10 minute read
Northstar
North star
THE LANDSCAPE OF NORTHEAST England is shaped by industry, the shipyard cranes visible miles away from their dockside homes, the pristine blades of the elegant wind turbines scythe through the North Sea breeze, supplying modern factories with the electricity so cars roll off their assembly lines in their 1000s.
The Durham and Tees Valley colleries that powered industry and revolutionised the world are no longer mined for their precious carbon, but a son of this landscape, hewn from its rock, is quietly determined to foment his own revolution in thoroughbred breeding.
Geoff Turnbill MBE, whose foresight in designing and manufacturing technology to reduce emissions from lorry engines, has brought the same drive, passion and principles which brought him success in manufacturing engineering to establishing Elwick Stud, near Hartlepool.
It is a farm he has built around the Grade 1 winner Mondialiste, both literally and metaphorically.
Already, Elwick Stud finds itself on an accelerated journey, led by its passionate founder, whose belief in his horse and desire to show that his home, the place where his love for horses was kindled by the pit ponies his father cared for at the colliery where he worked, can be known for more than coal, cars and carbon; that geography is no barrier to success.
Turnbull has proven that before with the growth of GT Group into a global business which still operates at the forefront of its field.
Five years ago, the 300 acres of Durham countryside now occupied by Elwick Stud, was arable farmland.
Now the sons and daughters of Mondialiste are nurtured and grown by this land and the first harvest is almost upon the team as Mondialiste’s debut crop of foals are prepared for the upcoming foal sales.
Youngest son Nick is involved in the work of making Mondialiste into a successful stallion, and turning his father’s plans into reality.
Elwick Stud
“It is a huge undertaking, but it is something Dad is passionate about, especially this horse, he’s the nub of this,” explains Turnbull Jnr. “Dad was always going to enforce the idea that ‘I will make this horse’ and Mondialiste has had two really good years to start with.
“We weren’t expecting the amount of mares that he got – he had 58 mares the first year and 68 this year and we’re hoping to go up again next year. Year three generally is the hardest for a stallion and it is more difficult in the north of England. You’re trying to persuade people to come up from Newmarket, there are extra costs there but the way we get around it is he is cheaper than he should be.
“If he was standing in Newmarket or Ireland we think he would be £15,000 or £20,000; he is great value at £6,000,” says Turnbull candidly.
geoff and Sandra Turnbull
Bred from one of the Wertheimer family’s deepest pedigrees, Mondialiste travelled the world winning the Grade 1 Arlington Million and Grade 1 Woodbine Invitational.
He participated in Breeders’ Cup meetings resulting in a second place behind Tepin in the Turf Mile, and travelled on to Hong Kong, Santa Anita, Keeneland and France on a global jaunt that took the Turnbull family along for the adventure too.
Turnbull’s connection to the horse is deeper than many stallion owners have for their prized breeding assets.
Mondialiste (below) achieved an official rating of 118 at his best. He is out of Occupandiste (Kaldoun), winner of the 7f Prix de la Fôret and a champion older mare, and is a half-brother to the Group 2-winning dam of the dual Classic winner, Intello. Under his third dam are the champions: Elnadim, Ribchester and Mehthaaf
Mondialiste
First foals by the dual Grade 1 winner Mondialiste are due to be offered at this autumn’s foal sales. Aisling Crowe visits Elwick Stud and meets the handsome son of Galileo, his racecourse success influential in the decision by owner Geoff Turnbull to create the new stud
When he bought Mondialiste as a fouryear-old at Arqana’s Spring Sale for €190,000 it was to Turnbull’s home where the son of Galileo was to go. Turnbull’s string of horses was much smaller than it is now, and it was he himself who cared for Mondialiste, the horse he was determined would be the foundation stone upon which Elwick Stud would be built.
Turnbull Jnr says: “When Dad bought Mondialiste, he probably only had four to six horses at the time. He was buying them to race, but with the intention of having a stud. He decided that ‘Mondialiste is going to be my stallion’; so that change from hobby to commercial breeder only happened around five years ago and it has been a massive transformation.
Geoff and Sandra Turnbull: the pair purchased an arable farm five years ago to develop Elwick Stud
“The farm was completely arable, we are operating in what was originally year ten of the business plan after only five years, which is quite incredible. The journey began with buying Mondialiste and it all centered around him.
“The travelling with him was incredible, my parents loved it and they got to do things through him they never would have if it wasn’t for Mondialiste.”
Turnbull has built two houses around the stallion, stud manager Garry’s home and the immaculate stallion yard which houses the bay, who has the look of his sire about him. The elegant courtyard with its topiary and green grass has space for four stallions, but right now it is all about one horse.
Coming off the walker he poses as the three yearling colts, all home-bred, look on with admiration.
The elegant bay with the white star and three white socks gazes calmly back at this small group of admirers, the familiar faces of Nick Turnbull and stud manager Garry Moore. The pair know every hair on the stallion’s coat, which for an October day shrouded in the cold North Sea mist, is in spectacular condition.
Then it is time for Mondialiste to have a spell in the paddock, his penchant for mud baths a particular gripe for the humans in his life, but there is no luxuriating in the Durham mud for the nine-year-old at this time. He is too busy inspecting his field, an elevated trot in a perfect rhythm hinting at the power and majesty of the racehorse he used to be.
He inherited that famed Galileo temperament too, and the tenacity on the track is matched by a quiet nature off it, so relaxed is Mondialiste that he can often by found being fed carrots by Moore’s ten-yearold daughter, Emily.
