Thoroughbred Owner Breeder

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Gredleys build new dynasty under both codes

For those who grew up watching Bill Gredley’s horses winning some of Flat racing’s biggest prizes – User Friendly’s Classic strikes and Environment Friend’s Eclipse upset immediately spring to mind – the diversion into jumping has been somewhat surprising yet has certainly added spice to the domestic scene.

With Bill’s son Tim at the helm, the Gredley family’s racing operation is now campaigning a host of Cheltenham Festival contenders, including Burdett Road and East India Dock, alongside a potential Derby candidate in Wimbledon Hawkeye, winner of the Royal Lodge Stakes during his two-year-old campaign. What a year 2025 could be for the famous yellow and black silks!

As a racing and breeding outfit that favours middle-distance and staying horses, perhaps it shouldn’t be a shock that such bloodlines are prospering in the National Hunt arena. Maybe the Gredley clan can do their bit to ward off the Mullins and Elliott battalions at Prestbury Park in March and help to redress the balance in favour of the home defence.

In this month’s Big Interview, Tim Gredley explains why he decided to campaign runners over jumps along with the likely benefits of showcasing their talents to an international audience on the biggest stages.

‘‘There is a lot of money in jump racing now,” he tells Marcus Townend (The Big Interview, pages 28-32). “I felt that we might be missing a trick selling these horses with the potential to go jumping and missing out on all the fun.

‘‘With the idea of selling them later this year, Cheltenham and Royal Ascot are our biggest showcases. Everybody all over the world is watching these races. It is important to get your horses to these meetings. When they go through the ring, they will be recognisable horses.

‘‘We will maybe keep one or two but also speak to the agents so they know they will be on the market. Perhaps some will be

Edward Rosenthal Editor

Melbourne Cup-types.’’

Another important element in the Gredley story has been the stunning rise of rookie trainer James Owen. At the time of writing, he had sent out 138 winners under both codes in just a couple of seasons, vindicating the faith shown in him by his major backers.

Gredley continues: “It was a bit of a punt when we sent so many to him – especially the Flat yearlings – in his first season but I took the view that there is no point sending him two or three because you need a lot of numbers to work them with.

‘‘At the beginning, he liked the idea of having a few jumpers, but with the Flat horses he really

“James Owen has vindicated the faith shown in him by his major backers”

needed pushing.

“It has been a great journey for all of us. The nice thing is James is very open to having conversations, which I think is especially important for trainers with owner-breeders.”

Coolmore’s superstar City Of Troy is one of the most exciting additions to the stallion ranks for many years and Bloodstock Editor Nancy Sexton runs the rule over the class of 2025, which also features Auguste Rodin and King Of Steel, the first two home in the 2023 Derby, and sprint star Bradsell (pages 34-40).

Those hoping to breed a Classic performer in the future might like to review the tech tools available online to aid their research – Virginia Lisco takes a look at this burgeoning sector and its place within the industry (pages 48-52).

Cover: Tim Gredley with Wimbledon Hawkeye, a Group 2-winning son of Kameko and potential Derby contender, at Stetchworth Park Stud near Newmarket

Photo: Bill Selwyn

TO THE FORE

BRADSELL

Sprint sensation £10,000 (LIVE FOAL)

Champion 3yo sprinter £7,500

Exceptional value £3,000

Seven- time Group 1 winner £10,000 (LIVE FOAL)

Contact

Joe Bradley 07706 262046

Joe.Bradley@nationalstud.co.uk

Jamie Jackson 07794 459108

Jamie. Jackson@nationalstud.co.uk

FOR THE GRIT AND THE GLORY

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

ROA HORSERACING AWARDS 2024

ROA Leader

Projects and partnerships must go live in 2025

The New Year brings into focus the list of objectives for British racing to achieve in the next 12 months – and urgency is the order of the day.

Levy reform is top of the list. Baroness Twycross has asked the Betting & Gaming Council (BGC) and the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) to try and reach an agreement that will not need government intervention. However, it is not in the interest of the betting firms to resolve this matter, as inflation eats into the real value of the levy take. It is time to try a different angle. There was enthusiasm from both sides around the concept of allocating some of the levy receipts to a growth fund designed to explore new ways to promote, market and grow the industry. I would be keen to try and shift the ‘negotiations’ between the BGC and the BHA to more of a partnership agreement that can be designed to benefit both the bookies and the industry.

The sport is in desperate need of additional funds, not least to deliver the projects that may really shift the dial. Why not promote levy review and reform as an opportunity to deliver seed funding for initiatives that will boost betting turnover, attendances and, crucially, prize-money?

We must stop the Gambling Commission from ruining the industry whilst claiming innocence. From publishing data on gambling harm that they themselves warned should not be relied upon, to using anti-money-laundering measures as a backdoor way of continuing the crusade on affordability checks, they have, with no apparent oversight, seriously damaged British racing.

At the same time, not a single piece of evidence has been produced to suggest the measures the Gambling Commission have been pursuing are having any impact, apart from driving punters to the black markets where, of course, there are no protections and no benefit to racing, as they sit outside the levy and media rights payments. Racing needs to continue to point out the damaging impact of the organisation and make sure the government is onside to shift the focus onto online slots and casino products and away from the skill-based pastime of betting on horses.

We need to complete two key projects that could set the future strategy for the industry. Work is under way to identify a revised premier product that can generate enhanced investment, media rights, betting turnover and attendances by attracting global interest in line with other sports in the inward international investment arena. The sport must agree the structure of the newlook product and launch into 2026 whilst confirming the funding model that will support core and National Hunt racing.

It is also vital that we kick-start the project looking at fan engagement, growth and retention, and how we can present our great sport in an ever-changing world that has mostly left traditional print and terrestrial contact points behind. A strategy

that engages with the next generations and presents racing on platforms that are beginning to dominate how the population consumes its sport, entertainment and news is vital.

It is imperative we get the new team of industry leaders in place and working collaboratively. Lord Allen has been appointed BHA Chair but the regulator is still searching for a new CEO, as is the Jockey Club, while the Levy Board must find a new Chair. There have also been recent changes at the major gambling companies and the BGC. With this new cast of characters there is a chance to reset the structure and, where necessary, the governance of the industry. To deliver on the above points we will need strong, committed and inspirational leadership.

“Work is under way to identify a revised premier product that can generate enhanced investment”

Crucially, the sport requires a partnership between racecourses and participants that provides a fair distribution through prizemoney for owners, trainers and stable staff. If initiatives begin to deliver increased sponsorship revenues, media rights and attendances, it is only right that the participants receive a fair share, having been so instrumental in the conception and progress. The mistrust that still pervades needs to be put to bed so we can concentrate on the growth and development of the sport.

Racing must develop the equine welfare strategy and the people strategy to ensure we continue to protect the social licence that the sport enjoys, and to make sure we have the people to service all the industry’s needs.

There is plenty to do and time is beginning to run out – delivery is now essential.

Charlie Parker President

TBA Leader

Big numbers cannot mask loss-making landscape

The 2024 sales season is now behind us – and I am more confused than ever! Once again, at the top of the tree, there were some spectacular results proving that it still does only take ‘two to tango’ to generate huge returns. Unusually, the demand in Book 1 at Tattersalls then filtered into Book 2 and there were some satisfied vendors as a result, but the going then became very tough.

Too many yearlings didn’t recover their costs and some struggled to sell at all, delivering a double slap; first comes the financial consequence but next the humiliation that the market didn’t value that animal at all. I heard several of our members express this view, and why wouldn’t they? It’s 32 months of hard work, investment and dreams down the pan.

The foal and mare sales reflected the same market conditions – if the right pedigree and performance were on the page, then some were well paid, others made a profit, and some recovered their costs, but yet again the majority looked at a completely different loss-making landscape. The headline acts, though, apply the law of unintended consequences by delivering these eyewatering numbers that persuade those with influence in racing – but not a detailed knowledge of the breeding industry – that everything in our profit and loss columns is positive.

One senior executive said in a recent radio interview that the industry must explain itself. Successive TBA economic impact studies have painted a challenging picture of British breeding, and it is from these that the TBA has been able to persuade those in power that intervention and incentive is required to support the industry.

These interventions could now be at risk and so it is the TBA’s job to provide an explanation; an in-depth review of all Britishbased yearling sales has been commissioned and it will deep dive into the top of the market, the export market, the special purchaser, and the Brexit impact upon the lower market and so on. This work will be completed in early March and will provide vital evidence when presenting the challenges of the British breeding sector both across the wider industry and externally to the Levy Board and government.

I can hear some asking why we are wasting money on that as we know the answers, and maybe we do in part, but as an old Chairman of mine would say, “If you can’t measure, you can’t manage” – we need to be able to measure with confidence to continue to press the case for support of the British-bred product!

The good news upon that front is the ongoing success of the Great British Bonus, which is proving the case daily that intervention, properly targeted, can and will work. Expect more of this as soon as new money is available and I cannot in that respect emphasise enough the importance of a GB suffix to be

Philip Newton Chairman

eligible for all existing schemes and those to come.

Breeding British makes sense for the short and long term; the more we invest in ourselves and in our domestic industry, the stronger it will become. Bemoaning the lack of choice in British-based stallions will become self-perpetuating if we don’t support our current British-based sires, whose owners incidentally provide a financial contribution of around £2 million annually to prize-money via the British European Breeders’ Fund, in so doing supporting the case for reinvestment in new and exciting stallions.

