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Bloodstock Editor: Nancy Sexton

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Media rights dispute set to roll on through the summer

The issue of media right payments to racecourses – and how those funds are reflected, or not, in purse sizes –reared its head again in the public arena as this issue went to press, with betting operator Flutter, owner of the brands Betfair, Sky Bet and Paddy Power, refusing to offer early prices for races at certain Arena Racing Company fixtures.

For bookmakers wanting to attract punters with an enticing product so that betting volumes are maximised, the feeling is that the jam is being spread too thinly, so to speak, with low prize-money resulting in uncompetitive fields, turning people off.

The bookies know how much they are paying for the privilege of streaming races and are asking the question to the racecourses – where’s all the money going?

It’s an issue Dr Jim Hay raises in this month’s Big Interview. Hay, who races horses all around the world as well as maintaining a significant broodmare band, went so far as to commission a study into the sport’s economics. He has strong views on the subject.

“It took us ages to get an idea about how big media rights are – and they are much higher than you see reported,” Hay tells Marcus Townend ( The Big Interview, pages 28-32 ).

“There is a huge amount of money, but it is all going into the racetracks and they are keeping it. The big owner groups all understood what the problems are, and they all want to get them rectified and fixed.

“Look at the Premier League and media rights – that’s what funds the tremendous amount of money in football. It goes back into the clubs whereas in racing these media rights somehow seem to evaporate.”

Evaporate or not, the conversation over media rights, prize-money and fixtures isn’t going to halt any time soon.

While matters around the number of race meetings may be complex, at its heart the

Edward Rosenthal Editor

issue is a simple one. Levy funds are under pressure and unable to sustain prize-money for a bloated fixture list, while racecourses’ media rights income remains private. I once interviewed an owner-breeder who had been a partner in a big investment bank and asked for his take on the debate. Without wading in too deeply, he stated that the one thing the sport should not do is continue to allocate fixtures to all racecourses regardless of the level of income being produced. Will racing ever learn?

In this month’s column, Howard Wright discusses the collector of funds from

“The bookies are asking the courses where all the money is going”

bookmakers, the Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB), and praises the organisation’s contribution and commitment to British racing since its inception in 1961. He also acknowledges the role played by a succession of Chief Executives and suggests if racing is looking for a skilled leader to take the sport into a new era, they should almost certainly be looking towards HBLB HQ ( page 22 ).

Also in this issue, Bloodstock Editor Nancy Sexton looks as the impact US sires are having in Europe with high-profile runners such as City Of Troy and Shareholder ( pages 34-42 ), while those hoping to pick up a star of the future should note James Thomas’s in-depth preview of this summer’s yearling sales ( pages 44-48 ).

Cover: Wolf Of Badenoch makes an impressive winning debut at Doncaster in June under Jamie Spencer for ownerbreeders Dr Jim and Fitri Hay

Photo: Nigel Kirby

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ROA Leader

New regime brings fresh opportunities for our sport

As widely expected, Labour secured a wide-margin majority at the General Election, resulting in some significant changes to the MPs who represent constituencies that have training yards or racecourses within them. Racing will now have to build relationships with the government itself, with a new minister at DCMS and a new Secretary of State, but also at a local level.

Lambourn is now represented by Liberal Democrat Lee Dillon, who has been elected to parliament for the first time. This represents both a challenge and an opportunity. As previously stated, there are many historical links between racing and betting and the Labour Party, and we must ensure we engage and present our case around the crucial areas of levy reform and affordability checks. It was most encouraging to see Lady Starmer at Sandown Park on Eclipse day, just 24 hours after the election result was announced, showing the appeal of a day at the races just cannot be beaten.

It is also crucial that the Gambling Commission continues to be held to account for the results of the various consultations that have taken place in preparation of the Conservative government’s white paper. Picking the bits that fit is not an option – any backtracking from the previously agreed position around monthly betting limits must be resisted.

Work continues on the new Racing Digital service, which will overhaul all of the IT systems that look after the racing product. The delivery has been delayed – has there ever been an IT project that was on time and on budget? – however one of the key outputs will be a simpler process around the costs of ownership. The ROA team has been working hard on getting to grips with the myriad charges that owners have to pay for, such as entries, colours, jockeys’ insurance and the funding of equine welfare charities.

Over the years, the number of charges has risen – along with the actual costs of ownership – to the point where it becomes increasingly hard to unravel. Jockeys work on a predominantly freelance basis and there is a deduction from each owner’s entry fee to fund the Professional Riders Insurance Scheme; there can be very few other examples of freelance tradespeople charging their clients for their own personal protection arrangements.

Whether the deductions are right or wrong is one thing, the fact that the non-charitable trust has been able to build up an extremely healthy, and not needed, reserve balance is something that has been challenged by the ROA. Discussions with the trustees is ongoing, but we are hopeful that we can reach a sensible compromise that will in the first instance see the charge to owners drop significantly. This is just one area where the ROA is pushing back against the underlying assumption that the

owner will always pay.

Reflecting on Royal Ascot, it truly was a superb week of top-quality action in the most glorious setting. Wathnan Racing walked away with four winners from 28 runners in only their second year as major new players in the sport. Whilst we face some real difficulties as a sport, the fact that a new powerhouse is prepared to spend very large sums on British bloodstock to target our major races reaffirms the fact that we have an eminently investible global product, one that could and should be leveraged to the benefit of all the strands of the British racing industry. Work is ongoing around how best to attract fresh global investment and what the actual product could look like.

“The engagement with all of racing’s consumers needs to be refreshed and exploited”

Alongside this work we must also look at all the consumer touch points, such as betting, racecourse attendances, media consumption and what platforms are being accessed, and crucially the owner experience and journey. The engagement with all of racing’s consumers, especially the rapidly changing media landscape, needs to be refreshed and exploited as a matter of urgency. With significant new inward investment and a thorough overhaul of the consumer-facing strategies to engage and retain new consumers, we would have the right ingredients for serious growth in our sport.

Finally, I would like to congratulate Louise Norman on being appointed the new CEO of the ROA. She has a good team around her and with the support of our enthusiastic and knowledgeable Board, I am sure she will prove a great success.

Charlie Parker President

ARABIAN

BRADSELL

DUSK winner of Duchess of Cambridge Stakes, Gr.2 purchased by Margaret O’Toole / Oak Tree Farm from Whitsbury Manor Stud for 80,000 gns

winner of King’s Stand Stakes, Gr.1, Coventry Stakes, Gr.2 purchased by Highflyer / H Dunlop from Bearstone Stud for 12,000 gns

ANISETTE winner of Gamely Stakes, Gr.1, American Oaks, Gr.1, Del Mar Oaks, Gr.1, purchased by Avenue Bloodstock from Manor Farm, Wiltshire for 26,000 gns

TBA Leader

Additional incentives to buy and race fillies in 2025

Make do and mend was a government campaign during the Second World War to encourage the use of all and any resource longer and better. There are similarities that can be drawn between this and the British racing purse, where we are often robbing Peter to pay Paul. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – constant and consistent review of spending and the effectiveness of outcomes is beneficial, however it does carry with it a responsibility to ensure that all investment provides an appropriate return.

The Great British Bonus (GBB) is a very good example of this –money had to be moved initially from prize-money and redirected to encourage a sector of the breeding industry where the demand for fillies and mares needed a stimulus. There were two immediate considerations for GBB to become a success: the industry – with breeders and owners investing via registration fees – needed to be on board, while there had to be a clear ability to measure the success, or otherwise, of the scheme.

So, on June 1, 2020, GBB launched with the specific purpose of changing behaviour and influencing the breeding, buying, racing and retaining of British-bred fillies. Each category was a vital consideration – for far too long there had been a prejudice against fillies in the sales ring versus their male counterparts.

Bonuses of up to £20,000 were offered to incentivise demand for fillies in both Flat and jump racing. The TBA confidently expected significant and successful outcomes could be achieved. The first level of registrations confirmed that belief, with 72% of the filly foal crop signing up initially, a number that has increased now to 84%.

Since 2020, GBB has paid out over £15.5 million of which 65% has been returned in payments to owners. Essential to the success of the scheme is the Levy Board support of £3.5m annually.

The outcome? Enhanced interest at sales time has meant that Flat filly values have increased by 13.4% and NH fillies by 26.5%. Importantly, the price gap between a colt and filly at auction has closed by half. The number of fillies on the racecourse has increased; indeed, their representation recovered quicker and exceeded post-Covid levels in a way that colts have not.

The final metric of ‘retaining’ is also happening. GBB fillies are returning to British farms to underpin and develop the gold standard that it is the British broodmare band. The TBA unashamedly sees this area of the breeding industry as the opportunity to invest and the one that will have the best long-term outcome for the future of the breed.

So, the attraction of fillies under both codes – whilst still very much being a work in progress – is happening and proving once more that interventions and incentives, clearly targeted and managed, are a most valuable tool. The industry, with Levy Board

backing, have encouraged the next steps and January 1, 2025, will see the introduction of GBB Plus.

Two initiatives will sit alongside and complement the core GBB scheme. In jump racing, to encourage and reward chasing mares and boost quality, GBB bonuses will be set at £10k/£20k/£30k for NH Flat races/ hurdles/steeplechases, with the ambition to encourage and reward the testing of mares over fences and support competitive racing.

Detailed research underpins all our work and the TBA NH Committee has concluded that intervention is required. In the

“Since 2020, GBB has paid out over £15.5m of which 65% has been returned in payments to owners”

NH arena, while our neighbours in Ireland and France have been more successful in producing young horses ready to race, strong evidence suggests that earlier introduction to jumping fences is beneficial to competitiveness as well as soundness and longevity in horses. Britain needs to follow suit and GBB Plus will reward this sector.

Meanwhile, the additional incentives on offer for Flat fillies will redress and correct the imbalance of ten-furlong-plus horses in current foal crops by doubling the bonuses for winning two-yearolds over a mile and above and for three-year-olds at 1m2f and above. In addition, bonuses will be offered to four-year-olds for the first time, as well as in Class 2/4 handicaps and a selection of Listed races in order to encourage career progression.

The UK is in danger of following Australia’s lead and losing its stamina base altogether: action was clearly urgently required. GBB Plus will reward breeders and owners of fillies in this category by doubling the bonus up to £40k in all GBB-qualified races.

Intervention and incentive works. The make do and mend strategy is making a real difference to British racing and breeding.

Philip Newton Chairman

Training role beckons for globetrotting great Gerald Mosse

Gerald Mosse has called time on his long and illustrious career in the saddle and from next month will launch a new chapter as a trainer.

Mosse brought down the curtain on his hugely successful 40 years as a jockey on July 14 at Chantilly, where he will be based in his new guise.

With his famous white gloves and international outlook, Mosse was one of the best-known riders worldwide.

The 57-year-old’s vast CV includes more than 90 Group/Grade 1 victories, collected across the globe and including all the Classic races in his native France and Hong Kong, the other racing nation where he was most at home. Bahrain, Singapore, the UAE, Italy and Britain were other regular haunts.

Jean-Luc Lagardere and the Aga Khan, for whom he was first jockey in the 1990s, were among the big owners he was closely associated with.

Mosse said: “My family, and in particular my father Armand, gave me a real leg up when I was very young. Thanks to them, I took the road to success.

“In the course of my long career, I have had the privilege of becoming an international jockey, wearing countless silks and riding champions on the world’s finest racecourses.

“Above all, I have been lucky enough to meet and rub shoulders with some wonderful people, without whom I wouldn’t have been able to fulfil my childhood dreams.

“I would like to extend my warmest thanks to my racing family: owners, trainers, breeders, agents, managers, riders, stable lads, travelling lads, starters, valets, transporters, stewards, racecourse staff, racegoers and so on. I owe them everything.

“I would also like to thank my former jockey colleagues, who have shown me a great deal of respect.”

Mosse, who rode his first winner in 1983, won the 1990 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on Saumarez and the 2010 Melbourne Cup on Americain.

He won the Prix du Jockey Club on Celtic Arms (1994), Ragmar (1996) and Reliable Man (2011), the Prix de Diane on Resless Kara (1988), Shemaka (1993),

Vereva (1997), Zainta (1998) and Daryaba (1999), and the Poule d’Essai des Poulains on Ashkalani (1996), Daylami (1997) and Sendawar (1999).

His Poule d’Essai des Pouliches winners were Zalaiyka (1998) and Mangoustine (2022).

Major wins in Britain came on Sendawar in the 1999 St James’s Palace Stakes, Nuclear Debate in the 2000 King’s Stand Stakes and Nunthorpe, and 2001 Haydock Sprint Cup, and Immortal Verse in the 2011 Coronation Stakes.

Next month he will start working as a trainer in Chantilly, having obtained a licence in 2022, the same year he purchased and started to renovate the Manoir des Sangliers. The yard comprises around 40 boxes.

He added: “I’m now approaching the second act of my career with enthusiasm and determination. I can’t wait to welcome my first owners and their horses at the Manoir des Sangliers.

“At Chantilly we work in a very special environment offering extraordinary conditions. I think it’s the best place on the planet to train.”

Gerald Mosse enjoyed plenty of big winners around the world during his 40-year career, including the 2010 Melbourne Cup on Americain

Stories from the racing world

Racing rallies around John Hunt

The sport was united in grief last month following the appalling murders of Carol, Hannah and Louise Hunt, beloved wife and daughters of commentator John Hunt.

The crossbow attacks at the Hunts’ home in Bushey, Hertfordshire on Tuesday, July 9 dominated national news headlines for days.

A manhunt was launched for 26-year-old Kyle Clifford, who was found and arrested just under 24 hours after the killings in the Hilly Fields area of Enfield.

A crossbow was recovered as part of the investigation, and police believe that other weapons could have been used in the killing of Carol, 61, Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25.

Hunt and his daughter Amy said in a joint statement a few days later: “The devastation that we are experiencing cannot be put into words. We would like to thank people for their kind messages and for the support we have received in recent days. These have provided great comfort to us, for which we are very grateful.

“As you can imagine, this is an extremely difficult time for us, and we need time and space to come to terms with what has happened and start the grieving process.”

Hunt worked for the police before beginning his broadcasting career with Ladbrokes in the 1980s.

He has been BBC Radio 5 Live’s

New partnership to combat abuse

The Professional Jockeys Association (PJA) has partnered with the National Trainers Federation (NTF) to combat abuse received by jockeys and trainers from members of the public.

Launched in autumn 2023, the NTF’s abuse reporting service has received more than 150 reports of abusive messages being sent to trainers, either by social media, direct message, email or telephone.

Numerous individuals have been traced, warned and have not reoffended, while as of last month there were three live police investigations.

The new partnership between the

racing commentator for 20 years and has been part of the broadcaster’s summer and winter Olympic commentary team since London 2012, covering equestrian sports, swimming, diving, modern pentathlon and the luge.

Hunt also occasionally commentates on football, while he is a regular on the racecourse and works for Sky Sports Racing. He was at Lingfield on the day of the attacks.

The Racehorse Owners Association issued a statement which read: “Everyone at the ROA is deeply saddened at the shocking and tragic news concerning the family of John Hunt.

“On behalf of the ROA and all owners, we extend our heartfelt condolences and unwavering support to John as he faces this unimaginable loss.

“Our thoughts are with John, his family and friends during this devastating time.”

The British Horseracing Authority also released a statement, in the name of Chief Executive Julie Harrington, which read: “The thoughts of everyone at the BHA are with John Hunt, his family and friends at this shocking and tragic time. It is impossible to comprehend the horror that has been inflicted upon them by this dreadful event.

“John is a great friend to many in

jockeys’ and trainers’ organisations will see advice and support extended to jockeys.

Leading the project is former police Superintendent Sean Memory, whose experience is said to have already been of immense value in securing information which has allowed offenders to be contacted, or for the British Horseracing Authority and police to act.

PJA Chief Executive Paul Struthers said: “Receiving abusive comments has become par for the course for jockeys as well as trainers, but it’s one thing to be criticised and another to be abused, particularly when that abuse is unlawful.

“Jockeys already receive advice on how to protect themselves as much as

unimaginable loss

our sport and I am sure that in this time of unimaginable grief for him, the racing family will rally around, as we have seen many times before when one of our number is faced with great trauma.”

A GoFundMe page was set up, with the blessing of Hunt, and one of the organisers, his Sky Sports Racing colleague Matt Chapman, said: “On the back of the horror, I know John would so dearly love Amy to be able to get through life without any financial worries.”

online platforms allow, and we’ve supported numerous jockeys who have received abuse in the past. However, by partnering with the NTF’s reporting service and working with Sean, we hope to collect more information so that action can be taken against those perpetuating the abuse.”

Paul Johnson, Chief Executive of the NTF, added: “We are very pleased the PJA has joined us in our efforts to tackle abusive messages sent to the sport’s participants and see this as an opportunity to widen the scope of the work Sean is undertaking.

“We have seen in recent months that challenging this behaviour can make a real difference. We look forward to continuing to support this important project in tandem with the PJA.”

John Hunt: commentator has suffered an

Changes People and business

Paul and Clare Rooney

Owners who enjoyed success under both codes with the likes of Willoughby Court and My Dream Boat are returning to NH racing after a three-year hiatus.

Phil Dennis

Flat jockey, 28, retires from the saddle due to weight issues. He rode 270 Flat winners, including the Dash on Ornate, and three over jumps.

Tony Martin

Irish trainer’s three-month suspension for breaking anti-doping rules is extended by two months due to his actions at Newcastle on June 29.

Tim Naylor

Director of Integrity and Regulation at the British Horseracing Authority announces that he is stepping down from the role.

Jordan Williams

Conditional jockey has had his licence withdrawn for six months after testing positive for cocaine in March.

Poppy Wynne

Amateur becomes the second rider to lose a race having hit her mount Swift Tuttle 14 times – eight strikes over the limit – at Doncaster on July 11.

Richard Landale 80

Popular figure at Kelso, which he helped turn into a leading jumps racecourse, having been Managing Director for 32 years.

Martin Stevenson

Racecourse Media Group Chief Executive will step down from the role by the end of the year.

Ffos Las

Welsh track fined £3,500 after a dropped radio resulted in a failure to deploy hazard warnings during an incident at the racecourse in May.

Vincent Ho

Hong Kong-based rider returns to Britain for a three-month stay, linking up again with the Charlie Johnston stable.

Tony Smith 77

Long-time racehorse owner and breeder who bought historic Ermyn Lodge stud and racing stables in Epsom in 2005.

Cieren Fallon

Talented young rider set for extended spell on the sidelines after breaking his back in two places following a fall at Windsor in early July.

Dougie Costello

A fourth riding offence in six months results in the 41-year-old jockey receiving a 25-day ban.

Shergar Cup

Ascot riding competition is revamped this year to achieve an equal representation of male and female jockeys.

Grace McEntee

Jockey dislocates her sternoclavicular joint in a fall at Kempton and will be out of action for around three months.

Epsom

Injunction aimed at stopping protesters from disrupting racing at the track has been extended for five years following a High Court ruling.

Darren Weir

Former trainer who is serving a four-year ban is banned for a further two years for animal cruelty relating to the use of an electrical device on three horses.

David Power 77

Co-founder of bookmaker Paddy Power who spent decades in the betting ring and was known for laying substantial bets.

Racehorse and stallion Movements and retirements

Mickley

Three-year-old gelding, winner of the Britannia Handicap at Royal Ascot in June for trainer Ed Bethell, is moved to Hong Kong by his owner P K Siu.

Isle Of Jura

Hardwicke Stakes victor for the George Scott stable has a training setback and will miss the rest of the season.

Look De Vega

Ballylinch Stud and Al Shaqab buy a majority stake in the unbeaten Qatar Prix du Jockey Club winner, who will also stand at Ballylinch.

Horse obituaries

Sleeping Indian 23

Pickanumber

Fifteen-length winner of the Swinton Hurdle in May will continue his career in America after being sold privately out of Olly Murphy’s stable.

Victor Ludorum

Poule d’Essai des Poulains and Prix JeanLuc Lagardere winner moves from Haras du Logis to Haras d’Etreham, remaining under the Darley banner.

Cloth Of Stars

Sea The Stars’ promising stallion son, who is retained by Darley, is relocated from Haras du Logis to Haras de Montaigu.

Ezeliya

Decisive winner of the Oaks in May for owner-breeder the Aga Khan and trainer Dermot Weld is retired to the paddocks after suffering a setback in training.

Talented performer, winner of the Group 2 Challenge Stakes, who sired plenty of winners at stud, latterly based in the Czech Republic.

Wiener Wald 32

Foundation mare for Car Colston Hall

Stud is the ancestress of five top-level winners including Prix Morny hero Reckless Abandon.

The Big Picture

City toughs it out

Derby hero City Of Troy coped admirably with the testing ground and drop back in trip to take the Group 1 Coral-Eclipse under Ryan Moore. Owners Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, and Sue and John Magnier (right) were on hand to welcome back the son of Justify, who gave trainer Aidan O’Brien his eighth win in the Sandown contest.

Photos Bill Selwyn

The Big Picture

Stream in full flow

Champion jockey William Buick produced the perfect hold-up ride on Mill Stream (white cap) to edge out Swingalong in the My Pension Expert July Cup, the highlight of Newmarket’s July Meeting. For Buick, who collected his trophy alongside groom Salvatore Di Porzio, owner Peter Harris and trainer Jane Chapple-Hyam, it was a 100th winner at Group 1 level.

Photos Bill Selwyn

The Big Picture

Truth will out

Charlie Appleby targets the Superlative Stakes with his better colts and Godolphin’s Ancient Truth (left) gave the Newmarket trainer his fifth win in the Group 2 prize with a cosy victory over Seagulls Eleven in the hands of William Buick. The 2,000 Guineas will surely be on the son of Dubawi’s agenda in 2025.

Photo Bill Selwyn

The Big Picture

Jack in the black

A recent addition to the training ranks, having taken out his licence in 2022, Jack Jones (inset, left) enjoyed his biggest winner to date when grey colt Caburn captured the valuable Weatherbys Super Sprint at Newbury. Dylan Hogan found the gaps at the right time as Caburn surged home late to defeat Vingegaard (green/white) and Time For Sandals for owners Antram, Pemberton, Lancaster and Harrod.

Photos Bill Selwyn

Faces at the Races

NEWMARKET JULY MEETING

William Buick, July Cup victor with Mill StreamYumisa and Masayuki Goto

Jane, Andrew and Lily Megson

Top filly Porta Fortuna with Ryan Moore, Justin Bergin Maher and Dean Reeves

Photos by Hoycubed Photography/The Jockey Club and Bill Selwyn

HH Sheikh Isa bin Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa

Pat Cooney and Alastair Donald

Sam Bullard and Alex Elliott

Kirsten Rausing and Richard Frisby

Her Excellency Noor Bint Ali Alkhulaif

Sandy Dudgeon, former Senior Steward of the Jockey Club

Sheikh Salman bin Rashid Al Khalifa

Newmarket trainer James Ferguson

The Howard Wright Column

HBLB: a steady hand on the tiller in choppy waters

For just over 60 years, British racing’s central funding has been largely handled by an unusual UK statutory body that operates as a non-departmental public body (NDPB), whose sponsoring government department is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Unusual because unlike some NDPBs, it receives no central government grant-in-aid and no National Lottery funding. Instead, it is required to collect a statutory levy from the horseracing business of bookmakers operating on course, off course and online.

The Horserace Betting Levy Board, for this is the body involved, collects the greatest proportion of its income from off-course bookmakers as a percentage of the gross profit on their British horseracing betting business, and the majority – usually 90 per cent – is expended in direct support of the sport, according to the Board’s business plan.

The Levy Board’s largesse is spread wide. For example, while the BHA has dithered for years over its (non-existent) education and training strategy, the Levy Board has provided enormous support for the main providers – the British Racing School, National Horseracing College and National Stud – lately through donations from the Racing Foundation that enabled many projects that might otherwise be stranded to go ahead.

Significant investment is being made for upgrades of racecourse weighing rooms, including facilities for jockeys and others working in that environment. The Levy Board has made available £12.5m of its own funds in the form of loans, plus a sum given by the Racing Foundation on agreed terms.

