Teme talk

Teme Valley Racing has enjoyed a brilliant year on the racecourse, capped by Bayside Boy’s fantastic Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes victory at Ascot

James Thomas chats with racing manager Richard Ryan – with the colt’s owners he is currently working on plans for 2023… a four-year-old racing career or a first year at stud?

FROM A SELECT NUMBER of shrewd purchases, Teme Valley Racing has punched well above its weight over the last four seasons. The latest top-flight knockout arrived on British Champions Day when Bayside Boy came with an irresistible late rattle to land the Qipco-backed Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and provide the owner with its third Group 1 winner in as many years.

Previously the Teme Valley colours of maroon with yellow hoops and cap had been carried to top-level triumphs by State Of Rest, who completed an audacious Saratoga Derby and Cox Plate double before being sold to an international stallion syndicate, and Gear Up, winner of the Criterium de Saint-Cloud.

Although Bayside Boy was a 33-1 shot in a nine-runner field, there was plainly no fluke about his length and a quarter dismissal of three-time Group/Grade 1 winner Modern Games, who had dual Group 2 winner Jadoomi a further short head back in third.

The Roger Varian-trained colt always promised big things during his juvenile season and, after a somewhat frustrating campaign that saw luck and ground conditions go against him on more than one occasion, he finally got the chance to prove what he is capable of at Ascot.

“It was a spectacular turn of foot he showed,” says Teme Valley’s racing manager Richard Ryan. “We were hoping that the ground was going to be favourable in planning and it all seemed to fall into place.”

Bayside Boy was running in his fifth Group 1 having finished third to Native Trail in the Dewhurst Stakes and filled the same position behind Luxembourg in the Vertem Futurity Trophy during a juvenile season that also included a wide-margin Newbury novice romp and victory in the Group 2 Champagne Stakes.

He returned at three with runs in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and St James’s Palace Stakes that plainly didn’t see him to best advantage, but got back to winning ways in the Listed Fortune Stakes before producing his career-best effort.

Great day: Ryan (centre) and breeder John O’Connor of Ballylinch Stud awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes trophy by Her Majesty The Queen Consort

“He was a little bit unlucky in the Dewhurst and was arguably unlucky not to get closer to Luxembourg, so we knew his form was to a very high standard and his work at home was to a high standard too,” continued Ryan, adding: “So we’ve always maintained belief.”

Such a success brings with it a range of high-class problems, namely whether to find the three-year-old a place at stud or whether to keep him in training for another season and see if his potent turn of foot can help him add further Group 1s to his record.

“Nothing is off the table at the moment but negotiations and discussions are ongoing in both situations,” says Ryan as we go to press in mid-October.

“With that turn of foot and with a race-plan accordingly, something like the Lockinge, the Queen Anne, Jacques le Marois and then back to the QEII, would see him to his best throughout the year, which is very tempting.

But New Bay is very hot and he’s a very commercial prospect in stallion terms, especially with his two-year-old form, so we’re weighing up the two situations.

Ryan signed for the high-class talent at 200,000gns during Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, where he was offered by his breeder Ballylinch Stud, who were so taken with the son of New Bay they approached the new owner about retaining a share.

“Ballylinch were very keen on the horse as the vendor, but it wasn’t until after the fall of hammer that John [O’Connor, managing director] said he’d be happy to stay in for a piece,” says Ryan. “That was very encouraging; we thought there’d be no better partner and so it’s proved. He’s a very correct horse with a great walk, he’s got a real swagger to him.

“We’d been underbidder in a New Bay for a lot of money earlier in the year so we were seeking out another one if we could find one. Lo and behold, there he was in Book 2!”

Bayside Boy formed part of a mammoth Champions Day double for his sire New Bay, whose son Bay Bridge lowered the colours of the likes of Adayar and Baaeed in the Group 1 Champion Stakes.

Teme Valley’s charge is from the second crop of New Bay, and Ryan says he was particularly intent on securing something by the son of Dubawi having been struck by his youngstock at the sales.

Bayside Boy returning glory, his team is currently working out future racing or stallion options – in mid-October everything was still up for discussion

“I liked New Bay’s yearlings very much and was pretty adamant that he was going to make it based on what I’d seen,” he says. “Night Of Thunder had kicked things off for sons of Dubawi so I thought there was no reason that New Bay wouldn’t follow suit. We got in at the right time, which is the main thing.

“It’s always a balance though [between pedigree and physique] and physicality is huge for us,” he adds.

Moreover, this was Ryan’s second involvement with a Queen Elizabeth II Stakes winner having been assistant to trainer Terry Mills when Where Or When got the better of Hawk Wing some 20 years ago.

“I was central in selecting Where Or When at purchase as well so it’s very much my second QEII,” he says. “Where Or When was a little bit unlucky on occasions, but had won the Thoroughbred Stakes very easily and Mick Kinane had said don’t be afraid to take on anything with this horse.”

ALTHOUGH THE NAME TEME VALLEY RACING may sound like a syndicate, the ownership vehicle is in fact the nom de plume of one individual, businessman Jim Cockburn.

“It’s the racing name and the brainchild of one man,” says Ryan, who has been involved since the idea was conceived. “Teme Valley is where he was residing and when we were thinking of an appropriate name to race the horses under we looked out of the window over a beautiful landscape and thought ‘Why not try Teme Valley?’ It’s been very lucky for us.