British breeders are a tough lot – proof of that pudding is

“An in-depth review of all British-based yearling sales has been commissioned to provide an explanation”

they keep coming back and as we turn into January, plans are advanced for this year’s matings. The TBA has been contacted by several members in respect of nomination contract terms and conditions with suggestions of how these might be improved. We engage with the stallion owners regularly and will discuss both mare owners’ concerns and how that might be assisted whilst respecting the significant capital and risk that standing a stallion entails.

There is that old horse adage ‘caveat emptor’ and I urge all mare owners to read the small print before they sign any contract and make the amendments required before buying rather than relying upon a contract to provide for every eventuality. Introduce your own terms and if you can’t agree, review your choice. You make a profit when you buy something and not when you sell, so dotting i’s and crossing t’s seems a good plan at this point.

The TBA continues to support breeders large and small; we do have your back and we do listen. Never has there been a more important time to stick together. Breed, buy and race British is my New Year shout.

RoR funds boosted as auction houses unite for racing charity

Sales houses Goffs UK, Tattersalls and ThoroughBid have joined forces to provide an increase in funding for Britain’s official horseracing charity, Retraining of Racehorses (RoR).

The new funding model introduces a £6 contribution from each sales company for every lot sold alongside mandatory levies of £3 each for vendors and purchasers, applied to every lot published as sold at thoroughbred auctions, including online sales.

These charges will be introduced from January 1, 2025 and remain fixed until the end of 2026, coinciding with the end of RoR’s three-year strategic cycle and helping the charity to deliver its objectives for 2024 to 2026. That includes the traceability of horses bred for racing, enhanced educational outreach to owners, and expanded welfare programmes to ensure that no racehorse faces an uncertain future after racing.

David Catlow, Managing Director of RoR, said: “This new funding agreement is a vital step forward for RoR and the thousands of former racehorses we support. The generosity of Goffs UK, Tattersalls and ThoroughBid highlights their shared commitment to our mission. With this increased funding, we are better positioned to deliver on the goals outlined in the RoR Strategy 2024-2026.

“This funding sets a benchmark for racehorse welfare that we hope all other industry stakeholders will follow. It also strengthens RoR’s role as the agreed provider of aftercare support, enabling us to enhance our capacity to meet our strategic goals.”

Tim Kent, Managing Director of Goffs

UK, commented: “Goffs UK is proud to support RoR through this enhanced funding model, ensuring vendors and purchasers play a part in the essential work of retraining and rehoming former racehorses. Together with Tattersalls and ThoroughBid, we are helping to create a sustainable future for these horses once their racing careers have ended.”

Edmond Mahony, Chairman of Tattersalls, added: “Tattersalls continues to support RoR’s Showing Series, and this new funding model further cements our commitment to RoR. We are pleased to be part of this industry initiative.

“RoR’s work is fundamental to the thoroughbred industry, not only in

promoting welfare but also in demonstrating the versatility of these horses beyond racing. Through this initiative, Tattersalls reaffirms its dedication to the long-term care and retraining of racehorses, ensuring they have the opportunity to thrive in new careers.”

James Richardson, ThoroughBid’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “We are delighted to be part of this collaborative effort to enhance funding for RoR. Online bloodstock sales play an equally important role in supporting the welfare and future careers of former racehorses, and we are proud to help ensure they can thrive in their lives after racing.”

BHA promotes Brant Dunshea to acting CEO

Brant Dunshea has stepped into the role of acting Chief Executive at the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), succeeding Julie Harrington, who left the regulator in December after four years.

Lord Allen, recently appointed as new BHA Chair, will play a part in the recruitment process for a permanent CEO.

Dunshea joined the BHA in March 2015. He was promoted to the role of Director of Integrity and Regulatory

Operations in September 2016 and then Chief Regulatory Officer in April 2018. Prior to joining the BHA, he held various senior roles within racing-related industries in his native Australia for two decades.

Dunshea said: “I’d like to thank the BHA Board for having the trust in me to take on this responsibility. I’m looking forward to the challenge and the opportunities this next period will bring.

“I’ll be focused on delivering on the

numerous issues that we have before us as a sport, including the extensive work around the industry strategy and the important work on welfare and protecting our social licence.”

He added: “I’d like to recognise the contribution of Julie. I worked with Julie when we were navigating our way out of Covid and she demonstrated great leadership in driving a series of reforms during that time to ensure the BHA and the sport was on a strong footing.”

Edmond Mahony, Chairman of Tattersalls, is happy to support the industry initiative

Changes People and business

John Francome

Seven-times champion jump jockey received the Sir Peter O’Sullevan Award at the Trust’s lunch in November, which raised £165,000 for six charities.

Frankie Dettori

US-based jockey is named in tax dispute with HMRC after his anonymity is removed. He said his management team is “working to unravel the mess”.

Jockey Club

Racecourse group announces prizemoney freeze for 2025. Its 15 tracks will offer £58.1 million this year with its executive contribution set at £30.6m.

David Maxwell

Amateur jockey rides out his claim on his six-year-old gelding In D’Or at Taunton in November, a feat which took the 46-year-old 25 years to achieve.

Nicky Richards

Cumbria-based trainer sustains multiple injuries including a broken shoulder, pelvis and ribs when his mount suffered a heart attack on the gallops.

Richard Hammill

Chief Operating Officer at Pontefract racecourse is stepping down to take up a new role as CEO at a tourist attraction and events venue in the spring.

Cian Chester

Positive test for cocaine results in conditional rider being banned for six months by a disciplinary panel, backdated to August 8.

Patrick Mullins

Racing’s news in a nutshell

Amateur jockey named Racing Writer of the Year at the HWPA Derby Awards in London; Edward Whitaker took the Photographer of the Year accolade for the tenth time.

Adam West

Group 1-winning trainer opens a second yard in Maisons-Laffitte with a view to a permanent move from his Epsom base.

Plumpton

East Sussex track leaves the Racecourse Association after owner Peter Savill reveals he is disillusioned with the trade body’s attitude to prize-money.

Georges Rimaud

Steps down as Director of the Aga Khan Studs in France after 25 years in the role; Pierre Gasnier is appointed as his successor from this month.

Jack Kennedy

Champion jump jockey in Ireland breaks his leg for the sixth time following a fall at Fairyhouse and is set for a lengthy spell out of action.

Alastair Warwick

Leaves role as Chief Executive at Ascot racecourse, having been appointed in March 2023. Felicity Barnard will succeed him at the Berkshire track.

James Horton

Moves into Beech Hurst Stables in Newmarket, formerly occupied by Sir Michael Stoute, who retired from the training ranks last year.

Academy hurdles

Horse Racing Ireland announces a new programme of academy hurdles for unraced three-year-olds, beginning next season in October.

Tony Hide 85

Newmarket trainer enjoyed big-race success throughout Europe, taking the 1984 Golden Peitsche with Celestial Dancer, ridden by brother Edward.

Ben Cecil 56

US-based trainer, Sir Henry Cecil’s nephew, sent out 325 winners in the States, taking three Grade 1 races with Pivotal’s daughter Golden Apples.

LOOK DE VEGA

“ “

He looked right out of the top drawer when running away with the French Derby... couldn’t have won any easier

the only unbeaten runner in the field ran out a clear-cut winner “ “

Changes

Racehorse and stallion Movements and retirements

Al Dancer

Talented chaser for owner Dai Walters and trainer Sam Thomas is retired aged 11 following his decisive victory in the Badger Beer Chase at Wincanton.

Luccia

High-class jumps mare, winner of five races and third to State Man in the 2024 Champion Hurdle, earning £230,000, is retired to the paddocks aged six.

Aesop’s Fables

Group 2-winning son of No Nay Never will commence his stallion career at Starfield Stud in Co. Westmeath in 2025, with his opening fee set at €6,500.

Summerghand

Prolific sprinter, winner of 17 races all over six furlongs that saw earnings of £632,000, is retired aged ten to start a new life at the British Racing School.

Inns Of Court

Son of Invincible Spirit moves from TallyHo Stud to Razza dell’Orso in Perugia, where he will stand at a fee of €6,000 for Renew Italian Breeding.

Kessaar

Kodiac’s son is recruited by Renew Italian Breeding to stand at stud in Tivoli, near Rome. The former Tally-Ho sire’s fee is €6,000.

Pearl Secret

Japan’s Ookaribe Farm recruits Group 2-winning son of Compton Place, sire of useful sprint handicapper Designer, from Norton Grove Stud in Yorkshire.

Aclaim

Sire of Classic heroine Cachet moves from Manton Thoroughbreds to Batsford Stud in Gloucestershire. The son of Acclamation’s fee is £3,000 in 2025.

Horse obituaries

Ferny Hollow 9

Grade 1 winner at the Cheltenham Festival and Leopardstown for owner Cheveley Park Stud suffers a fatal fall in the Hilly Way Chase at Cork.

Acclamation 25

Rathbarry Stud stallion sired a host of top-class performers including Expert Eye, Equiano, Marsha, Mehmas, Aclaim and Romantic Warrior.

Elvstroem 24

Outstanding performer around the globe, winning the Caulfield Cup and Dubai Duty Free, later standing at stud in Australia and France.

River Tiber

French breeding consortium purchases son of Wootton Bassett, winner of the 2023 Coventry Stakes, to stand at Haras de la Huderie in Normandy.