Stud manager Moore worked at Coolmore and saw first-hand the kind nature of Sadler’s Wells, which he believes is from where Galileo and Mondialiste have inherited their generous temperaments.
“They are hardy and nothing bothers them, but Sadler’s Wells was like that, too. Nothing bothered him and that’s where Galileo gets his temperament from,” comments Moore. “He passes that on to his offspring and Mondialiste has too. He has bred his temperament into the foals, which is a massive thing and he has stamped his stock too.”
A select few of those foals will be offered at Goffs and Tattersalls later this month, the numbers small because the majority of breeders who used Mondialiste on their mares are keeping the offspring to race, a vote of confidence in the stallion’s ability at such an early stage in his career.
“I think the foals will sell well, and I think people will like them.
“We will be in the market for his yearlings next year and we will be buying them,” says Moore keen to get the message out that Elwick will be supporting breeders and pinhookers.
A S WELL AS SUPPORTING Mondialiste’s offspring in the sale rings, the stud is also offering a bonus scheme for breeders with £5,000 going to the breeder of his first winner, £10,000 to the breeder of his first Listed winner, while the breeder of his first Group winner will receive £15,000.
Further incentives will be offered to breeders who patronise the stallion with their mares in 2020.
Careful planning and management of Mondialiste’s books has been practiced with mares purchased prior to his retirement. They were bought on the basis of how well they would suit the stallion and many, including the Dansili half-sister to Beauty Parlour, are complete outcrosses for the Galileo line.
A handful of others will have foals inbred to his second dam Only Seule or third dam Elle Seule, that, too, is a deliberate policy.
Another conscious choice has been not to cover the mares every year with Mondialiste, but to also send them to suitable outside stallions.
“We have been careful with the mares we selected for him, we bought mares specifically to go to Mondialiste and their pedigrees were chosen with what would work for him in mind,” explains Turnbull.
“Most of them are complete outcrosses for him, while a couple are from the same dam-line. The numbers of outside mares he received are good numbers up in the north and we are happy with that, we wouldn’t want to have 200 a year, it dilutes the quality of what’s offered.
“We have what we think are some of the best mares that weren’t covered by him last year in-foal to him this year; we think next year’s foals should be even better.”
Through consignors the farm has worked with in the past, Elwick is offering a number of mares in-foal to Mondialiste at Goffs, Tattersalls and is looking at targeting Arqana next year.
Again this is calculated to maximise Mondialiste’s chances; the mares chosen for sale are not cast-offs nor are they of lower quality than the ones retained. They are for sale precisely because the team believes they will deliver Mondialiste foals of the highest calibre.
“We buy and sell mares, put some in-foal and sell them on rather than diluting the mares by covering them with Mondi all the time, there is no point in that, you’re killing yourself.
“It’s another way of getting his name out there and into the sales catalogues. A lot of our clients are owner-breeders and we know a lot of them, so it helps too. Dad wouldn’t sell a horse to someone he thought wouldn’t treat the horse properly, he loves animals and welfare is the most important thing to him,” his son emphasises.
Sales have been a tricky issue in the past, but Elwick will consign under its own steam from 2021 onwards, despite reservations about practices that the entrepreneur never encountered in business.
Turnbull’s commercial nous honed in the engineering industry and guiding principles passed down from generations of miners will not be compromised when his farm dips its toes into what sometimes are murky waters.
Mondialiste
His son says: “We just need to show people that we are selling. You can get to a level where people think you are not selling so they don’t bother trying to buy from you. That’s not the not case with us, if Dad gets the right money for them, he will sell horses.
“He knows the vale of his stock and refuses to be pressured into selling; he won’t just give something away if he thinks there’s a value to it.
“Dad is quite prepared to spend the money and put yearlings into training, then sell them later for not as much profit because you have to take the training fees into account, but for their true prices. He is very adamant on that. “There is a massive market for horses in training, and once people see that you are selling that way, buyers come to you.”
For all the obvious affection the Turnbull family and the Elwick Stud team have for Mondialiste, and the importance of him to the farm, let nobody be under the illusion that this enterprise is not a business.
For the man who built up a global company to become a leader in green technology before selling it to German powerhouse Knorr Bremse, Elwick Stud must operate along commercial lines.
“It is a massive adventure for Dad and
he is enjoying it, but he expects this to be a commercial operation that pays for itself; you have to generate your own revenue streams and that has always been the case in any business he has ever had and he expects no different from here.
“He has invested in this as a start-up and it is a massive passion for him, but he won’t change the way he goes about life,” his son states, matter-of-factly.
To that end, the stud is exploring avenues that would maximise Mondialiste’s potential as a stallion and enquiries into standing him have been received from French farms, with interest from as far afield as America and New Zealand.
No decision on another adventure to foreign fields for Mondialiste will be made until after he has his first runners in 2021. “The French side of his family is very popular, particularly his dam, she goes back to Caro which the French breeders go daft about.
“We think he would go very well over there, but, until his first runners, he will stand here without doubt.”
To coal, cars and steel Geoff Turnbull is determined to add thoroughbred horses to the list of products for which the north-east is famous.
This miner’s son, whose love of horses was first sparked by pit ponies, built a global company amongst these neglected hills and valleys, and is now making a stallion whose very name speaks to the global nature of thoroughbred racing and breeding and the outlook of the man who is determined to make him a success.
Considered a breeding outpost, this land that powered an industrial revolution, may just witness a quiet revolution that ushers in the age of Mondialiste.
Turnbull is determined to ensure that the north-east becomes known for its excellence in thoroughbred breeding
Elwick Stud
