13 minute read
Retirement?!
From following the action in the US, days’ racing at Goodwood, Galway and at the excellent Irish Champions Festival meeting; it has been a busy stint for Leo Powell
IT IS NOW A YEAR since I “retired” from my role as editor of The Irish Field, though I remain closely associated with the publication. My breeding column in the weekly paper first appeared in July 2015, and it is with a degree of pride that I can say I have never missed a week since. That amounts to an unbroken run of some 470+ weeks, and my enthusiasm for the content never wanes.
Some weeks can be more challenging than others, when the quality of racing is poor or cards are abandoned due to inclement weather, but then it is time to look further afield for material to write about.
Thankfully, there is generally some high-class racing somewhere in the world, though I have to admit that the one racing jurisdiction about which I rarely write is South America. Perhaps I will try to investigate racing and breeding there at some point in time.
The breeding industry is now on such a global scale that it is important to follow closely what is happening in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the US, as horses bred in Ireland and Britain, or from families developed in these isles, are regularly making the headlines there.
South African racing gets an occasional mention, too, though not as often as the countries mentioned above.
Occasionally, reviewing the family of a big race winner can be extra pleasurable, especially when I have some personal connection to the breeders of the horse. One such case recently concerned the US Grade 1 winner Carson’s Run. He was bred by dear friends who now live in Kentucky, Olive and Brendan Gallagher, on their own Frankfort Park Farm.
The Gallaghers are a hugely popular couple, and both individually and collectively, they made a mark on different aspects of the equine business in Ireland, including transport and insurance, breeding, standing stallions, buying and selling and more. Olive comes from one of the most famous families in Irish racing, being a daughter of Pat and Molly Taaffe. Her late father’s name is inextricably associated with Arkle, arguably the best and most famous steeplechaser ever to grace the Turf.
I was at primary school with Olive, was in a class with her brother Peter, another famous member of the Irish diaspora who have made their names in the US, while their younger sibling Tom, a leading jockey, trainer, and now member of the Goffs team, is some years younger than me. My connection to the family was interrupted in childhood when my parents moved from Kildare to Cork, but was thankfully rekindled when I left school to begin my career in bloodstock sales.
Brendan then appeared on the scene like a tornado and, after a whirlwind romance, he and Olive married, marking the beginning of a new friendship on my part.
The couple established Emerald Bloodstock, the name being chosen by me, set up a stud farm in Cork, and Brendan was active as a bloodstock agent, advisor, and breeder.
However, wanderlust, and the opportunities available for an entrepreneurial spirit, took Brendan and Olive to Kentucky, and have thrived since moving stateside.
No journey is without bumps on the road, but the duo have faced and overcome them, and have joined a long list of Irish men and women who have made the US their home, contributing enormously to the breeding, racing and sales scene there.
In the latter case, Tony Lacy and Cormac Breathnach are among the trio of leaders at the helm of Keeneland Sales, following in the footsteps of fellow Irishman Geoffrey Russell, who spent a quarter of a century with the sales company.
On the breeding front Olive and Brendan are best known for the producing the multiple Grade 1 winner Monomoy Girl, a daughter of Tapizar whom they bred in partnership with Michael Hernon. Another whose family I have a long association with, Michael has also been a prominent player in Kentucky since landing there some decades ago.
Monomoy Girl was a US champion filly at three and the champion US older female two years later.
At three, Monomoy Girl shone brightly winning the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes, the Kentucky Oaks, the Acorn Stakes and the Coaching Club American Oaks, but was demoted to second for interference in the Grade 1 Cotillion Stakes.
She rebounded at the season’s end to capture the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff when facing older horses for the first time. Sadly, after such a stellar season, she had to sit out the 2019 racing year after suffering a bout of colic.
Thankfully, she was not retired to stud, and Monomoy Girl was back to her best at five, when she was unbeaten in four starts, including in the Grade 1 La Troienne Stakes and a second Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
She was sold at the end of that year at Fasig-Tipton for $9.5 million. Her new owners kept her in training, and she began her six-year-old campaign by winning a Grade 3, and was beaten a nose in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom Stakes. An injury that year forced her retirement.