Time Test

Turkish Jockey Club secures services of Dubawi’s son, who had been based at the National Stud since 2018 and also shuttled to New Zealand.

Look De Vega

Prix du Jockey Club winner is retired from racing and will stand this year at Ballylinch Stud. The son of Lope De Vega’s debut fee is €20,000.

Storm Boy

Son of Justify, a high-class sprinter in Australia, joins Aidan O’Brien from Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott ahead of a European campaign in 2025.

Al Wukair

Al Shaqab’s Group 1 winner moves from Haras de Bouquetot in Normandy to Yeguada La Serreta in Segovia, Spain.

Inc. Gr.1 winning sprinters GLASS SLIPPERS, DREAM OF DREAMS, DONJUAN TRIUMPHANT, and Gr.1 miler AL WUKAIR.

Already the broodmare sire of Gr.1 horses –Poptronic, Lightsaber, Texas, and many more. A great outcross. Ranked alongside No Nay Never, Kodiac & Dark Angel for sires of Gr.1 winning sprinters since 2019 Te leading sire of sprinters by earnings standing at under £25k (5f/6f from 2017 to 2024, Marray Toroughbred Services)

Faces at the Awards ROA HORSERACING AWARDS

Nevin Truesdale and Amy Starkey

Barry Johnson and Andrew Scutts

Sarah, Greg and Audrey Turley

Rebecca and Scott Dixon

Deirdre and Mark Johnston

Josephine Gordon and Molly Presland

JP McManus and Sir AP McCoy

Joe Donnelly and Nicky Henderson

Paul and Yvette Dixon

Steve and Rachel Mulholland

Hanako and Roger Varian

Photos: Jon Bradley

Faces at the Awards

Photos: Johnny Hathaway

WELSH HORSERACING AWARDS

Special Recognition Awards went to jockeys Sean D Bowen, whose father Ian collected his

A full house at the Vale Resort in Cardiff celebrated the best of Welsh

over the past 12 months

Peter and Michael Bowen were named National Hunt Trainers of the Year

trophy, and Ben Jones

Evan Williams collected Libberty Hunter’s Chaser of the Year trophy

Trainer Bernard Llewellyn took home the Outstanding Contribution Award

racing

Won Gr.1 Frank E Kilroe Mile Stakes

Won Gr.2 Del Mar Handicap (3 times)

Won Gr.2 Charles Whittingham Stakes (2024)

Won Gr.2 Eddie Read Stakes 36 Stakes winners/performers (10 new Stakes horses in 2024)

Te highest-ranked sire standing under £15k in Europe by number of winners in 2024 (European Sires by no. of winners from 1/1/24 to 16/10/24 in

Marray Toroughbred Services) 57% winners/runners worldwide

The Big Picture

Kandoo attitude

The Randox Grand National could well be on the agenda for Michael Geoghegan’s Kandoo Kid following his decisive success in the Coral Gold Cup Handicap Chase at Newbury under Harry Cobden. Trainer Paul Nicholls had the grey Kapgarde gelding in top shape for his seasonal return as he saw off Broadway Boy by a length and three-quarters in the famous 3m2f prize.

Photo Bill Selwyn

The Big Picture

JP’s joy with Jonbon

Jonbon made it five Grade 1 wins from as many starts at Sandown with a clear-cut victory in the Tingle Creek Chase for the second year running. Nico de Boinville has one anxious moment at the second fence but otherwise it was plain sailing. Jonbon was welcome back by trainer Nicky Henderson and owner JP McManus, pictured with Lauren McManus and Freya Bruce.

Photos Bill Selwyn

The Big Picture

Jet and James fly home

Three-times champion jump jockey in France

James Reveley made a flying visit to Cheltenham in December and enjoyed his second winner at the track aboard the David Cottin-trained Jet Blue in the Grade 2 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle. Jet Blue, owned by Professor Caroline Tisdall (inset, hat), could well return to Prestbury Park for the Festival in March.

Photos Bill Selwyn

Racing around the World

BY JAMES BURN

South Africa bounces back on world stage

SOUTH AFRICA

Stunning successes at the last two Rugby World Cups demonstrate South Africa can cut it at the summit of sport, but the outlook for the Rainbow Nation’s racing prospects has been much bleaker over the last few years.

Never a superpower, South Africa has been punching above its weight on a world stage since Camp Fire II landed what is now the King Charles III Stakes at Royal Ascot in 1907, while Hawaii, a star in his homeland before shining in the States in the late 1960s, went on to sire Derby winner Henbit and is also a footnote in the pedigree of US Triple Crown ace Justify and therefore this year’s Epsom hero and European champion City Of Troy.

The pioneering Mike de Kock, meanwhile, became a force at the Dubai World Cup Carnival and further afield, regularly butting heads with racing’s biggest names, often emerging on top.

However, his (and others’) international forays were derailed in 2011 when the European Union banned the direct import of equine athletes from South Africa due to fears over African horse sickness, which effectively meant the jurisdiction was cut adrift from international competition as many participants shunned the laborious alternative quarantine procedures.

The coronavirus pandemic caused more headwinds and played a part in the demise of Phumelela, which ran the majority of racecourses in the country, while fellow track operator Gold Circle also became troubled.

“I was offered a job in Hong Kong five years ago and was going to take it,” says champion trainer Justin Snaith, who followed his father Chris into the profession. “I was out of here. There was no way I saw any light.”

Jehan Malherbe, a veteran of the industry whose many roles include

racecaller and bloodstock agent, shared those fears.

“We nearly lost racing here,” he admits. “We were in a dark place, but the future looks good.”

Reasons for that optimism include investment from Mary Slack, a billionaire member of the Oppenheimer family known as the first lady of South African racing. Her patronage of 4Racing, which has replaced Phumelela, has been welcomed, as has Hollywoodbets’ proposed takeover of Gold Circle. Britain’s four-time champion jockey Oisin Murphy recently rode in the country’s richest race, the Betway Summer Cup, which was worth six million rand (£261,000/ €314,000) and was an occasion that, according to Heather Morkel, Chief Executive Officer of the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association of South Africa, was “golden – like the old days”.

“There’s been new influences and new people, and we’ve gone from ground zero to the complete opposite,” reveals Snaith. “You can’t believe the turnaround. We’re back to where we were and going forward so much better.”

Malherbe, who has overseen Slack’s racing and breeding interests for a number of years, describes the situation as “definitely more positive”, and that is echoed by Morkel, who has praised the emerging operators for “really coming to

Double Grand Slam strikes at Kenilworth for trainer Justin Snaith, who is looking forward to competing in international races

the party”.

Another reason all three have hope and excitement in their voices came in March when the ban on exporting horses to the EU was lifted.

“There’s been a lot of work done from a scientific perspective to manage African horse sickness,” Morkel adds.

“The groundwork, research, development, controls and PCR testing that has been done has been as a result of funding by owners and breeders in South Africa, and then, most recently, the Hong Kong Jockey Club, who have been incredibly supportive of racing and breeding here. We’re very lucky to have had that.”

The SA Equine Health & Protocols NPC (SAEHP), of which the legendary de Kock is a board member, has been the main driver in improving the situation, although Snaith’s frustrations are still clear.

“It’s the amount of time it’s taken to get right,” he continues. “It’s years of huge expense that racing has been spending through SAEHP. After all that time, we were worried we were actually further away than closer.

“All we want to do is compete fairly and, to put it into perspective, I’ve trained since 2000 and my father since 1972, and not one of us has had a horse with African horse sickness.”

Wasting little time in nominating a horse he would have loved to campaign abroad, Snaith says: “Jet Dark. He was deadly over seven furlongs and a mile and could easily have competed in Saudi Arabia, or Hong Kong – anywhere. I’d have been quite confident about that, but you need a good horse. One who wins well here, more than one Group 1 in any case.”

Morkel’s 28 years in the industry

include breeding in her own right and she is in little doubt how important the refound freedom will be.

Asked whether the restrictions played a bigger part in South African racing’s decline than the effect caused by the plight of Phumelela and Gold Circle, she replies: “That’s a tricky one, but yes, certainly, because one thing you want to do as a racing nation is to be able to breed and campaign internationally.

“Mike de Kock took us to Dubai and beyond and being able to do that with this ease of movement will help. I don’t think any other racing country in the

“If people are optimistic, they are prepared to invest a little more”

world understands how it has impacted on us as a breeding and racing nation.”

Malherbe accepts “it’s not as if thousands of yearling buyers are going to pitch up on our shores” but shares the view with Snaith and Morkel that the exchange rate for South African rand against other currencies makes the market an attractive and affordable one.

He also references the interest shown this year in sales – another pillar of the rejuvenated industry enjoying a shot in the arm – by John Stewart, the bigspending part-owner of King George

winner Goliath, and Barry Irwin of Team Valor fame.

The respectable runs from Isivunguvungu (seventh in the Turf Sprint) and Beach Bomb (eighth in the Filly & Mare Turf) at November’s Breeders’ Cup are hardly likely to put off talent scouts either, especially as they took an established, more circuitous, non-EU route to the States, and, in the words of Snaith, “weren’t superstars”.

“I think if our best went, they could run into a place, so their runs were very encouraging” he adds.

With that in mind, Malherbe is keen to see how Gimme A Nother, bred by Slack and her daughter Jessica Jell, who now races her, fares out there in 2025.