Established in 1961, the Levy Board remains true to its origins but also a body whose integrity goes unquestioned. That is rendered all the remarkable by the fact that since 2017 the Levy Board does not play a role in the setting of the levy rate and scope, which used to carry a deadline of midnight of October 31.

Then, the bookmakers had their own hefty-sized committee, who would start the game of cat and mouse with the rest of the Board, comprising racing and independent members. Sometimes agreement, or more likely stalemate, would be reached well before the deadline.

Occasionally the witching hour drew ominously close for the one trade newspaper industry correspondent who purloined a spare office for the afternoon and evening. Curious Board members and executives would emerge at intervals for breaks, marvelling at my devotion to duty, and occasionally offering a puff of white smoke. One year, Deputy Chair Penny Boys halted proceedings to check on the progress of her accumulator bet.

If settlement could not be agreed, the matter was referred to the Home Secretary, who adjudicated with the help of DCMS officials. Another game of cat and mouse, but one without a deadline. Sometimes racing won, sometimes the bookmakers; sometimes it was a nil-nil draw. Whatever the outcome, it became the levy scheme for the following year.

All that changed in 2017 when the government began what proved to be fruitless attempts to shut down the Levy Board. The various trade organisations that elected members to the Bookmakers’ Committee, and thence one to the Board itself, disappeared, replaced by an all-embracing body, the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC).

The BGC is charged with the responsibility of electing a

member of the Levy Board to sit alongside Chairman Paul Darling KC and two other independents appointed by DCMS, and three by the Jockey Club in just about the only other left-over from day one. Continuity has been achieved by the BGC’s decision to continue Mike O’Kane’s Levy Board membership.

O’Kane, whose whole working life has been spent in the betting business, celebrates the 15th anniversary of his Levy Board membership this month, yet he has not actually worked for a bookmaker since he left Ladbrokes/Coral in 2017.

For all that curiosity, the Levy Board has had one notable constant from the start – a first-class, long-serving Chief Executive, their standard being set by Sir Tristram Ricketts, who had two spells in the role.

His working career began at the Greater London Council as personal assistant to the leader, Sir Desmond Plummer, who made a job for him when he went to the Levy Board as Chairman in 1974, Ricketts becoming Chief Executive ten years later. He left in 1993 to join the new body, the British Horseracing Board (BHB), as its first Chief Executive.

However, Peter Savill became BHB Chairman in 2000, determined to introduce a more commercial approach. With Chris Reynolds brought in as Managing Director, Ricketts was shuffled into the post of Secretary General. He lasted a tricky course for five years but in 2005 his old job at the Levy Board became vacant and he jumped at the chance to go back, albeit with the specific task of winding down the body by 2009 in line with the government’s then wishes.

Sir Tristram Ricketts, racing’s consummate civil servant, died of cancer in November 2007, having remained active in his role at the Levy Board almost to the end. He was succeeded by two excellent CEOs in Rodney Brack and Douglas Erskine-Crum, but his legacy has lived on. Erskine-Crum moved to Juddmonte in 2013 and his place went to a Ricketts protegee in Alan Delmonte.

Delmonte, who had his first taste of racing administration in the early intake of the BHB’s graduate development scheme in 1994, spent 11 years at the BHB and BHA before he went to the Levy Board as Operations Director in 2009. Racing’s funding remains in safe hands after more than 60 years, thanks to men such as these. Oh that the rest of the sport could boast similar credentials.

Levy Board CEO Alan Delmonte (left) with journalist Greg Wood

Racing around the World

BY ADRIEN CUGNASSE

In praise of purses, premiums and PMU

FRANCE

At the end of March, France Galop launched an owners’ plan under the guidance of new President Guillaume de Saint-Seine. Details are yet to be made public, but this initiative will be focused on improving the racecourse experience and client relations, with the ultimate goal being to increase the number of horses in training in France, which has lost almost 1,000 gallopers in a decade. More precisely, the aim is to hit 10,000 horses in training, a figure which would include roughly 300 Anglo-Arabs, 400 Purebred Arabians and 1,000 AQPS horses.

A country of small breeders

Ownership is one of the key issues facing the industry all around the world, but the situation is substantially different in France compared to its cross-Channel neighbours Ireland and Great Britain.

For more than half a century, France has been a nation of small countryside breeders. Owners, especially those with significant resources, are a rarity. Looking at the racing results in a French newspaper in the 1970s, you would have been surprised how many foreign ownerbreeders were successful there. Indeed, a big part of the greatest achievements of legendary trainers of the past – names such as Etienne Pollet, Maurice Zilber and Francois Boutin – were realised with horses wearing the colours of international clients.

Paris is hosting the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. With France being one of the leading nations for breeding eventers and showjumpers, you would have expected the finest of the French-bred horses to be competing under the Tricolore. But that will not be the case. In 2021 in Tokyo, the first three individuals of the eventing competitions were all born in France but ridden by Julia Krajewski (Germany), Tom McEwen (Great Britain) and Andrew Hoy (Australia).

Cultural differences

Eventing, showjumping and horseracing share the same issue – namely a lack of local owners – which explains why so many good horses bred in France are sold

abroad. There are many rich people in France, yet it is not really acceptable to show conspicuous symbols of wealth such as competition horses or flashy cars.

Alain Wertheimer is one of the 40 richest people in the world according to Forbes. However, you will often see him driving his own Mini Cooper when he goes summer racing in Deauville. That’s not uncommon among the wealthiest people in the country.

Gambling has always been a taboo in French society, for religious reasons dating back centuries, but now mostly under the pressure of left-wing political parties. Bookmakers were banned from France in 1891. The Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU), which subsidises the industry as a whole, was the only acceptable way for horseracing to be tolerated by the government of that time.

France is not a major sports country. If you look at the five major leagues in Europe, the French football championship is the one with the smallest fan base and lowest stadium attendance. Watching sport on TV and going to live sporting events is not culturally as important in France compared to the United Kingdom, Ireland or Australia for example.

Funding and split of prize-money

There are many possible explanations for the decline of horses in training in France. Traditionally, French racing was heavily reliant on owner-breeders, but when these entities reduced their numbers or disappeared – the likes of the Wildenstein family, the Marquesa de Moratalla, Jean-Luc Lagardère and Issam Fares – the quantitative decline was difficult to replace.

In France, many horses used to be leased by small trainers, especially in the countryside. Considering inflation, the cost of labour and transportation, it is no longer possible for owner-trainers to make ends meet, so they had to focus on a smaller group of horses, the ones that really are able to be profitable. At the same time, almost 10% of the day-to-day runners in France are trained abroad, the main providers being Germany, Belgium, Spain and the Czech Republic.

The big concern of France Galop is

staging races with less than eight runners and handicaps with less than 14 horses, as there is a direct link between the number of runners and betting turnover at the PMU. The French tote is almost the only source of funding of prize-money at the major racetracks, with the exception of a few prestigious meetings such as the weekend of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Considering that context, if the expectation of gain per horse is significantly higher in France than anywhere else in Europe, the split of prize-money is also different. In Britain, official figures show that black-types races tend to be more valuable. In France, the effort is put on the non black-type competition – which is 95% of all races – as they are the most common betting product for French punters. In a country where owning racehorses is not a tradition, you have to support as much as possible the average owner to retain a decent population of horses in training.

The Paris and Deauville racetracks are run by France Galop, which provides all the staff, largely funded by the PMU. Countryside tracks are often owned by the municipality but they are staffed by a team of volunteers, with the help of a handful of paid employees. Every year, France Galop will provide a budget to those smaller courses, which is supposed to cover the biggest part of their expenditure.

Ace Impact: last year’s winner of France’s biggest race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe

Racing around the World

Different programme

The French Flat programme is designed to give opportunities to every horse. However, it remains middle-distance-oriented. An interesting piece of data is the percentage of black-type races over ten furlongs and above: Germany has 57%, France 49%, Great Britain 37% and Ireland 34%. Clearly, France provides plenty of opportunities for middle-distance horses.

Under both codes, the programme is providing more conditions and claiming races than handicaps compared to the UK. For the best jumpers, the emphasis is put on their three-, four- and five-year-old career.

On the matter of claiming races, British National Hunt owner Sam Sutton says: “These races are great for owners that can’t afford €50,000-plus horses. We are not in that market. You can have great success by sourcing animals in claiming races.

“In England, we have more two-mile races and it suits some French-sourced horses. Two of my best English-based horses were found in French claiming

“In France there are a lot of efforts to keep the small owner in the game” ››

races. In England, they tend to run flat out and horses are often fitter. In France, you will have more tactics involved.”

Was registering his colours and creating a partnership in France difficult for Sutton? “I found it quite easy,” he explains. “You just send an email when you want to apply and you then receive a pack in the post every year with your owner’s card. And it is less expensive to register your colours as there is no annual fee for that in France.”

Having your horses trained in France does have disadvantages for Sutton, namely not being able to see them every weekend at the stable or running at the big British racing festivals. Sutton says: “To be honest, I’ve only had one horse run at Cheltenham and it was not during the Festival. He was bought for £8,000 and finished second, beaten by a horse sourced for £250,000.

“If you want to compete at the higher end in Britain, you will need to spend serious amounts of money.

“With lesser runners stuck in the

handicap system in England, we have been able to do well in France. A normal horse will have more opportunities because the programme is mainly based on conditions races rather than handicaps. I also like the French handicap system whereby the second in a race is not penalised.”

The real bosses

The French racing system is a strange, complex and indirect democracy – you vote for representatives that will finally elect the President of France Galop – but it’s still a democratic process. Every active British or Irish owner or breeder in France, even the smallest, is allowed to vote in the France Galop elections.

The local baker, if he has a leg of a broodmare, will have one vote. His Highness the Aga Khan, with hundreds of horses in training and at stud, will have one vote too. Collectively, small breeders are the decision makers, which helps to explain why breeders’ premiums are so high.

On a personal level, as a student I bought a mare for €800. She was covered by a €1,000 stallion. I sold the foal for €2,000 – he turned out to be unsound. Yet he ran 24 times, winning three very modest races and taking 15 places. These efforts granted the breeder €10,093 worth of premiums.

Breeding is very attractive in France. Over a decade – from 2013 to 2022 – the number of thoroughbred births increased by 12% in France. This is partly due to the influx of foreign clients to French studs but also because small French owners tend to try their hand at breeding without necessarily having the knowledge or funding to do it on a larger scale.

Once an owner starts to pay nomination and boarding fees he will automatically reduce the number of horses in training, which is a problematic situation for the French industry.

Another factor is the affordability of land in France. Compared to England and Ireland, it’s a lot easier and cheaper to buy a farm. Last but not least, there is still room for new stallion operations in this country. Among the 33 French stallions that covered 100 mares or more in 2024, 25 stand at studs you can describe as small businesses or farms that have been created in the last 15 years.

It’s common for foreign Flat breeders to have some mares annually boarded in France, but rarer on the Nation Hunt scene. Having said that, Grand National victor I Am Maximus was bred in Normandy for Ron Huggins while professionals such as Walter Connors and Willie Mullins have an increasing number of mares annually based in France.

Foreign Flat ownership

Jocelyn Targett is a Flat-focused British owner and breeder active on both sides of the Channel though mainly in France in recent years. His strategy is to sell his stock at the sales, racing the unsold ones. He says: “In 2005, my homebred Mrs Snow ran fifth in the Group 3 Prix du Calvados, earning more for that place than her maiden victory in Germany. My ears pricked and I started to have horses in France.

“As a Francophile, being an owner and a breeder in France provides me with the opportunity to go on a regular basis to this country and enjoy what is available outside of the racetracks. I have croissants for breakfast wherever I am in the world! It’s not only a rational decision based on prize-money, even if it’s obviously important.

“I used to go racing in Deauville as a teenager and I was so impressed to be able to walk next to Mahmoud Fustok. The ‘égalité’ thing looked real, even if it’s obviously not 100% the case. I was really impressed by the classless French racing system. Later, through my work with Darley, I met French-based breeders and trainers such as Julian Ince, Christophe Ferland and Jérome Reynier. The attraction of having mares and horses in France is also based on the quality of my relationship with these individuals.”

Targett continues: “The finances of it are remarkable. You are not necessarily going to make money, but you might not lose either and you can stay in the game. I have been lucky enough to have stakes-level homebreds in France. I still very much love racing in England, but the sport is fiercely expensive there.

“The French system pushes you to breed horses eligible for premiums. I am a low-level breeder in this commercial world

Jocelyn Targett: owner and breeder is active across the Channel

and my horses don’t necessarily make money at the sales. But when they remain in France, the premiums really help. I sold Papille d’Or for the price of the nomination fee. But he had a long career in France and collected €37,000 of breeders’ premiums. It’s like winning a bet without having to buy a ticket.”

When five-year-old Velma Valento landed a Listed race for Targett, as an owner he gained €20,250 in prize-money and €8,201 in owners’ premiums. As a breeder, he received an additional €2,418. That’s a total of €30,869.

“Winning races in France is not easy, but I would say it’s really hard in Britain,” Targett relates. “I think the French black type is as valuable on the market as English or Irish. As an owner and breeder, one of the advantages of France is being close to Germany and Italy where you can try your hand in stakes company.”

The experience at the races

Speaking of how owners are treated at the

go to provincial racecourses, you will find a good crowd. I suppose there is a lack of attendance in Paris.

“The fact that you don’t get a lavish meal there is not that important to me. I don’t mind having something simple when I travel to see my runners.”

Sutton comments: “Prize-money is obviously an important factor in having horses in training there. But I also enjoy the more relaxed atmosphere at the races.

“As an owner, you can easily go to the stables with your friends, see your horse without signing anything, have a drink with jockeys and stable staff after the races… I really enjoy the fact that people mix easily.

“In England, whatever the day or the track, you will get six or eight badges and as many meals. In France, outside of the very big racetracks where they offer you champagne, there is no real experience.

“When you go racing in France, you will find various food options but you will have to pay for it. I am there for the sport, not for sitting down and having a long meal.”

some effort or the help of a French accountant. Having said that, syndicates are not very common in France – people can buy a leg of a horse for the same investment as a syndicate share in Britain.

In French racing, the most common ownership type is the association of three or four people on various horses at the same stable. Sutton and his friends – who have also started a podcast called ‘The Claiming Lads’ that describes twice per month their experience as foreign owners in France – created this type of partnership. Together they have 20 horses in training every year in France. He says: “In the UK we could afford to have a quarter of this number of horses in training.

“My passion is jump racing. Prize-money in Britain for lower-level races is poor. A claiming race at a small racetrack such as Pontivy will reward the winner with €6,000. The same race in England will offer half that purse.

Shared ownership

To create a syndicate in France, you must first create a company, which requires

“If you win a big handicap, that’s enough to cover the costs of the horse for the year and buy another one in a claiming race. It seems to me that in France there are a lot of efforts to make the small owner succeed and keep him in the game.”

The Big Interview

Making HAY

Early lessons in mental arithmetic helped steer

Dr Jim Hay towards horseracing and a keen grasp of the figures helps the owner and wife Fitri when it comes to managing their runners worldwide

Words: Marcus Townend • Photos: Bill Selwyn

Dr Jim Hay’s fascination with horseracing has its roots in a childhood growing up in the South Lanarkshire mining village of Caldercruix. Thanks to the intervention of his grandmother, he would inadvertently become fascinated with the sport.

The Chairman of Dubai-based JMH Group went on to enjoy a hugely successful business career, which included 27 years working for BP. That enabled him and wife Fitri to become significant owners both in Britain and on the international stage since they bought their first two horses in 2001.

Their silks have been carried to multiple Group 1 successes in the US and they have enjoyed important wins in Dubai and South Africa, while in June their gelding Khaadem won the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot for the second year running.

Crosby, the Australia-born campaign strategist associated with some of the Conservative Party’s biggest electoral successes this century, who has also advised corporate organisations around the world on how to achieve their goals.

Hay distributed the study to some of the sport’s biggest players, including Coolmore, Juddmonte and Shadwell, big bookmaker groups, and the BHA.

He believes the issue the report uncovered is clear and unambiguous. Acting on it, however, is less straightforward.

“Our winnings have paid for all our training costs in America since 2007”

In terms of satisfaction, that victory came close to matching the day the Hays’ colours were carried to victory by Fame And Glory in the 2011 Gold Cup.

Hay’s love of and commitment to British racing remains absolute. He insists “it will always be the core” of his involvement. Yet he is unable to hide his frustration regarding the sport’s financial landscape, which he describes as “dire”.

Last year that vexation prompted Hay to commission a deep dive into the sport’s economics by the CT Group of Sir Lynton

“It is blindingly obvious what we have to do, but there are too many opinions and vested interests,” explains Hay, who is talking at his apartment in Belgravia, one of London’s most exclusive districts.

“It took us ages to get an idea about how big media rights are – and they are much higher than you see reported.

“There is a huge amount of money, but it is all going into the racetracks and they are keeping it. The big owner groups all understood what the problems are, and they all want to get them rectified and fixed.

“Look at the Premier League and media rights – that’s what funds the tremendous amount of money in football. It goes back into the clubs whereas in racing these media rights somehow seem to evaporate.

“None of this is new but there are so many divided constituencies. I think [BHA

Dr Jim and Fitri Hay enjoy racing in Britain while retaining a global outlook with their string of racehorses

BILL SELWYN

Dr Jim Hay

The Big Interview

Oisin Murphy delivers Khaadem right on cue as the eight-year-old gelding records back-to-back victories in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot, to the delight of his owners and trainer Charlie Hills, pictured below receiving their trophies from Her Majesty Queen Camilla

›› Chair] Joe Saumarez Smith has done a valiant job against all odds, but it is not easy.

“The BHA is utterly dysfunctional because the people it is supposed to regulate actually fund it. That’s okay, they can fund it, but the funding should go into a government department which should then distribute it so the BHA cannot be influenced.”

Unlike many of his fellow owners, the one body not in Hay’s crosshairs for the sport’s financial plight are bookmakers.

“Don’t go blaming them, it is not the bookmakers’ fault,” Hay says. “I have said to the bookies, ‘Why don’t you publish the numbers and say this is how the cake is being divided up?’ It is not going where it should go.

“Bookmakers in the UK have overheads

– they have every right to run their businesses and make a profit from it. I have no problem with that.

“We have had horses in America since around 2007 and we have never put money into training fees there. Our capital outlay was in sending the horseflesh. Our winnings have paid for all our training costs there.

“In contrast, we had our best winnings total here last year and won almost £1.2 million. That didn’t even cover 40 per cent of our UK training costs.

“Mrs Hay was the fourth top owner in Dubai this year and we paid for everything with the prize-money. Again, the only capital outlay was getting the horse there.

“British racing’s ownership structure is hanging by a thread. You can’t keep imagining someone new is going to keep

coming in.

“Take Sheikh Mohammed, maybe his sons aren’t quite so enthusiastic about horseracing as he is. What happens if his family say we have had enough of this? It could have happened with Shadwell if Sheikha Hissa hadn’t stepped in.”

Following the agreement of an £800m deal to sell his global construction chemical manufacturer Fosroc to French company Saint-Gobain, Hay says once international regulatory approval has been signed off, he and Fitri will once again be predominantly based in Dubai.

His racing operation will diversify, with plans to send horses to compete in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia as well as beef up his team in Dubai, where he predicts an upgrade in the programme after officials

Dr Jim Hay

at Meydan realised they had to respond to growing competition from their Middle Eastern neighbours.

However, the safety rope that keeps British racing clinging to the mountain is the reputation for prestige, which it still manages to maintain.

That advantage in developing horses like his 2023 2,000 Guineas third Royal Scotsman, who is recuperating from injury after easily winning the Diomed Stakes at Epsom in June, into stallions means most of the Hays’ string will remain here.

He says: “Without winning top-class races here we can’t make him a stallion. The UK must remain the core because of the prestige of winning here. Nothing anywhere compares to Royal Ascot.

“You only have to look at what Coolmore does. If it was all about prize-money they would only be running in America, but they recognise to have a Galileo or a Sadler’s Wells, these animals have to have won the Derby or top-class Group 1 race in Britain.

“It took Prince Khalid 50 years to get Frankel, but he knew he had to win here with him. The only way to make this thing make sense is the breeding – you have to get involved.”

Maths matters

How Hay got involved in racing is quite a tale. He and the sport must thank his maternal grandmother Mary Wilson.

Hay recalls: “The nearest connection my family has to horses was my maternal grandfather. He was in a cavalry regiment in the First World War and was in the last ever cavalry charge in Jordan.

“His regiment charged these Turkish machine gunners. He survived.

“My maternal grandmother was fanatical about mental arithmetic. She was very

Presbyterian, so gambling was a big no-no, but she had the only TV in our family so on Saturday I would watch the racing with her.

“We would pretend to bet – half a crown each-way at 100-8 comes third, what’s the returns?

“She had a metal ruler for sewing and I would get whacked, so I had to be fast. It was a very smart way to teach you mental arithmetic, but she inadvertently hooked me on horseracing.

“I became as interested in the thoroughbreds as I was in the maths. I became addicted listening to Peter Bromley and Peter O’Sullevan and became fascinated with the horses themselves.”

By the time he was 14-years-old, Hay was chalking the board in his local bookies.

“I would be in there at half past seven on a Saturday morning writing up all the first races,” he says. “Only the bookmaker and I could hear the commentary so I would then chalk up the odds.

“Around half past two, the pub emptied, and they all came in to drink in the bookies. If the favourite got beat, you had to dodge the bottles!

“At the end of the day I would help the bookie settle up. I could have become a bookmaker but my mother [also Mary] frowned upon that idea so I was very carefully steered away from it.”

It probably didn’t need his mother’s intervention. Hay insists he has always been “more comfortable on the other side of the rails”, adding: “It has always been a great intellectual competition for me, trying to outwit the bookmakers.”

It was a challenge he took extremely seriously.

“By the time I was in my teens, I was reading everything that Phil Bull was writing about in Timeform,” Hay says. “He ››

The Big Interview

›› hooked me on the mathematical idea about form and how you could outsmart the bookmaker.

“I couldn’t afford a Timeform Black Book apart from the one they produced just before Royal Ascot.

“I would save up for that one and then use it, updating the ratings every day from the results. I had managed to work out how Bull produced the ratings, so as long as I got the times, distances and weights I could update them. I basically had my own Timeform Black Book

“When I was gambling seriously before we owned horses, if I was going to have a serious bet, I would be looking at the form the night before and then be up at 5am in the morning if I had to make a decision by 11am.

“I would spend six hours on one race. I made it pay. When I was doing it properly my strike-rate was 40 per cent.

“Winning races now [as an owner] is a big enough thrill but I still do bet on them. I am superstitious. If I don’t think they are going to win, who will believe in them?”

Hay has always had belief in Khaadem, the eight-year-old gelding he bought from Shadwell.

His 2023 Royal Ascot win, at odds of 801, in the hands of trusted ally Jamie Spencer was sweet but Hay seemed to get even more satisfaction from this year’s victory, this time under Oisin Murphy.

“I was interviewed for TV and said, ‘Do not ignore this horse. He loves Ascot and will love the firm ground. He is amazingly talented when he wants to be,’” Hay says.

“It was very satisfying to win it again despite the pundits saying he was not a Group 1 horse. These are the days you remember.”

The 20-1 victory of Andrew Balding’s Here Comes When in the 2017 Sussex Stakes, run in monsoon-like conditions at Glorious Goodwood, makes Hay smile –“We knew he would be in the first three because he loved running in a bog and he was 80-1 in the morning!” – but perhaps the sweetest memory of all was Fame And Glory’s Gold Cup win.

He says: “That day we were in the royal procession with the Queen and had lunch at Windsor Castle.

“She was over the moon because we were the first guests of the monarch whose horse had won the race.

“My wife is incredibly competitive and believes a good loser is an oxymoron. There is no such thing – the jockeys and trainers are acutely aware of this. It is not an easy day for them at Ascot or Goodwood because there is huge pressure – they know how important these races are to my wife.”

