10 minute read
Diamond in his eyes
Ciarán De Barra is looking forward to this spring with his first stallion Marie’s Diamond.
De Barra chats with Ronan Groome about his equine career so far, and just how thrilled he is to be standing the tough-running son of Footstepsinthesand
A COUPLE OF MONTHS into his traineeship with KPMG, a 23-year-old Ciarán De Barra met with his director to conduct a performance review meeting.
“Just one thing, Ciarán,” the director said. “It’s been flagged up by IT that you’ve been spending a lot of time on recreational websites, can you explain that?”
“Oh yeah,” came the reply. “That’s irishracing.com! You see this job is what I’m doing now but I need to be on that website for what I’m going to be doing in the future.”
So, 13 years later, perhaps a decision to go down the road of acquiring his own stallion to stand and all the risks that comes with that venture is on brand for a man who has always allowed his ambitions to soar.
De Barra has already made a name for himself in the position he held at the Irish National Stud, as well as through his own endeavors to source and sell on stock at the sales.
But now the main focus is Marie’s Diamond, the eight-year-old son of Footstepsinthesand, who will stand at Diamond Stud Bellewstown (named after its first-ever occupant), in his first season as a stallion this year.
A couple of hours after an enjoyable hour-long conversation, the 36-year-old calls me back to have another go at answering one question in particular.
“You know I’ve been stumped here all evening trying to think of an answer to that question you asked me about why I’m doing this,” he ponders. “Ambition is one thing and I think I have that to a fault, but I think standing a stallion gives you a chance to impact on the breed greater than anything you could ever achieve in the industry on your own.
“I think that is one facet of why I’m doing this, that plus I also want a good value consistent racehorse producing stallion in Ireland, like Footstepsinthesand and I hope I’ve got him. I still don’t know what the answer is for sure because all I have thought about so far is Marie’s Diamond”
While De Barra may not fully know why he is doing what he is doing, the certain part is that he is infatuated with the horse he proudly proclaims was the fastest colt to win the Group 3 Anglesey Stakes in over 25 years.
In preparation for the Irish Thoroughbred Marketing Stallion Trail, which took place on the second week of this month, it has been a hectic few months to get everything in place for his most prized possession to begin his stud career.
“He hasn’t actually been here that long,” he says. “He got here just before Christmas. I had him with Robert Honner in Clongiffen just as I was getting stuff set up here. Anyone who follows me on twitter will see there wasn’t a shed on my farm in November, but needless to say, there is a shed here now!”
Standing stallions at a relatively young age has become a more fashionable enterprise these days but it still shouldn’t take away from the risky nature of such a venture into what is a fiercely competitive sector.
“I’d say this would be a great project for 10 years down the line,” he muses. “But you know, I think you kind of need to do it at this stage because you need that kind of naive enthusiasm. When the opportunity came up with him, I just thought I want this stallion and let’s go for it!.
“Marie’s Diamond has everything going for him and I think he’s going to be a brilliant stallion. There is only one other Footstepsinthesand stallion who has runners in Europe, Shamalgan and he already has a Group 1 winner off limited opportunities [Toskana Belle].”
De Barra could talk all day about Marie’s Diamond – more on him later; his joint owner has an intriguing story himself.
He comes from the Irish-speaking region of Connemara, County Galway from a little coastal village called An Spidéal.
With no racing background, he spent most of his spare time as a teenager playing Gaelic football until he was injured one summer and sat in to watch the Saturday racing with his father.
“I was thinking, can we not just stick on a match there or something?” he laughs now. “It was Irish Guineas weekend and I just became engrossed.
“It was Henrythenavigator and New Approach in the Irish 2,000 and, whatever it was, the way Henrythenavigator quickened away that day, it just hooked me there and then. I watched the race back on the RTÉ Player about 10 times that evening.
“I suppose then the bug got me. I’d say I was nine months with KPMG when I decided I was going off to Kentucky to get some experience. It was actually an easy decision for me but my mother bawled crying when I told her,” he recalls of the trauma adding: “Dad was meant to tell her one weekend. I had come home from Dublin but by the time I was due to head back, he still hadn’t told her!
“I had to tell her and she was so upset. In her eyes, I had this grand career developing and I was leaving it all to go and work on a stud farm. I think she has just about come around to what I am doing now!”