“She came out of the new protocols and went to France for her residency before she left for America,” he explains. “I think readers would be shrewd to watch her. She’s going to Graham Motion and we need to keep good stock here to perpetuate the bloodlines, but Jessica is keen to see where we are on the world stage and this filly will be a good test. She was pretty good here and I would think she’s capable of winning at the highest level in America for sure.”

And what about further glory across the globe?

“Are we going to win the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot? I doubt it,” Malherbe responds. “Are we going to win the King Charles III Stakes? It’s very doable. It’s a question of levels. We’ve been good enough to win in Hong Kong, we’ve been good enough to win in Dubai, and we were good in Singapore.

“A Group 1 winner here isn’t going to be a Group 1 winner aboard, but a champion or exceptional horse would hold its own. Mike de Kock was winning races all over the world with South African-bred horses, so there’s no reason that can’t start again, but at a level – I don’t think we’ll be winning the Arc soon.”

Arc or no Arc, it is impossible to miss the buoyancy surrounding the sport.

“South Africans generally are glasshalf-full people,” Morkel concludes. “We’ve got longstanding breeders in South Africa who are completely committed to continuing the breeding legacy that has been established here. This definitely places us on a better footing and what the export market does indirectly is improve optimism for the future of racing and breeding in South Africa, but particularly breeding.

“If people are optimistic, they are prepared to invest a little more and, hopefully, that means they can compete on a world stage.”

CAPE

Buyers from around the globe are set to venture to South African sales this year

The Big Interview

An excellent ADVENTURE

Tim Gredley is driving his family’s racing ambitions over jumps while maintaining a highclass Flat string – could 2025 deliver top-level success at both Cheltenham and Epsom?

Words: Marcus Townend • Photos: Bill Selwyn

You know what to expect when you pass through the security gates at a stud – but it is different at Stetchworth Park. Here, you encounter a unique experience.

Naturally, there is everything you would anticipate seeing at an elite equestrian establishment, including stables and turn-out paddocks.

Yet you are also stepping into an art installation. It is everywhere you look.

On one side of the drive stands the imposing statue of Apache military leader Geronimo while opposite him, just outside the stud office, is the abstract sculpture of a faceless Prince Philip, credited to Uruguayan artist Pablo Atchugarry.

Step into the waiting room and boardroom and the viewing is equally eclectic. An exhibit from London-based figurative artist Davina Jackson is among the pictures competing for every inch of space on the walls and ceiling, along with a portrait of User Friendly, winner of the English and Irish Oaks as well as the St Leger in 1992.

The experience, of course, reflects the character of User Friendly’s 91-year-old owner Bill Gredley.

Never one to be tied down by convention, he has always done it his way, occasionally ruffling the feathers of officials and trainers on a journey that took him from East End docker’s son to Rich List regular thanks to Unex. The property group he built from scratch is also now based at the stud, a few miles south of Newmarket, that was bought from the Duke of Sutherland.

However, in an ironic twist, the man who once caused a stir with the Royal

Ascot fashion police by turning up with a ponytail under his topper is now batting very high up the order for a group once regarded as very much part of the establishment but now on the endangered species list – the British owner-breeder.

The Gredley renaissance has coincided with Bill’s son, 38-year-old Tim, taking over at the tiller of the operation, with the familiar silks – yellow, black and yellow striped sleeves and white cap – regularly spotted in big Saturday races both on the Flat and over jumps.

The involvement of his son is clearly a source of pride to Bill, who says: ‘‘If I had my time again, I wouldn’t do anything differently. I think it is harder for him to look after me than the horses, but Tim has come through and picked up the reins and is doing very well.

‘‘He can recognise a good horse. He lives it and has done a wonderful job. As a father with a son, you hope they do this or that and I must say Tim has not let me down. We have far too many horses but fortunately one or two nice ones.’’

That list of talented horses includes 2024 Derby runner-up and Irish Derby third Ambiente Friendly, Royal Lodge Stakes winner Wimbledon Hawkeye, who is being aimed at the 2025 Derby, and Burdett Road, winner of the Godolphin Stakes at Newmarket before landing a typically competitive edition of the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham.

Burdett Road and Wimbledon Hawkeye are both trained by James Owen, with whom the Gredleys have struck up a fruitful partnership.

He also trains a clutch of promising

Classic contender: Tim Gredley with Derby candidate

Wimbledon Hawkeye, a Group 2 winner during his juvenile season, at Stetchworth Park Stud near Newmarket

Tim and Bill Gredley

The Big Interview

Opec and Sean Bowen lead their rivals a merry dance in a Listed juvenile hurdle at Newbury in November and could be set for the Cheltenham Festival along with Burdett Road (right), a potential Champion Hurdle contender for the Gredleys and trainer James Owen (standing next to jockey Harry Cobden)

juvenile hurdlers for the family including East India Dock, Lavender Hill Mob, Liam Swagger and Opec.

The venture into the winter game is a relatively recent development for the Gredleys, who struck at Grade 1 level when the Dan Skelton-trained Allmankind, Opec’s brother, landed the Finale Hurdle at Chepstow in 2019.

It allows all-year-round entertainment for Bill, who is not one to treat his horses as ornaments.

Yet Tim believes he and his team at Stetchworth Park, led by stud groom Giles St Lawrence, have alighted on a system offering the best commercial solution for an operation that favours patience and staying pedigrees with its 35 broodmares and 55 horses in training.

Tim explains: ‘‘When I first got involved, we went down the route of trying to sell a few during the yearling sales to try to pay a few bills, but we never had any luck.

‘‘One year we put [2018 Prix Morny

winner] Pretty Pollyanna and James Garfield [winner of the 2017 Mill Reef Stakes and 2018 Greenham Stakes]

through the ring and hardly got a bid. It was the same the following year with

“We decided to race as much as we can and then try to get a few sold privately”

Vange, who finished fourth in the [2018] Coventry Stakes.

‘‘I said to dad, ‘I just don’t think this is going to work for us’”.

‘‘So, about two years ago we took the decision that we would like to try to race

as much as we can and then try to get a few sold privately. Vange got sold very well to Hong Kong and James Garfield went as a stallion.

‘‘We are really just seeing the fruits of that decision. I would say nearly all the horses who are now juveniles over hurdles will be going in the Horses-in-Training Sale next year.

‘‘If someone comes along in the meantime and wants to do a deal privately, we are very open to that as well and we have had a lot of offers.

‘‘Ultimately, I feel we have added value to those horses. East India Dock is a prime example. He is favourite for the Triumph Hurdle and would be worth quite a lot of money on the open market now compared to if we had sold him at the 2024 Horses-in-Training Sale.

‘‘Opec, the filly who won a Listed juvenile hurdle at Newbury, had never won a race on the Flat or even looked like she would do. If we had put her through the

Tim and Bill Gredley

‘It was a bit of a punt with James’

When Tim Gredley decided to send horses to trainer James Owen, he admits it was a calculated gamble, but one which has paid off handsomely.

The Newmarket trainer’s first winner – Father Of Jazz in a Kempton novices’ hurdle on May 1, 2023 – carried the Gredley colours.

ring, we would not have got much money for her. We have hung on to her and she is now a Listed winner – and she is a sister to Allmankind.

‘‘There is a lot of money in jump racing now. I felt that we might be missing a trick selling these horses with the potential to go jumping and missing out on all the fun.

‘‘With the idea of selling them later this year, Cheltenham and Royal Ascot are our biggest showcases. Everybody all over the world is watching these races. It is important to get your horses to these meetings. When they go through the ring, they will be recognisable horses.

‘‘We will maybe keep one or two but also speak to the agents so they know they will be on the market. Perhaps some will be Melbourne Cup-types.’’

The success of Big Orange in the 2017 Gold Cup at Royal Ascot coincided with Tim’s greater involvement in the businesses his father had built and helped kindle his enthusiasm for racing.

Their horses with him now include a clutch of Cheltenham Festival aspirants headed by Burdett Road and East India Dock plus 2025 Derby hope Wimbledon Hawkeye, who became Owen’s first two-year-old winner when successful at Kempton in May. The son of Kameko went on to land the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes at Newmarket and subsequently ran third in the Group 1 Futurity Trophy Stakes at Doncaster.

Before taking out his trainer’s licence, the Gredleys were clients of Owen’s pre-training business, while Tim had got to know him better after he asked the man who had been East Anglia’s champion point-to-point rider nine times to train him a couple of point-topointers.

Tim says: ‘‘When I gave up showjumping and started working for the company full time, I still needed my horse fix. I knew James had a National Hunt background so I asked him whether he would train a couple of point-to-pointers for me.

In 2016, he had stepped away from a successful full-time international showjumping career, which had included competing in the World Equestrian Games.

‘‘Riding out in the morning I got to see what he was all about. I said to dad, ‘I think he is a good fit for us’’. He is a horseman through and through and I think that is the most important thing with trainers.

‘‘At the beginning, he liked the idea of having a few jumpers, but with the Flat horses he really needed pushing.

‘‘It was a bit of a punt when we sent so many to him – especially the Flat yearlings – in his first season but I took the view that there is no point sending him two or three because you need a lot of numbers to work them with.’’

The Gredley support has allowed Owen, who cut his training teeth when becoming a multiple champion in the world of Arabian racehorses, to become the hottest recent addition to the training ranks.

Tim adds: ‘‘It has been a great journey for all of us. The nice thing is James is very open to having conversations, which I think is especially important for trainers with ownerbreeders.