The purchase of a half-share in Fame

Big hopes at home and overseas

Dr Jim Hay and wife Fitri hope that in juvenile Wolf Of Badenoch they have bred a horse that can ensure their continued participation in Britain’s top races.

The Hugo Palmer-trained son of first-season sire Pinatubo, who is out of the Hays’ dual winning mare Miss Latin, was a striking winner of a seven-furlong Doncaster maiden in June under Jamie Spencer and has already been handed Group 1 race entries.

Hay says: “Hugo had told me he was potentially good. It is early days, but he was very relaxed. Jamie thinks he is a bit special and said he went ‘whoosh’ at Doncaster.”

Wolf Of Badenoch is one of 25 two-year-olds the Hays have in Britain, almost half of them homebred.

In all they have around 50 Flat horses in training in Britain, including Nunthorpe Stakes possible Starlust, which have run for ten different trainers this year, plus a small team of jump horses.

The Derby remains the race Hay would love to win most of all, but in an effort to make an impact in dirt races like the Dubai World Cup, Hay, advised by Alex Cole, has been working on a plan.

He explains: “We have invested quite heavily in [stallions] Justify and Gun Runner and they don’t come cheap.

“The turf horses we have in the US tend to go to Graham Motion and we have [2022 Man O’War Stakes winner] Highland Chief with him. But the dirt-bred ones go to Wesley Ward and we have ten with him at the minute.”

Hay credits “walking pedigree book” Cole with the execution of last season’s plan to purchase Ancient Rome, a son of War Front. Bought out of the Andre Fabre stable, he was successfully targeted at the Mint Millions Stakes at Kentucky Downs last September. Because Ancient Rome is a Kentucky-bred, the $1m first prize was doubled.

The Charlie Hills-trained five-year-old, who was second in the Group 2 Summer Mile at Ascot on July 13, is booked in for another shot at the Kentucky prize next month.

And Glory came through his association with Coolmore.

A similar arrangement that year with Cape Blanco resulted in three top-level successes in the US, including the Man O’War Stakes and Arlington Million, while Deauville, a 50-50 share product of Coolmore’s Galileo and the Hays’ mare Walklikeanegyptian, won the 2016 Grade 1 Belmont Derby Invitational Stakes.

Hay adds: “I have always been associated with Coolmore and they have been incredibly supportive and kind to us. Some of our best mares were sold to me by Paul Shanahan. We take a lot of advice from him and MV [Magnier] and John himself.

“Our relationship has been going for 15 years – and it will keep going.”

The same can confidently be said of the Hay racing empire.

Royal Ascot handicap victor Highland Chief became a Grade 1 winner in the USA

Covering all BASES

The recent deeds of City Of Troy and Shareholder have brought their sires Justify and Not This Time into sharper focus – but they are not the only Kentucky stallions with something to offer Europe

Words: Nancy Sexton

There’s no doubt that the thoroughbred is more versatile than we give it credit for. It’s a rich part of racing lore how John Magnier, Vincent O’Brien and Robert Sangster originally tapped into the American yearling market to source ‘baby stallions’, coming away with the likes of The Minstrel, Storm Bird and El Gran Senor in the process. For all the brilliance of Nijinsky, the first to bring Northern Dancer to attention in Europe when sent out by O’Brien to win the Triple Crown in 1970, it was still initially a gamble.

Northern Dancer was a dirt runner through and through, as had been his sire Nearctic and damsire Native Dancer before him. But European horses such as Nearco, Hyperion and Mahmoud also weaved in and out of his pedigree, and as the Magnier triumvirate and then the Maktoum family went to great lengths to bring his stock back to Europe, it didn’t take long for Northern Dancer to also prove himself as a sire of elite turf horses and become a global force. There continues to be good crossAtlantic trade today but it remains very much the domain of some of the larger operations and the European breeze-up community. Yet if results from recent weeks have taught us anything, then disregard some of the current American

stallions at your peril. Granted, a line descending from a horse like A.P. Indy is always likely to be most at home on dirt. However, there are plenty of other dirt runners, notably Justify and Not This Time to go with the veterans Medaglia d’Oro, Quality Road and War Front, who are capable of bridging the divide.

Triple Crown winner Justify owes much of his global prominence to the belief of Coolmore, who ensured he received a number of high-performing and well-bred European mares in his early books while attracting a similar base of domestic dirt types at its Ashford Stud in Kentucky.

“Justify owes his global prominence to the belief of Coolmore”

Justify was a big, powerful dirt runner but he is, after all, a son of Scat Daddy and therefore goes back to Storm Bird. Scat Daddy, in particular, was quick to develop into an influence for all jurisdictions, with his early status as the ‘Galileo of Chile’ swiftly complemented by a raft of top-flight winners in the US and Europe.

Justify had raced for a partnership that included WinStar Farm but ultimately it was to Coolmore’s Ashford Stud, already by then home to another Triple Crown winner in American Pharoah, that he retired in 2019 at an opening fee of $150,000. Coolmore were quick to gamble on his ability to become effective with turf mares by sending him the likes of

Ballydoyle, Brave Anna, Clemmie, Gagnoa, Immortal Verse, Together Forever and Virginia Waters in his first season and Alice Springs, Liscanna, Maryinsky, Misty For Me, Roly Poly, Silk And Scarlet, Wedding Vow and Winter alongside returns for Brave Anna, Clemmie, Gagnoa and Together Forever in his second.

It’s quite a group of mares and was a move that showed signs of paying off early on when Aidan O’Brien sent out Statuette, the filly out of Immortal Verse, to win the Group 2 Airlie Stud Stakes on her second start in June 2022.

By the end of that July, there had also been a Saratoga highlight in the Grade 2 Schuylerville Stakes winner Just Cindy while back in Ireland, Aspen Grove won

Justify: his runners are winning on dirt and turf

the Group 3 Newtownanner Stud Stakes. Thus the foundations for the versatility that we’re seeing now from Justify were laid early on, which was further underlined when his first two Australian crops yielded the Group 2-winning two-year-olds Learning To Fly and Storm Boy.

It hasn’t always been plain sailing. Strangely, there was a spell between early March and mid-June last year when there was just the one stakes winner in the Northern Hemisphere – and a non-Graded one at that in Wonderful Justice. But then the breakthrough arrived on a major stage when Arabian Lion ran away with the Grade 1 Woody Stephens Stakes on dirt and not long after that, Aspen Grove won the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks on turf.

Of course, the best was still to come by that stage in City Of Troy. Out of Together Forever and a brilliant unbeatan twoyear-old for Aidan O’Brien, City Of Troy became the first American-sired winner of the Derby since Kris Kin (by Kris S) in 2003 when putting a dismal performance in the 2,000 Guineas behind him with a highly impressive display at Epsom.

A workmanlike winner of the Eclipse Stakes in July, there remains the sense that connections are still keen to tap into the Justify angle and try him on dirt. As it is, his presence consolidates Justify’s place as one of the world’s most important stallions, especially as he sits within a powerful second crop that also contains Prix Marcel Boussac

winner Opera Singer, Classic-placed filly Ramatuelle and last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf heroine Hard To Justify. Another daughter, Just F Y I, won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on dirt.

City Of Troy is also further evidence of how – crucially for Coolmore – his sire clicks with Galileo, being one of five stakes winners bred on the cross.

Justify was understandably a very busy stallion at Ashford this season, where he stood for a private fee rumoured to be in the region of $300,000.

‘Prevail on any surface’

Like Justify, American Pharoah was an American Triple Crown winner for Bob Baffert, in his case the first since Affirmed

City Of Troy: Derby hero has been key in promoting Justify as a cross-Atlantic success

BILL SELWYN

››

US stallions

some 37 years before. Despite his dirt profile, he’s been quick to forge a fine reputation as a source of turf runners and on an international scale. Harvey’s Lil Goil, Marketsegmentation and As Time Goes By are Grade 1 winners on turf in the US, Riff Rocket won last season’s Group 1 Victoria Derby, Australian Derby and Rosehill Guineas in Australia and Van Gogh won the Criterium International for Aidan O’Brien.

The horse’s racing owner Ahmed Zayat once shed some light on how such an affinity for the turf could develop in an article with the Blood-Horse. “John Magnier asked Bob Baffert if American Pharoah could [run on] turf, and Bob told them, ‘He can do anything’,” said Zayat. “That’s why they sent so many turf mares to him. We always felt he would prevail on any surface.”

Now 12, the son of Pioneerof The Nile stood the past season for $50,000.

Away from the Triple Crown winners, Coolmore’s Ashford roster offers several other interesting options for European eyes. Munnings ($75,000) has long worked on both surfaces, in keeping with the Speightstown and Gone West sire line, while Uncle Mo ($150,000), a rare representative of the Grey Sovereign sire line but via In Excess, remains one

of the most consistent sources of topflight performers in the US, his 16 Grade 1 winners including the likes of Kentucky Derby hero Nyquist (himself sire of Queen Mary Stakes winner Crimson Advocate) and Belmont Stakes winner Mo Donegal.

He’s primarily a dirt influence but he’s not without his turf representatives either, as Grade 1 winners Golden Pal and Mo Town illustrate. He’s also an effective sire of sires while he’s worth keeping an eye on as a damsire given his early representatives in that department include this year’s Grade 1 winners Muth and Thorpedo Anna.

Claiborne gems

It was back in 1926 that Arthur Hancock imported Sir Gallahad from France to stand at his Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky. Bought for $125,000, the son of Teddy sired 1930 Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox out of his first American crop and in the years that followed, the Hancock family successfully repeated the trick with Blenheim, imported in 1941, and Nasrullah, who was acquired by Hancock’s son Arthur ‘Bull’ in 1950.

Since then, the availability of a blend of dirt and turf lines have been a cornerstone of the Claiborne Farm roster. Today it remains underpinned by the veteran

Not This Time: son of Giant’s Causeway has risen to become one of the world’s leading sires

War Front, the source of European Group 1 winners such as Air Force Blue, Brave Anna, Declaration Of War and War Command, but Blame also remains popular, especially in light of his growing prowess as a broodmare sire, while the likes of Demarchelier, First Samurai and Annapolis also appeal as value options.

“My great-grandfather and grandfather imported stallions from Europe,” says Claiborne Farm President Walker Hancock. “That’s what we became known for then and it’s great to see some of our stallions continue that transatlantic influence.

“War Front is doing fantastic. He doesn’t look a day over 15 years. We’ve always managed his book and he doesn’t breed as many mares as he used to but his fertility is holding strong. When they get to this age [22], you’re holding your breath but he was just as good this year as he ever was.”

War Front’s year so far includes five stakes winners including the Grade 3 scorers First World War, Fort Washington and Goliad. Two-year-old Bullet, who is unbeaten in two starts, also looks exciting.

Hancock says: “He can still produce a top-level horse. He remains the leading active sire by stakes horses and stakes winners and he has sons standing all over the world. I think there are 23 sons of

US stallions

his who have produced stakes winners, which is pretty incredible. We’re proud of him for many reasons but particularly for his influence on an international scale. His legacy will not only continue here in America but globally as well.”

One name on the cusp of becoming his 24th stakes-producing sire-son if early results are anything to go by is Claiborne’s War Of Will ($25,000). The former European breezer was very versatile himself, winning the Preakness Stakes on dirt and Maker’s Mark Mile on turf, and has already been represented by the stakesplaced juveniles Garden Of War and My Emmy out of his first crop.

“War Of Will has every right to continue that War Front legacy,” says Hancock. “Some of the trainers are saying they want to run a little bit further and those types of races will start to be written out for two-year-olds shortly.

“He’s big for a War Front – he’s a War Front with more leg and substance – and a lot of his offspring have that size as well, so they should be better as they get older. They’re nice horses and those stakes-placed two-year-olds have run some pretty good numbers so they’re something to look forward to when they run again.”

Richard Fahey and George Scott are among the trainers in this part of the world with War Of Will two-year-olds in their care.

Claiborne added another Grade 1winning son of War Front earlier this season in Annapolis ($12,500), the Bass family’s homebred winner of the Coolmore Turf Mile at Keeneland.

“Annapolis came to us only in the middle of January and ended up covering 150 mares,” says Hancock. “He’s a gorgeous horse from a prolific dirt family. The Bass family sent him some lovely mares that could have gone to any stallion in Kentucky and because of that investment and belief in him, outside breeders gained the confidence to support him as well. So he’s going to have a huge chance of making it.”

Another young inmate, Silver State ($15,000), gained his Grade 1 victory in the 2021 Metropolitan Mile on dirt but as a son of Hard Spun, could well end up working on both surfaces. He has first yearlings this year.

At the other end of the age spectrum, veterans Blame and First Samurai ($7,500) have also long served as fine dual-surface stallions. Blame ($25,000) in particular has enjoyed something of a resurgence recently as the market becomes more cognisant of his potential as a broodmare sire, a record that so

far comprises 19 stakes winners led by champion Forte. A welcome outlet of the Roberto sire line, his own stud record also boasts an eclectic collection of topflight winners highlighted by last year’s Kentucky Oaks heroine Wet Paint and the Niarchos’ homebred Prix de Diane heroine Senga.

“Blame has a couple of nice horses in France at the moment in [Listed winners] Ribaltagaia and Sibayan,” says Hancock. “The Aga Khan [owner-breeder of Sibayan] has always used him and done well with him.”

He adds of the horse who famously defeated Zenyatta in the Breeders’ Cup Classic: “Blame had a decent start at stud but people got off him because he didn’t probably live up to their initial high expectations. But now people are realising how good his fillies are – not that his colts are too shabby. However, his fillies are exceptional and they’re looking very good

“There’s a lot of pretty cool dynamics within Not This Time’s pedigree”

as broodmares. Actually, he’s the leading active sire by AEI [average earnings index on 1.84] right now ahead of some really prominent broodmare sires. And he’s still a young horse at 18 by their standards.

“First Samurai has unfortunately suffered from the commercial market being an older stallion. But he’s rock-solid and we still use him plenty.”

Now is the time

If there’s one stallion with the potential to join Justify in changing the dynamic of the cross-Atlantic divide in the short term then it’s Taylor Made Stallions’ Not This Time

The son of Giant’s Causeway was thrust into the European spotlight at Royal Ascot as the sire of Norfolk Stakes victor Shareholder. However, in American racing circles he has been on the rise for some time as one of the most versatile and potentially elite stallions of his time.

A snapshot of his versatility can be gleaned from the fact that out of five crops of racing age, he is the sire of 35 stakes winners ranging from a top dirt two-year-old in Princess Noor, a champion

three-year-old on dirt in Epicenter, an older champion on turf in Up To The Mark and Grade 1-winning sprinter Cogburn, who recently earned the moniker of ‘fastest horse in the world’ when clocking 59.80 over 51⁄2 furlongs for his victory in the Grade 1 Jaipur Handicap on turf.

None of the above were sired at a fee of greater than $15,000, which means the stallion has offered a helping hand to many smaller breeders. Indeed, Shareholder hails from the season that his fee was raised to $40,000; it currently sits at a career-high of $150,000.

“We’re very lucky and fortunate to have what could be in time one of the best stallions in the world,” says Travis White, Director of Stallions at Taylor Made Stallions. “It’s his versatility that sets him apart. And we’re all hoping that as the quality of his mares rises, the results on the track and success will follow that.”

Not This Time covered a full book of 191 mares this season, several belonging to some of the larger European outfits including Imad Alsagar’s Blue Diamond Stud.

“He’s such a good breeder, he can cover his fair share of mares,” says White. “We picked up some European and Japanese interest, including some breeders who hadn’t bred to the horse previously. He’s a predominantly dirt stallion but he’s also offering an opportunity to some of those good turf-type mares – in years past, those powerhouse operations may have taken those types back over to Europe.”

Campaigned by the Albaugh Family Stable, Not This Time was an accomplished dirt performer himself during his sole season of racing for Dale Romans, running second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in which he suffered a career-ending soft tissue injury. However, as a son of Giant’s Causeway, there was always the possibility that he could work as a stallion on both surfaces. He also belongs to a highly successful female family that owes much of its former cultivation to John Nerud and Tartan Farms, the combination behind the iconic 1960s American runner Dr Fager.

“There’s a lot of pretty cool dynamics within his pedigree,” says White. “With Giant’s Causeway, you have that versatility, soundness and will to win. And on the bottom side of his pedigree, you have that speed. Physically, he’s also tremendous. I remember watching him train one day and the way he got over the ground was effortless.”

He adds: “The Albaugh family have been great to work with. They’ve supported him heavily from the beginning ››

and tried to find the best stock by him at the sales. And we have a really good base of shareholders in the horse too.

“He was at the right price point initially and he also gets a good sales horse. Because of that, he got good early support from some very successful commercial breeders and that helped him get off to the right start. And what is so good is that he’s made a lot of people money every step of the way, from the people who bred to him to those who pinhooked his progeny. There’s a lot of people who have benefitted from his success.”

Next year, there will be at least three sons of Not This Time at stud in Kentucky following the announcement that Cogburn is to retire to WinStar Farm. Ashford already stands Epicenter, who covered 262 mares in his first season last year, while Lane’s End Farm welcomed Up To The Mark to its roster this spring. Up To The Mark’s championship four-year-old season consisted of a trio of turf Grade 1 wins as well as a runner-up effort to Auguste Rodin in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, and he was reportedly extremely popular at his opening fee of $25,000 this season.

Award-winning stats

By the statistics, ignore Mill Ridge Farm’s Oscar Performance at your peril. Increasingly a worthy heir to his sire Kitten’s Joy, he is a top-five American third-crop sire by earnings but is top of the class by number of Graded stakes winners (four) and percentage of blacktype winners to runners (6.4%), both figures which trump even Justify.

Oscar Performance ran free of Lasix in a career that featured eight wins, including the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at two, Belmont Derby Invitational and Secretariat Stakes at three and Woodbine Mile at four. Upon his retirement to stud in 2019, he was launched with the backing of a syndicate that included his breeders John and Jerry Amerman, George Strawbridge, the Coolmore-affiliated Orpendale, Glennwood Farm and Mike Ryan.

Now he is rewarding that support with a roll call that includes turf runners Trikari, recent winner of the Grade 1 Belmont Derby Invitational, and current Grade 3 scorer Endlessly. There is also a high-class dirt filly in Red Carpet Ready, last year’s winner of the Grade 2 Eight Belles Stakes.

Oscar Performance covered a careerhigh of 160 mares at $20,000 last season and was fully booked again this year.

“We ended up with 169 mares,” says Price Bell of Mill Ridge Farm. “We got a bit of a flurry at the end and there were some really nice mares in there. It was hard as we had to say no to a lot of people.

“He started the year at $25,000 and in mid-March we moved to $35,000 off demand, and even then it didn’t slow down.

“We’ve had a really good shareholder base supporting him throughout. Conformationally, he’s very correct and has always thrown an attractive horse. But people still didn’t really know what to think. They thought he was going to be a turf horse – so you didn’t really have any of the American two-year-old pinhook market on him to begin with.”

Recent results, headlined by Red Carpet Ready and Grade 3 winner Tumbarumba, are changing that perception.

“Last year he started getting more dirt-type mares,” says Bell. “Physically, he’s pretty straight in his hind leg which helps them get over the dirt better – I think his physical type has been helpful for that.

“What makes me really excited is that he’s moving his mares up – Endlessly’s dam was looking exposed and Trikari’s mother was the same. And trainers like them. People like Graham Motion and Brian Lynch rave about them because they all try.”

On the rise

Also worthy of a second look from a statistical view is Airdrie Stud’s Collected ($10,000), whose black-type winners to runners ratio sits at 4.1 per cent. A Grade 1 winner on dirt, Collected is a son of the versatile City Zip and his own first crop, now four-year-olds, include a pair of grass Grade 2 winners in Kalik and Conclude.

Spendthrift Farm’s Bolt d’Oro ($60,000) was another to underline his versatility from an early point, an attribute in keeping with his sire Medaglia d’Oro. His first two-year-olds were quick out of the blocks to the point that he actually ended 2022 as America’s leading first-crop sire ahead of Justify. To date, he is the sire of 11 black-type winners ranging from last season’s Grade 1-winning two-year-old Tamara to the Jessica Harrington-trained Irish Group 3 winner Bold Discovery.

Darley’s Hard Spun ($35,000) remains a consistent yet underrated source of winners. Now 20, he has 15 Group/Grade 1 winners to his credit including the top turf filly Hard Not To Like.

Underrated could also be applied to Karakontie, a great-grandson of Miesque and an exceptional miler himself for the Niarchos family who stands for $15,000 at Gainesway Farm. Although supported throughout by his connections, none of his crops of racing age hold the numerical weight of some of his contemporaries. Yet the son of Bernstein has sired three very accomplished turf fillies in She Feels Pretty, Spendarella and Princess Grace, all of whom are proven Grade 1 performers, as well as British Group 3 winner Kenzai Warrior.

Within the same price bracket, the Storm Cat sire line is also responsible for Kantharos, a member of the Tale Of The Cat branch who stands at Hill ’n’ Dale Farm. A speed influence, his turf resume contains the Grade 2 winners Bucchero – himself now a successful sire – Ancient Secret and Lady Grace.

Oscar Performance pictured with Mill Ridge Farm’s Headley Bell (centre) and son Price

# 1 Graded Stakes Winners

Over ALL SIRES

by % of starters in 2024 and 100 + named foals

Including: Into Mischief, Curlin, Gun Runner, Quality Road, Justify and on …

Mill Ridge thanks the breeders and shareholders for their support this year.

Contact: Kim Poulin . ph: 859.231.0606 . kpoulin@millridge.com Fee: $35,000 LF

Kitten’s Joy –Devine Actress, by Theatrical (IRE)

US stallions

Value hunting

Demarchelier ($7,500) looked a Grade 1 winner in waiting when suffering a career-ending injury in the 2019 Belmont Derby Invitational. Peter Brant’s colt, a yearling purchase from Newsells Park Stud as a Tattersalls October Book 1 yearling, had rattled off three consecutive victories, culminating in the Grade 3 Pennine Ridge Stakes at Belmont Park. That saw him go off favourite for the Belmont Derby, his first step into Grade 1 company, but he took a bad step and was pulled up with an injury that necessitated his retirement.

An inexpensive turf horse is hard to market in Kentucky but Demarchelier has at least got the backing of Brant and Claiborne Farm. He’s also in possession of a serious pedigree being a Dubawi grandson of blue hen Jude.

Installed initially at $5,000, Demarchelier has made an eye-catching start as the sire of four first-crop blacktype performers including Brant’s classy French colt De Sica.

“Demarchelier is holding his own in a tough marketplace,” says Walker Hancock (pictured), President of Claiborne Farm. “Peter Brant sent a few mares in his first and second year. But the horse has never bred a huge book so he’s doing well for the limited numbers that he’s had.

“He’s great if you’re breeding to race. We’ve had a couple of breeders use him this year because they want to breed on the turf, and he certainly fits that bill.

“It’s so hard to bring European stallions over here. So we figured perhaps we can bring them to American breeders if they’re homegrown. Hopefully people will realise that this horse is doing well and give him a chance.

“The commercial market is unfortunately lagging behind the reality, which is that turf racing in America is increasing in popularity and the purses are astronomical, especially at places like Kentucky Downs. Hopefully the commercial market will start to follow suit and people will realise that the turf cheques cash just as well as the dirt cheques! Once they realise that, perhaps we can have some more turf-type sires here.

“We are seeing a change – Up To The Mark has just finished his first season at

Lane’s End and he was popular. So it will be interesting to see what happens.”

Another horse who is doing particularly well in light of limited opportunities is Airdrie Stud’s Divisidero

Despite a race record underpinned by durability and class, in which he won the Grade 1 Churchill Downs Turf Classic and over $1.6 million, Divisidero has just 28 foals in his first crop of three-year-olds. Yet two of them, Vote No and Abrumar, are already stakes winners. Divisidero has just 15 two-year-olds and 12 yearlings on the ground but his start at stud, race record and pedigree – by Kitten’s Joy, he’s from the extended female family of Northern Dancer and Danehill – should make him of interest, especially at his current fee of $5,000.

