14 minute read
Van the man
Kelly Thomas of Maywood Stud has had a summer to remember as breeder of this year’s star juvenile Vandeek.
She explains how she made the decision to cover his dam with Havana Grey, recalls raising and selling him as a foal, and outlines the joy of watching him as a Group 1 winner
THERE IS MORE than one way to breed a good horse. Some invest millions on blue-chip stallion nominations, top-class broodmare prospects and high-end infrastructure. Others roll their sleeves up, work hard with what they’ve got and hope that hands-on attention to detail will help turn base metal into solid gold. Kelly Thomas fits firmly into the latter category.
Thomas keeps just five broodmares at her Maywood Stud in Carmarthenshire, and one of those, Mosa Mine, bought back for £800, visited Havana Grey when the Whitsbury Manor Stud resident was still unheralded during his second season on covering duty.
The result was the outstanding, unbeaten dual Group 1-winning juvenile Vandeek.
Producing a Group 1 winner had been a long-held ambition, although Thomas admits she rather fell into thoroughbred breeding after “failing miserably” during further education.
“After my A levels my Mum found me an equine course to do at college,” she says. “Having not been the most academic, not through lack of ability but more lack of commitment, I became an almost perpetual student. As soon as I found an area of study I enjoyed, I put all that behind me.”
Like so many reluctant pupils before and since, Thomas found learning about horses an altogether more engaging experience.
She graduated from Aberystwyth University with a masters degree in equine science. During her studies she underwent a formative experience on placement at Howard and Monica Joyce’s Pantaquesta Stud, breeders of the 1995 Stewards’ Cup scorer Shikari’s Son.
“I looked after the place for them during my term there and fell in love with one of the mares specifically,” recalls Thomas. “Risalah, a daughter of Marju, was quite young and pretty spirited, but that’s what I liked about her and I used to joke that one day she’d be mine.”
When the Joyces decided to call time on their breeding career, they knew where to turn with Risalah.
“They approached my parents in the place where all the best deals are made, in the local pub!” Thomas continues.
“They said if you want her you can have her, but you have to buy her now otherwise you’ll have to buy the mare and foal, because she was fairly close to her due date.
“We bought her without a second thought. She was in-foal to Compton Place and I took the resulting colt to the December Foal Sales, made a small profit and was basically hooked from there.”
At this stage Thomas had limited involvement in racing, joking that her riding horse, an ex-racer nicknamed the “Newmarket Reject”, was as close as she’d got.
“I didn’t really have any involvement in racing, bar going to the odd point-to-point,” she says. “I just enjoyed horses in general and didn’t have a connection to racing until we started breeding. It’s been a steep learning curve but an enjoyable one, and we’re still learning all the time.” makes up Maywood Stud.
She is the full-time team, but says her parents, Barbara and Andrew, husband Huw, and three children Jessica (14), Holly (12) and Siôn (7) all pitch in to help keep the wheels turning.
The Vandeek story began in earnest back in 2005 with the purchase of grand-dam Baldemosa, who was carrying to Diktat when she was picked up through Mead Goodbody at 12,000gns. Thomas says it feels like things have come full circle in some ways – Baldemosa was offered by Gainsborough Stud Management, while Vandeek is now in training at Simon and Ed Crisford’s Gainsborough Stables.
BALDEMOSA’s first mating after joining Thomas’s broodmare band was with Exceed And Excel during his first stint at Dalham Hall Stud.
The resulting foal, bred at a fee of just £7,500, was Mosa Mine, the dam of Vandeek.
Mosa Mine was sold to David Brown as a £9,000 yearling. Although she showed ability for Brown and a few other trainers, she retired from racing as a maiden.
“She was a beautiful foal and a lovely yearling and I suppose we can be a little bit sentimental about our own horses,” says Thomas. “To have a filly back out of the family was an easy decision to make so we bought her back for £800 after my Dad paid Jill Lamb to go to Doncaster to buy her.”