‘‘When you breed horses, you form a relationship with them. When they are yearlings and you send them off, if you don’t hear about them for months on end it is frustrating. I work very closely with James, so we stay in touch with them all.’’

Encouraged by wife Rachel, a former Sky Sports presenter, Tim, who has two young daughters, Charlotte and Isabella, returned four years later and narrowly missed out on a place in the Great Britain

The Big Interview

›› team that took gold at this summer’s Olympic Games.

Tim says: ‘‘The problem with showjumping is that it takes you away for a long time. It was going well but I was beginning to feel I needed to spend more time in the company. The best way to do it was to cut it off.

‘‘I sent the horses to a few friends of mine to compete so I still had a bit of an interest but that was when I got into the racing side a lot more. I was in the office all the time with dad and his PA Sarah Porter, who is very knowledgeable on the pedigrees. They were talking about the bloodstock all the time.

‘‘In a funny way, I think the showjumping has gone better second time round. All the showjumpers are here. I ride a couple in the morning and then come into the office.

‘‘I was a reserve for the Olympics and gave it 100 per cent. I didn’t make it, but the boys won the gold medal – it was brilliant for the sport.

‘‘I had eight or nine horses in my string at the time and have cut it down to four.

‘‘That was a conscious decision because I felt it was taking me away from what I enjoy most – the company, racing and my family – but, as long as I am enjoying it, I will carry on.’’

Tim’s enthusiasm for racing was also fuelled by Frankie Dettori, who at one point was the Gredleys’ neighbour.

‘‘I used to go round there most nights and go through the races with him,” Tim explains. “It was lucky I could do that because it really got me thinking how big the industry is.

‘‘He is still a very good friend and when I was showjumping in America he came over and we had lunch a couple of times.’’

Dettori’s influence on Tim mirrors that of the great American jockey Steve Cauthen on his father.

When Cauthen was riding in Britain, he lived in a cottage on the Stetchworth Park estate. At a party to celebrate his 1985 Derby win on Slip Anchor, Bill offered to buy the jockey’s nomination to the colt when he was retired to stud.

The resulting mating with mare Rostova produced User Friendly.

Cauthen, along with some advice from the late Khalid Abdullah, also helped when Bill went to the US to buy bloodstock at Keeneland.

‘‘They were pedigrees no-one had heard of – but I got some great broodmares and didn’t spend a lot of money,’’ recalls Bill.

Among them was Water Woo, a daughter of Tom Rolfe, who was carrying a colt by Cozzene. The progeny turned

Tim and Bill Gredley

out to be Environment Friend, who won the 1991 Eclipse Stakes a month after finishing unplaced behind Generous in the Derby.

Bill’s ventures into the sales ring tended to have an unconventional approach yet regularly reaped dividends.

‘‘It is easy to go to Tattersalls and put your hand up and I have bought some bad ones but, on the whole, I think I have a good eye,” he explains.

‘‘I don’t know if it is a good horse or a bad one but if I like the look of it, I buy it!’’

That’s how Ambiente Friendly ended up joining the Gredley team and Bill has

“It’s on my mind to partner up with someone to come in and share the fun”

been busy again, buying 15 yearlings at the autumn sales to mix in with the Stetchworth Park homebreds.

Tim continues: ‘‘Everyone says it’s a bit of a joke when dad goes to the sales, but he has bought some nice horses. He has a good eye for it – I stay well away from the buying. That’s his department.

‘‘I really enjoy the middle-distance horses and dad loves buying backward yearlings, so it works really well.

‘‘We have a lovely filly called Trad Jazz, who won on her debut at Kempton. Because she was big and backward, dad bought her. I love managing that type of horse because you don’t have to rush them.

‘‘It works well rather than going and buying the early yearlings. That is not really in our DNA.’’

Whatever the genetics, the masterplan is working. Tim has an intriguing longterm plan for the future of the operation.

‘‘It has been an idea in my mind that, at some point down the line, we would partner up with someone to come in and share the fun,’’ he says.

‘‘That is the way the industry is going. Partnerships are the only way forward. The biggest operation in the world, Coolmore, has had partners for decades. They were well ahead of the game. There is always a representative enjoying the day when they win.

‘‘You also see it in jump racing. Look at the success John Hales, Sir Alex [Ferguson] and those guys are having buying into those horses.

‘‘We are having fun and making it pay but wouldn’t it be great if we could share it with other people?

‘‘When I was in America, a lot of showjumping people were interested in racing and they all wanted to come over for Royal Ascot and Cheltenham. A lot of them, when they had an interest in a horse as our guests, absolutely loved it.

‘‘Sometimes we have great days and there is no-one there to represent us. If we could do that, we wouldn’t have to sell them – that is the reality.’’

However, for the immediate future, it will remain Bill and Tim’s Excellent Adventure.

Tim adds: ‘‘I can’t explain what a privileged position it is to take over the management of these horses that dad has built up over decades. It takes a lot of time and thinking about, but I absolutely love it.

‘‘The great thing is dad is still here to enjoy it. That has been the most enjoyable part of the whole journey.’’

Tim Gredley has put showjumping on the back-burner to concentrate on racing and family

2,771

New Sires

Wide CHOICE

It’s a deep new intake of sires for 2025 that offers something for every taste and budget, ranging from Derby winners Auguste Rodin and City Of Troy to top sprinters Big Evs and Bradsell

Words: Nancy Sexton

AESOP’S FABLES

No Nay Never - How She Cuttin’ (Shinko Forest)

Standing: Starfield Stud Fee: €6,500

A No Nay Never half-brother to Bearstone Stud’s Washington DC, Aesop’s Fables was bred to be quick and precocious. He was duly a highclass two-year-old who broke his maiden over an extended five furlongs at Navan before striking in the Futurity Stakes at the Curragh.

He developed into a good, hardy sprinter for Aidan O’Brien thereafter, running placed in the Prix de l’Abbaye and Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at three and winning at Listed level at four.

ARREST

Frankel - Nisriyna (Intikhab) Standing: Boardsmill Stud Fee: poa

Boardsmill Stud has filled the void left by its stalwart Court Cave by adding Arrest, a well-related son of Frankel who ran to a high level at two to four years.

Arrest was one of the best two-yearolds of his generation, winning a pair of mile novices before falling only a head short of Dubai Mile in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud. He returned to run out an easy winner of the Chester Vase, a performance that vaulted him to favouritism for the Derby. Although he failed to justify expectations at Epsom,

he went on to win the Geoffrey Freer Stakes and run second in the St Leger. Arrest should make a fine addition to the National Hunt sire ranks. High-class over middle-distances, he commanded €440,000 as a foal and unsurprisingly for a Frankel, is well-bred being a halfbrother to top Hong Kong performer Dinozzo from a fine Aga Khan family.

AUGUSTE RODIN

Deep Impact - Rhododendron (Galileo) Standing: Coolmore Fee: €30,000

Auguste Rodin has the potential to be an extremely important horse for the industry going forward, not just as a Classic and multiple Group 1 scorer but

Auguste Rodin pictured with connections after winning the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes

BILL SELWYN

as a son of the brilliant Japanese sire Deep Impact.

It won’t have passed by those with an interest in Japanese breeding that Auguste Rodin bears a striking resemblance to his grandsire Sunday Silence. That stallion changed the face of Japanese breeding to the extent that it is now estimated that at least 75 per cent of the Japanese broodmare population carries his blood.

European breeders have had access to various members of the sire line over the years, among them the Group 1-producing sires Divine Light, Dabirsim and Saxon Warrior, but it’s currently in real vogue thanks to the early achievements of Lanwades Stud’s Study Of Man, another son of Deep Impact

whose first crop is headlined by the Group 1-winning filly Kalpana.

Auguste Rodin was a Group 1 winner from two to four years, signing off his juvenile season with a win in the Futurity at Doncaster and returning at three to pull off the Epsom and Irish Derby prior to victories over older horses in the Irish Champion Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Turf. Kept in training at four, he also won the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes.

Unsurprisingly for a Deep Impact, he possesses a pedigree out of the top drawer as a son of champion racemare Rhododendron, in turn a daughter of Classic heroine Halfway To Heaven. The family goes back to Trevor Stewart’s blue hen Cassandra Go, a half-sister to the Group 1-producing sire Verglas.

BIG EVS

Blue Point - Hana Lina (Oasis Dream)

Standing: Tally-Ho Stud Fee: €17,500

Tally-Ho Stud is set for an extremely busy first half of the year given its roster has welcomed three big names for 2025. They include the lightening fast Big Evs, the first son of Blue Point to stud who retires as the winner of six races.

As is typical of the sire line, Big Evs was precocious and quick, breaking his maiden in the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot before sweeping the Molecomb Stakes, Flying Childers Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint. It can be hard for international raiders

City Of Troy was an emphatic winner of the Derby under Ryan Moore

BILL SELWYN

New Sires

›› to take on the Americans in their own backyard, especially when it comes to sprints, so it says plenty for Big Evs’ speed that he was able to win so well that day at Santa Anita.

Nor was Big Evs a one-season wonder. He returned at three last season to win the Westow Stakes and later defeated the older star Australian mare Asfoora to win the King George Stakes at Goodwood. He was also placed in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot.

A grandson of champion two-year-old Queen’s Logic, Big Evs has retired to a stud that well understands how to manage sprint stallions and he should be very appealing to their loyal band of followers.