Also at $5,000 is Coolmore’s Grade 1 winner Mo Town, a Graded stakes scorer on both turf and dirt whose first two crops contain ten stakes winners, five of them at Graded stakes level. Mo Town, as a son of the Grey Sovereign-line horse Uncle Mo, offers something a little bit different as far as background

Similarly, there are also several value representatives of the Roberto sire line, blood which has long been renowned for its durability.

The Dynaformer horse Temple City can be used at Spendthrift Farm for just $5,000 despite a record headlined

by the Grade 1 winners Annals Of Time, Bolo and Miss Temple City. He will turn 20 next year but luckily several younger representatives of the same line are also coming through in Preservationist and Instilled Regard, both Grade 1-winning sons of Arch who have made bright starts to their fledgling careers.

Airdrie Stud’s Preservationist, who stands for just $5,000, came into his own as an older horse, winning the Grade 1 Woodward Stakes as a six-year-old. However, his first crop of three-year-olds already contain three stakes winners led by the recent Grade 3 Peter Pan Stakes scorer Antiquarian.

Instilled Regard, who stands at Taylor Made Stallions with the backing of his owner Larry Best of OXO Equine for $7,500, was also a Grade 1 winner as an older horse, so it bodes well that he is already the sire of three winners from his first four runners.

Like Demarchelier, Grade 1-winning miler Raging Bull ($10,000) will also benefit from the backing of Peter Brant, in his case at Gainesway Farm. The son of Dark Angel was a tough horse, winning the Maker’s Mark Mile, Hollywood Derby and Shoemaker Mile. His first crop, now yearlings, have sold for up to $100,000.

A European flavour is also added by War Horse Place’s Sacred Life, a son of Siyouni who stands for just $2,000. Unbeaten in three starts at two in France, when his successes included the Group 3 Prix Thomas Bryon, he was also a Grade 3 winner and Grade 1-placed as an older horse in the US. Overall, this tough horse won eight of 27 starts and his first crop are foals this year.

Raging Bull: top miling son of Dark Angel stands at Gainesway Farm SUSIE

Summer sales Time for ACTION

It’s that time of year when the circuit swings into yearling season and with the Arqana August, Goffs Premier and Tattersalls Somerville Sales on the horizon, there’s plenty for buyers to peruse

Words: James Thomas

Deauville becomes the centre of the bloodstock universe when the Arqana August Sale raises the curtain on the European yearling auction circuit.

The catalogue for the three-day event, which begins on August 16, contains 325 blue chip lots from some of France’s biggest and best breeders, as well as a select few from further afield in Britain, Germany and Ireland.

Ecurie des Monceaux, which is situated approximately 35 kilometres away from the sales ring, is very much the dominant force at this sale.

The farm reached the pinnacle of thoroughbred breeding in 2020 when the homebred Sottsass claimed the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. The purple patch has continued in the years since

with Monceaux’s Group 1-winning roll of honour receiving additions such as Ancient Wisdom, Angel Bleu, Feed The Flame, Mangoustine, Paddington and Sea La Rosa.

That racecourse success has translated into some sensational results in the Arqana ring. At last year’s August Sale, Monceaux sold 34 yearlings for receipts totalling €15,590,000 and an average price of €458,530. Not only are they personal bests for Monceaux, but to illustrate the farm’s influence on the sale, those statistics meant the draft accounted for a massive 28 per cent of turnover from 14 per cent of sold lots.

Moreover, Monceaux has been the leading consignor by aggregate sales in each of the 12 years since 2012. The pedigrees within this year’s consignment not only makes it seem highly likely they will maintain that market leading status, but that further Group 1 success looks a distinct possibility.

Monceaux Director Henri Bozo rates one of the coolest customers on the sales ground, but admits the pressure to deliver is most firmly on.

“Obviously for us breeders it’s a unique situation to think that you’re doing 80 per cent of your annual turnover within three days of sales,” he says. “Of course there’s a bit of stress for everyone involved, including the staff, but we’re getting used to it and it’s always something we look forward to. It’s a bit like an exam to see if you have worked well during the year.

“Deauville is a special place and it’s

close by for us; everybody enjoys going there, so it’s a nice area to hopefully pass your exams!”

Bozo stresses that the sales ring is just one step in the process of producing racehorses. Despite the challenges involved in raising and preparing young thoroughbreds for sale, he says the pressure he feels at auction pales in comparison to what he experiences on the racecourse.

“It would be a lie to say there is no stress, but you just manage it as best you can,” he says. “We’re dealing with very lively animals so we have to cope with that every day and make sure we keep our horses safe. It’s not only about keeping them safe, but letting them live life in a natural environment. That’s because the goal is not the sales, the goal is to perform after the sales. That

Henri Bozo: looking ahead to another big week in the Arqana sales ring (above)

is what’s important if you want clients to come back each year.

“I take the pressure of the sales much better than I do at the races. At the sales you know you have done all you can so then it is up to the buyers whether they like your horses or not. But there’s not much you can do as a breeder during those big race days. You’re just a spectator.”

Monceaux’s draft contains 39 blue-blooded yearlings, the vast majority of which are by elite level stallions, including four of the ten most expensive sires standing in 2024. There are four lots by Dubawi, three by Frankel, ten by Siyouni and six by Wootton Bassett.

“Our draft is mainly proven stallions,” says Bozo. “Between Wootton Bassett, Justify, Dubawi, Frankel,

Starspangledbanner, Night Of Thunder, New Bay, Zarak, Too Darn Hot and Dark Angel, we try to use proven stallions as much as we can. It’s mainly

“It’s a bit like an exam to see if you have worked well during the year”

proven mares too. We’ve got 12 in the catalogue who have produced stakes winners, Group or Group 1 winners.

“We also have some exciting young mares. Every year we try to buy five or six from the best possible families – at Monceaux we trust in pedigrees – and I’m a big believer that quality always comes back. Even if it’s under the third dam.”

Among the eye-catchers on paper is Lot 144, the Dubawi colt out of Prix Minerve winner Golden Valentine. The youngster is a sibling to three winners, most notably his full-brother Ancient Wisdom, who sold to Godolphin for €2,000,000 in 2022 before winning the following year’s Group 1 Futurity Trophy. The May foal has one notable difference to his brother, as he has inherited his dam’s grey colouring.

“They have the same quality but this colt was born late so he’s still a baby,” says Bozo. “But he’s still got a

Summer sales

›› lot of quality and a lot of power, and you know he’s going to be a strong individual when the time comes. Dubawi has been amazing and we’re fortunate to have been able to use him so often. He has been an outstanding stallion, so to have four of his yearlings is a privilege.”

Siyouni also figures prominently in the draft, and there is little wonder that Monceaux are so firmly behind the Haras de Bonneval stallion. They bred Arc hero Sottsass by sending the starcrossed Starlet’s Sister to Siyouni in 2015, and repeated the mating in 2020 to breed Shin Emperor, who won the Grade 3 Kyoto Nisai Stakes at two and also ran third in this year’s Japanese Derby for trainer Yoshito Yahagi.

Monceaux also raised and sold Siyouni’s four-time Group 1-winning son Paddington, as well as breeding the stallion’s most expensive offspring, Seattle, who sold to MV Magnier and White Birch Farm for €2.2 million at last year’s August Sale. The full-sister to Seattle is among this year’s draft (162).

“Siyouni has been an amazing asset for France,” says Bozo. “He’s an outstanding stallion and he’s able to throw a lot of class, a lot of power and a turn of foot into his progeny. He has a lot of quality and muscle, so he suits our mares, which are mainly Classic types. He’s a stallion that we have a lot of trust in and respect for, so we haven’t been shy about using him.”

The Monceaux draft also contains three members of St Mark’s Basilica’s debut crop, including a particularly well-bred filly from Monceaux’s signature family.

“I was very impressed with the stallion himself,” says Bozo. “He’s a beautiful individual, he was a champion at two and three, won the French Derby, which is a stallion-making race, he’s by Siyouni and out of a Galileo mare. There’s plenty in his profile that we really appreciate. We sent him some very good mares and I think we’ve been rewarded because we have some very nice yearlings.”

The filly out of Prudenzia (270) is a half-sister to eight winners, with her five black-type siblings including Irish Oaks heroine Chicquita, now the dam of Group 2 winner Emily Dickinson, Mackinnon Stakes scorer Magic Wand

More ‘Donny rockets’ primed for liftoff

Buyers will be spoilt for choice at the Doncaster Premier Yearling Sale, with Goffs presenting an expanded catalogue of 480 lots.

Last year’s sale has already produced the usual slew of stakes performers, including Windsor Castle Stakes winner Ain’t Nobody, Marble Hill Stakes victor Arizona Blaze and Premio Primi Passi scorer Korisa. They join a roll of honour that has received other recent additions such as Brave Emperor, Fev Rover, Isaac Shelby, Jasour, Seven Questions, Sacred Angel, Shouldvebeenaring and Washington Heights.

“We believe there’s an increase in terms of quality and quantity,” says Goffs UK Managing Director Tim Kent. “We’re well aware that vendors have got behind us and entrusted us with some smart horses. And not just one or two but significant numbers of smart yearlings. It helped that we had 28 horses make £100,000 or more last year, and those 28 were bought by 23 different buyers.

“There was a wide buying bench at that top level – vendors noticed that trend and are sending us better horses because of it. On top of that, we’ve had plenty of winners who haven’t cost six-figure sums, there’ve been plenty of smart winners bought for reasonable money, and that just goes to show that there’s something there for buyers at all levels. We’re very excited by the catalogue and we’re looking forward to promoting it to buyers from far and wide in the coming weeks.”

Newsells Park Stud returns to Doncaster with an eye-catching four-strong draft, including a filly by the farm’s first-crop sire A’Ali. Ballyphilip Stud is also back in business in Doncaster, and Paul McCartan’s

and Prix Penelope winner Philomene. The filly was bred in partnership with Skymarc Farm, the banner under which the late Lady O’Reilly operated.

“It’s special to sell her as Prudenzia has been the mare that made Monceaux,” says Bozo. “She was bought in partnership with Patricia Boutin and Lady O’Reilly. She means a lot to us and she’s really the example of what has worked for us.

ARQANA/MONCEAUX

ZUZANNA LUPA/AGA KHAN STUDS

Siyouni: sire of 22 lots in August

Ancient Wisdom pictured as a yearling prior to selling for €2 million

quartet includes a colt by his own stallion, Nando Parrado. Barton Stud is bringing a particularly strong draft to Goffs, including a Too Darn Hot half-sister to the Listed-placed Admiral Nelson, who set a Premier Sale record when knocked down to MV Magnier at £440,000 in 2019.

“We’re taking the strongest draft of horses we’ve ever taken to Doncaster,” says Barton’s Managing Director Tom Blain. “I thought last year’s sale was strong and we had some good results. The yearlings we’re taking this year are classic Doncaster types and are proper horses who look like they’ll make early two-year-olds.”

Outlining some of the notable youngsters in the Barton draft, Blain says: “We have a very nice Too Darn Hot filly, she’s a classic Doncaster type; big, strong and with good movement. The Havana Grey [colt out of Two In The Pink] looks very early and is a standout individual, while the Starspangledbanner filly [out of Wish You Well] is very nice and comes from a good German family and her dam is a dual stakes winner.

“It has been such an enjoyable collaboration between Chryss and Monceaux, so it’s sentimental and special to sell this filly.

“If Lady O’Reilly was still with us, and with the mare being old, she would’ve definitely been under consideration to be retained. But the death of Lady O’Reilly means the situation is a bit different.”

Predicting the state of the market

“We’re also consigning the Night Of Thunder colt out of Incharge for Jeff and Phoebe Hobby’s Brightwalton Stud. He’s probably got the best pedigree in the catalogue and the half-sister, Meribella, was a very good two-year-old for Ralph Beckett last year.”

The make and mark of the Doncaster yearling, with physical prowess prioritised over pedigree claims, has meant plenty of miles on the road for the Goffs inspection team.

“Some years ago we slightly moved away from the typical ‘Donny rocket’, but we’ve made a big play to go back to that traditional Donny yearling so purchasers know exactly what they’re going to find when they get to the stable door,” says Kent.

“We’ve been more proactive in the sourcing of horses than we have been in previous years, getting around the farms, chatting to vendors and seeing what they want and what we can do to assist them.

“We can’t choose the horses for this sale by looking at a bit of paper. That means we’ve got to get out and see the

will be an ongoing topic of discussion, at least until the industry has more concrete evidence. However, Bozo says his confidence in Monceaux’s draft, as well as Deauville’s unique charms, gives plenty of cause for optimism.

“The results of the yearling sales in Deauville in the last ten years have been very strong,” he says. “People got value for money, even at the highest level, so I think Deauville has made

horses. There might be yearlings in there that some people would question on pedigree, but I guarantee if you go and see the horse in the flesh, there’s your answer. We’re confident we’ve picked the best ‘Donny’ types. That type of yearling is where this sale started and we need to continue with that model.”

Purchasers will also have the draw of running in Harry’s Half Million at York during the Ebor Festival. The Doncaster sales race has been won by notable names such as Acclamation, Dark Angel, Tasleet and Wootton Bassett, and this year will be worth an increased £500,000.

“There’s £250,000 to the winner and prize-money down to tenth place,” says Kent. “Last year there were just over 200 horses that made the initial entry, so in essence you have a one in 200 chance of winning the first prize of £250,000.

“We’re also working with York racecourse to do a large amount of entertaining and make a real big thing of the occasion. We’d like to focus it towards new owners and syndicates to try and promote ownership and help showcase the wonderful sport that we all enjoy.”

a name for itself internationally. And Arqana have been good at attracting people from different places around the world, America, Australia, the Middle East, everywhere. I’m always an optimistic guy, so I’m not particularly worried about the market.

“We’ve very fortunate to have the sales in Deauville. It’s an outstanding place, whether that’s the quality of life, the scenery, the restaurants, the races. ››

Sam Sangster (third from left) sourced Greenham Stakes winner Isaac Shelby at the Goffs Premier Sale at Doncaster

BILL SELWYN

Summer sales

Somerville continues on upward trajectory

There is arguably no more progressive yearling auction on the European circuit than the Tattersalls Somerville Sale. The event was established when Tattersalls relocated its Ascot Yearling Sale to Park Paddocks in 2021.

Each subsequent renewal of the Somerville has registered significant gains, and that upward trajectory continues this year with the sale expanding to two days for the first time. The catalogue is expected to contain over 450 lots.

“It’s a sale that has taken off quickly and very much captured everyone’s imagination in its short life,” says Tattersalls’ Marketing Director Jimmy George. “Moving up to two days was the logical next step, and reflects the demand we’ve had for places over the last few years, when we’ve sometimes had to redirect people elsewhere.

“We always felt it was the right move to develop this sale in Newmarket, which is obviously the hub for Tattersalls. But even having said that, we’ve been pleasantly surprised by how quickly the Somerville Yearling Sale has impinged on the buying public and become pretty well an unmissable yearling sale for so many people.”

The Somerville Sale has already amassed an enviable roll of honour, particularly for a new sale serving the commercial end of the market. Two top-flight winners have graduated from this event in triple US Grade 1 heroine Anisette and King’s Stand Stakes scorer Bradsell. Arabian Dusk, winner of the Group 2 Duchess of Cambridge Stakes during the July meeting, was sourced at last year’s sale by Mags O’Toole for 80,000gns.

“At this stage the Somerville Yearling Sale has a higher percentage of two-year-old black-type performers in 2024 than any other yearling sale in Europe,” says George. “So it really is punching above its weight. The vendor side is only half the battle because if purchasers are coming to a sale and further down the line they’re scratching their heads and a little bit disappointed, then only one part of the equation has been satisfied.

“The great thing is the buyers are coming to the sale driven by the success in its short history. Obviously a lot of purchasers will also have in the back of their mind the £100,000 Tattersalls Somerville Auction Stakes, which is a great target for a lot of the yearlings that are purchased there.”

Arabian Dusk was sold by Whitsbury Manor Stud and the Harper family’s operation is set to send another strong draft of yearlings this time around.

There is an added international element to this year’s proceedings with Anna Sundstrom’s Coulonces Sales bringing its debut draft over from France, while leading German horseman Philipp Stauffenberg is also consigning

›› The staff at Arqana do a great job at welcoming people and accommodating visitors and not forgetting that people invest in racehorses for pleasure and fun.”

There is, of course, more to the August Sale than merely the Monceaux draft. Other pedigree standouts include

Philipp Stauffenberg: dipping his toe into the Somerville Sale

at the Somerville for the first time.

“The sale is going places,” says Stauffenberg. “When it started at Ascot it was a fairly moderate sale but the quality has improved and the prices have improved, and if you have a yearling who looks like being a good two-yearold this is the place to go.

“If you look into the results, there are some good horses coming out of this sale, including Group 1 winners, so buyers’ faith in the sale has gone up. There are now plenty of positive arguments in favour of taking yearlings to this sale.”

Stauffenberg Bloodstock brings two fillies, namely a daughter of A’Ali and Hoopmalassie, a granddaughter of Casual Look, and a Hello Youmzain half-sister to the Group 3-placed juvenile La Estrellita.

“A’Ali was a very good two-year-old and there’s plenty of good two-year-olds in the pedigree,” says Stauffenberg. “She looks like a two-year-old and her third dam is Casual Look, so it’s a good family.

“I really loved the Hello Youmzain filly when I bought her in France; I think she’s a stunning filly. She looks like a two-year-old, she’s out of a two-year-old winner and the sister is a two-year-old winner and Group-placed. I could have put her in Book 2 but I thought it was worth giving this sale a try, so hopefully these two fillies fit the profile.”

Tattersalls are also hoping the expanded Somerville offering will alleviate some of the pressure during the second week of the October Yearling Sale, which hosts Books 2, 3 and 4.

“At this stage we were aiming to have the first lot in Book 3 beginning with a 5 rather than a 6, which it has done for the last few years,” says George. “That looks like something we’ll attain, which will hopefully be a positive for all concerned.”

the Acclamation half-brother to recent Coventry Stakes winner Rashabar, from Haras de Beaufay (52).

Haras d’Etreham offer a Palace Pier half-brother to Aclaim (58) and a Dubawi colt whose siblings include Bucanero Fuerte, Wooded and last year’s €2.4m top lot (134); Preis von

Europa winner Donjah’s first foal is the Zarak colt being offered by Haras de Montaigu (109); Gestut Ammerland’s final yearling crop includes a Siyouni colt out of Lady Frankel (190); while Coulonces Sales present the first foal, a Frankel colt, out of German Oaks heroine Palmas (250).

BAHRAIN

2024/25 Race Programme

Breeders’ Digest

Nancy Sexton Bloodstock Editor

Ambition of Bahrain further underlined in Newmarket

The expansion of Bahrain’s racing programme is certainly capturing the imagination if the recent horses in training sales are anything to go by, and deservedly so in light of the Kingdom’s increased investment in the sport.

The Bahrain Turf Series is a relatively new concept, having been launched only in 2021, and earlier this year provided the launching pad for one of the season’s stars in Isle Of Jura, whose productive Bahrain campaign for Victorious Racing and trainer George Scott took in wins in the Crown Prince’s Cup and King’s Cup. The gelding has since backed that up by winning the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Last month it was announced that further expansion of Bahrain’s programme was on the cards. The series will now comprise 12 races worth a total of $1 million, with a further $80,000 available in bonuses. It is set to start on the later date of December 20 and will run until March 7, when the feature event is the Listed King’s Cup.

Bahrain’s most valuable race, the Group 2 Bahrain International Trophy, worth $1 million, will be run on November 15. Last year’s renewal provided a popular and noteworthy winner in Spirit Dancer, who had the top-flight performers Above The Curve, Marhaba Ya Sanafi and Nations Pride in behind when successful for ownerbreeder Sir Alex Fergsuon.

It was striking at last month’s Tattersalls July Sale just how the regard for Bahrain’s programme was driving trade. According to company representatives, 12 horses were bought out of the sale by Bahrain-based entities, some of them at high price points with an eye on taking advantage of the lucrative winter prize-money.

Classy three-year-old sprinter Jubilee Walk, the winner of three races for James Ferguson, could well be one of them for the China Horse Club. After buying out partner Qatar Racing on a valuation of 220,000gns, the operation’s representative Matt Houldsworth commented: “We’re going to target Bahrain. We’ll take him around the Middle East and perhaps we’ll go to Dubai as well. We haven’t had runners in

Bahrain before but it’s something we’re keen to do as it’s obviously an emerging part of the world.”

Fresh from developing Isle Of Jura into a Bahrain revelation, George Scott and agent Billy Jackson-Stops were also on the hunt. The pair ultimately came away with City House, a progressivelooking sprinter who cost 180,000gns.

“We enjoyed our time in Bahrain and we were looking for a couple of sprinters,” said Scott. “There is great prize-money in Bahrain and it is great fun.”

Another three-year-old on his way to Bahrain is the 90-rated Soldier’s Empire, who will be trained by Fawzi Nass after changing hands for 180,000gns to Al Mohamediya Racing. Along with the likes of Victorious Racing and KHK Racing, Sheikh Sultan Al Deen bin Mohammed bin Salman Al Khalifa’s Al Mohamediya Racing is of course now a major presence on British tracks, his red, white and gold colours carried by the likes of Golden Horde and Jasour.

This desire to race in Britain and Ireland ties in with the Kingdom’s welcome drive in sponsorship, which was again on show during Newmarket’s July meeting at which the Bahrain Turf Club sponsored the Princess Of Wales’s Stakes, July Stakes and Bahrain Trophy. The Turf Club also sponsors the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown, the showpiece of Irish Champions Weekend in September.

The July Sale also brought the ambition of those racing in Libya into sharper focus. Sky Racing, a Libyanbased syndicate, struck through agent Alessandro Marconi for two of the more desirable lots in Swindon, who cost 175,000gns fresh off his win in a Sandown handicap the weekend before, and the 85-rated Gamekeeper. Libyanbased owner Omar Esmil Ghrghar was also busy as the purchaser of 417,000gns worth of stock, enough to make him the sale’s leading buyer. They included the highly-rated maiden Bad Desire, for whom he paid 150,000gns.

FAREWELL VALDI

The breeze-up community has been rocked to its core with the death of Valdi de Souza, who passed away last month following a freak accident at Grove Stud.

The Brazilian native was a longstanding member of the Grove Stud team having previously ridden with success as a jockey, notably when partnering Rock Of Rochelle to victory in the Listed Blenheim Stakes at the Curragh for trainer Andrew Kinsella in 2007.

De Souza had been working with Brendan and Vanessa Holland at Grove Stud for the past 11 years where his opinion and professionalism as a breezeup jockey earned him the respect of his peers and those on the wider breeze-up circuit. He took great pride in his work and would no doubt have enjoyed the recent promise shown by various Grove graduates, among them Chantilly debut scorer Scandalo.

“It was a privilege for all of us to work with someone who cared so much about his horses, his job and took so much pride in what he did every day,” said Brendan Holland. “He entered racing from school as a boy of 12 in Brazil with the intention of becoming a professional jockey, which he did before relinquishing his licence a few years ago.

“He was inspirational to everyone here as to how he approached his job and the pride he took in it. He was also a great character and would cheer us all up with his laughs.

“I can’t tell you how heartbroken everyone here is at Grove Stud. We will miss Valdi very much.”

TATTERSALLS

Jubilee Walk: could be seen in Bahrain

Sales Circuit • By Carl Evans

Plenty to celebrate despite conservative market

Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale

This iconic sale of unbroken jumping stores reached 50 years with some celebratory highlights in an otherwise conservative market.

A €350,000 top lot and 25 horses (all geldings) reaching a six-figure sum – the best achieved at store auctions this year – meant Tattersalls Ireland could enjoy the occasion with its many well-known vendors and buyers, while acknowledging the exchange of horses through auctions is going through a period of constraint.

