent theme. He just tends to get stock with very athletic movement, a good physique as well; he can breed a good-looking yearling and that’s now being reflected as he climbs through the ranks in bigger and bigger prices. I think it is his consistency in delivery of athleticism that makes him so good.
“The other thing he does is transmit a lot of speed, it was probably an unprecedented thing – I don’t think I’ve seen it before – that a French Derby winner sired a Cornwallis winner [Royal Razalma] in his first crop, it’s a bit unusual.
Above, a mare and foal at Ballylinch Stud, County Kilkenny.
Ballylinch Stud was founded by Major Dermot McCalmont in 1914 to stand the amazing racehorse and influential stallion, The Tetrarch.
The stud and farm was owned by the McCalmont family until 1986 when it was purchased by Tim Mahony and his family. John O’Connor, below, joined the stud in 1988.
December 2014 saw the stud change hands for just the third time in 100 years bought by US businessman John Malone and wife Lesley
“He can get a very fast horse out of a very fast mare – he has a number of Group 1 winners at 5f and 6f – but he can also add some speed to the middle-distance type mare, like Aunt Pearl’s dam Matuari Pearl. He is versatile in that sense and that gives him greater options.
“In general, they are very willing, generous horses. Sometimes they will do too much and you will see an odd one wearing a hood to try and get them to relax a bit and contain their energy – they really want to run.” Looking at the pedigree influences O’Connor attributes the late Shamardal, as well as his inbreeding to Machiavellian.
“Shamardal is a very fine influence, while his own dam had a lot of speed and precocity; she was a stakes-winning two-year-old.
“Also, the influence of Machiavellian is not a negative, I think it’s a positive. He is in-bred to Machiavellian and we have seen a number of stallions with Machiavellian close up who have succeeded in recent times, maybe that’s not a coincidence.
“We bred a number of stakes winners by Machiavellian ourselves, including an important mare for the farm Pharmacist [dam of Ballylinch’s first Breeders’ Cup winner Red Rocks], she was a stakes-winning Machiavellian that we raced.”
New Bay emulated Lope De Vega by winning the Prix du Jockey-Club (G1) and the son of Dubawi has made an excellent start to his own stud career.
He has one of the finest stakes horses-to-runners ratios amongst the European first-season stallions of 13.3 per cent and is the sire of the unbeaten Group 3 Oh So Sharp Stakes winner Saffron Beach and the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes winner New Mandate from just 30 runners so far.
“He actually only ran around November at two so the fact that he has got them much more precocious than himself is a very good sign,” smiles O’Connor.
“He is a young stallion with a really big pedigree – he is both by a top stallion and from a top stallion-producing family so has a lot going for him.
“He was a very good racehorse – he was second in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains to Make Believe then he won a very good Prix du Jockey-Club from Highland Reel, who was a very high-class horse
“André Fabre, who has been quite influential in terms of the stallions that we stand here, had a lot of regard for him and he strongly recommended him to me when I went to see him.
“We are delighted that he is delivering on that promise and his stats are indicating that he is a superior young sire coming through; I would be very optimistic that he will build on that. Next year could be a really big breakthrough year for him.
“He probably has everything that it takes so all he needs now is a little bit of luck.”
John O'Connor
Make Believe, one of whose two Group 1 wins came at New Bay’s expense, is a year further into his stud career at Ballylinch, where the green shoots of a Dubawi sire-line are beginning to blossom.
Already he has reached a significant milestone of siring a Classic winner in his first crop with the triumph of Mishriff in the Prix du Jockey-Club for owner-breeder Prince Faisal, who raced Make Believe.
“It is most stallion masters’ dream and one that doesn’t come true very often!” reflects O’Connor.
“You value the run of luck that you get if you have more than one at a time; we are very lucky at the moment.
“Make Believe is a horse who has managed to convert a lot of people on the way through.
“He is a grandson of Dubawi, which I always thought was very significant, and he was a very good racehorse himself. He broke the track record set by Dream Ahead when he won the Forêt – so he had speed and still he stayed well enough to win a Guineas.
“I think he has made a very good start. He backs up his high-class horses with a very good winners-to-runners ratio and I think the trainers like their attitude to racing and their will to win. He will establish himself and we are very pleased with how he is going.”
MISHRIFF’S GROUP 1 success on the track led to increased prices in the ring for Make Believe whose yearling average jumped over 30 per cent, while New Bay recorded an astonishing rise to 66,664gns in his yearling average.
Lope De Vega added two more Group 1 winners and recorded a yearling sales average of 172,676gns from 67 horses sold so far in Europe this year, bred off a fee of €60,000.
The trio bear out the idea that success on the track leads to gains at the sales.
With that success in mind, yet in an unsettling year with much uncertainty clouding our vision, O’Connor and his team had to strike a delicate note when deciding to increase the fees for all three stallions mentioned.