Not only did Thomas spend just £800 on buying Mosa Mine back, she didn’t spend a fortune when she sent the mare to Havana Grey in the rising star’s second season at Whitsbury Manor Stud, when his fee was just £6,500.
Thomas says she routinely “does her own head in” assembling the “jigsaw puzzle” of mating plans, but the decision to send Mosa Mine to Havana Grey was actually the result of landing on another covering sire for a different mare altogether.
Another of the stud’s accomplished producers Frabjous, dam of Zoffany’s first stakes winner Argentero, helped make a “dream come true” when Ed Harper agreed to a Showcasing foal share arrangement.
As luck would have it, the same arrangement also helped bring Vandeek into the world.
“Ed suggested that as part of the deal with the foal share to Showcasing we sent something to Havana Grey,” Thomas says.
“Ed told me they’d rolled the red carpet out for Havana Grey and supported him heavily, and his faith in the horse was infectious. It suited us to use him but we just had to choose which mare.”
Mosa Mine was selected and on April 19 the following year Vandeek was born. Were Thomas not so eagle-eyed she could so easily have missed the moment.
“Mosa Mine was about 16 days overdue,” she recalls. “She’d been in her stable overnight and under the cameras. She’d just gone out to her paddock and I was about to take the children to school, which is only a mile away so I wouldn’t have been long.
“I took one last glance at her as I was heading out of the driveway and she gave one slight movement of her leg and a flick of her tail and I said ‘I’m not going’ and told my husband he’d have to take the children to school instead. By the time he’d come back from dropping the children off, Vandeek was half out.”
Reflecting on what the young Vandeek was like, Thomas says, “He was quite a big foal but he was lovely. He was sweet and all our foals are handled a lot. We love to cuddle them and he was as cuddly as any of the others. We weren’t really sure what to make of him as a young foal because he had these long legs and not a lot else but, after weaning and during his prep for the sales, he really kicked on and you could see that the top half of him was starting to catch up.”
Thomas says that selling Vandeek to Childwickbury Stud for 52,000gns at the Tattersalls December Foal Sales was a fruitful transaction, albeit one that prompted slightly mixed emotions.
“It was a great result, apart from the fact I didn’t want to sell him at all!” she says.
“People have asked me if I thought he’d be a superstar and I really thought he was going to be good. I didn’t know how good, but I knew he had all the qualities that I hope to breed into a foal. I was very reluctant to sell him but another of ours didn’t sell that year so we had to let him go. And, considering what we paid for the covering, 52,000gns wasn’t to be sniffed at.”
THOMAS CREDITS Sally Flatt from Childwickbury with doing a fine job raising Vandeek from foal to yearling, and still can’t understand how he only realised 42,000gns at his next sale venue.
However, his third appearance at public auction proved much more profitable as Roderic Kavanagh’s Glending Stables jointly topped the Craven Breeze-Up Sale when Vandeek was bought by Anthony Stroud for 625,000gns.
Vandeek sold exactly two years after he was foaled, and three months later he was sent off evens favourite for his racecourse debut at Nottingham. Although he dwelt markedly in the stalls, he came home three-quarters of a length to the good.
Thomas has been with Vandeek virtually every step of the way, but watched this particular performance from her car after a family outing to the park.
“We were blown away, especially because he’d been half asleep in the stalls,” she says. “My daughter and I were sitting in the car and watching it on the phone and we were like ‘Oh my god!’”
Things quickly got serious as Vandeek reappeared less than a fortnight later and duly landed the Group 2 Richmond Stakes with the minimum of fuss. Thomas wasn’t about to watch this effort from a car park.
“I didn’t feel terribly pressured that day at Goodwood,” she says. “I was just hoping to see him learn from the mistakes he’d made in his first race. We’ve had a horse run in a Group 3 before but I was determined to be at Goodwood. It was a brilliant day, and to follow that up so quickly at Deauville, it was an absolute whirlwind.”
Seventeen days after Goodwood, Vandeek lined up in a red-hot renewal of the Group 1 Prix Morny against the likes of Elite Status, Jasour, River Tiber and Valiant Force.