In 2022, when trade was running free, the Derby Sale recorded a 93 per cent clearance rate. That tumbled to one of 81 per cent last year and it was clipped two more percentage points at the latest edition. On the plus side that smaller decline suggests the store market is heading towards stabilisation at a lower level, rather than a black hole.

During two days of trading, the figures for turnover, average and median were down for the second year running, with the aggregate achieving just under €14 million, a drop of 13%, the average concluding at €47,841, which was down 11%, and the median being clipped 12 per cent to €38,000. Tattersalls Ireland CEO Simon Kerins summed up the position

when saying: “We observe a market that, while solid, reflects cautious buyer sentiment compared to previous years.”

The power of leading Irish stables and the financial muscle of their clients was apparent at both sessions. On day one, a gelded son of No Risk At All headed the session when selling to Willie Mullins’s buyer Harold Kirk for €175,000.

The vendor was County Cork’s Creighmore Stables, which is the home of Michael O’Brien, a former acolyte of Walter Connors, a renowned buyer and breeder of foals and seller of stores or point-to-pointers through his Sluggara Farm. O’Brien’s success on this occasion was another lesson in how young ambitious people hoping to make a mark in racing and bloodstock are well advised to learn from quality operators in the trade.

If the relationship blooms it can become something more than just employer and employee and become a business partnership. In the case of the No Risk At All gelding, Connors and O’Brien each owned shares in the horse.

If that was a sweet moment for Connors, a much bigger one lay ahead on day two when he offered a Doctor Dino gelded half-brother to five Graded-race winners headed by the Grade 1 trio of Mighty Potter, Brighterdaysahead and Caldwell Potter. The last of that trio sold for a record €740,000 to clients of Paul Nicholls at February’s Andy and Gemma Brown dispersal held by Tattersalls Ireland, which was a blow to his former trainer Gordon Elliott.

Yet talent has a habit of getting up off the floor, and sure enough it was Elliott who will train the latest family member after he headed this sale with a valuation of €350,000, the joint-second highest

Out of star mare Matnie, this collectors’ item by Doctor Dino sold for €350,000

Willie Mullins will train this No Risk At All gelding following his sale for €175,000

price in store sale history. Eddie O’Leary, who represents his brother Michael’s Gigginstown House Stud, made the bid which signalled the end of a contest in which he saw off interest from trainer Emmet Mullins.

The gelding’s dam, Matnie, who is owned by Connors, was responsible for the €310,000 top lot at the 2022 sale, which turned out to be the mare Brighterdaysahead, also trained by Elliott

TALKING POINTS

• The appeal of having runners at Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown each spring has often been given as a reason for buoyancy in trade for jumpers. Yet no empire lasts forever, and a tightening of sales prices and reduction in clearance rates over the past 18 months have come at a time when falls in attendance at this year’s Cheltenham Festival – and to a lesser extent at Aintree – has raised debate. A light has been shone on Cheltenham’s ticket prices and facilities, but no less importantly on its races, their conditions, the number of runners in certain events and the competitiveness of contests in an era dominated by Irish stables, particularly that of Willie Mullins.

Cheltenham cannot do much about the power of one or two stables, but it can certainly ponder

g Doctor Dino – Matnie

g Harzand – Mathine

g No Risk At All – Bayadene

g Doctor Dino – Bournie

for the Gigginstown operation.

Matnie’s Doctor Dino three-year-old proved to be the latest sale’s only transaction above €200,000, whereas five horses reached or breached that mark in 2023.

Tom Malone made sure Irish yards did not get all the cream, and his €185,000 bid secured a son of Harzand who will take up residence with Paul Nicholls. Mark Dwyer of Yorkshire’s Oaks Farm Stables offered the gelding, having bought him for €80,000 as a two-year-old in France. A similar pinhook saw a son of Doctor Dino convert from a €95,000 French store into a €170,000 Irish one. Norman Williamson was the vendor, Mags O’Toole the buyer.

Another €170,000 sale saw a Galiway gelding from John Bleahen’s Lakefield Farm knocked down to Ross Doyle, who was acting for a client planning to send their purchase to Willie Mullins.

Malone and Nicholls teamed up to secure six lots for a total of €740,000 and second place on the leading buyers’ table,

its user experience and racing programme – it could also read a thought-provoking article by Julian Muscat which appeared in the Racing Post on June 24.

Under the headline ‘Vibrancy of Royal Ascot casts a light on where the Cheltenham Festival has gone so badly wrong’, Muscat argued that Cheltenham’s 13 Grade 1 races over four days, compared to Ascot’s nine over five, is too many. Seven odds-on favourites in Cheltenham’s 27 races, compares to one in 35 at the Royal meeting, he said, adding that novices running in handicaps at Cheltenham – often because owners lucky enough to have a number of arrows to fire opt to keep their horses apart – have diluted the competitiveness of novices’ races.

Muscat concludes that the Royal meeting – which to many eyes is the height of class divide – stages a five-

but the number one spot has become parked at the Doyle brothers’ Monbeg Stables and their 28 purchases were bought for just over €1.2m. Point-to-point handlers like the Doyles made their presence felt during both sessions, with Colin Bowe and Matty Flynn O’Connor also gaining places among the top ten buyers.

Lakefield Farm led consignors through ten sales valued at €651,000, while Coolmore’s Walk In The Park headed the sires’ table with 24 sold for just under €1.5m at an average of nearly €68,000. Doctor Dino’s six sold lots averaged just over €138,000, although any horse by a sire based in France generated interest and invariably sold for good money.

Statistics

Sold: 292 (79% clearance)

Aggregate: €13,969,500 (-13%)

Average: €47,841 (-11%)

Median: €38,000 (-12%)

furlong sprint handicap which “plays its part in providing opportunities for the smaller stables”. Admittedly Cheltenham stages the Festival Hunters’ Chase, won this year by the five-horse stable of Fiona Needham, but that is swerving around his point.

• Given some high-profile exits by racehorse owners from jump racing in the past couple of seasons, it was welcome news that Paul and Clare Rooney have returned to the fold.

Racing manager Jason Maguire said the couple have bumper horses with Nicky Richards, Fergal O’Brien and Jonjo and AJ O’Neill, their first engagement in jumping since February 2021.

The news was a fillip coming just a few weeks before Goffs UK was set to clear nine horses in training and a broodmare belonging to well-known racehorse owner Chris Giles at its Summer Sale (July 22).

g Galiway – Feriadargent Lakefield Farm

Mags O’Toole

Peter and Ross Doyle

Walter Connors had a memorable sale

Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale

Sales Circuit

Arqana Summer Mixed Sale

A bigger catalogue, an additional session and trade that saw strong demand for the best and patchy results for the rest sums up this three-day sale in Deauville.

It is nothing if not eclectic, for it offers two-year-old breezers, jumping stores, horses in training and mares, creating a cornucopia of thoroughbred delights in a country whose bloodstock is currently en vogue. Those horses which command the higher prices are invariably sold to overseas buyers, and that was again the case on this occasion, with the €450,000 top lot, three-year-old gelding Mambonumberfive, heading for a place with Gloucestershire trainer Ben Pauling.

Willie Mullins will handle two of the top five, while the other two from the leading quintet are booked to race in America and Australia.

The clearance rate will be scrutinised, and it required the inclusion of private sales to reach 69 per cent, some way down on the 86 per cent achieved in 2022 and the 84 per cent of last year. All aspects of the two-year-old breeze-up section will be an area for particular consideration by Arqana, as just 43 per cent of the 92 horses on offer found buyers in the ring; that rose to 53 per cent after deals were carried out privately. That compares to 83 per cent last year, although competition for horses who found new homes meant the average and median figures barely moved.

What the market would not swallow was the bigger catalogue, which saw 488 horses walk the ring, 76 more than last year when 348 found buyers – this time 341 horses were sold. They generated sales worth just over €10.8m, which was eight per cent down, the average was nipped three per cent to €32,856 while the median fell 16 per cent at €16,000.

With horses in training being an important ingredient in this catalogue, the figures will swing around depending on the quality available. The German 1,000 Guineas winner Txope added €1.2m to turnover at the 2022 sale, but with nothing of her breeding potential it was left to the aforementioned Mambonumberfive to head trade.

A maiden over hurdles, but twice placed at Auteuil for trainer Francois Nicolle and owner Lynne MacLennan, the son of Born To Sea had finished third on debut behind Nietzsche Has, France’s leading three-year-old hurdler. Bertrand Le Metayer bought the hammer down on behalf of a client of Pauling’s, and said the gelding would “make into a very nice chaser in time”.

It was no surprise to see Willie Mullins

and his team of buyers being active – has anyone done more to promote French jumpers than the Irishman? With Pierre Boulard and Harold Kirk giving advice the team from Closutton bagged three-yearold Charlus, a three-time winner on the Flat for Jean-Claude Rouget, for €315,000, and the four-year-old filly Karma D’Airy, who had been placed over hurdles for Hugo Merienne at Auteuil just ahead of the sale, for €250,000.

Mullins likes a horse that can run on the Flat or over jumps, and later in the session his bid of €200,000 secured Sony Bill, a Listed-placed hurdler from Guillaume Macaire.

Wildcard entry Zweig, who had won

TALKING POINT

the Listed Derby du Languedoc over 12 furlongs, must also have been on the viewing lists of jump buyers once he entered the catalogue, yet he failed to find a buyer in the ring. Later however, a €250,000 deal was struck involving a trio of agencies and Australian trainer Annabel Neasham.

While buyers were choosy at the two-year-old breeze-up session held on day one, a Too Darn Hot filly turned a handsome profit for Brendan Holland’s Grove Stud when growing in value from 80,000gns – her purchase price as a yearling at the Tattersalls October Book 1 Sale – into €210,000. A granddaughter of Royal Ascot-winning filly Ceiling Kitty

• The name Nietzsche Has cropped up on a number of occasions at Arqana’s Summer Sale in Deauville, including when his two-year-old store half-brother Nightmare Has made €150,000 to a bid from Mags O’Toole.

The son of Doctor Dino was following in the hoofprints of Nietzsche Has, who was sold at the event last year at the same age when knocked down for €210,000 to Guy Petit on behalf of owner Ed James. Put into training with Marcel Rolland, he made a winning debut over hurdles in March at Auteuil, then returned to that track to win Listed and Grade 3 races.

He is an unbeaten son of Zarak out of a Martaline mare, but you won’t see him at Cheltenham or Auteuil next year.

Nietzsche Has is an entire horse of the type with which the French excel after they have shown they can jump and gallop. He is booked for a berth at Haras de Montaigu in 2025.

If the French can do it, why do the British and Irish choose not to?

Admittedly the French racing programme for three-year-old hurdlers is competitive, starts early in the year and contains Graded races, but is there any reason why British and Irish four-year-old jumpers could not find places at stud after showing prowess on the track? David and Kathleen Holmes of Pitchall Stud, the owners of Alne Park resident Midnights Legacy, have put in place a trend bucker, but why are they alone?

Mambonumberfive: heading to Ben Pauling after selling for €450,000 to BLM Bloodstock

ARQANA

bred at Andrew and Jane Black’s Chasemore Farm, the filly was sold to agent Arthur Hoyeau, who said she would head straight to the USA to campaign for MyRacehorse.

Business for two-year-old stores mirrored that seen at auctions of three-

year-olds in Britain and Ireland. Demand for the best saw the average and median prices hold steady, but the clearance rate dropped ten points to one of 69 per cent.

The top lot in this section was a colt by go-to sire Zarak, consigned by Haras Des Granges and knocked down to Joey Logan for €155,000. The ubiquitous Logan, racing manager to Andy and Gemma Brown until they abruptly exited the sport in February, is a jovial character, happy sharing point-to-pointers with Denis Murphy in County Wexford, but also jumpers in France with Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm. He said they will handle the Zarak.

Trade was completed with a selection of mares on day three, and was headed by a three-year-old Siyouni filly named Little Dreamer. Part of a draft from Werthimer & Frere which gave this section

Arqana Summer Mixed Sale

Mambonumberfive 3 g Born To Sea – Sweet Mambo Ecurie Eric Ventrou

Charlus 3 g Churchill – Nobilis

Karma D’Airy 4 f Authorized - Quaska D’Airy Hugo Merienne

Zweig 3 c Churchill – Euthenia

some substance, she was one of 62 horses who changed hands from an offering of 89 lots, creating a clearance rate of 69 per cent.

Victor Langlais’s bid of €100,000 secured the Siyouni on behalf of a partnership of trotting owners.

Across the whole sale The Channel Consignment headed consignors through sales of 17 horses for a total of €935,500, while Le Metayer was the leading buyer, narrowly ahead of team Willie Mullins and Blandford Bloodstock.

Statistics

Sold: 341 (70% clearance)

(-3%)

BLM Bloodstock

Pierre Boulard/Harold Kirk/Willie Mullins

Narvick/Blandford BS/Neasham/De Burgh 2 f Too Darn Hot - Formidable Kitt Grove Stud

Arthur Hoyeau/MyRacehorse

Tattersalls July Sale

Short of easy-to-spot headline horses, but with some choice families to tap into from giants of Flat breeding, this three-day sale produced figures broadly in line with expectations.

Trade on day one was down, it was up on day two when boosted by broodmare potential from Juddmonte, but down again on day three. Yet the clearance rate was very good throughout, eventually achieving a figure of 90 per cent.

International buyers, untroubled by the troubles which British racing faces over funding and prize-money, let alone gambling restrictions, recognise the talent housed in trainers’ yards and on stud farms, and they want a slice of the action. The July Sale, held at a historically-rich venue which every racing fan and breeder should visit at some point in their lives, and with the option of attending an excellent race meeting or visiting nearby stud farms, provides a package worth checking in at an airline desk.

The incoming dollars, dirhams, yen and euros helped carry turnover at the latest edition to 13,904,200gns (-18 per cent) at an average of 25,749gns (-13 per cent) and a median of 11,000gns (-27 per cent).

Well-related Frankel filly Anacapa jointly topped proceedings at 300,000gns

Twelve horses sold for 200,000gns-plus in 2023, yet that was pulled back to seven lots on the latest occasion, another example of the way top prices have been clipped during the past 18 months.

Juddmonte’s annual draft of fillies at this and the Tattersalls December Mares Sale – not forgetting the colts and geldings it sells at the company’s Autumn

Sale – is a magnet, which, when placed alongside quality buying options from Godolphin and Shadwell, give the Newmarket company’s catalogues international appeal. Two unraced Juddmonte fillies were sold for the top price of 300,000gns, with Anacapa, a daughter of Frankel, and Calabria, by Kingman, being sold to Badgers ››

ARQANA

This Too Darn Hot filly was the top breezer

Sales Circuit

Bloodstock and Avenue Bloodstock respectively.

Grant Pritchard-Gordon of Badgers Bloodstock said Anacapa had been bought for a European client who would send her to stud, and he mentioned No Nay Never as a possible mating option. That Coolmore stallion had been responsible for siring the filly Apollo Fountain, a Listed winner a few days before the sale, having been foaled by Fount, a full-sister to Anacapa.

Calabria hardly needed to walk out of her box or appear on video to have appeal to breeders, for she was from Juddmonte’s famous Hasili family and out of the Group 1 Prix Jean Romanet winner Romantica. Avenue Bloodstock’s Mark McStay said Calabria had been bought for an undisclosed client and described her vendors as “the best breeders in the world”.

Godolphin’s draft is invariably no less appealing and it gave the opening day valuable input with some desirable mares. Whispering Words, a winning daughter of Dubawi with a Kingman cover, headed the session when selling for 280,000gns to Charles Shanahan, son of Paul, who the buyer said would be forming a partnership with Timmy Hyde’s Camas Park Stud. Given Kingman’s high-profile successes in 2024, there is every chance Whispering Words could pay for herself or make a profit with her first foal.

Godolphin also offered Listed-placed Art Of Magic, a daughter of Invincible Spirit with a Blue Point cover, who was knocked down for 270,000gns to a bid from Julian Dollar of Newsells Park Stud. Dollar said she would be placed in the stud’s breeding fund, a variation on a racing syndicate with the aim of getting a range of people investing in breeding.

Japanese bloodstock agent Keisuke Onishi of J S Company had an important engagement nearer to home at the JRHA Select Sale in Hokkaido, but with online bidding now so commonplace it mattered little, and by that method and with a 150,000gns offer he secured Godolphin’s nine-year-old mare Menuetto with a

Top lots Name/age/sex/breeding

A 250,000gns bid enabled Australian trainers Mick Price and Michael Kent to secure the 89-rated Bur Dubai, a son of Night Of Thunder who had romped home in a Chester handicap over a mile and a half just ahead of the sale for trainer Kevin Philippart De Foy, while the same sum enabled Gestut Fahrhof to add five-yearold Hope Diamond to its broodmare band. This was a two-for-one deal, for Hope Diamond was accompanied around the ring by her No Nay Never filly foal, and it will hopefully become a three-for-one offer, since there was another foal by that same stallion in utero.

Sound handicappers with a rating in the high 80s or above have appeal to a range of buyers and are always popular at sales of this type. Three-year-old colt Jubilee Walk, a three-time winning sprinter for Jamie Osborne and with a rating of 97, headed trade on the final day when being offered to dissolve a partnership involving China Horse Club and Qatar Racing. A €185,000 Goffs Orby yearling, he made 220,000gns on his second appearance as China Horse Club became his outright owners.

Tattersalls July Sale

Anacapa 3 f Frankel – Ventura Juddmonte

Calabria 3 f Kingman – Romantica Juddmonte

Whispering Words 4 m Dubawi – Hadith Godolphin

Art Of Magic 4 m Invincible Spirit - Hand Puppet Godolphin

Hope Diamond 5 m Galileo – Danedrop

Baroda Stud, Ireland

City House’s rating of 87 put him into the right category and it took a bid of 180,000gns by George Scott to bring down the hammer. An 85,000gns breeze-up two-year-old in his second season racing for Bill and Tim Gredley, he will be heading to Bahrain, said Scott, who enjoyed a purple patch on that island last winter with Isle Of Jura. The experience did Isle Of Jura no harm, for after four wins in Bahrain he returned home for an impressive victory in Royal Ascot’s Hardwicke Stakes. If only every horse could be so progressive.

Also Bahrain bound is Soldier’s Empire, a 180,000gns purchase by the Kingdom’s Al Mohamediya Racing. Bred and raced by the Strudwick family’s Ballygallon Stud, the three-year-old colt had gained a rating of 90 through some solid efforts for trainer Ger Lyons.

Statistics

Sold: 540 (90% clearance)

Aggregate: 13,904,200gns (-18%)

Average: 25,749gns (-13%)

Median: 11,000gns (-27%)

Badgers Bloodstock

Avenue Bloodstock

BBA Ireland

Newsells Park Stud

Gestut Fahrhof

Teofilo cover.

Calabria, a member of the famous Hasili family, was another coveted Juddmonte offering

JRHA Select Sale

Japan narrowly avoided recession in 2023, but it shows signs of recovery and could soon regain its place as the world’s third largest economy.

Its enviable jewels include distinctive food, culture, cherry blossom and high-quality bloodstock. The last-named came into focus at this two-day sale where American and European bloodlines were once again to the fore. Held on the island of Hokkaido at Teruya Yoshida’s Northern Farm, it followed the traditional pattern of offering yearlings at the first session and then foals (at foot) at the second.

Yoshida admitted his expectations for the event were not high, yet he was proved wrong by a set of figures which revealed record turnover of ¥28,918m (approx €165m) and a new best 96.4 per cent clearance rate. There were minor falls in the average price of ¥63,556,044 (€362,650) and also the median of ¥42m (€239,652).

Success on the track was a factor in the strength of trade said Yoshida, who could point to important wins this year by its graduates Danon Decile and Forever Young. The first-named won the Japanese Derby, while Forever Young landed the Saudi and UAE Derbys before going within two noses of a historic first Japanese victory in the Kentucky Derby.

Forever Young, whose dam Forever Darling was foaled in the USA, is by Japanese-bred sire Real Steel, whose dam Loves Only Me was also American-bred. She was later sold to Katsumi Yoshida for $900,000 at Keeneland in November 2009.

Pick on just about any top Japanese racehorse or stallion and you will find similar overseas influences close up in the pedigree, and it was the same for this sale’s top lot, a colt who at ¥590m (£2.89m/€3.36m) created a record price for a yearling sold in Japan. A son of Kitasan Black – himself all the rage after siring 2023 world champion Equinox – he was foaled by Lingfield Listed winner Delphinia, a Galileo mare out of Irish 1,000 Guineas heroine Again.

Top

C (Y) Kitasan Black – Delphinia

C (F) Kitasan Black – Serienholde

F (Y) Kitasan Black – Ascolti

C (F) Epiphaneia – Coasted

C (F) Epiphaneia – Carina Mia

Racehorse syndicate Rodeo Japan brought the hammer down for this choice lot, heading interest from Susumu Fujita, the owner of Forever Young, although later in the session the underbidder bought a ¥340m (£1.66m/€1.94m) colt by Epiphaneia out of Even So, who won the Irish Oaks in 2020 for Ger Lyons. Freespending Fujita also parted with ¥190m (£930,000/€1.08m) for a colt with rarity value. The buyer said it was “one of my dreams” to buy a pure white yearling.

Kitasan Black, a son of Deep Impact’s full-brother Black Tide and resident at Shadai Stallion Farm, was hard to keep off the top-ten board, and his progeny also included the leading filly and top-priced foal. The filly, a yearling out of Ascolti, a daughter of Danehill Dancer and Fillies’ Mile winner Listen, changed hands for ¥400m (£1.96m/€2.28m) to a bid from Danox Co Ltd’s Masahiro Noda. The leading foal, who was knocked down for ¥410m (£2m/€2.33m) to Toshihiko Tabata of the Lion Race Horse syndicate, was produced by Preis Der Diana heroine Serienholde.

Another highlight during this session

was the ¥370m (£1.81m/€2.11m) sale of a colt by Epiphaneia out of top US racemare Carina Mia, while the first publicly available foal by Shadwell sire Baaeed was sold to Cosmo View Farm for ¥56m (£275,000/€319,536). The colt was offered by Paca Paca Farm, which bought the youngster’s dam, US-bred Fahan Mura, for $450,000 at Fasig-Tipton five years ago.

Japan Racing Horse Association Chair Teruya Yoshida reported buyers from USA, Europe, Australia, South America, the Middle East and Hong Kong. If they were buying, they were doing so through Japanese agencies, although billionaire entrepreneur and leading US racehorse trainer Mike Repole spent a total of ¥341m (£1.67m/€1.94m) on five yearlings and a foal in the name of his Repole Stable and agent Alex Solis.

Statistics

Sold: 455 (97% clearance)

Aggregate: 28,918,000,000yen (+3%)

Average: 63,556,044yen (-2%)

Median: 42,000,000yen (-2%)

Farm

Farm

Farm

Danox Co Ltd

Danox Co Ltd

Hirosaki Toshihiro

Out of Lingfield Listed winner Delphinia, this Kitasan Black colt sold for ¥590,000,000

JRHA Select Sale

Dr Statz

A summer of milestones

This season’s European leading sires’ rankings has a strange look to it based on earnings. Unlike in the past two years, neither perennial leaders Frankel or Dubawi are among the first three. Moreover, there are plenty of candidates further down the European hierarchy that deserve to have their 2024 accomplishments recognised while some others have hit or surpassed specific career milestones.

Let’s start with Coolmore’s Gleneagles. Galileo’s son from Giant Causeway’s prodigious female line was first past the post in eight consecutive races, seven of them at Group level, before soft ground scuppered what could have been a glorious end to a very successful career. That said, he could still count the National Stakes, 2,000 Guineas, Irish 2,000 Guineas and Royal Ascot’s St James’s Palace Stakes among his Group 1 successes, so it was unsurprising that his first nomination fee was set as high as €65,000 even though his final Timeform mark at 128 was significantly below the 134 awarded to his contemporary Golden Horn, whose own fee was £65,000.

