A Diamond year

Moyglare Stud enjoyed a fantastic year in 2022 with four Group 1 wins by Kyprios, a Classic success for Homeless Songs and big sale ring purchases at the Arqana December Sale – bloodstock advisor Fiona Craig chats with James Thomas

“WHEN MOYGLARE FIRST STARTED MR HAEFNER used to get sent a letter from Ireland to Switzerland telling him his mare had foaled, that’s how long ago it was!” says Fiona Craig, who has spent 33 years as Moyglare Stud’s trusted bloodstock advisor. “This was pre fax, text and email, so if something really important happened he used to get a telegram.”

Although the means of communications may have changed over the last 60 years, there were still plenty of important events for Moyglare Stud to relay during 2022.

The milestone year marked the diamond anniversary of its founding by Swiss businessman and philanthropist Walter Haefner, and a flurry of significant victories highlighted just how well the operation has stood the test of time.

The image of Homeless Songs bounding clear in the Irish 1,000 Guineas will live long in the memory, while Kyprios ended the campaign with a champion stayers’ crown to go with a remarkable quartet of Group 1 victories.

Those top-level triumphs were supplemented at Gulfstream Park when Beautiful Lover landed the La Prevoyante Stakes (G3), while Thoughts Of June annexed the Cheshire Oaks (L) and Trevaunance won the Prix de la Nonette (G2) and Prix de Psyche (G2). All in all, it was a season to savour.

“Those good horses are so hard to acquire because there’s so much luck that goes into it. There’s so much hard work by so many people, so to stand there on the dais and get presented with the trophy is the end of a very long process

For Moyglare, that process began with the purchase of a dairy farm in County Kildare that came recommended by Major Eric Miville, breeder of the high-class two-yearold Turn-To.

A potted history of subsequent years shows that Haefner bred and sold top-class talents such as Assert, Bikala and Carwhite before a change in policy in 1981 meant his own colours were aboard when the likes of Brief Truce, Dance Design, Refuse To Bend and Trusted Partner won major Group 1 races in Europe.

There was also significant international success with the likes of Belmont Stakes scorer Go And Go and as the breeder of Melbourne Cup hero Media Puzzle, both of whom were trained by Moyglare’s close ally Dermot Weld.

Walter’s passing in June 2012 at the age of 101 saw the reins handed to his daughter, Eva-Maria Bucher Haefner, who has overseen Moyglare’s famous colours being carried to many more notable successes.

Although they have been at the helm for different chapters in the stud’s story, the efforts of the father and daughter have become intertwined through the lineage of Moyglare’s homebreds, with many of the luminaries bred by Bucher-Haefner tracing back to mares purchased by Haefner several generations ago.

The pedigree of Homeless Songs, for example, goes back to her fifth dam Aptostar, who joined the fold at a cost of $750,000 at Fasig-Tipton’s ‘Night of The Stars’ Sale in Kentucky in November 1989. The breeding of Kyprios also brings the continuity at Moyglare into sharp relief, as the top-class stayer descends from Talking Picture, a champion two-year-old in the US who was purchased back in 1978.

While Craig notes that Moyglare is “basically the same stud” to the one that Haefner owned, Bucher Haefner has shown she is prepared to break with tradition should the right opportunity present itself.

The most noteworthy example being the horses Moyglare races in conjunction with various members of the Coolmore partners.

Moyglare’s Eva-Maria Bucher Haefner with the farm’s homebred filly Homeless Songs (Frankel) after winning the Tattersalls Irish 1,000 Guineas (G1)

These include the Group 3-placed Kiss You Later, Thoughts Of June and the mighty Kyprios, all of whom are by Galileo and trained by Aidan O’Brien.

Craig explains that the move was “purely financial, really,” adding: “Galileo’s fee was getting pricier and pricier, but at the end of the day it was probably deserved. It was Coolmore’s suggestion, and I can understand why they said let’s see if we can breed some horses together.