BRADSELL

Tasleet - Russian Punch (Archipenko)

Standing: The National Stud Fee: £10,000

One of the themes arising out of the various stallion shows held during the Tattersalls December Sale was the positive reaction to the National Stud’s new recruit Bradsell.

A member of the Oasis Dream sire line via Tasleet, Bradsell possessed the speed and precocity often associated with that line, winning his debut by nine lengths at York before following up in the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Bradsell was campaigned by Archie Watson against older horses for much of his three-year-old campaign, a strategy that paid off when he doubled up at Royal Ascot when winning the King’s Stand Stakes. Also third in the Nunthorpe Stakes that season, this admirable sprinter returned from injury arguably better than ever at four when successful in the Nunthorpe Stakes and Flying Five Stakes.

BUCANERO FUERTE

Wootton Bassett - Frida La Blonde (Elusive City)

Standing: Tally-Ho Stud Fee: €12,500

Tally-Ho Stud and Kia Joorabchian’s Amo Racing combine to stand this Group 1-winning two-year-old, a son of sire-ofthe-moment Wootton Bassett.

There has already been a clear signal of intent from Joorabchian regarding his ambition for this horse through a flurry of high-profile purchases at the breeding stock sales, some of whom will undoubtedly feature in Bucanero Fuerte’s first book.

Joorabchian’s regard for Bucanero Fuerte is easy to understand. He was forward enough to win over five furlongs on the first day of the Irish Turf Flat season and having run third in the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot, defeated subsequent Group 1 winner Unquestionable when winning the Railway Stakes at the Curragh. His crowning moment, however, arrived back at the same track several weeks later in the Phoenix Stakes, in which he powered clear to beat champion Porta Fortuna by a wide margin.

He also broke the track record when successful in the Lacken Stakes at Naas. Sickness derailed his season after that but there’s no doubt that he was a very good horse on his day.

CITY OF TROY

Justify - Together Forever (Galileo) Standing: Coolmore Fee: €75,000

Few horses have captured the imagination like City Of Troy. An important flag-bearer for his sire Justify, the American Triple Crown winner who is currently one of the most popular stallions in Kentucky, City Of Troy compiled a resumé that consisted of a championship two-year-old season and resounding victories in the Derby and Juddmonte International at three.

The majority of City Of Troy’s winning performances were defined by a powerful turn of foot off a high cruising speed. That much was apparent early on when he was unchallenged to win the Superlative Stakes and again when equally impressive in the Dewhurst Stakes.

As such, all eyes were on his return in the 2,000 Guineas, so it was all the more disappointing when he trailed in 17 lengths behind the winner Notable Speech. But that proved to be nothing more than a blip,

BILL SELWYN

Big Evs, seen here capturing the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint at Santa Anita, is one of three new stallions for Tally-Ho Stud

BILL SELWYN

Bradsell: multiple Group 1-winning sprinter retires to the National Stud in Newmarket

with a sparkling return to winning form in the Derby followed by victories against the older generation in the Eclipse Stakes and Juddmonte International, in which he broke the York track record set by Sea The Stars.

A bold attempt to emulate Arcangues with a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on dirt failed to come to fruition. However, that shouldn’t detract from a brilliant threeyear-old campaign that confirmed his place as the champion of his generation.

Justify already has several sons at stud in Kentucky but City Of Troy is the first to stand in Europe. Out of a Group 1-winning two-year-old in Together Forever, he is a grandson of blue hen Green Room and therefore from the further family of the top racemare and producer Al Bahathri, in turn the dam of 2,000 Guineas winner Haafhd.

GO BEARS GO

Kodi Bear - In Dubai (Giant’s Causeway)

Standing: Oak Lodge Stud Fee: €8,000

Another new recruit under the Amo Racing banner, Go Bears Go joins Oak Lodge Stud following a career that yielded four wins and eight places in 22 starts.

This tough campaigner was kept busy at two when his performances included a win in the Railway Stakes and placings in the Phoenix Stakes, Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint and Norfolk Stakes. He also trained on into a dual Group 3-winning sprinter at three.

The first son of Kodi Bear to stud, Go Bears Go is out of a daughter of Ribblesdale Stakes winner Bahr and therefore from the immediate family of last year’s 1,000 Guineas heroine Elmalka.

HENRY LONGFELLOW

Dubawi - Minding (Galileo)

Standing: Coolmore Fee: €15,000

Beautifully bred as a Dubawi son of champion Minding, Henry Longfellow lived up to those connections by emulating his sire with a victory in the National Stakes at the Curragh. That performance was the culmination of an unbeaten juvenile campaign that also featured a win in the Futurity Stakes.

Although winless at three, he did turn in several good performances, notably when second to Rosallion in the St James’s Palace Stakes and third in the Prix du Moulin.

From the consistent Group 1 family of Lillie Langtry responsible for the Classic winners Tuesday and Empress Josephine in addition to Minding, Henry Longfellow is

bred on the same Dubawi - Galileo cross as Night Of Thunder.

ISAAC SHELBY

Night Of Thunder - Kentucky Belle (Heliostatic)

Standing: Newsells Park Stud Fee: £7,000

Night Of Thunder’s rapid rise to elite status has made him one of Europe’s most sought-after stallions at his new fee of €150,000. There is, however, just one son of his at stud, namely Wathnan Racing’s Classic-placed Isaac Shelby who joins Newsells Park Stud.

Trained by Brian Meehan, Isaac Shelby was a talented juvenile who won his first two starts including the Superlative Stakes at Newmarket for Manton Thoroughbreds.

The colt had this year’s champion miler Charyn behind him when making a winning return in the Greenham Stakes, after which he changed hands to Wathnan Racing and subsequently ran a close second in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains. He later filled the frame in another four starts including the St James’s Palace Stakes.

KING OF STEEL

Wootton Bassett - Eldacar (Verglas)

Standing: Tally-Ho Stud Fee: €20,000

Another stallion that Kia Joorabchian of Amo Racing has vowed to throw his weight behind. The apple of his owner’s eye, King Of Steel’s career highlight came when he won the Champion Stakes at Ascot late in his three-year-old season. It was a popular victory, not just as a Group 1 swansong for jockey Frankie Dettori, who swapped Britain for the US not long after, but as a deserved top-flight victory for a colt who had mixed it with the best

throughout that season.

Having looked potentially high-class when winning his debut at two-year-old, King Of Steel came close to pulling off a 66/1 shock when second to Auguste Rodin in the Derby on only his third start. From there, he ran out the easy winner of the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot before running placed against the older generation in both the King George and Irish Champion Stakes.

“Amo Racing spent over 8 million guineas on mares at the December Sale”

Injury ruled him out of a four-year-old campaign, which is a shame given his progression up to then and physical scope.

Amo Racing spent over 8 million guineas on mares at the recent Tattersalls December Sale, including 4,800,000gns on the Irish Oaks winner You Got To Me. She has been suggested as a potential mate for King Of Steel, which underlines the belief that Joorabchian has in his stallion.

LOOK DE VEGA

Lope De Vega - Lucelle (High Chaparral)

Standing: Ballylinch Stud

Fee: €20,000

Various sons of Lope De Vega have retired to stud in the past few years but until now, none have been snapped up to stand

Frankie Dettori celebrates on King Of Steel after the horse’s win in the Champion Stakes

BILL SELWYN

New Sires

alongside their sire at Ballylinch Stud.

There is the sense that Ballylinch were waiting for the right horse to fill their criteria, so with that in mind you can be certain that Look De Vega will be strongly supported by the home team. For starters, he won the Prix du Jockey Club just like his sire and grandsire Shamardal. He also won his sole start at two and hails from the same family as former Ballylinch resident Lawman, the sire of six Group/Grade 1 winners.

Ballylinch and Ecurie des Charmes did indeed partner to buy several high-priced purchases at the breeding stock sales with an eye on the horse, coming away with Group 1 producers such as Llanita, who cost €600,000, and Venetia’s Dream, bought for €135,000.

LUXEMBOURG

Camelot - Attire (Danehill Dancer)

Standing: Castlehyde Stud Fee: poa

A creditable run in the Hong Kong Gold Cup brought the curtain down on a wonderful career for Luxembourg that was highlighted by Group 1 wins at two, three, four and five years.

Few horses boast such talent and durability, something that should stand the horse in very good stead in his dualpurpose role at Coolmore’s Castlehyde Stud. It should also appeal that he is a member of the Montjeu sire line which continues to be so effective in the National Hunt world.

To recap, Luxembourg emulated his sire by signing off an unbeaten two-yearold season with a win in the Futurity at Doncaster. At three he captured the Irish Champion Stakes, returned at four to land the Tattersalls Gold Cup and added the Coronation Cup at five. Overall he finished in the first four on nine occasions at Group 1 level.

MILL STREAM

Gleneagles - Swirral Edge (Hellvelyn)

Standing: Yeomanstown Stud Fee: €12,500

Mill Stream had an excellent first half of the season in 2024, winning the Duke Of York Stakes and running placed in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes. So it certainly wasn’t out of turn when he broke through at Group 1 level in the July Cup, in which he denied Swingalong with the likes of Vandeek, Inisherin and Kinross in behind.

Overall, this consistent sprinter won five races for Jane Chapple-Hyam including his two-year-old debut at Newmarket and the Prix de Meautry as a three-year-old.