History now recounts that the star of that year’s intake was Night Of Thunder and neither Gleneagles, Golden Horn or their contemporary Muhaarar have since ever been entrusted with the same quality of patronage that they enjoyed during their

first year at stud. Breeders kept the faith in years two, three and four as much as could have been expected, and there was a surge of interest in Gleneagles after his first two-year-olds had completed their initial season on the racecourse, but still not to the level that he attracted in his first year. Group 2 July Stakes winner Royal Lytham, Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes scorer Royal Dornoch and Listed Windsor Castle Stakes hero Southern Hills hinted at the start of something significant.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. His first three-year-olds could only muster a pair of Group 3 wins between them, one in Germany and the other in Ireland. On top of that, his second-crop juveniles contained just a lone Group 3 winner in Japan. The Group 1 Prix de Royallieu winner Loving Dream did emerge from that crop, albeit later the following year, but it was too little and too late for Gleneagles and nothing could prevent a mass defection of quality from his subsequent books.

However, since his sixth-year book of just 35 mares, the Coolmore stallion has been mounting a strong response on the racecourse which has been reflected in increased book sizes, now back to the levels of his early years, although without anything like the quality.

This year alone he’s had eight stakes winners and five Group winners, including Group 1 July Cup winner Mill Stream

(Timeform 122) and Group 3 Diomed Stakes scorer Royal Scotsman (Timeform 117) from among his current four-year-olds. His three-year-olds also feature some very smart horses, including Group 2 King Edward VII Stakes winner Calandagan (Timeform 123p), Group 1 Derby second and Irish Derby third Ambiente Friendly (Timeform 119) and Group 1 Deutsches Derby winner Palladium (Timeform 108).

Gleneagles’ stakes-winner output currently stands at 8.1 per cent from runners and although it is significantly adrift from his mares’ normal output, one statistic that does impress is his 12 per cent stakes winners from his better mares. Therefore, breeders can rely on him to produce the goods if they send him a good mare.

There were a few other noteworthy milestones in the past few weeks. Kingman passed the 50 Group-winner mark worldwide, although his progeny foaled in the northern hemisphere haven’t hit that mark yet and contain 49 stakes winners at the time of writing.

His continued success this year is no surprise really. Don’t forget that the Juddmonte sire’s current four- and three-year-olds are from some of his best-bred crops conceived after he proved his mettle with his first runners. His four-year-old crop now has his highest number of stakes winners with 20 and the

BILL SELWYN

Elmalka (right): her sire Kingman passed the 50 Group-winner mark worldwide

joint highest number of Group winners with 13. The two new members of this cohort are Group 2 Summer Mile winner Quddwah (Timeform 122p) and Alsakib (Timeform 115), who opened his Patternrace account in the Group 3 Silver Cup. It is certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility that Kingman may find another Group 1 winner from among his 2020 crop to join Commissioning, Sauterne and Feed The Flame. His three-year-olds, meanwhile, already boast two Classic winners in 1,000 Guineas scorer Elmalka (Timeform 112) and Prix de Diane heroine Sparkling Plenty (Timeform 114). Another daughter Blush (Timeform 101) was successful recently in the Group 3 Prix Chloe.

Two-year-old filly Celandine became the first stakes winner from Kingman’s 2022 crop when landing the Listed Empress Stakes and both her and January are already Group 2-placed.

Another milestone generated during Newmarket’s July meeting concerned Whistlejacket’s sire No Nay Never. Whistlejacket’s success in the Group 2 July Stakes – his first in Group company – was the 16th for his sire in a juvenile Pattern race over five or six furlongs, which means he has already caught up with Kodiac and Exceed And Excel with years to spare. His strike-rate of 5.1 per cent Group winners to runners is way ahead of Exceed And Excel’s 2.3 per cent and Kodiac’s 1.4 per cent.

Other active sires doing well in this realm include Wootton Bassett (3.6 per cent) and Havana Grey (3.3 per cent). In terms of outright number of stakes winners, Kodiac is still 11 clear of No Nay Never, but by percentage of stakes winners to runners, the top three are No Nay Never (8.3 per cent), Wootton Bassett (7.3 per cent) and Havana Grey (5.5 per cent). It is perhaps a little surprising that Wootton Bassett is so adept in this field given that he is also more than capable of siring very highclass mile-and-a-quarter horses.

Finally, we must acknowledge the fact that Dark Angel has led the Britain and Ireland earnings table this far into the season. I suspect that one or other of the big guns will have too much firepower through the autumn months, but if Charyn, Khaadem, Alflaila or Art Power can continue to contribute to his total, the possibility still exists that he will be there or thereabouts. Whatever his fate, there is a fair chance we will have a different champion sire at the end of the year as Frankel is having a quieter time of it than usual. Could Dark Angel go one better than his second place last year?

John Boyce cracks the code

AND G1-PLACED RUNNERS BY GLENEAGLES

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Gleneagles: currently enjoying a purple patch with his runners

Sexton Files

Magic cross key to Camelot

Breeders know where they stand with Camelot. In seven crops aged three and above, he has become well recognised as a quality source of middle-distance talent. That is of course in keeping with the Montjeu sire line. They’re unlikely to be early but plenty are effective as late-maturing two-year-olds, as Camelot was himself when cruising to victory in the 2011 Racing Post Trophy. However, it is as three-year-olds and beyond that the line really comes into its own, especially when given the opportunity over middle distances.

Camelot has been a regular fixture among the leading sires since his first crop took to the track in 2017. That group of 151 foals, which had been bred off an opening €25,000 fee, came to include an Irish Derby winner in Latrobe as well as Athena, who was sent to the US by Aidan O’Brien to win the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks.

Following the breakthrough win of Bluestocking in the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh in June, each crop since then has contained a Group 1 winner. Several have naturally been domestic stars, perhaps none more so than Luxembourg, a Group 1 winner from ages two to five who was last seen making all for victory in the Coronation Cup at Epsom. There has also been an Irish Oaks winner in Even So, successful in 2020, while it’s certainly a case of what might have been had Santa Barbara not died not long after her win in the 2021 Grade 1 Beverly D Stakes.

Given Camelot’s propensity to throw middle-distance horses, a number have also unsurprisingly headed to the southern hemisphere, several of them such as Sir Dragonet (winner of the Group 1 Cox Plate and Group 1 Tancred Stakes having been sold as a tried horse) and Russian Camelot (a yearling purchase by Jeremy Brummitt who won the Group 1 Underwood Stakes and Group 1 South Australian Derby) with great success.

The current season, however, threatens to be the most productive yet for the Coolmore stallion. He has sired six stakes winners across Europe but it is the quality of them that is most striking, given that it is headed by the Group 1 winners Luxembourg, Bluestocking and Los Angeles. Nor would it be surprising to see that trio joined in due course by Pensee Du Jour, a highly-tried filly last season by

Andre Fabre who looks ready for another crack at Group 1 company following her recent win in the Prix Corrida.

Another Fabre inmate, Sevenna’s Knight, has also developed into a stayer of note with wins in the Prix Vicomtesse Vigier and Prix Barbeville. There could also be more to come from the Gavin Hernontrained Dare To Dream, winner of the Prix Vanteaux back in April.

The Curragh’s Irish Derby meeting, at which Bluestocking and Los Angeles pulled off a Group 1 sweep for their sire in the Pretty Polly Stakes and Irish Derby itself, propelled Camelot into the top five behind Dark Angel on the year’s leading British and Irish sires’ list. With Galileo receding from prominence, the 2024 championship has an open look to it and should Camelot maintain his momentum, then he could well play a role in the end-of-year outcome.

It could be said that Los Angeles and Bluestocking are fairly typical of what we have come to expect from Camelot. Los Angeles was forward enough to win a Group 1 at two, when successful in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud over a mile and a quarter at the back-end of last year, but he

Nothing hazy with star family

The Aga Khan’s acquisition of the stock belonging to Brook Holliday during the 1980s provided the operation with access into the powerful Cleaboy Stud family of Lost Soul.

It was a select collection that didn’t possess the numerical weight of the Dupre and Boussac horses, which had been incorporated into the Aga Khan Studs around a decade before. But the stock had consistently rewarded the cultivation of Major Lionel Holliday and latterly his son Brook over many years and as such did at the time contain an important mare in Hazy Idea, a daughter of Holliday’s St Leger winner Hethersett who had already produced the Flying Childers Stakes winner Hittite Glory and National Stakes runner-up Rubric.

Inbred to Holliday’s 1947 Oaks runner-up and important producer Netherton Maid, Hazy Idea was a versatile

has predictably come into his own this season, with a win in the Leopardstown Derby Trial and third in the Derby preceding his Irish Derby triumph. He has a bit of the Camelot fire about him - “he’s not for kids” in the words of Aidan O’Brien – and is a sizeable individual, so should continue to improve as time goes on.

As for Juddmonte homebred Bluestocking, she was a Group 1 performer for Ralph Beckett last season but has improved again at four this year. The Pretty Polly Stakes was her second win in as many starts for the campaign following a successful pipe-opener in the Middleton Stakes at York.

Both also further underline Camelot’s affinity for mares carrying Danehill, specifically his son Dansili.

There are 36 foals bred on the Camelot - Dansili cross, of which Los Angeles and Bluestocking are two. Pensee Du Jour is also out of a Dansili mare as is the Listed-winning, Group 2-placed Juddmonte homebred Yesyes. Dansili’s Arc-winning son Rail Link, a moderate sire, also features as the damsire of the Grade 1-placed Alounak.

In fact, the Danehill theme is prevalent throughout Camelot’s stud record. Danehill himself is the damsire of Even So and Santa Barbara. Luxembourg is out of a mare by Danehill Dancer while 2018 Criterium de Saint-Cloud heroine Wonderment is out of a mare by Konigstiger, a son of Tiger Hill rarely seen in

Emily Upjohn: one of the current stars belonging to the Hazy Idea family

filly for Major Dick Hern on the track, winning three races as a two-year-old, including over six furlongs, and the 1970 March Stakes over 1m6f at Goodwood at three. She was an aged mare at the time of the acquisition and the Aga Khan bred only three foals out of her. However, they did at least include Hazaradjat, a winning Darshaan mare who has gone on to spawn something of her own legacy.

Today that encompasses 25 stakes winners, among them the Aga Khan’s Derby winner Harzand (out of Hazaradjat’s Group 3-winning daughter

BILL SELWYN

Bloodstock world views

pedigrees. Duke Of Marmalade (damsire of Group 2-winning stayer Cleveland and Group 3 scorer Lady Wannabe), Exceed And Excel (damsire of Group 3 winner Current Options), Fastnet Rock (damsire of Group 3 winner Youth Spirit) and Holy Roman Emperor (damsire of German Group 3 winner Wait Forever) are other examples of the Danehill line clicking well with Camelot.

Not only that, mares descending from the other important Danzig outlet, Green Desert, have supplied the likes of Athena, Russian Camelot and Sir Dragonet.

However, it has to be remembered that several of those listed above are the progeny of high-performing and/or producing mares. That is especially true of

Hazariya) and champion Hurricane Lane (a member of the branch belonging to Handaza).

Currently, this family is going through something of a purple patch. At the top of the list is Emily Upjohn, last year’s Coronation Cup heroine, who recently returned to form when running a narrow second in the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh. That strapping daughter of Sea The Stars is out of Hazaradjat’s Listedplaced daughter Hidden Brief, whose half-sister Handaza is the granddam of Hanalia, winner of the Listed Naas Oaks Trial in June for the Aga Khan, and third dam of Normandie Stud’s homebred Henry II Stakes winner Sweet William.

Last year’s top miler Big Rock, meanwhile, belongs to the same Hazariya branch as Harzand as does the Listed Diana Trial heroine Hope And Believe, who was on course to take her chance in the German Oaks at the time of writing.

Not only that, a handful of exciting two-year-old prospects have shown their hand. Gun Of Brixton, a homebred Frankel

Bluestocking, who is out of the Matron Stakes winner Emulous from a good Juddmonte family also responsible for its Kentucky Derby winner Mandaloun. Athena also boasts a stakes-placed dam in Cherry Hinton, who is a daughter of none other than Urban Sea, also the third dam of Sir Dragonet via the blue hen’s Classicplaced daughter All Too Beautiful.

And it is that same Allegretta family that sits behind Los Angeles, in this instance through Allegretta’s Group 3-winning daughter Allez Les Trois. The branch belonging to this Riverman mare took off during the noughties when one foal, Anabaa Blue, won the Prix du Jockey Club and grandson Tamayuz became a Group 1-winning miler. More recently, it

colt for Haras Voltaire who is out of Hazariya’s placed Invincible Spirit daughter Cat Kate, has won his last two starts at Saint-Cloud and Clairefontaine for Andre Fabre and now looks ready for a step up to Group company.

Also promising is the Aga Khan’s homebred Hazdann, a son of Night Of Thunder who put a luckless Gowran Park debut behind him when successful in a Curragh maiden on Irish Derby day for Dermot Weld. He is out of Hazmiyra, a winning Pivotal granddaughter of Hazariya.

Following that success, Princess Zahra Aga Khan offered an interesting insight into the family in an interview with Racing TV.

“It’s wonderful to see this family producing two-year-olds,” she said. “I didn’t think this family was going to produce them. It was very much a Classic-producing family but then I think breeding them to speed a bit more every generation is working and they’re getting a turn of foot. Hopefully we can continue

supplied the 2021 Irish Derby winner Santiago, one of the best sired by Authorized and therefore a grandson of Montjeu like Los Angeles.

With Urban Sea’s sons Galileo and Sea The Stars its headline acts, this is a family that is rarely out of the headlines; indeed, it was also represented at the Irish Derby meeting by Truly Enchanting, winner of the Airlie Stud Stakes.

Naturally this is a family that has long been held in high regard. Yet despite that, it took a reasonable 48,000gns for the BBA Ireland to secure Frequential, a granddaughter of Allez Les Trois, on behalf of Lynch Bages and Longfield Stud when she came up for sale from Godolphin at the 2017 Tattersalls February Sale.

Frequential was a regular visitor to Camelot throughout her stud career prior to her death aged just nine last year. Even without the exploits of Los Angeles, her third foal, the cross would have to be deemed a success off the back of her earlier runners Hector De Maris and Be Happy, both of whom were Group 3-placed for Ballydoyle.

The cross of Camelot over Frequential also results in 3x3 inbreeding to Kingmambo. Los Angeles is, perhaps surprisingly, the only Group 1 winner inbred to the Niarchos family’s former Kentuckybased stallion but the tenth stakes winner overall, sitting atop a list that includes the high-class Camelot quartet Bolleville, Cleveland, Lady Wannabe and Moll.

this trend.”

While Urban Sea and her dam Allegretta are becoming ubiquitous in today’s pedigrees, this family’s affinity with horses carrying that blood is still noteworthy. That is particularly true of Sea The Stars, who appears as the sire of Harzand, Emily Upjohn, Sweet William, Hanalia and Hamariyna (winner of the Derrinstown Stud 1,000 Guineas Trial in 2019) and damsire of Big Rock.

As for Frankel, he is the sire of both Hurricane Lane and Gun Of Brixton while Tamayuz, a member of the Allez Les Trois branch of the Allegretta family, is the sire of Hazaradjat’s Group 3-winning granddaughter Hunaina. And while Hazdann’s sire Night Of Thunder belongs to the Dubawi tribe, he of course is out of a Galileo mare.

Hazdann is evidently held in some regard given he holds an early entry in the National Stakes, so it would be no surprise if he proved capable of adding high-class two-year-old form to this family in due course.

BILL SELWYN

Los Angeles: Camelot colt followed up his Derby third with a win in the Irish equivalent

Vet Forum: The Expert View

Trot-ups and pre-race veterinary checks

Pre-race veterinary checks and trot-ups, which have been commonplace in racing jurisdictions throughout the world for years, are an increasingly important aspect of the raceday in Britain.

The aim of these assessments is to help ensure that all horses are lining up in the best possible health following their journey to the racecourse, providing an additional layer of protection and further reducing the risk of avoidable injury.

First introduced in Britain for selected races at the Cheltenham and Aintree festivals, the protocols were extended to all runners at the 2019 Grand National meeting, while summer jump meetings are also covered.

Since 2023, Flat meetings have been included. All Group 1 fixtures – not just the days with Group 1 races – such as Newmarket’s July Festival and Glorious Goodwood will see every runner subject to the pre-race examinations.

All racecourses are required to install and maintain a trot-up strip, in or near the racecourse stables. The strip is 25 metres long and three metres wide, and each horse will trot away from and towards a BHA veterinary officer (VO) who will assess the horse’s soundness.

If a trainer knows that a horse in his care has some form of chronic condition, is a poor mover or has an asymmetrical gait, they are asked to engage with the BHA’s veterinary team prior to the raceday. That could mean sending a video of the horse or providing a vet’s diagnosis regarding any potential issues that could arise during the assessment.

A grading scale of 1-5, with 1 being perfectly sound and 5 being nonweight-bearing, i.e. the horse won’t put their limbs to the ground, is used by the attending VO(s).

The VO also will perform a palpation of the horse’s forelimbs and hindlimbs, looking for any heat or swelling, and listen to the horse’s heart to check for any murmur or rhythm disturbance.

Exactly when each veterinary check and trot-up happens depends on the raceday or meeting. At Royal Ascot, where some runners will arrive at the racecourse the night before, the VO will start to assess horses from 8am.

At other meetings, such as those in Newmarket, the trainer may only be based five or ten minutes from the course, meaning the horse could be checked an hour before they race. In Britain, all runners must be on the racecourse at last 45 minutes before they are due to race.

Last year, the BHA’s team of VOs performed over 3,000 assessments. On eight occasions horses were prevented from racing.

At Royal Ascot in June, one horse was withdrawn by its trainer after the pre-race check revealed an issue with its foot, while two others were withdrawn following their assessment by the attending VO.

There are around 24 VOs carrying out the pre-race examinations and overseeing trot-ups for the BHA. Some are full time while others still work in practice or fulfil other veterinary roles.

James Given, Director of Equine Regulation, Safety and Welfare at the BHA, said: “There is an international expectation that we should be doing the same thing as the rest of the horseracing world regarding pre-race checks and trot-ups. From a welfare perspective, it’s the right thing to do.

“All racecourses were required to install a trot-up strip – for some it was quite a substantial investment. What we wanted to avoid is horses being assessed in an unsafe or unsuitable environment. There’s no point in trotting a horse on an uneven surface or slope if you are trying to assess whether it’s sound or not.

“We are now visiting every racecourse at least twice each calendar year, covering all types of fixtures

from Group 1 festivals to more minor meetings, seeing a full spread of racehorses.

“There are plenty of equine conditions that mean the horse will not present as perfect while not putting them at any greater risk of catastrophic fracture. If we have information about any issues beforehand, it’s a lot easier to assess the horse.

“Our raceday team will always work with a trainer’s staff to find out when they want to present the horse for assessment. We have an Equine Welfare Integrity Officer managing the situation to ensure there isn’t a long queue of horses, or a colt walking behind a filly for example.

“If we deem a horse unsuitable to race, it will be withdrawn by the

stewards under veterinary advice.”

He continues: “The protocols are creating behavioural change as the trainers will observe the horse closely before taking it to the racecourse. Of course, many were doing this already but not everyone was.

“It’s also encouraging better engagement with the regulator – we don’t want a combative situation at the races, we want the trainers to understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.

“It is possible that in the future we would consider looking at every horse on every raceday in Britain.”

Trainers who wish to inform the BHA about a horse in their care, or have any further questions, should email vetreports@britishhorseracing.com.

BILL SELWYN

BHA veterinary officers conduct an assessment at Newmarket’s July meeting, involving a trot-up and palpation of the horse’s limbs (left)

+ Equine Health Update

Nutritional support for exerciseinduced pulmonary haemorrhage

Words: Laura Steley

Exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage, or EIPH, is one of the most common conditions affecting the thoroughbred racehorse. It is essentially bleeding via the smallest blood vessels (capillaries) within the lungs. Horses that suffer with this condition are often referred to as ‘bleeders’.

There are records of racehorses bleeding from 300 years ago. The most influential sire known to suffer with severe EIPH is Bartlett’s Childers (1716), by Darley Arabian out of Betty Leedes, who was unraced due to the condition. He was aptly nicknamed ‘Bleeding Childers’ and went on to sire many successful racehorses and was also grandsire of the undefeated Eclipse.

Until the 1970s, it was assumed that any blood visible in the nostrils was haemorrhaging from the upper airway tract. With the introduction of fibreoptic endoscopes, it became clear that the majority of horses actually bled from the lungs during or after strenuous exercise, not the upper airway.

Prevalence in racehorses

The occurrence of EIPH is known to be much higher in thoroughbreds and racing than in other breeds or equine disciplines. However, the diagnosis of EIPH greatly depends upon the chosen diagnostic method. If epistaxis (bleeding from one or both nostrils) is being used as the sole indicator of EIPH, then the occurrence will be quite low, somewhere between 0.15% and 3%. However, if a more thorough method is used, such as tracheal endoscopy and/or wash, this figure increases to between 44% and 82%, or bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL or lung wash) up to 100%. The occurrence will also increase significantly if examinations are undertaken routinely.

The degree of haemorrhage will vary greatly between individuals. It is commonly believed that if you were to routinely examine a racehorse for a long enough period of time, you would find some evidence of EIPH. Similar to gastric ulcers, EIPH is scored on a 0-4 point scale dependent upon severity. It is thought that around 10% of sufferers will be scored a 3 or 4 and they are much more likely to experience performance loss than horses scored 0-2.

The high prevalence of EIPH poses a substantial risk for the racing industry for many reasons. Short-term reduced performance, lost training days, requirement for pre-race medication, race bans and public perception are all pivotal points. EIPH is more common in sprint racing and can also be seen in other highperformance disciplines, such as barrel racing, polo and eventing.

The severity of risk factors for racehorses associated with EIPH are thought to be determined by the length of racing career and/or number of starts the individual has. This closely links in with age, as older horses will have raced more times and therefore more structural and functional maladaptations of the lungs will be seen. Thus, it is sensible to categorise EIPH as a progressive condition. There is also evidence to suggest that it is inheritable, perhaps something which should be considered by breeders, particularly in the more severe cases.

Haemorrhaging occurs when the tiny capillaries deep within the lungs burst. Alveoli are minute air sacs sitting within the lungs and they are surrounded by capillaries. Gaseous exchange takes place in a very thin membrane between the alveoli and capillary. The movement of oxygen and CO2 between the alveoli and capillaries relies on naturally created negative and positive pressures. During exercise these pressures understandably increase, which can cause the capillaries to burst, dispersing blood into the lungs.

Another more recent school of thought is the potential effect of the left side of the heart/circulation on the pulmonary

capillaries. During high-intensity exercise, the horse’s spleen contracts, releasing stored red blood cells into circulation in order to increase the horse’s circulating oxygen capacity. Due to this splenic contraction, a horse’s resting blood volume can increase by 40% to 50% during exercise. This increased blood volume will in turn raise heart rate, causing greater pressure within the circulatory system and ultimately the pulmonary capillaries. Although all this makes sense from a physics point of view, it doesn’t make sense from a biological stand point. Why would a horse’s body allow bleeding into the lungs during a period of high-intensity exercise, for example when taking flight to escape a predator?

There has also been research into how the horse’s system gets to this ‘breaking point’, causing a bleed. The conclusion of this work suggests that a horse should not reach this point, as they have the capability to recruit more capillaries to the gaseous exchange process as necessary.

The role of nutrition

As public perception continues to play a crucial part within our sport and thus the use of proven medication such as Lasix (furosemide) becomes less accepted worldwide, trainers are seeking alternatives. Nutritionally, it makes sense to try and target any physiological processes that will contribute to the occurrence of EIPH. The main areas of focus have included blood clotting, inflammation, blood flow, water balance, collagen production and respiratory atmosphere. Clare Barfoot, head nutritionist at Spillers,

GEORGE SELWYN

EIPH occurs in thoroughbreds during high-intensity exercise

comments: “Firstly, it’s important to provide a balanced diet appropriate to the horse’s stage of training to ensure all nutritional requirements are met to support overall wellbeing and performance.”