“Initially Eva had reservations because Moyglare has never done that before, but when you looked at the actual arithmetic it made some sense.”

The association was not an instant success, with Yankee Stadium, a Galileo colt out of Switch, failing to win and ultimately changing hands for modest money.

And, in truth, Kyprios has been something of a slow-burner too, as he was still to achieve black type when his three-yearold career came to a premature end after injuring himself in the stalls ahead of the Queen’s Vase.

Fiona Craig signing at Arqana in December

Photo: Suzanna Lupa

However, as has been the case so many times before, O’Brien ignited something in the colt and he has since gone unbeaten through six starts.

A remarkable campaign began with wins in the Vintage Crop and Saval Beg Stakes before a Group 1 romp through the Gold Cup, Goodwood Cup, Irish St Leger and Prix du Cadran.

“I’d lay money that Aidan had a suspicion, but I don’t think anybody thought he would be the Kyprios that he is now,” says Craig.

But even O’Brien’s genius can only work with the right raw materials, and in Kyprios he had a colt with the kind of pedigree that always had the potential to produce something out of the ordinary. He is the tenth foal out of Moyglare’s blue-hen producer Polished Gem, a daughter of Danehill, who has a 100 per cent strike-rate with ten winners, eight of whom have struck in stakes company.

They are headed by three Group 1 winners with Kyprios joined by his full-sister Search For A Song and the Prince of Wales’s Stakes hero Free Eagle, while Custom Cut and Sapphire also struck in Group 2 company. Although Polished Gem developed into one of the most accomplished producers of recent times, it was in fact her older sister Dress To Thrill whom Moyglare initially earmarked for great things. While Dress To Thrill won the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes and the Sun Chariot Stakes, Polished Gem retired with just a heavy ground Leopardstown maiden win to her name.

“Polished Gem didn’t have a great constitution as a racehorse, which is amazing when you look at what she’s produced. She wasn’t anything special and you wouldn’t have walked up to her in the field and gone ‘wow!’.

"Whereas Dress To Thrill you would, she had an aura about her that Polished never had. She was just a nice, straightforward, medium-sized bay mare.”

THE FACT THAT the full-siblings were so different in appearance and racing aptitude is typical of the line, as their ancestress Talking Picture visited Affirmed on six occasions and produced six quite different types. If there was one common denominator, however, it was the frequency with which her foals possessed well above average ability, as five of them gained black-type, the best of which was Kyprios’s granddam, Moyglare’s first Irish 1,000 Guineas winner, Trusted Partner.

“Talking Picture was still around when I joined,” says Craig. “She had 14 foals and six fillies by Affirmed that were all different colours, all different shapes and all different temperaments and all different aptitudes. She was just a medium-sized mare but she was very feisty, God she was as tough as nails.

It came down through Trusted Partner, who won the Irish 1,000 Guineas, and then Dress To Thrill, who we thought would be the broodmare of a lifetime, although she never had anything that could run. But when it came to her little sister, Polished Gem, they could all run.

Unlike Talking Picture, Polished Gem has never been wedded to one stallion, although it does reflect her early standing in the Moyglare pecking order that while Dress To Thrill visited the likes of Sadler’s Wells and Pivotal in their pomp, albeit with limited success, her younger sister had early covers to the somewhat less in-vogue Medicean and Notnowcato.

Despite the more humble covering fees involved, those matings yielded the Group 2 winners Sapphire and Custom Cut respectively. In 2010, she visited High Chaparral for the €15,000 covering that resulted in her first Group 1 winner, Free Eagle.

Her four foals by Galileo are all stakes winners, with Amma Grace and Falcon Eight both scoring at Listed level, while Kyprios and Search For A Song have six Group 1 successes between them.

“Search For A Song is more like Affirmed as she’s taller and leggier, whereas Kyprios would be stronger,” says Craig. “They have a full-sister to Amma Grace and she looks like a circus pony!

“She’s dark brown with four white legs that come up to her knees – you could see her from miles away. There’s something that comes through from Talking Picture that gives them a bit of fire, but you’re not going to get a carbon copy.”