Lope De Vega now stands for €125,000, an increase from the €100,000 fee he commanded for the past two years. In Ireland only Sea The Stars boasts a higher advertised fee than the son of Shamardal.
New Bay will stand at €20,000 for 2021, returning him to the figure at which he retired to stud, while Make Believe received a more modest increase to €15,000 from €12,000, still below the fee in his first year of €20,000.
Once again O’Connor thoughtfully lays out the reasoning behind the fees set for 2021 for Ballylinch’s three kings.
“We put plenty of thought into it and we considered the changed circumstances since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
“On the other hand, the business has continued on and the successful horses are the successful horses. Ironically, Lope De Vega, who is the most expensive horse on the farm, has received a large number of applications already and the quality of mares make me smile when I think of them.
“It is also fair to say that both of the younger stallions, New Bay and Make Believe, have made an impression on the market and we are now seeing the really top breeders using both of those stallions.
“You can only hope that you have got it right when you make your decision on your fees, but those figures were a little bit influenced by the number of applications we received before the fees were announced. We knew the popularity of the horses and I think we were pretty careful in that we didn’t over-jump any of them.
“We responded to what they have done on the racecourse and in the sales ring.
“In my opinion the racecourse should be the primary arbiter of whether a stallion is doing well. If you get the success on the track, in general, commercial success will follow that. I think sometimes we get confused between commercial success in the sales ring, which is fleeting unless it is backed up by success on the racetrack. I am delighted our horses are doing it on the track, and that allows us to fix their fees accordingly.”
Many smaller breeders with aspirations to use stallions whose success and popularity – which are sometimes equated but are two distinct concepts – prompted fee increases reacted with dismay this autumn when seeing how stallion fees in general were priced.
It has been argued by some that the higher fees will only serve to widen the growing chasm between those at the top and the bottom, with the middle tumbling into the abyss.
O’Connor thinks for a few seconds before giving a well-thought out and cogent reply that considers deeper, serious issues that need redressing in the industry, namely the low levels of prize-money in some jurisdictions.
“There is some merit to that argument, but I think it reflects back more so on the poor prize-money, I think that is a bigger reason for that than anything else,” he says.
“There are perfectly capable stallions who can get you a winner, and even a good winner, who are no longer popular because prize-money is so poor that racing horses has become less attractive for people to invest in the ordinary horse.
The two young Ballylinch Stud stallions who have created an impact in 2020. Above, the Classic-producing leading second-season sire Make Believe, and, below, New Bay. The Group 2 winner New Mandate and Group 3 winner Saffron Beach are the leading progeny from his first-crop of runners and offer big hopes for 2021
“You can see it happening in America where even the big operators are coming together to form these syndicates that buy a bunch of high-class horses, and you get other people who would prefer to buy a proven horse.
“There is a big need to address the issue of making racing at least fun, and that doesn’t cost you too much.
“I think addressing the prize-money issue is a big part of that and I think, to be fair HRI [Horse Racing Ireland] has recognised that and has really tried hard to keep prize-money up. There is no doubt that the cost of training horses and raising horses have increased, exponentially I would have thought, over the last 20 years.
“Prize-money is a huge factor in making the bloodstock business work.”
Continuing O’Connor adds: “Part of the reason why young stallions are priced as they are in terms of their stud fees is how difficult it is to buy a young stallion prospect.
“It is fair to say that most of the stallion prospects are owned by operators who have their own stallion farms.
“It means there are a smaller number of horses who are available for independent studs to buy.
“Generally that brings about a competitive process between those studs which usually means that these stallion prospects make a lot of money – that is a big factor in the pricing of them. If they cost a lot to purchase they have to make some kind of business sense.”
The Arc winner Waldgeist: his first foals will be born in 2021
THERE ARE NO easy answers or simple solutions to these problems, but a collaborative approach between governing bodies across Europe, an approach that O’Connor has always championed in his committee roles over the years, is the one he believes is required if a solution is to be found.
“I don’t think there is a simple answer to any of these things, they are all intertwined, but I think the most important part of the equation is the ownership experience and the appetite for buying racehorses.
“That is where the middle-market is under pressure and I think it is fair to say that we hear every year comments from people saying the good horses sold well and the bad ones couldn’t be sold.
“To a certain extent that is a very simplistic argument because every year you will see high-class horses, fillies such as Miss Amulet, Mrs Danvers, Rose Of Kildare who were sold for very small prices.
“There is a difference between a good horse and one that makes a lot of money, and that is a very important aspect of it I think.
“A lot of it is to do with how racing is funded and the relationship between prize-money and betting turnover. Different countries have taken different approaches and countries such as Australia, Japan and Hong Kong have taken a certain approach and they have good levels of prize-money.
“Consequently horses have a very good value and the opposite applies here.”