Vitamin K is known for its role within blood clotting and has been included routinely in targeted EIPH supplements. However, it is clear that although sufficient clotting is necessary, it is not a determining factor for EIPH. However, vitamin K (K1) also plays a role in balancing calcium levels within the body, ensuring the depositing of calcium within the bone and not within the blood vessels.

Deposition of calcium within the pulmonary blood vessels will increase pressure and decease elasticity, potentially increasing the likelihood of EIPH occurring.

Louise Jones, nutritionist at Connolly’s RED MILLS, agrees, saying: “Vitamin K is also involved in calcium homeostasis and although research is lacking in horses, vitamin K has been shown to lower the risk of vascular damage in other species.” K1 is naturally found in fresh grass and, unfortunately, breaks down quickly within preserved forage (hay or haylage). Therefore, horses in training are often lacking in appropriate amounts.

Omega-3 fatty acids have been researched in great depth for their various uses within the body and are most commonly known for their antiinflammatory properties. Jones continues: “Omega-3 fatty acids help to maintain the elasticity of blood vessel walls. They have also been shown to play a role in regulating blood pressure and red blood cell membrane fluidity, which may help to reduce resistance to blood flow during exercise. One of the easiest ways to add some omega-3 fatty acids to the racehorse’s diet is to top-dress with an omega-3 rich oil.”

Evidence suggests it is possible to reduce the severity of EIPH by supplementing with long chain fatty acids DHA and EPA. Scientists at the University of Liege in Belgium found an increase in red blood cell membrane fluidity in exercised horses fed a diet enriched with DHA and EPA for four weeks.

Scientists at Kansas State University fed thoroughbreds a diet enriched with fish oil for 83 days and reported a reduction of EIPH. Linseed oil is also an easily accessible and palatable source of omega-3 fatty acids. Some of the more traditional racing diets would be low in omega-3 fatty acids and higher in the potentially inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids.

Vitamin C is a water-soluble antioxidant found in the lung lining fluid. It is an integral part of the maintenance and strength of blood vessels via collagen production and has therefore been closely examined in relation to respiratory health. There is evidence to support improvement in airway inflammation but nothing concrete regarding the effect on the control of EIPH.

Respiratory supplements

Vitamin C can be synthesised within the body, however, if respiratory disease is already present, supplementation in a bioavailable form could be of benefit. Jones advises: “Feeding a respiratory supplement such as Foran Equine Zosfor combined with an omega-3 rich oil like Foran Equine Kentucky Karron Oil can help support lung health.

“It is best to start these as early as possible, certainly before the horses start cantering. No supplement will prevent EIPH completely, but a well-balanced diet and targeted supplementation can indeed help horses prone to bleeding.” Barfoot says: “Look for scientifically-proven supplements that contain a balance of

SUPPLEMENTING FOR

plant and non-plant-based antioxidants including vitamin C, vitamin E and organic selenium alongside green vegetables, herbs, and spices such as spinach, broccoli, nutmeg, rosemary and garlic.”

Management practices that promote minimal airway inflammation is commonplace within training yards. This is something which, as an industry, we do well via the forms of stable ventilation, dust-free bedding and forage, as well as high-quality feed. Barfoot comments: “In typical stable conditions, a horse can inhale approximately 12 million particles including dust, mould, allergens and irritants with each breath and with the average horse breathing over 70,000 litres of air per day when at rest and even more during exercise, it is crucial that your horse’s ability to breathe is not compromised.”

As an industry, we are also vigilant in recognising signs of respiratory infection, often catching any issues quickly and treating them in a timely manner.

With the use of Lasix on racedays banned in all two-year-old and stakes races in the USA, and the likelihood that restrictions will increase, is there an appropriate raceday alternative? Nasal strips are a regular sighting on the eventing scene. They support the tissues of the nasal cavity and help to keep the upper airway open during exercise. This reduces resistance within the airways and some scientists and veterinarians feel there is enough evidence to support their use as a preventative measure. However, they are not permitted under BHA Rules.

Barfoot adds: “The only proven way to reduce EIPH is to lower blood pressure using diuretics or nasal strips and although nutrition can’t prevent EIPH, it can play a role in maintaining lung health and influencing factors that could in turn make a horse less susceptible to bleeding.”

MUSCLE PREP

Optimise muscle development and topline condition utilising readily absorbed protein. Contains vitamin E for challenged immune systems and B-vitamins to support appetite and form.

WHEN TO USE:

> In yearlings struggling to build topline

> When sales prep period is shortened or limited

> When appetite decreases with increased workloads

> For horses off-form or struggling to recover from exercise

ROA Forum

The special section for ROA members

Weatherbys Racing Bank presents challenges to owners

It has become increasingly apparent over recent weeks that many owners have been finding the options to accommodate their racing-related financial needs rather challenging, having raised concerns with the ROA in relation to the fees and onboarding process adopted by Weatherbys Racing Bank (WRB).

The growing number of complaints from owners and members led the ROA to raise these directly with Quentin Marshall, Chief Executive of Weatherbys Banking Group. Racehorse ownership should be experience-driven and this starts from the moment you decide to own a racehorse, from the initial registration through to the raceday, and we need to ensure all touch points along the way are focused on customers and key investors. This will be a growing part of the ROA’s future activity.

There were three key areas of concern raised by owners, which were presented to WRB on July 5:

Transparency and accuracy of fees aligned to the tariff

Owners have raised concerns relating to the Multi Owner Account, which is charged at £15 per month as per the tariff, with an additional £10 charged for its Racing Payment Service. Owners should check their statements to ensure the fees deducted each month for operating a WRB account are aligned to the tariff. If there are any queries please get in touch at info@roa.co.uk or with WRB directly. The ROA is now providing examples of potential errors and we will push for a complete review of all WRB charges should it be found that fees are being charged incorrectly to owners.

Identification and verification process

The ROA understands the need for

ROA Board election update

The ROA Nominations Committee is currently conducting a thorough review of the Board’s skill set. To ensure maximum effectiveness, the

correct processes to be adopted as part of the account-opening procedure, which supports consumer confidence, but the approach must not exceed the regulatory need. This aspect has been an area of overwhelming concern from owners, who have been asked to present personal information before opening a racing bank account, which feels intrusive and brings potentially into question the affordability challenges we are facing across the sport.

HMRC payments to BHA invoice accounts

We understand that WRB have made the choice to remove the ability for HMRC to continue to deposit the VAT refunds of racehorse owners via their BHA invoice account. Whilst discussions around this continue, with the BHA very much aware of this proposal, WRB is yet to confirm the number of owners that will be impacted or whether any alternative solution has been found to support this decision.

It is vital that the ROA takes action on behalf of racehorse owners to address all of these areas of concern. Regrettably, the consultation between WRB and the industry regarding these changes was minimal. We now have to work reactively with our stakeholder partners to find solutions that focus on enhancing and streamlining the ownership journey, rather than present unnecessary hurdles based on little insight or engagement, which also incur considerable fees.

Louise Norman, ROA Chief Executive, said: “The ROA is here to represent its members and we have engaged with Weatherbys Racing Bank after a number of complaints regarding its actions. We will continue our conversation with Weatherbys Racing Bank and will update members on any developments in these pages and through our ebulletin.”

Board has decided to hold off on elections this year, where up to one place is available.

By waiting until 2025, there will be up to four places available, greatly expanding opportunities for members. This approach will allow for a wider range of candidates and perspectives,

Please let us know of any issues regarding your WRB accounts by emailing info@roa.co.uk.

Appointment confirmed

Louise Norman has been appointed Chief Executive of the Racehorse Owners Association on a permanent basis. She stepped into the role as Interim ROA CEO in May.

Norman said: “Following my appointment as ROA CEO, the messages of support from owners, members and stakeholders alike have been truly inspiring.

“I am deeply honoured by the trust placed in me and excited to lead the ROA into its next chapter.

“I want to extend a special thank you to the Board for giving me this incredible opportunity. I am eager to collaborate closely with each of you to uphold the ROA’s values and drive our shared vision forward. Together, I am confident that we can achieve great success and continue to strengthen our position in the industry.”

helping to maintain a strong and effective Board to advocate for all owners.

These decisions are all in line with our Articles of Association which can be found at roa.co.uk/articles.

Details of the association’s AGM will be announced shortly.

BILL SELWYN

ROA CEO Louise Norman has questioned Weatherbys Racing Bank’s methods

www.roa.co.uk

Our contact details:

Meet the Board: DR JIM WALKER

What is your day job?

I am the chief economist at Aletheia Capital Ltd, an independent research provider for institutional investors based in Hong Kong.

Why did you get involved in racing politics?

I don’t really consider my Board position as getting involved in ‘racing politics’. All I am concerned about is getting a better deal for British owners. So many other jurisdictions seem to be able to balance the racing programme with a decent return to owners, why can’t we? Anything I can help with to reduce the costs to owners and increasing prizemoney to them will have my fullest attention.

How has your background/upbringing influenced your views?

Having spent most of the last 30 years in Hong Kong, I have seen it go from a racing backwater (in 1990 the quality of HK racing was no better than Class 5 or 6 here today) to one of the premier racing jurisdictions in the world. It did so by concentrating on quality (and reducing corruption) and, principally, by rewarding the people that supply the product – owners.

Having a third-placed horse in a Hong Kong Class 5 (the lowest class) would pay training fees for at least three months. That is something that UK owners won’t even be able to comprehend. As an economist, we can’t just keep hoping that people will pile money into the sport without any hope

of a positive return. That is the way to kill off the business.

The current situation leads to the inevitable sale of many of our top horses to other jurisdictions. That is what the treatment of owners leads to, and yet still some in the industry don’t understand why it is happening.

How long have you owned horses and how much success have you had?   I returned to live in the UK for a few years in 1998 and bought my first horse – with Linda Perratt – in 1999. I have had horses in the UK ever since, mostly with William Jarvis and Charlie and Mark Johnston. I had horses in Hong Kong with Caspar Fownes, John Moore and David Hall. As for success, not enough! But every owner is greedy for more. By far the best horse I have owned was Subjectivist, winner of the Gold Cup in 2021.

What do you love/hate about racing?  It might be an odd answer but what I really love is the puzzle of figuring out how best to a) buy a horse with potential and b) place one that has shown their form to win a race – that’s the hard part for some of them! I really like taking some money off the bookies as well – not that I have ever triggered any affordability checks!

I hate paying entry fees (not a feature of Hong Kong racing) and not knowing how much racecourses are being paid by the media to sell the rights to my horse to the betting public. How come the middleman in the generation of the product gets to keep all the money from

selling someone else’s goods?

What are the immediate priorities for the sport?

Restructuring. Since joining the Board of the ROA I have become painfully aware of just how many fingers are in the racing pie and how many vested interests there are. It all leads to frustrating inertia. The whole racing management structure is broken and needs to be streamlined and re-engineered. If I have to hear “that’s the way it has always been” one more time as an explanation for why we can’t change the rules or change the system for the better, I think I’ll go mad.

What is your favourite day’s racing?

Thursday, June 17, 2021, when Subjectivist won the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot.

Which horse would you most like to have owned?

Easy – Desert Orchid, although it would have been Roman Warrior on the Flat.

What is your racing ambition?

To breed a Group winner from Subjectivist.

The Tote to sponsor champagne reception at ROA Awards

We are delighted to once again welcome our partners at the Tote as the generous sponsor of the champagne reception at the 2024 ROA Horseracing Awards.

The ROA Horseracing Awards celebrates the best of British racing and the Champagne reception, sponsored by the Tote, provides a fitting start to the evening.

Louise Norman, ROA Chief Executive, commented: “We are thrilled to have the Tote’s ongoing support for our Awards ceremony with their sponsorship of the champagne reception. We look forward to raising a glass to all the nominees and winners at this year’s event.”

Racing’s big night out is being held for the 42nd year and

takes place on Thursday, December 5 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London.

The evening is a chance to celebrate those stand-out performances of the 2023/24 National Hunt season and the current Flat campaign.

Voting will start at the beginning of November for all ROA and Racegoers Club members. You can secure your tickets now by contacting Ruth Diver in the ROA office at ruth@roa.co.uk or visiting roa.co.uk/awards24.

Ruth is also on hand to provide information on other flexible sponsorship packages available for the ROA Horseracing Awards.

Dr Jim Walker: keen to streamline racing

MAGICAL MOMENTS

Ain’t Nobody dances home at Royal Ascot for John Blackburn

John Blackburn knows a thing or two about fast horses. In 2014, Move In Time, owned in partnership with Andrew Turton, a good friend from his school days, and Reg Bond, who bred the gelding, scorched home to cause an upset in the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye on Arc day at Longchamp.

Now Blackburn has found another seriously talented sprinter in the shape of two-year-old Ain’t Nobody, co-owned with John and Allison Matthews, who got the better of 26 rivals to take the Listed Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot in June.

Two magical moments, undoubtedly, and each wonderful in their own way.

“To have an Abbaye winner is fantastic but Royal Ascot is very special for anyone who has owned horses,” Blackburn relates. “It’s a dream come true, really.

“Royal Ascot attracts people from all over the world. You’re racing against horses from America and Australia. It’s a global event and the premium meeting of the year.”

He continues: “The time was quicker

than the [Group 2] Norfolk [won by Shareholder] the following day but I couldn’t get there on the Thursday, which is why we ran in the Windsor Castle. We would have probably won the Norfolk if we’d run!”

While Move In Time was trained by David O’Meara, Ain’t Nobody – given a peach of a ride by Jamie Spencer to overhaul US raider Gabaldon in the Windsor Castle – is in the care of Kevin Ryan. Blackburn’s choice of trainers reflects his Yorkshire roots.

He says: “I’m a Castleford lad – now I live in the village of Monks Fryston, which is only about nine miles away.

“I’ve always tried to keep things local – I like to support northern trainers. That’s important to me as there are very few people like me in the north.

“My foundations are here and there are plenty of good northern trainers.”

Blackburn, who sold his luxury worktop business, Sheridan Fabrications Ltd, to Howdens in 2022, has started to name his horses after songs – “Ibiza classics or soul records” – and many readers will recognise the Chaka Khan tune referenced by his latest star.

Ain’t Nobody, who failed to show his true colours when stepped up to six furlongs in the July Stakes on his next start, certainly makes his owners happy, though that is unlikely to stop prospective suitors from making enquiries about the son of Sands Of Mali.

“He’ll be worth a few quid now,” Blackburn says of his juvenile, snapped up for £30,000 at last year’s Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale. “I retired a couple of years ago after decades of hard graft, but I don’t think it would make any difference if I was still working. I don’t want to listen to offers, but I can’t speak

John Blackburn (blue suit) is thrilled with the Royal Ascot victory of Ain’t Nobody, who edged out US raider Gabaldon in the Windsor Castle Stakes under Jamie Spencer (right)

for John or Allison.”

It was with another stalwart of the northern racing scene, Michael Dods, that Blackburn took his first steps in ownership.

In 2005, the trainer informed Blackburn that his two-yearold Glasshoughton, making his second start, wouldn’t get beat at Ayr. Blackburn and friends duly travelled up to Scotland, bets placed and full of hope, only to find a Kevin Ryan-trained debutant too good.

“We ran into Amadeus Wolf!” Blackburn states, the victor going on to land the Gimcrack and Middle Park Stakes. “Glasshoughton didn’t get the clearest of runs, but he wouldn’t have beaten the winner.”

Having initially declined to follow the sport of horseracing so loved by his grandads – “I used to hate watching it on Grandstand on a Saturday afternoon” – Blackburn got the bug in his late teens working in a pub while studying for his A Levels.

He now has over 30 horses in training under both codes. “I enjoy the National Hunt scene and would love to have a runner at the Cheltenham Festival,” says Blackburn, who has also expanded into breeding.

“I have three broodmares with Mick Easterby – he’s a legend! I’ve had homebred runners but I’m still waiting for my first homebred winner. So far it’s an expensive hobby!

“Mid Winster, who Paul Midgley trained for me, achieved black type and I’m excited to see what she will produce.”

While Ain’t Nobody secured £62,000 for his Royal Ascot efforts, Blackburn is less than enamoured with purses at everyday meetings. “It’s embarrassing,” he says. “I’m not into

“I’ve always tried to keep things local – I like to support northern trainers”

racing politics but you do wonder what’s going on.

“We took Spring Is Sprung down to Lingfield, he won and earned £3,700 – half of that will be gone in travel costs.”

Blackburn is more impressed by the coverage that the sport receives, both terrestrial and on the dedicated racing channels.

“The people that run the TV side are doing a good job,” he says. “ITV Racing has got better and better. Racing UK do a great job as does Sky Sports Racing. They’ve got some excellent people on there that really care about racing and the welfare angle.”

As for Ain’t Nobody’s next steps, Blackburn is happy to defer to his trainer. “I leave it all to Kevin,” he says. “Sometimes people who have been involved in other businesses think they know more than the trainer. You’ve got to be honest about the situation – just let the trainer do their job.

“There are lots of options – you could even run in the Nunthorpe – but I’m not one for looking too far ahead.”

ROA Forum

OUR PARTNERS SECTION

Enjoy hospitality for 24 people in a private box at York

This month as part of Racing Welfare’s Bid to Give auction series, ROA members have the opportunity to bid for a fantastic day’s racing in a private box in the Melrose Stand at York racecourse on Saturday, October 12 for 24 people, including a three-course meal, race cards for each guest, and two members of staff at the racecourse providing waiter service during the day.

York’s end-of-season finale creates a great festival atmosphere. The top trainers will be entering the season’s stars in the afternoon’s feature race, the Coral Sprint Trophy.

Kindly donated by David Blunt, the box offers fantastic views of the racecourse on the last day of the season at York. Place your bid at www. bidtogive.co.uk to secure this special package.

All funds raised will go towards supporting Racing Welfare’s crucial work in supporting racing’s people. Bidding will close at 5pm on Monday, August 19.

How can you help?

Racing Welfare is wholly dependent upon charitable donations to provide its vital services to racing’s people. To help the charity continue to be there for people like Kieran when they need us, why not sign up for the Racing Welfare Jurassic Coast Challenge taking place on Sunday, September 29?

Join us for a trek along the stunning Dorset coastline, starting at the incredible Durdle Door and finishing in Swanage, chasing the sun along the beautiful Southwest Coastal Path. As well as stunning scenery, the challenge will also be a test of endurance, covering a distance of 20 miles and 1,443 metres of ascent.

The Racing Welfare Jurassic Coast Challenge is the perfect team event but is also open to any individuals who want to take part. Entries close very soon – sign up now at racingwelfare.co.uk to help us make a difference to people’s lives.

Racing Welfare case study: Kieran’s story

Kieran Donkin, 31, who works at Tim Easterby Racing in Malton, North Yorkshire, has been employed in the horseracing industry since he was a teenager.

Passionate about the sport and keen to celebrate the hard-working employees in the industry, Kieran took part in the Racing Staff Week charity race at Nottingham in June to raise awareness of the services Racing Welfare provides, as well as raising funds for the charity which has supported him in the past.

Kieran’s father, Shamus, who was Head Lad at Tim Easterby’s Farmside yard and well-known and respected throughout the racing community, sadly passed away recently and Kieran was determined to compete in the race in his memory.

Before the race, Kieran said: “I’m riding in memory of my dad Shamus who died recently. When I’d told him I had a place in the race at Nottingham he was really pleased and he’d planned to be there on the day, so it’s going to be tough without him, but I’m determined to do a good job and do him proud.

“I think Racing Staff Week is important, so people understand just how much work people put in behind the scenes. It’s not just about the

owners, trainers and jockeys, it’s about the grooms, riders, box drivers and all the other people in racing who put in the hours, early mornings, late nights –they’re all part of it.”

Having previously received online counselling sessions from Racing Welfare to help with his mental health, Kieran is keen to highlight the support the charity offers to make sure people working in racing know what’s available to them.

“Racing Welfare do a hell of a job and I don’t think people realise that. They have been very, very good to me in the past – they’ve helped me out with my mental health when I wasn’t too good.

“I had some counselling sessions through my local welfare office in Malton. Harriet and Sarah were absolutely amazing… we got there in the end and I got over it and I’m here now and happy with things. It’s good to talk – life is hard, don’t make it harder by not speaking out.

“People think it’s fine not to talk but they need to, because if you don’t talk then nobody will know what’s going on and they won’t be able to help you. At first, I wasn’t sure [about the counselling sessions] and I found it tough, but it did really help to talk things through with someone.”

Having recently lost his father, Kieran Donkin was keen to ride in the charity race

THE RACEGOERS CLUB COLUMN

Tony Wells looks at the racing scene

I’ve often said, “If ever I go racing at Carlisle, I’d love to go on Carlisle Bell day.” So, when our three-year-old filly Tayala was declared in the fillies’ handicap, it was just the excuse I needed to head to the Cumbrian course on its marquee day of the year.

The bells date back to 1599, the oldest bell has the inscription: ‘The sweftes horse this bel to tak for mi lade Daker sake’ (The swiftest horse this bell to take for my lady Dacre’s sake), making it the oldest sporting trophy in the world.

I travelled from the largest city in England (by population) to the largest city in England (by area) with fellow owners Ian and Mike, but we very nearly didn’t get to the course. As we joined the back of a very long queue for taxis near Carlisle station, a taxi pulled up next to us. One of us opened the door to tell the driver we were at the back of the queue. There was an immediate and angry response from the front of the queue, thinking we were going to get into the taxi. The driver told us we were at the front of the queue, but we wisely declined the taxi, ushering the driver further up the road. Our actions were accepted by the locals, and we immediately got chatting to the guys behind us, who told us what a big day it was for Carlisle. They also told us Tayala was unlikely to beat the Sir Michael Stoute-trained Juddmonte filly in the last!

We arrived at the course just minutes before the first race and the guys from the taxi queue were correct. It was indeed

a big day for the city. The course was extremely busy, as Cumbria enjoyed its hottest day of the year so far. The crowd may also have been swelled by the first visit from the three-times champion jockey, William Buick.

The welcome we received at the course was extremely warm. I can honestly say that every member of staff we met had a smile on their face and looked genuinely pleased to see us. The food was excellent in the owners’ and trainers’ restaurant, the racing was competitive, with over £188,000 in prize-money on offer, and the facilities were some of the best I’ve experienced at what is considered one of the smaller racecourses.

The Bell was won by Danny Tudhope on the David O’Meara-trained Orbaan and the oldest sporting trophy was being presented as we entered the paddock ahead of Tayala’s race. Tom Marquand was greeted by 11 excited owners as he entered the paddock and he continued to keep smiling as he listened to our wellintentioned but over-enthusiastic ideas on how to get the best out of Tayala. Fortunately, Ed Walker had briefed Tom and he knew exactly how to get the best out of our girl.

In the race, Tayala was smartly away and led the field. She settled nicely in front and led the field into the straight, but the Juddmonte filly, Red Pixie, was moving ominously well stalking our girl on her outside. Approaching the final furlong, William Buick hit the front on the

favourite, but our game girl responded and battled back, only to go down by a neck. It was a career best by Tayala and we cheered her back as though she was the winner. In our eyes she is, as she is so tough and genuine and really enjoys her racing.

Losing to a Juddmonte horse can have its advantages, though. Red Pixie wasn’t represented, so we were invited into the winning connections area to enjoy a glass of champagne and watch a re-run of the race. It was a fitting way to end a most enjoyable day.

We headed back to Euston, tired but happy. Racing gets plenty of bad press, some of it self-inflicted. But days like this make you appreciate all that’s good in our sport. The Carlisle Bell & Plate Day proves that if you put on good quality racing with decent prize-money during the week, the people will come.

The famous Carlisle bells

TBA Forum

The special section for TBA members

Future in focus at Bloodstock Conference

The challenges and opportunities for the future sustainability of the thoroughbred breeding and bloodstock industry were explored in depth by speakers, panellists and delegates at the annual TBA Bloodstock Conference held at Tattersalls on June 25.