While the late Polished Gem no longer features among the mating plans, her legacy is being kept alive by her daughters Amma Grace, who visited Dubawi for her debut covering in 2022, and the recently retired Search For A Song who, after some serious consideration, will be among the first book of mares bound for Shadwell’s champion Baaeed.

Although Moyglare don’t have to concern themselves with the “beauty competition” of commercial breeding, Craig says she sometimes finds herself holding her breath in anticipation of a well-credentialed maiden delivering her first foal.

As the rationale behind sending Search For A Song to Baaeed shows, the emphasis is always on the mare, rather than the stallion.

“She stays two miles, she’s as mad as a hatter and looks like an Affirmed, but she’s by Galileo out of a Danehill mare, so I didn’t feel happy with a lot of the obvious options,” says Craig on planning a mating for the dual Irish St Leger winner.

“The moment I saw Baaeed at Ascot I thought that’s what she needs. It’s very much a physical mating and an aptitude mating, and his temperament for her is absolutely A1. Although I want to breed something with a bit of fire, I don’t want it to be as mad as a box of cats like her!

Whatever Search For A Song does in her life now, Eva describes her as the ‘queen of her heart’, and I think she’s everyone at Moyglare’s heart.

When full-siblings like Dress To Thrill and Polished Gem can have such wildly different attributes and aptitudes, breeding racehorses can be as confounding as it is captivating. It is a pursuit that is both art and a science, although Craig notes that Moyglare’s approach revolves around keeping things as uncomplicated as possible.

“I always say it’s about a bit of simplification,” she says. “We’ve got water, we’ve got grass. I think things can become very complicated but at the end of the day they’re four-legged furry things, they’re all basically the same but some can go faster than others. All you can do is raise them, and sometimes you just have to leave them in the field and let them grow.”

Kyprios (Galileo) after winning the Irish St Leger, his fourth Group 1 success. He was bred with Coolmore, which has been a new avenue for Moyglare

As well as a proven process and fertile land, Moyglare’s success is underpinned by a dedicated and highly skilled team, headed by stud manager Malachy Ryan.

Craig says Bucher-Haefner is acutely aware of the importance of those who work hands on with her horses, be that on the stud or once they enter training.

Her gratitude has manifested itself in a variety of ways, from deliveries of breakfasts and doughnuts to the stud and training yards, to sponsoring the stable staff canteen at The Curragh and funding the redevelopment of the gallops beside the famous racecourse.

“Eva really values stud and stable staff,” she says. “She does a lot of things for them as she appreciates that without the staff at all levels, we won’t have racing. I spoke to Aidan about this not so long ago. Everyone always laughs when he tries to list off every lad that’s ever touched the horse in his post-race interviews, but do you know who hears that? The lads he mentions. It’s for them.

“It’s not always about handing out money, but it’s letting the lads know that when they’re working on a soaking wet day and the wind and rain is blowing across The Curragh, or when they’re dragging the mares in from the field and they’re knee-deep in water, that actually they are appreciated. So much of it comes down to the people that are handling them, that are training them and the lads that are riding them.”

An anniversary year may have been an appropriate time for reflection, but there is plenty to look forward to in 2023 and beyond.

Besides a host of blue-chip matings in the pipeline, the likes of Homeless Songs, Kyprios, Thoughts Of June and Trevaunance remain in training, and will be joined by exciting recruits Malavath and Amazing Grace, who were bought at Arqana for €3.2 million and €850,000 respectively last December.

“You always have to strive to be better, and to sit back on our laurels and say ‘oh last year was a great year’ would be the worst thing we could do,” says Craig. “Now we have to keep striving and start looking to next year.”

A crystal ball may be required to determine what the next 60 years look like for Moyglare, but if the previous 60 are any guide, there will be no shortage of excitement.

Malavath: purchased for €3,200,000 at the Arqana December Sale by Moyglare – the daughter of Mehmas is due to race on in 2023 in the US