Such speed is most likely reflective of his female family, which is a commercial, quick line that goes back to Musianica and includes fast horses such as Firebolt and Wunders Dream. His dam Swirral Edge has maintained that tradition for breeder Jimmy Murphy of Redpender Stud since her first foal is Richmond Stakes winner Asymmetric.

SAKHEER

Zoffany - Shortmile Lady (Arcano) Standing: Ballyhane Stud Fee: €6,500

The €550,000 top lot at the 2022 Arqana May Breeze-Up Sale, Sakheer was an immediate success for KHK Racing and Roger Varian, never coming off the bridle to win his maiden at Haydock Park before running out the wide-margin winner of the Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury.

Sakheer looked a top-class colt in the making that day but fate dictated otherwise. After running like a blatant non stayer on bad ground in the 2,000 Guineas, he was restricted to just three further starts.

By the much-missed Zoffany, Sakheer descends from the same family as Kentucky Oaks heroine Winning Colors via the same branch that provided the fast 15time winning mare Indian Maiden.

SHOULDVEBEENARING

Havana Grey - Lady Estella (Equiano) Standing: Irish National Stud Fee: €6,000

Shouldvebeenaring is an affordable option for breeders looking to tap into the increasingly powerful Havana Grey line, especially in light of the fact that he was rated the Timeform equal of his sire on 118.

This tough campaigner retires as the winner of six of 30 starts topped by last year’s Prix de Ris-Orangis and the Ripon Champion 2yo Trophy at two. He

also came close to Group 1 glory on two occasions, namely when beaten only a neck into second in the Betfair Sprint Cup and third in the Prix de la Foret.

He looks set to be well supported by the Irish National Stud if the operation’s activity at the winter breeding stock sales is any indication; according to a tweet by the stud, the stakes mares Margaret’s Mission, Elpida and Swiss Range were all bought with the stallion in mind.

VANDEEK

Havana Grey - Mosa Mine (Exceed And Excel)

Standing: Cheveley Park Stud Fee: £15,000

Vandeek first hit the headlines when sold for 625,000gns at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale having posted an extremely quick time during his Rowley Mile breeze several days before.

It wasn’t long before that speed was demonstrated in public. Vandeek went through his juvenile season unbeaten, scoring at Nottingham on debut before sweeping the Richmond Stakes, Prix Morny and Middle Park Stakes. Those successes came on varying grounds but the end result was generally the same, with matters sealed by a defining turn of foot.

Although winless in two starts at three, he still performed with credit, notably when third behind Mill Stream in the July Cup.

Vandeek joins Shouldvebeenaring as the first sons of Havana Grey to stud and belong to the further family of leading French sire Anabaa.

Charyn tops strong French intake

The French stallion ranks have gained a real shot in the arm through the additions of Group 1 winners Charyn, Big Rock, Metropolitan and Puchkine for 2025.

Nurlan Bizakov’s Sumbe has thrown its weight behind the French industry in

Vandeek (left) stretches away to win the Richmond Stakes at Goodwood

BILL

NEW SIRE FOR 2025

Dual Group 1 winning unbeaten Champion 2yo and the highest rated son of HAVANA GREY

A 625,000gns top lot at the 2023 Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale

At 2

Won Gr.1 Prix Morny (beating Gr.1 winner Ramatuelle)

Won Gr.1 Middle Park Stakes

Won Gr.2 Richmond Stakes

At 3

3rd Gr.1 July Cup (beating four other Gr.1 winners)

3rd Gr.2 Sandy Lane Stakes

Rated 2lb higher than his sire

BY A CHAMPION FIRST CROP SIRE FROM A STALLION-PRODUCING FAMILY

The family of Gr.1 winning 2yo BALBONELLA Champion Sprinter and Champion Sire ANABAA and Gr.1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches winner ALWAYS LOYAL.

“A brilliant two year old and his amazing turn of foot set him apart from the others. He had a wonderful temperament and he was such a great pleasure to train. His Juddmonte Middle Park victory was sensational and I don’t think I’ve seen a better winner of that race.”

Simon Crisford, co-trainer

“He was an exceptional racehorse blessed with a blistering turn of pace.”

James Doyle, jockey

Fee: £15,000 (1st Oct. SLF)

New Sires

recent years, with its fresh roster boosted only last season by the Group 1 winners Mishriff, Angel Bleu and Belbek. This year the farm offers another new star in Charyn (fee: €35,000), who carried all before him in the miling division for Roger Varian in 2024.

The likeable son of Dark Angel was high-class at two and three when his performances included a win in the Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte and placings in the St James’s Palace and Sussex Stakes. However, he took his form to another level at four last year. He was out on the first day of the Flat turf season when successful in the Doncaster Mile. From there, he landed the bet365 Mile and after running second in the Lockinge Stakes, took the Queen Anne Stakes and Prix Jacques le Marois. He signed off his year in Europe with another impressive winning display in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

Effective on a range of grounds, he boasted the kind of constitution that will stand him in good stead at stud. He was by all accounts well received when shown at Varian’s Carlburg Stables during the Tattersalls December Sale and has the benefit of strong planned support from Sumbe.

Another top miler, fellow Queen Elizabeth II Stakes winner Big Rock, is new to Haras de Grandcamp. A relentless frontrunner when on song, Leopoldo Pujals’ homebred son of Rock Of Gibraltar found only Ace Impact too good in the 2023 Prix du Jockey Club. However, it was when cut back to a mile by Christopher Head that he found his forte, with placings in the Prix Jacques le Marois and Prix du Moulin preceding his six-length tour-de-force in the 2023 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes over

Britain falls behind with three new stallions

There are just three new stallions standing in Britain for 2025, none of whom stand for more than £15,000.

That accolade goes to Vandeek at Cheveley Park Stud in Newmarket. Bradsell has been installed at £10,000 at the National Stud, while Isaac Shelby joins Newsells Park Stud at £7,000.

The select nature of this year’s intake has understandably caused some alarm in several quarters, especially as the Irish picture is so much rosier, ranging from Coolmore’s Derby winners City Of Troy (at €75,000) and Auguste Rodin to other Group 1 winners such as King Of Steel, Big Evs and Mill Stream. As for France, breeders have the option of last year’s champion miler Charyn at €35,000 alongside the likes of Big Rock, Puchkine and Metropolitan.

Is the situation a reflection of wider issues? For all the strength at the top end of the market, it remains tough for some of those British breeders operating in the middle to lower brackets, as anyone with foals selling on the opening day of the Tattersalls December Foal Sale would likely attest.

Or is it just how the cards have fallen on this occasion?

For example, there are no new stallions standing for Darley, Shadwell or Juddmonte this year. The latter pair have never stood large rosters and thus wouldn’t necessarily retire a new horse every year. But in the case of Darley, you have to go all the way back to 1995 to find the last time it didn’t introduce a new stallion in Europe.

Looking on the bright side, some encouragement can be taken from the fact that Bradsell, Isaac Shelby and Vandeek were raced by emerging ownership powers who have chosen Britain as a base to launch their stallion careers.

Isaac Shelby is the first horse to represent Wathnan Racing at stud and as such will probably be well supported by the Emir of Qatar’s operation, both at stud and when his progeny come to market.

Meanwhile, powerful Bahrain interests sit behind both Bradsell and Vandeek; Bradsell raced in the increasingly prominent red and white belonging to Shaikh Nasser’s Victorious Racing while Vandeek stands in partnership at Cheveley Park Stud with KHK Racing, the nom-de-plume of Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa. KHK Racing also remains involved with Sakheer at Ballyhane Stud in Ireland.

The ambition of Bahrain as a racing nation cannot be underestimated so the presence of Bradsell and Vandeek in Newmarket might just be the start of an important chapter for the British stallion industry.

the likes of Facteur Cheval and Tahiyra.

Big Rock was unable to match that form during an underwhelming four-yearold campaign for a new stable in 2024, which probably influenced his first-year fee of €12,000. But he was very good on his day and will be well supported by Pujals.

Grandcamp also welcomes Zagrey, winner of the Grosser Preis von Baden, to its roster at €6,000. The tough grey joins a select band of representatives by Zarak now at stud in France, among them the Classic-winning miler Metropolitan (€15,000). Unbeaten at two, Metropolitan struck in last year’s Poule d’Essai des Poulains for Mario Baratti and later ran placed in the Prix Jacques le Marois and St James’s Palace Stakes. He retires to Haras d’Etreham, once of course the mastermind behind Wootton Bassett.

Another increasingly powerful operation, Haras de Beaumont, has added last year’s wide-margin Prix Jean Prat winner Puchkine (€8,500) to a roster that already includes the highly popular young stallions Ace Impact and Sealiway. The

son of Starspangledbanner also won each of his three starts at two for Jean-Claude Rouget and hails from Meon Valley Stud’s famous Reprocolor family.

Coventry Stakes winner River Tiber (€5,500) appeals as a potentially classy commercial option at Haras de la Huderie, especially given the fact that he backed up his Royal Ascot success by running placed in the Middle Park Stakes, Prix Morny and Irish 2,000 Guineas. By Wootton Bassett, he is from the further family of successful sire Dandy Man.

Al Hakeem is also commercially priced at €5,000 at Al Shaqab’s Haras de Bouquetot. A well-bred son of Siyouni, he won five races including the Prix Guillaume d’Ornano.