Two hundred breeders, owners, enthusiasts, and industry professionals convened at Park Paddocks for the full-day event hosted by leading broadcaster and racing journalist Lydia Hislop.

The conference was opened by TBA Chairman Philip Newton, who discussed the current challenges facing the industry and the need for transformational change to alter racing’s finances, but also shared some insight into how incentives, such as the Great British Bonus, were having a positive impact.

The day was focused on three themes: the horse, people, and business. Trainer and founder of National Racehorse Week, Richard Phillips, gave his keynote speech to open the conference. After entertaining delegates with some tales of his own pathway into the industry, Richard outlined the genesis of the popular initiative and its growth over the last few years. Whilst centred around showcasing the thoroughbred and demonstrating high standards of care, National Racehorse Week has also provided the perfect platform to inspire and engage the younger generation and attract them to the industry.

The morning session explored other key areas related to the horse, touching on the important and topical subject of the role

of ethics in the use of horses in sport with Prof. Madeleine Campbell (Independent Director of the Greyhound Board of Great Britain) giving a thought-provoking speech on how breeders can take steps to safeguard the sport by using scientific evidence as the basis for policy. She urged the industry to continually challenge itself on what best practice should look like, to enhance the public’s perception of the use of animals in sport.

Host Hislop was joined for an interactive panel session on why aftercare services and funding are so vital to the industry, with Dr Roly Owers OBE from World Horse Welfare, Philippa Gilmore from Retraining of Racehorses, and Dr Ian Cameron from Rossdales, along with Louise Robson from Thoroughbred Dressage.

Prior to the lunch break, guests were treated to a visit from re-trained racehorse and RoR Champion in 2019 and 2020 Quadrille, with a live Q&A with Louise Robson in the parade ring. Bred by the late HM Queen Elizabeth II and now owned by HM King Charles III, Quadrille was also joined by Joe Grimwade, TBA Industry Retention Consultant, who had foaled him at The Royal Studs in 2007 and Oliver Nash who looked after him as a yearling at Polhampton.

The first session of the afternoon began with a compelling talk from Dr Gemma Pearson on how positive and negative reinforcement methods can benefit horse-handling techniques by training the behavioural responses required from thoroughbreds, thereby reducing their stress levels and keeping stud staff safe. This was followed by a presentation from

the Horseracing Industry People Board Chairman Neil Hayward, and a panel session with Joe Bradley (National Stud), Eileen Harte (Keith Harte Bloodstock) and Adam Holland (Godolphin Flying Start 2024) which focused on the industry’s people and covered the importance of the required skillsets on stud farms, how to retain staff with progressive career pathways, and continued investment in training and education.

The final topic of the afternoon looked at the business side of the industry, with Stephane Bazire from Silverstone explaining how the Formula 1 racetrack introduced new innovations and initiatives to lead the way as a sustainable business and leisure destination. Sarah Wynn (ADAS) followed with an update on the TBA’s Stud Farm Carbon Calculator.

The final session welcomed Dr Kanichi Kusano from the Japanese Racing Authority, who presented on the structure of Japanese racing built over a 30-year period followed by a Q&A with the audience and TBA Chairman Newton.

The event also featured a marketplace, with representatives from the day’s partners including Tattersalls Online, Farm & Stable, George Smith Horseboxes, Redmills, the National Stud, British Horseracing Authority, Dengie, Racing Welfare, Retraining of Racehorses, Horse Welfare Board, TB-Ed and Weatherbys.

Videos of each session from the day will be available to watch on TB-Ed, the TBA’s online learning platform www.tb-ed.co.uk in due course. TBA ACCESS subscribers can view resources including videos and podcasts for free.

Guests saw Quadrille and Lou Robson, pictured with Joe Grimwade (left) and Oliver Nash, while the panel discussion proved popular

Kingsclere and Highclere visits prove popular

On June 11, 47 members gathered for the south-west regional day, starting at Andrew Balding’s Park House Stables based in the scenic village of Kingsclere.

Members were treated to a delicious array of sweet and savoury treats before being led on a tour of the yard by the trainer’s wife Anna Lisa and her team. Starting from the Blond Me fillies' barn, named after Andrew’s Grade 1 EP Taylor Stakes heroine, members were given the opportunity to see some of the current stars of the string, including a few of the yard’s intended Royal Ascot runners.

Making their way to the private gallop, Andrew joined to provide some insight into the horses completing their morning exercise and members took the opportunity to have a Q&A session with

both Andrew and Anna Lisa.

Attendees then headed back to the yard to see more of the facilities, including the historic part of Park House. A real highlight for the group was the colours room, a converted chapel which was once home to Mill Reef during his recuperation from a broken leg.

After a fascinating insight into the scale of the yard and its day-to-day operations, members headed off for a quick pit stop for lunch at the aptly named Carnarvon Arms ahead of a tour of the historic Highclere Stud – originally founded in 1902 by the 5th Earl of Carnarvon.

Jake Warren greeted members with an introduction to the stud and its grounds, pointing out the various landmarks surrounding the stud and

Bloodstock Tax Guide relaunched

The TBA is pleased to reveal that it has been working with Streets Accountants to update and relaunch the Bloodstock Tax Guide. The current version will concentrate on the breeding and owning of bloodstock and the areas that practitioners and their advisors should be aware of, and where and when to take further advice.

Whilst the HMRC website has vast amounts of information on all forms of tax, it was felt that a more focused approach has been missing since the last update and the TBA believe it is an important benefit to its members

to be able to advise and signpost effectively.

The Guide covers direct tax, VAT, employment taxes, and factors to consider with multiple ownership. There is also information on Inheritance Tax, Capital Allowances and criteria around when breeding is classed as a trade rather than a hobby.

The Guide is free to access for all full members of the TBA and can be found in the Tax and Legal section in the Advice and Info area of the website.

The TBA also continues to provide

what made the land ideal for the rearing of youngstock.

The first stop was to see a selection of the mares and foals currently residing on the stud. Jake provided an honest appraisal of the market challenges when selling and the ongoing Highclere strategy to continue improving the quality of the broodmare band.

The group was given a viewing of several yearlings, with Jake providing an update on how they were best placed amongst the varying sales, based on their pedigree and type.

To conclude, the group enjoyed some welcome hospitality from our hosts before heading home. The TBA would like to thank all those who helped to make the day such a memorable experience for all.

The Bloodstock Tax Guide can be accessed through the TBA website

a free helpline for members to speak to a tax advisor directly. Members are asked to contact the TBA office to access that service.

Members were treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of Highclere Stud (left) and Andrew Balding's Park House Stables

TBA Forum

Inisherin emulates dam in becoming Group 1 winner

AGroup 1 winner on the track having captured the Prix Jean Romanet as a four-year-old, Ajman Princess upheld family honours as a broodmare when her son Inisherin readily took out the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot in June.

The following day, the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes saw Isle Of Jura take another step up the ladder with a comfortable success. He was one of three stakes scorers in the month for Godolphin. In the US, Measured Time, a son of Frankel, made the Manhattan Stakes his own, winning by two lengths, whilst in Japan, Farhh’s son Off Trail won the Grade 3 Nikkei Sho at Fukushima, getting up in the shadows of the post.

Another operation who supplied three stakes winners was Tweenhills. There

was Royal Ascot success in the Duke of Cambridge Stakes with Running Lion, bred under the banner of the Bella Nouf Partnership, whilst fellow daughter of Roaring Lion, Queen Of The Pride, was the winner of the Lester Piggott Fillies’ Stakes. She was bred under a partnership named after her Classic-winning dam Simple Verse. The three-timer was completed by Mgheera, successful in the Prix Hampton at Chantilly.

Shadwell were also in triple mood. Mutasarref was the winner of the Ballycorus Stakes at Leopardstown, whilst Montassib won the Chipchase Stakes on the all-weather at Newcastle. Meanwhile, Israr was an impressive winner dropped down in grade in the Wolferton Stakes at Royal Ascot.

In the Pretty Polly Stakes on the

Curragh at the end of the month, Juddmonte’s homebred four-year-old Bluestocking won her maiden top-level contest in fine style.

The Frankel colt Delius, bred by David and Trish Brown, put in a stylish performance to take the Prix du Lys at Chantilly – he was then third in the Grand Prix de Paris – and on the same day, Arabie captured the Prix du Bois. The colt, bred by Robert Cornelius, followed up in the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin.

Chasemore Farm’s homebred Breege had been unlucky in her quest for big black type but corrected those wrongs in the Princess Elizabeth Stakes at Epsom. Another to make the breakthrough at Group level was the Sun Kingdom Pty Ltdbred Dubawi gelding Noble Dynasty in the Criterion Stakes.

There were two Listed-race victories in June for the Fortescue Bloodstockbred King Of Conquest. He captured the Tapster Stakes at Goodwood and Fred Archer Stakes at Newmarket.

Rockcliffe Stud's homebred Celandine, a daughter of Kingman, won this year’s renewal of the Empress Fillies’ Stakes. Another juvenile stakes scorer was the Lord Margadale-bred Francisco’s Piece, winner of the Prix la Fleche at Chantilly.

The Fittocks Stud-bred Klondike won the Grand Cup at York, whilst the Barry Walters-bred Certain Lad was victorious in the Grand Prix de Compiegne. The Horniwinks Racing Club-bred Adaay In Devon was successful in the Scurry Stakes and the Richard Tucker-bred Clarendon House won the Midsummer Spring Stakes at Cork.

Over in America, the Aoife Kent-bred Tax Implications was the winner of the Eatontown Stakes at Monmouth, whilst the Rabbah-bred Too Darn Hot filly Oversubscribed won the Wild Applause Stakes.

Results up to and including June 30. Produced in association with GBRI.

Notice of the TBA’s Annual General Meeting

The 107th Annual General Meeting of the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association will be held at Newbury racecourse, Racecourse Road, Newbury, RG14 7NZ on Tuesday, August 13 commencing at 10.30am.

Official matters of business will be discussed in the AGM in accordance with the Articles of Association, where members will have the opportunity to put questions to the Board of Trustees about current industry matters.

The AGM will include an address from the Chairman reviewing the year’s activity and the publication of the Association’s Annual Report. Matters reserved for the Chief Executive include formal processes such as the announcement of appointment of three Trustees and any items relating to membership which require approval by voting process.

Copies of the annual report and minutes from the previous meeting,

in addition to the meeting notice for the forthcoming AGM, are available on the TBA website. Please note that you will need to log in to view these documents.

Booking is free of charge but is required. Please confirm attendance by booking via the events page here or confirming via email to info@thetba. co.uk.

Refreshments will be served prior to the start of the meeting.

Inisherin was an impressive winner of the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot

BILL SELWYN

Racing Staff Week

As part of Racing Welfare’s Racing Staff Week Initiative, the TBA offered a £100 contribution to studs to host a party for the third consecutive year. The week ran from June 22-28, celebrating racing and stud staff across the country, with a number of community events hosted by Racing Welfare.

The hardest part for most studs was finding a date with suitable weather, but despite the copious amounts of rain it didn’t dampen the spirits of those who took part.

The TBA would like to thank those who participated in the initiative and all the industry’s hard-working employees.

Removal of guarantee for temporary admission of horses to Ireland

The TBA welcomes the recent news from Ireland that the need to supply a guarantee for thoroughbreds entering Ireland temporarily has been removed with immediate effect.

It is now possible to import a horse to Ireland for sporting events, breeding, training, grazing or for the performance of work or transport without the requirement for a security deposit on import.

Proof of intended use is required, either race entry for those entering for racing purposes, or a contract or agreement which includes Passport number or UELN, names and addresses of both parties in the agreement, location of service, length of time

and signatures from both parties. An adapted nomination or training agreement should fulfill the criteria.

This change will allow UK breeders, and particularly small breeders who are not VAT registered in Ireland, to have a lot easier access to Irish stallions, without the burden of supplying a financial guarantee to the Revenue Commissioners. This means that Ireland now joins the UK in having a system of importing thoroughbreds for breeding and racing that does not involve additional VAT guarantees.

The TBA would like to thank the ITBA for their tireless efforts in working with Irish government departments to enable this change.

European breeders gather for 2024 EFTBA AGM

Taking place over Prix de Diane weekend in Chantilly, the 2024 European Federation of Thoroughbred Breeders' Assoications (EFTBA) AGM was hosted by the French TBA. The matters discussed included:

• EFTBA and the national associations continuing lobby for access to ARVAC for the 2025 breeding season

• Awareness of the newly identified Rotavirus strain, Rotavirus B

• The EU’s proposed animal welfare in transport regulations

• The revision of German animal welfare laws

• Lingering issues pertaining to trade and transport following BREXIT

• The EU’s recent decision to lift the ban on South African importation of Equidae

EFTBA was informed of a report from the International Thoroughbred Breeders' Federation Conference 2024, which took place in Japan during May, highlighting the fact that at the conference all artificial breeding methods were fully rejected by the unanimous vote of 27 thoroughbred breeding nations across six continents. This rejection included Artificial Insemination, equine thoroughbred cloning, embryo transfers, sexing stallion sperm, genetic manipulation and all future potential threats.

Diary dates

Tuesday, August 13

AGM/’Alles Ist Gut’, Newbury racecourse

The 107th AGM will take place in the morning, with the announcement of the three elected Trustees. Following this there is an educational event titled ‘Alles Ist Gut’ focusing on gut heath of horses.

Tuesday, September 17

Wales & Midlands regional day Spend the day with the Skeltons. The morning will be hosted at Dan Skelton’s Lodge Hill yard prior to lunch in a local pub. It is then around the corner to Grace Skelton’s Alne Park Stud.

The teams at Hascombe Stud and Hillwood Stud (inset) enjoy some time off

Breeder of the Month

THE BELLA NOUF PARTNERSHIP

David Redvers’ Tweenhills operation in Hartpury, Gloucestershire is a deserving recipient of the TBA Breeder of the Month award for June having produced not one, not two but three stakes winners.

The hat-trick was initiated by Queen Of The Pride, who showed class and courage to win the Group 3 Betfred Nifty 50 Lester Piggott Fillies’ Stakes at Haydock. Next up was Running Lion, who registered a popular victory in the Group 2 Duke Of Cambridge Stakes at Royal Ascot before Mgheera was a similarly convincing winner of the Listed Prix Hampton at Chantilly.

There is a poignant subplot to the wins of Queen Of The Pride and Running Lion, as the pair are by Tweenhills’ starcrossed stallion Roaring Lion. The four-time Group 1 winner covered just a solitary book of mares before he succumbed to colic while on shuttling duty in New Zealand, but is now the sire of an impressive ten black-type performers. His record is headed by Group 1 Critérium de Saint-Cloud scorer Dubai Mile.

“There’s mixed emotions, obviously,” Redvers says as he reflects on the fillies’ Group race brace. “As any stallion manager will tell you, standing stallions and seeing their progeny is a bit like seeing your own children turning up at sports day. You’re desperately willing them on, so when you’ve bred them on the farm, and they’re by your own horse, it’s doubly exciting and important when they win.”

There was no shortage of excitement in the Royal Ascot winner’s enclosure after Running Lion carried the two-tone green silks of David Howden to victory. The four-year-old filly was bred by Redvers and Howden under the banner of the Bella Nouf Partnership after the dam was purchased from Tattersalls for 325,000gns.

“Bella Nouf was the first mare we bought in partnership to breed from and it was a massive investment from both our perspectives,” says Redvers. “To see that decision vindicated in that style was fantastic, but also seeing the pleasure and excitement it gave David made it doubly special.

“He’s involved in the colts partnership between Qatar Racing and China Horse Club as well, so he’s just getting going, I hope. Anyone who sees his reaction whenever he has a winner will understand what it means to him.”

Howden, head of the eponymous insurance empire, has seen his colours become an increasingly familiar sight on racecourses in recent times, as has the branding of his company, most notably through the partnership with Ascot racecourse.

“His love and interest in the sport has blossomed and he’s become heavily involved in the insurance side of the industry as well,” says Redvers. “In the last few months he’s purchased David Ashby Underwriting and several others. They do a huge amount of sponsorship throughout the year worldwide. Next year he’s sponsoring the British and Irish Lions in their quest to vanquish the Australians, so he’s a real sportsman.”

Redvers plainly values the power of collaboration as June’s three stakes winners were bred at Tweenhills with a range of different partners.

The Blue Aegean Partnership of Redvers and fellow bloodstock agent Stephen Hillen was responsible for Mgheera, a daughter of another Tweenhills stallion in Zoustar, while Queen Of The Pride is the second foal out of Simple Verse, who famously carried the Qatar Racing silks to victory in the St Leger of 2015. The Simple Verse Partnership comprises Sheikh Fahad, his brother Sheikh Suhaim and

Words: James Thomas

While this shared approach is a way of spreading the risk – and the fun – of breeding thoroughbreds, Redvers says there is one drawback for a commercial operation such as Tweenhills.

“We see partnerships as very much the way forward,” he says. “The only problem with having mares registered under the name of a partnership is that normally it goes unnoticed that all these good horses have been bred and raised at Tweenhills. Maybe that’s something we need to change in future.”

Tweenhills’ purple patch has continued into July as Queen Of The Pride followed up her Lester Piggott Stakes success by winning the Group 2 bet365 Lancashire Oaks, while the farm’s first-season sire Kameko has begun to catch the eye with a flurry of two-year-old winners.

“I think Kameko’s only just getting going,” says Redvers. “What’s been wonderful about all of his stock is that the trainers love them, they try and have the same can-do attitude, and when you watch them running for the first time, all their best work is at the end of the race.

“I’m really excited to see how his two-year-olds go over the coming weeks because I’m pretty confident that by the time we get to the yearling sales, he’ll be the horse everyone is talking about.”

Mohammed Al Kubaisi.

BILL SELWYN

Running Lion: from the sole crop of Roaring Lion

Register your 2024 filly foals for Stage 1 of GBB by 30th September 2024.

To be identified in the sales catalogue as GBB, register by:

Doncaster British NH Breeders Showcase 2024: Friday 13th September

Tattersalls December Foal Sale: Friday 27th September

Don’t miss out on your chance to win up to £20,000 per eligible race

Think Tank

Graham Dench asks our jury the big questions: How would you sell the sport to a broader demographic?

Gemma Tutty Trainer and former jockey

“ For me, what really captures the imagination is the backstory behind the horses, jockeys, owners and trainers involved. Every horse has a story and often those behind some of the less well-known ones and their connections are a lot more interesting than the ones we read about most of the time from the big stables. Just occasionally we see them in the mainstream media, but I think we are missing opportunities to use them to promote our sport and therefore entice a new audience.

We need to show how inclusive racing can be and that it’s not simply a ‘rich boys’ club’ as many would believe. Instead of covering fashion at the big meetings, we could be learning about the actual participants.

Look what Adam Nicol has achieved with Wise Eagle, a horse picked up for just 7,000 guineas and trained on the beach! He’s won 11 races since, been placed in Group 3s, and earned a trip to the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot last year. Look how well received the ITV programme on Showtime Mahomes was, with all of the interest not just in the horse himself but also how he changed the lives of the Darlington lads who bought him for not very much.

One of my owners bought their horse with inheritance money left by a late uncle, and the horse is named after him. There’s a story there too.

Perhaps we could document a group of foals or yearlings and follow them through every stage, even to beyond their racing days. These are the kind of stories that capture the imagination of the wider public. Whether it’s by documentaries, segments on ITV and the racing channels or TikTok – which I’ve tried myself in a very small way – and other social media, we should be getting them out there.

The assumption behind the question is that racing needs to attract a younger fan base. I go racing in the north about 50 times a year, at York and elsewhere, especially at the much-criticised music nights, and there’s usually a sizeable proportion of the crowd that are under 40. So that’s the group I’d research. How many were even engaged by the racing? It’s an important question. If you can’t get people interested in racing when it’s taking place right in front of them, there’s no chance of engendering a deeper interest. I’ve been to scores of weddings, but it’s never encouraged me to go to church. You get the idea. Do we know how many music night attendees subsequently attend a race meeting without music? If so, what motivated them to

attend? If not, what put them off? How could the racegoing experience be improved? Was the ‘big’ screen actually big enough? Could they hear the public address system? Did they enjoy watching the horses race? Did they find the sport’s terminology off-putting? And so on.

The answers to these questions and more would tell me how to promote the sport to this demographic. Then I’d measure the response. Do more of what worked, do less of what didn’t work. Then move on quickly. Keep talking to the demographic. Keep trying things. Keep measuring. What I wouldn’t do is wait two years to find out that Premier racedays were – inevitably – not working.

Ged Shields

Owner with a distinguished background in marketing

Think Tank

Tim Gredley Owner and breeder

I think racing has done a good job exploring different avenues, but I believe we’ve now spread ourselves too thinly by trying to please everyone, which is impossible. You can’t force non-horsey people to start loving racing, and we’ve moved too far away from the foundations of the sport, which is its tradition.

Maybe we are missing a trick and it’s racing’s traditions and its history that we should be promoting. The sport used to be big, and that’s because we were doing something right. It’s called ‘The Sport of Kings’ for a reason. It’s no coincidence that Ascot and Cheltenham and big events like that get stronger and stronger, while elsewhere a lot of courses are struggling. The focus should be back on what we are good at – the best racing in the world, with the biggest match-ups, in the most famous races.

We should also better promote racing’s characters, both equine and human. When I was growing up there were so many characters within the sport, and they were celebrated. Nowadays, if anyone steps out of line in the slightest, they are soon slapped down, as everything has to be whiter than white.

But a key part of our heritage is the colourful characters of the past. ”

Mouse Hamilton-Fairley Owner, ROA

Board member and former trainer

Con Marnane Owner, breeder and sales consignor

“ Breeders, sales companies and so on should get together and see to it that auction maiden and median auction maidens are worth at least fifty grand. There would be more room for partnerships and syndicates, there would be more people coming in to buy yearlings, trade would be a lot stronger, and there would be a lot more excitement. If each horse had 20 people involved, you could nearly guarantee that 15 of them would come to the races, 15 of their friends would come along too, and maybe 15 friends of friends. It’s races for horses costing 50 grand or so that need looking after. The big owners aren’t in it for the prizemoney.

They should get the sport’s main administrators and fly them business class to Australia to see how to run racing. I was there recently and I was blown away. Everyone loves their racing there and it’s almost a national sport. Prizemoney is huge, everyone is getting a good living out of it, and the syndicates there are huge, so a vast number of people have small shares in racehorses – if they win even a small race they get well rewarded.

The racing industry is a massive employer, but the new government is not known for its love of the sport. We must get the government on side as the sport has to be looked after and needs help.

“ Racing needs to be more inclusive and accepting of other sports – on days when there are big sporting occasions happening elsewhere at home or abroad, it is still not always possible to be able to watch them from a racecourse on a raceday. This is obviously a media rights issue but one that needs addressing. Alternatively, we need to make the racing experience more enjoyable even on non-premier routine midweek days. I was recently at a racecourse outside Mons in Belgium on a Tuesday night and there was free admission, a €50 three-course meal – of very good quality – plus a drink included and a terrific atmosphere in the facility.

Perhaps we should think about moving away from the current drinking culture associated with racing and try to attract the Gen Z population who don’t drink. In addition, racecourses might also embrace esports as an alternative to the concerts after racing – most owners are put off by the music nights because they tend to involve traffic queues and large heavy-drinking crowds who are not so interested in the horses or the racing. Esports is very much a growing hobby and could attract new people to the courses.

ROA VAT SOLUTION

Reclaiming VAT is now easier with the ROA VAT Solution.

The Racehorse Owners Association team is here to simplify the process, helping you claim back £000s on your racing expenses and giving you more time for the sport you love. Let us take care of the details and make VAT reclaim seamless. For more information contact our team on 01183 385 685 or email vat@roa.co.uk

BLUE POINT

What an incredible start! Sire of first-crop G1 winners

Big Evs and Rosallion. His second crop is already excelling too, with Tiego The First, a classy seven furlong Stakes winner at Deauville.

The next Blue Point? Victor Ludorum is by Shamardal, from his family, and won similar races. His first yearlings are selling now.