“He’d always wanted to try and break into the upper regions of Flat racing but realised the difficulty at hand. Jim and I hatched a plan and have stuck quite religiously to it.

He bought into my theory of how it can be done and thank God we’ve landed a few big fish along the way.

“Jim has given me a lot of autonomy, thankfully for me, and we’ve reaped the benefits of him being an experienced owner, which is very helpful, and he’s not a bad judge himself.”

Although the outfit may be named after an area that lies primarily in northwest Worcestershire and extends into Shropshire and Herefordshire, Teme Valley’s approach is predicated on a commercially conscious world-wide outlook.

“You’ve got to have an eye on the global landscape,” says Ryan. “Although English racing is the best quality in the world, unfortunately it’s not the most financially rewarding. You have to have a plan in place with each horse; physicality is hugely important and you must protect each horse’s race record with a view to being a globally tradable commodity. That way you can try and self-finance the project.”

The Teme Valley model was seen to its optimum with State Of Rest, the son of Starspangledbanner who shipped to the US to win the Saratoga Derby before jetting down to Moonee Valley where he annexed the Cox Plate.

He was then sold to a consortium of international studs and investors that include Ireland’s Rathbarry Stud, Australian operation Newgate Farm and the China Horse Club.

Racing under the ownership of the State Of Rest partnership, the Joseph O’Brientrained colt added the Group 1 Prix Ganay and the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes to his deeply global race record during a fruitful four-year-old campaign.

EXPANDING ON Teme Valley’s decision to sell State Of Rest, Ryan says: “That was with a heavy heart, but it was a decision we had to take at the time relative to our scale. His value was getting into a very high number and Australia were obviously very keen on him and we had a strong interest from European farms, so it made sense to do a southern and northern hemisphere syndicate at the same.

“That made him a very valuable commodity and the thought of him racing and training with our liability would’ve been giving us palpitations!

“We’ve absolutely delighted in every performance he’s given this year though and we’ve cheered him on with as much gusto as anybody could.”

Teme Valley has retained a number of shares in State Of Rest and intends to support its former charge at stud. While Ryan says numbers will remain tight, he says the operation’s broodmare portfolio “ought to, and probably will, expand.”

While Bayside Boy, State Of Rest and Gear Up, who remains under Teme Valley ownership with Annabel Neasham in Australia, are the Group 1-winning peaks among the owner’s record, there have been plenty of other talents besides.

Over 30 individual British and Irish successes have been registered by Teme Valley names such as State Of Rest’s Blue Wind Stakes-winning half-sister Tranquil Lady, the Irish Derby third French Claim, and the Prix des Chenes third Claim The Crown, as well as some smart handicap performers.

Having been born into a racing family and a self-confessed “anorak” as a child, Ryan has spent a lifetime honing his eye for a horse. However, he says even from a young age he was acutely aware that there was no substitute for first hand, hands on experience.

“My father was a jockey in a bygone era so it was a racing household but to get credibility you have to have experience,” he says. “It’s not enough to be a sponge for all the statistics, you have to go and get some coalface time. And I spent a long time at the coalface at all ages!

“My first hands-on job was at Hart Hill Stud with Neville Dent in the west country. He had done very well with a team of NH stallions and a couple of Flat horses and had hosts and hosts of mares coming on and off the farm. He’d also trained John Dunlop and David Elsworth in his history, amongst others, and he was a great teacher as well as a brilliant stallion and horseman.”

From there Ryan went on to work at Juddmonte’s Wargrave site during the years of mares like Slightly Dangerous, as well as gaining experience alongside revered bloodstock agent Richard Galpin.

“Richard Galpin would be a massive influence,” he says. “He was a brilliant agent, a genius-like level judge of a horse and my time with him was huge. Juddmonte was huge, too, as there was exposure to the highest class of thoroughbred and seeing what can be forgiven and can still be brilliant in terms of physicality and conformation.”

Ryan has compiled a deep and varied CV having gone on to fill roles with the likes of trainers Terry Mills and Ian Williams, James Underwood, Charlie Gordon-Watson and Goffs UK. These different experiences have combined in a smart and assured approach to identifying untapped athletic potential that is bearing significant results.

For it to have validity in your mind you have to have coalface experience and realise what’s trainable and what’s not trainable, the influence of certain conformational traits being detrimental to the training of a horse,” he says.

“You can’t get that out of a book and you certainly can’t get it from just being advised. It’ll take you so far but you’ll make terrible mistakes if you haven’t got the experience to back it up. Like most things, if you’re going to be good at it the more experience you have, the better you are.”

Next season’s equine team will be spread between trainers Joseph O’Brien, Ger Lyons and Paddy Twomey in Ireland, Clive Cox, Roger Varian and William Haggas in Britain and Annabel Neasham in Australia. After another Group 1-winning season in 2022 and with five new recruits added at the yearling sales, there is plenty for team Teme Valley to look forward to.

“We try to keep numbers tight,” says Ryan. “We don’t want to go over 25 and nearer 20 is beneficial because the overhead is an extreme figure to think about planning to win each season. Fortunately we’ve won that for the last few years, which is not easily done. We’re surviving nicely and long may it continue.”