The Kentucky stud farm was Britannia Stud, an operation run by Welsh native Amy Boulton, and De Barra received he got an immersive experience by working in a small team – ideal for that stage of his career. He then came home and worked with Galway trainer Paul Gilligan for another short stint before going back to a stud, but a larger scale operation in the shape of Kedrah House in Cahir, County Tipperary.
The game-changer for De Barra was a successful application to join the muchrespected Irish National Stud Breeding Management course.
UPON COMPLETION he was selected for the Lady O’Reilly Business Internship (now the Jonathan Fitzpatrick Internship) and then kept on at the Irish National Stud thereafter, going on to launch the Irish National Stud Breeding and Racing Club.
“John Osborne [then INS CEO] had earmarked me for the internship at the start so it was in my head that they wanted idea or goal was to get people involved in ownership in their own right eventually.”
All the time De Barra was at the Irish National Stud, the emphasis was on finding angles, be it in general business or indeed the sales ring, for which he developed his own personal interests.
“I started to look at horses abroad, thinking there might be an angle there,” he recalls. “I found a lovely filly in France and put her to a few members of the INS team. We got outbid at €12,000, she went for €15,000, and sold the following year in foal for €130,000.
“That was one I missed but it gave me great confidence to put a case to my brothers the following year.
I picked out another filly in France for €10,500 and we sold her in Goffs for €46,000. I then found a filly in the Czech Republic and I got her for €25,000 and we sold her for 100,000gns.
When I think back to it now I had a great opportunity at the Irish National Stud, to be researching really interesting things and it just gave me a great understanding and confidence. It gave me the conviction to go out and find things myself."
Marie's Diamond was another angle, though needless to say, acquiring him as a stallion is a significantly bigger and longer-term investment.
Previous owners Middleham Park and The Wolf Pack syndicate have retained ahres and will support the stallion in his career but it's on De Barra to give him the best possible chance to succeed in his career at stud and it’s a challenge he is relishing.
“I’ve said all along, this horse is my Kendargent,” he asserts. “I’m not treating him like one of those speed stallions that comes in, covers a lot of mares in their first season and if he doesn’t do it in that first season, he’s gone. Guy Pariente just kept supporting Kendargent as well as he could all the time. There are so many stallions like that and it gives me the belief it can be done.
“Kendargent covered 27 mares in his first year. We’re going to push well past that. I want to be getting him up close to three figures and we have a good chance of doing that, and I'm buying mares who will suit him. His previous trainer Roger Fell is sending a couple of mares, and the other people involved with him are going to be buying his stock to go racing with.”
Marie’s Diamond will stand for €6,000 and while De Barra feels that is tremendous value, the proof will be in the pudding, and needless to say, the aim is to give his most prized possession every chance via high quantity and quality mares.
“Look, he’s going to have winners, the way he raced himself, he was so genuine and so talented,” he says. “We’re not going to try and reinvent the wheel, I’m just going to do my utmost to give him every chance.
“This horse went through a Mark Johnston two-year-old campaign and then continued to hold his form. He basically made his debut in April of his two-year-old career and then ran once a month ever since up until October just gone. That is some going, and the big thing is that he was able to go on and do it again.
“I think by going with him, you’re giving your mare a really good chance because he was able to train on. If you go for that early speed, it’s a very short window and your horse has to do it as a two-year-old.
“This lad did it as a two-year-old but he went on at three and four. He gives you a chance to be a good early two-year-old but also to be that Classic miler, and he was third in a Queen Anne at four.
“When he won the Anglesey at The Curragh, he was faster than Caerleon, Woodman, Storm Bird, Johannesburg, Oratorio and Little Big Bear and his time in the Paradise Stakes over the Rowley Mile is faster than every running of the 2,000 Guineas and the third fastest time by a colt ever up the Rowley Mile.”
“If you look at the other horses retired to stud for this year who have Group 1 form as two-year-olds and older, it’s Mac Swiney and Modern Games, but their form was over a mile at two and the same at three and older.
“This lad actually gives you a chance at competing in the sprinter juvenile races and then going on.
“When you think about what you want to breed, you’d love to breed a really good early two-year-old, but you wouldn’t mind if he could keep on going.
“Sure, he did run a lot, but isn’t that what we want for the breed? That is a real positive. I think he will give mares a real chance.”
De Barra has taken a real chance, perhaps his biggest leap yet, but suffice to say, he will be doing everything he can to make this move a success.