With career earnings of more than $4.7 million, she retired to the breeding shed as North America’s fifth highest-earning female on Dirt behind such household names as Midnight Bisou, Zenyatta, Beholder and Royal Delta.
A once-in-a-lifetime horse, Monomoy Girl’s achievements will be hard to better, but now Brendan and Olive are relishing the career of another Grade 1 winner, this one bred by themselves.
He, too, is a special runner. Like Monomoy Girl, Carson’s Run is a grandson of Tapit, this time by that sire’s son Cupid. And also like Monomoy Girl, Carson’s Run is out of a mare by Henny Hughes.
Owned by West Point Thoroughbreds and Steven Bouchey, the colt is named after Carson Yost, who is afflicted with the disabling genetic disorder Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, the same disease that Cody Dorman, the inspiration for naming Cody’s Wish, suffered from.
At two, Carson’s Run won the Grade 1 Summer Stakes at Woodbine on his third start becoming the only Grade 1 winner to date for the former Ashford Stud stallion Cupid, now standing in Maryland.
There is more to come from Carson’s Run, whose season highlight so far this year was when he doubled his Grade 1-winning score when taking the honours in the Grade 1 Saratoga Derby Invitational Stakes.
He became a racing millionaire, with something to spare, when best of the US runners in the Grade 3, $3.1 million Nashville Derby Invitational Stakes at Kentucky Downs at the end of August, having to settle for second to the Andrew Balding-trained Bellum Justum.
These are fine returns on the $35,000 he cost as a foal at Keeneland, the $67,000 he made as a yearling at Fasig-Tipton, and $170,000 he sold for at Ocala as a breezer.
Carson’s Run is the first foal out of Hot N Hectic, a minor winner in the US at four.
Offered for sale by the Gallagher’s Frankfort Park five years ago, she failed to reach her modest reserve and was retained. Last year she had her second produce, a colt by Violence (Medaglia D’Oro), who sold for $100,000 at the recent Keeneland September Sale.
This year Hot N Hectic produced a filly by Maxfield, and, in a major upgrade, she was covered by Flightline, another son of Tapit, and is safely in-foal.
Goodwood glorious, Galway great
I realised a long-held ambition this summer when I made my first-ever trip to the Qatar Goodwood Festival, and what a joyful occasion it was. A pilgrimage to West Sussex will now form part of my racing calendar for the future, and my only wish would be that it did not clash with the iconic Galway Festival in Ireland.
An invitation from the Qatar Racing and Equestrian Club was the catalyst for making the trip this year, and I was fortunate to have Tattersalls’ director John Morrey accompanying me. He, too, was on a maiden trip to the beautifully situated venue, and is another who is keen to make it an annual outing. In fact, it was a feature of the visit that I met any number of well-known industry individuals who had never been to Goodwood previously.
From a marketing perspective, Goodwood has unlimited opportunities to promote itself to racegoers in Ireland – it got me thinking about why so many have never been, and it is hard to know the answer.
A clash with Galway is an obvious reason, but such is the quality of the Flat racing at Goodwood that there must be more to it. The course, apart from its beauty and the quality of the facilities it offers, is very easily accessible for travellers from Ireland, a key selling point that is probably little known.
A smart linen suit and a Panama hat are de rigueur for Goodwood racing, and the strong possibility of fine weather makes a visit to Sussex a must. If you have never been, I cannot recommend a visit highly enough. It is magic.
Mind you, I was back in the west of Ireland just days later for the Galway Festival. Lunch there on the Saturday with the Galway chairman Anthony Ryan and his wife Bernie was, as ever, a joy, and an opportunity to sample some mouth-watering lobster. This is Anthony’s final year as chair of the Galway Race Committee, one of the most active and progressive groups overseeing a racecourse in Ireland.
More than 115,000 attended the seven-day racing extravaganza, where both Flat and NH racing features. The meeting’s two most famous races are the Galway Plate over fences, and the Galway Hurdle.
Trainer Gordon Elliott had a frustrating time, supplying the runner-up in both, with Noel Meade and Joseph O’Brien taking the winners’ spoils.