As the field entered the final furlong it looked as though the French-trained favourite Ramatuelle had got first run, but, with the post looming, Vandeek noticeably dropped his head, knuckled down and prevailed by a short neck. It was a performance that proved he had the attitude to match his ability.
“They do seem to have the mentality in this family,” says Thomas. “Baldemosa was very independent and very determined, and I loved that in her. The family are all the same and they tend to have a fair amount of spark.
“They’re all very kind horses but they all have that will to win and the desire to have their head in front. The female line has bred that into them for years, and the faith that it will keep doing that is what’s kept me breeding from the family.”
The breeder may not have been surprised to see Vandeek show the will to win, but being in France to witness that Group 1 success first hand was an altogether more overwhelming experience.
“I was thinking ‘He’s going to be runnerup, second in a Group 1 is brilliant’,” says Thomas. “All of a sudden he stuck his head down in the last three strides and got to the line in front. We were jumping up and down and my Mum was screaming her head off, then I just crumpled into a heap between everybody. I was crying and completely breathless because it was such a release. It was the most amazing moment.”
Thomas was invited to join connections on the Deauville podium to collect her breeders’ trophy, but between a communication breakdown and being far too modest to actively go looking for the limelight, she remained among the paying racegoers giving her applause to the owner and trainers.
“We couldn’t understand what they were saying as it was all in French and we didn’t have badges to go into the paddock because we’d just paid our way in, so we didn’t hear them mention the breeders’ prize,” she says. “Laura Green, the photographer, was working there and told us there was a trophy that the lads had taken to the stables. We got it back and had our picture taken on the podium eventually. We also went down the stables and saw Vandeek after the race, gave him a big cuddle and fed him some of his dinner out of the trophy, as you do!”
Those are clearly treasured memories for Thomas, and Vandeek added yet another Group 1-winning chapter to the tale as he remained unbeaten in the prestigious Middle Park Stakes. His fourth outing was his most polished yet, travelling with notable enthusiasm behind the pace before exploding through a gap a furlong out. He quickened out of the Dip to score by a decisive two-and-a-quarter lengths.
“I was much more nervous that time because he’d already made it to the top and the question then was could he stay there?” says Thomas. “It started off feeling like everything was a bonus, but once you’ve won a Group 1 you want them to stay at that level. That turn of foot really is electric.”
Reflecting on reaching the pinnacle of thoroughbred breeding, Thomas says, “I didn’t know a huge amount about racing when I started, everything has been picked up along the way, but when you see other people having success, then you want a part of it yourself!
“I wanted to breed a Group 1 winner by the time I was 40. I didn’t quite manage that, but I did breed one well before I’m 50.
It’s very surreal and difficult to put into words because it just means everything. You just wonder if you’ll ever be able to do it again.
“In my bones I feel like it could happen again, and that’s the reason we keep going.”
VANDEEK possesses the physical scope to provide his breeder with more big days, although Thomas expects that sprinting will be his metier, which chimes with connections’ suggestion that the Commonwealth Cup is likely to be his early target in 2024.
Thomas also brings three lots to this year’s December Foal Sales, and while any of the trio could potentially be the next Vandeek, it is his half-brother by Starspangledbanner who will undoubtedly attract the most attention. His breeder says she has already seen the similarities between the siblings.
“This chap really is cut from the same cloth, but is a bit further along than Vandeek was at this stage of his development,” she says. “He has a great attitude to life and has that same desire to have his head in front that Vandeek has – whenever I take the quad bike out to give them their meals on wheels, he’s always in front. I have no doubt that he’ll make into a very nice horse.”
There is no simple recipe for success when it comes to breeding top-class racehorses, but when you consistently apply high levels of care, unwavering commitment and a deep understanding of your stock, you can’t go too far wrong.
Given she seems to be bringing an abundance of those elements to the mix, here’s betting Vandeek isn’t the last good horse that Thomas produces.
