golden horde Entreat, dam of Golden Horde, with this year’s Zoustar filly foal at Clara Stud, County Kilkenny
Unexpected outcomes Aisling Crowe finds out how the sale of car led to the purchase of a broodmare, the development of a stud farm and the breeding of the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup winner
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ACH DECISION has many consequences, some intended but many more unforeseen; how could a person know when they make a simple choice the many consequences of that decision? When pharmacist James Cloney after a spell in the UK returned to Ireland to work, his job came with a company car so he regarded his own vehicle as surplus to requirements. He made the decision to sell that car and invest the money instead in a mare in partnership with his brother. Over a decade later that mare’s son Dream Of Dreams ran third in the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes and won this yera’s Hungerford Stakes (G2). She and her offspring have been sold on, but the return on that initial investment
“The majority of the mares and fillies we bought have really big back pedigrees. You have to go back that far when you can’t afford it at the top!
allowed Cloney buy and redevelop Clara Stud in Kilkenny, and, more significantly, it provided for the purchase of a Pivotal mare named Entreat. Now the dam of a Group 1 winner, the Pivotal mare was sold by Cheveley Park Stud to Cloney carrying to Lethal Force. She cost the buyer just 14,000gns and that foal she was carrying is this year’s Group 1 Commonwealth Cup hero Golden Horde. Cloney and his father-in-law Michael have put together a 16-strong broodmare band on the former show-jumping stud outside Kilkenny, largely through focusing on young mares with back pedigrees laden with blacktype, as he explains. “The majority of the mares and fillies we bought have really big back pedigrees, looking at their third dams. You have to go back that
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