Meade was for many years the man to follow at Galway, albeit that Dermot Weld wore the crown as King of Ballybrit, and it was especially pleasing to see him back there and in the limelight. Meade has won the Galway Hurdle on multiple occasions, and this year’s winner of the Plate was Pinkerton, the victory coming a decade after the trainer won the race for the first time.
Pinkerton was bred by one of the great characters of Irish racing, Jimmy Mangan. Most famously associated with the Aintree Grand National winner Monty’s Pass, Mangan enjoyed an annus mirabilis last season with Spillane’s Tower, a dual Grade 1 winner at Fairyhouse and Punchestown for owner J.P. McManus. The gelding was bred by J.P.’s wife Noreen.
The Galway Plate hero is a son of Ocovango, who moved to stand at the Skelton’s Alne Park Stud in Warwickshire last year after standing for eight seasons at The Beeches Stud.
Bred by the Lloyd-Webbers’ Watership Down Stud and trained by André Fabre, Ocovango was one of the best three-year-olds in France, and Timeform rated him 120 in Racehorses of 2013. Ocovango first came to real attention as a sire when his son Langer Dan won the Grade 3 Imperial Cup Hurdle, and that gelding has gone on to win three more races at that level, notably the Coral Cup twice at Cheltenham.
Champions racing
It is fair to say that a decade on from the establishment of the two-day Irish Champions Festival, thanks largely to the efforts of Joe Foley, Harry McCalmont and John O’Connor, the weekend of racing has been facing some challenges to maintain its position as one of our great racing occasions.
The real measure of success is that of the quality of the races – on that score, it was a big winner this year.
Leopardstown had two of the Group 1 races, and what an outcome to both. Economics, a horse of still unknown quality, was sent off the favourite for the Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes, albeit having “only” won a pair of Group 2 races, and he stuck his neck out to deny the six-time Group 1 winner Auguste Rodin a repeat triumph.
Thirty-five minutes earlier, winning rider Tom Marquand had guided Donnacha O’Brien’s Porta Fortuna to her fourth Group 1 success in the Matron Stakes, while a day later Tom’s wife Hollie Doyle made it a memorable family weekend in the Group 1 Flying Five Stakes with victory on Bradsell.
The Curragh racecourse has had something of an uphill battle to win back the hearts of the Irish racing public, especially since its redevelopment. It is continuing to work hard to do so, and The Curragh’s team under Brian Kavanagh can be proud of what was, by general consensus, one of its best day’s racing on the Sunday of Irish Champions Festival weekend.
The day’s biggest cheer was for the brilliant Kyprios in the Group 1 Comer International Irish St Leger. This was victory number five this year, and the 13th in all, for the Moyglare Stud-bred son of Galileo.
This is also a continuation of the amazing story of the six-year-old’s dam Polished Gem (Danehill). She has had 10 foals, all of who have raced and won. While that alone is a rare achievement, eight of them are black-type winners, three at the highest level in racing. What a matron she was for the late Walter Haefner.
It is Heaven On Earth at Rahinston Farm and Stud
Finally, a book recommendation. Harry and Lorna Fowler’s Rahinston Farm and Stud is the setting for the Irish launch of Heaven On Earth, subtitled “The characters, eccentrics and experiences growing up in the bottom right-hand corner of the Emerald Isle”.
The author is Patrick Donegall or, to give him his correct title, The Marquess of Donegall. Born in London, educated at Harrow and Cirencester, he spent his early childhood in County Wexford at the family’s Dunbrody estate. He is a brother of the late and much-loved Chich Fowler.
Readers of a certain age and background will enjoy this volume, as it recalls a time in Ireland that has largely disappeared. The beautifully-produced, coffee-table volume, published by Nine Elms Books, recalls many colourful characters of yesteryear. The title of the book pays homage to Chich, as it was a phrase she used to describe growing up in Ireland.
Many of the characters in the book are of Anglo-Irish aristocracy, though many of these families are part of the Irish landscape still. Recalling some amusing incidents in a time gone by, Heaven On Earth will grace many a coffee table in Ireland and Britain and be enjoyed.
