It was a diverse Festival for sires, trainers and jockeys

IT is all very bizarre, isn’t it? The sale ring is supposed to reflect the action on the racecourse, but the results in the NH ring these days is as far away from that mirror as Britain is from topping the breeders’ list at the end of day four of the The Festival.

As has been well chronicled since the meeting, it took until the last day for one sire to be responsible for two winners – and that was Shantou, an admirable and solid stallion, but sadly deceased. He is sire of Stay Away Fay, winner of the Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle (G1), and Impervious, who took the mares’ chase (G2).

The week’s winners were produced by all sorts of sires and from all sorts of pedigrees and, if sold in the ring, at all price points.

This diversity has always been the key attraction to those who want to own and compete NH horses – that no matter the level of investment that you have available, there is the chance that you might find a horse who defies the expectations of pedigree and commercial value.

There is so much involved in a NH horse becoming a good ’un – it needs stamina, speed, heart, athletic jumping ability, soundness, to be clear of wind and have some intelligence (but not too much). A champion can come from anywhere; the power of pedigree, unlike when buying a Flat horse, which is so pricey in the ring, is a little less vital.

Bizarrely all of that seems to have been forgotten in the NH sale ring of late, with the money being focused on individuals by a handful of sires. The past winter’s foal sales a case in point where at all the money was flowing only in the direction of progeny by the few.

Maybe this year’s Festival will help buyers remember something of their roots, and recall the fact that they should buy a NH foal or a NH store whom they like as an individual, not one who just has the right father. A ground swell such as this probably unlikely.

Most buyers of foals are pinhooking purchasing for commercial up-selling two years’ later, while even at the store sales the dominant buyers now are the point-to-point trainers and consignors.

These buyers can’t afford to step out of line and invest in pedigrees or sires who are possibly not going to be attractive to the handful of end buyers with the big money to spend at the end sale destination.

Such pressure to buy the one by the “right” sire could mean that the days of the young horseman or women, heading out to the sales with not a lot of cash to spend but with an eye for stock, will struggle to make headway in a market so focused a small batch of sires.

NH breeders must also follow the trends and, instead of selecting the non-expensive sire whom they believe in and who would suit a mare, to have some hope of big commercial gain in the ring they generally have to pay bigger money for a stallion who will bring the buyers to the door.

It just puts so much cash flow pressure on a breeding operation from getgo, and that financial hit is in place even before the imponderables of producing or rearing a foal who is quite likely to require some form of veterinary intervention at some point in their early lives. And those costs are not even factoring in current price increases caused by inflation and today’s high prices of standard inputs of feed, wages and fuel.

In a bloodstock world that is so focused on one path to greatness a horse such as Galopin Des Champs would never have been born, and this is where the French system is just so beneficial.

Aside from the advantages that French breeders enjoy through the premiums that allow them to support their mares until they are proven to be good producers or not, the racing programme focus on the early establishment of a young jump horse, the system allows French-based breeders the ability to use less high profile stallions (it is such a big country it can be prohibitive to go driving around on the hunt for commercial sires and easier and more price sensitive to use more local lads) and invest in less mainstream pedigrees.

With the support structure in place, breeders can hopefully breed a horse without too high an input cost, keep said horse until he or she proves whether or not it has a hint of ability, and then if it shows some talent sell for lots of money to an owner with Willie Mullins.

It won’t have cost a breeder or a producer a fortune to get to that point, they can breed what they can afford and what suits their pedigrees and set up, and will not need to recoup such vast amounts at the sales, viable fun horses can be bought by owners with less cash to spend.

Importantly, for the wider good of the thoroughbred breed and the broader structure of the breeding industry, it helps to retain the diversity and gives options for all levels of breeders and producers. It brings forward those horses produced from more outlying sources and by stallions not just from the few, but who are born blessed with inherent athletic jumping ability and the crazy desire to gallop for miles.

The whole France system, from the lucrative premiums to the programme structure, helps to support the venture of breeding racehorses and produces a diverse breed in which athletic individuals get their chances.

The benefits of this variance have been clearly visible at the top of the NH game in Britain and Ireland for some years now.

Diversity at The Festival was not just reserved for the stallion band, but amongst the jockeys and trainers, too. Mullins was a little less dominate than usual with just the five winners rather than the usual eight or nine, and this gave some wiggle room for a few differing names to get on the board – the Weatherbys Champion NH Flat race was won by one of the oldest trainers holding a training licence in John Kiely, while Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero became a training partnership to win at The Festival.

The jockey of their horse Aidan Kelly was winning his first Festival race and a number of new first-time Festival winners hit the top of the rostrum, while some more established jockeys yet perhaps not with the highest profiles, riders such as Gavin Sheehan and Bridget Andrews, collected winners for the first time in a number of years.

A new generation is able to make its presence felt, and doors are opening for those already on the ladder. No one is irreplaceable and nothing stays the same forever.