Germany, meanwhile, boasts a topclass addition in the German Derby hero Fantastic Moon, who heads to Gestut Ebbesloh at €9,000. A German champion at two and three, the son of Sea The Moon also acquitted himself well outside of his native country, notably when successful in the 2023 Prix Niel.

BILL SELWYN

Charyn: champion miler is a welcome addition to the French ranks

SPRINGFIELD HOUSE STALLIONS 2025

Only Gr.1 July Cup Winner by Sire of Sires INVINCIBLE SPIRIT

PROVEN SIRE OF TOP CLASS SPRINTERS

Yearlings Averaged €29,000 in 2024

Fee: €4,250 1st Oct SLF

CHAMPION SPRINTER, GROUP WINNER AT 2 AND 3

Sound Bloodlines of KODIAC and GIANT’S CAUSEWAY

Family of Champion Miler BENBATL, Gr.1 1,000 Guineas Winner EMALKA, etc.

Fee: €8,000 1st Oct SLF

Dark Angel

Dark Angel ends 2024 as the champion sire of Britain and Ireland

Taking FLIGHT

Dark Angel has risen to become one of Europe’s most important stallions for Yeomanstown Stud, a status deservedly recognised in 2024 when the grey was crowned the champion sire of Britain and Ireland

Words: James Thomas

It has been 39 years since an independently-owned stud housed the champion sire of Britain and Ireland. Needless to say, much has changed in the interim.

Kris, who stood at Lord Howard de Walden’s Thornton Stud in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, was the last horse to achieve the feat and, in a sign of the times, he did so with just two crops of racing age to his name.

Winning a sires’ championship has never been easy, but an era of spiralling books of mares and an increasing commercial imperative has meant breaking the stranglehold of the bloodstock industry behemoths has become a seemingly insurmountable challenge.

Coolmore have been the dominant force during the last four decades, standing the likes of Galileo, Danehill and Sadler’s Wells, who between them accounted for 29 of the last 39 titles. More recently Juddmonte’s masterpiece Frankel and Dubawi, a linchpin of the Darley operation, have come to the fore.

at two and spent the traditionally tricky third and fourth seasons at stud at a fee of just €7,000. If ever a stallion could claim to have done it the hard way, it is Dark Angel.

A maiden championship can be considered a crowning moment for Yeomanstown Stud, which was bought by Gay and Annette O’Callaghan in 1981. Yet such are the demands of running a thriving operation engaged across the full spectrum of the Flat industry, and perhaps as an insight into the sort of mindset required to achieve such a feat, their son and farm manager David O’Callaghan says time to drink the result in has been in short supply.

“To get the overall title is just the icing on the cake of a wonderful year”

“While it’s happening, you don’t actually think about it too much,” he says on witnessing a championshipwinning season unfold. “It’ll probably only be when we look back in five years’ time – probably when we haven’t won it – when we’ll really appreciate it. That’s when we’ll look back and think ‘Wow, how did we do that?’

But the close of this year sees a new name added to the illustrious roll of honour. Dark Angel has reached the pinnacle of the stallion ranks not with backing of a global conglomerate, but the support of a loyal band of skilled and committed breeders. Here is a horse who raced only

“Dark Angel has been the champion sprinter-miler sire every year for the last five years, so in our mind he’s been a top sire for a long time. But to actually get the overall title in Great Britain in Ireland is just the icing on the cake of a wonderful career. He’s been second twice before but we were never so close that we really thought

PETER MOONEY

Dark Angel

about it, we were always half a million or more down on Frankel or Galileo. To finally get it over the line this year is very special.”

Of course, Dark Angel not only stands at the O’Callaghan family’s farm but he was bred there too. He left County Kildare in August 2006 for the DBS (now Goffs UK) St Leger Sale, where he was picked up by Catherine Corbett and Chris Wright, buying through BBA Ireland, at 61,000gns.

He packed plenty into his sole season in training with Barry Hills, winning a maiden at Chester’s May meeting and the valuable Doncaster sales race at York en route to his Patternrace breakthrough. That came in the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes, an effort he surpassed just 13 days later when triumphing in the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes. He showed all his usual grit and determination to defeat Strike The Deal by half-a-length.

Cup, straight into the deep end. There was nothing in between.

“But having a proper programme has suddenly developed three-yearold sprinters into a force. If you had the three-year-old programme that exists now, then probably neither Dark Angel nor Holy Roman Emperor would have been pulled out of training.”

“He was a greatlooking foal and yearling, so we always held him in high regard”

Weatherbys’ records show Dark Angel covered 120 mares in that first season, followed by 82 in year two and 68 in year three. While these numbers plainly did not hold Dark Angel back, they were less than connections had anticipated.

“He was a great-looking foal and a great yearling, so we always held him in high regard physically,” says O’Callaghan. “He was running all these good races and then all of a sudden he won the Mill Reef, and that’s when Gay really thought he could stand this horse. We’d been on the lookout for a new stallion for a couple of years, and they’re always hard to come by.

“As soon as he won the Group 1, Gay just said ‘Bingo! We’ve found our horse.’ We were in the fortunate position that we didn’t need to go and see him as we knew what he looked like. So when the opportunity was there to buy him, he didn’t need to ask anybody’s permission, it was just a case of ‘where do I sign?’ He got the deal done during the October Yearling Sales. The fact that we’d bred him was just an added bonus.”

Dark Angel retired to stud in 2008, 12 months after Holy Roman Emperor was sensationally taken out of training before his three-year-old campaign to take the place of the subfertile George Washington on the Coolmore roster. O’Callaghan suggests the advent of the three-year-old sprinting programme, particularly races like the Commonwealth Cup, has made a similar situation unlikely.

“There was a bit of a furore at the time because of Holy Roman Emperor and Dark Angel retiring one year after the other,” he says. “But it was a different landscape back then insofar as there was no three-yearold programme. Their options were the Sandy Lane Stakes and then on to the July

“There was a little bit of publicity at the time, I’m not going to say negative publicity, but it wasn’t positive about these horses retiring at two,” says O’Callaghan. “So he didn’t get the reception we thought he would in so far as we thought he’d be a no-brainer, because for us he was a

no-brainer. We sent him a lot of our own mares, but we thought he’d cover nearly double what he did in that first year, it just didn’t happen.”

Suffice to say, Dark Angel never looked back. From 14 full crops of racing age, he has sired 203 stakes performers, 17 of whom have won in Group/Grade 1 company. There is also a certain irony to a horse who only raced at two coming up with so many runners who showed not only talent and toughness, but longevity too.

That first crop contained the likes of Bronze Angel, Gabrial and Sovereign Debt, all of whom were at least useful at two and were still racing aged nine, having achieved plenty along the way. Sovereign Debt and Gabrial finished first and second, in that order, twice during their eight-year-old season, first in the Group 2 bet365 Mile and again in the Group 3 Diomed Stakes.

Lily’s Angel was another early flagbearer, giving Dark Angel his first blacktype success in the Listed Empress Stakes at two and winning the Group 3 Chartwell

Gay O’Callaghan (right) and son Peter: was quick to strike for Dark Angel for stud duty

O’Callaghan: ‘he’s a life changer’

Fillies’ Stakes at four, when she was also beaten just half-a-length into second in the Group 1 Matron Stakes.

But arguably the most significant member of that debut crop was Lethal Force. He may have cost Clive Cox just €8,500 as a yearling but he was not beaten far in the Coventry Stakes, and really came into his own at four when going back-to-back in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes and July Cup.

“It wasn’t until the third year when Lethal Force came and won his Group 1s,”

says O’Callaghan. “That’s what elevated Dark Angel from being a solid ten grand stallion, that’s when we first thought ‘he might be a bit better than this.’”

His fee rose incrementally to a high of €85,000 in 2018, 2019 and 2020, a price point underpinned by some genuine superstars of the Turf. His third crop contained dual Nunthorpe heroine Mecca’s Angel, while his sixth produced the brilliant Battaash and Harry Angel, both of whom were bred by Paul McCartan. More recently there has been Poule d’Essai des Pouliches winner Mangoustine and two-time Group 1-winning juvenile Angel Bleu, to name but a few.

Moreover, so many of his headline horses were bred by the O’Callaghans themselves, including dual Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes scorer Khaadem, Markaz and his sister Mecca’s Angel and Sovereign Debt.

“One after the other, there was a heap of horses who kept doing things that just seemed unlikely,” O’Callaghan says of Dark Angel’s sustained upward trajectory. “Each year another horse kept coming along

that was better than the last one. Whereas most horses have a lull where they go missing for a year, there was never a year where he went missing – and even when it seemed like he might have a smaller crop, the old stagers just kept turning up.”

The remarkable consistency of his output helped guard Dark Angel against some of the industry’s more unforgiving tendencies. “Everyone is always trying to pick holes in all these stallions, and I don’t mean that in a negative way, but because it’s a very critical business we’re in,” says O’Callaghan. “Everyone is trying to zone in on what’s best. But there were very few holes in Dark Angel over the years that people could point to and say ‘he doesn’t do this, he doesn’t do that’ because he pretty much does everything.”

However, there were times earlier in his career when Dark Angel’s offspring confounded even some of the shrewdest judges around. His progeny tend to prove highly competitive individuals, which is undoubtedly a key factor in his success. But this has meant they are not always seen to best advantage in the breeze-up

BILL SELWYN

Champion miler Charyn storms clear in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot

David

Dark Angel

arena, which is so often an important proving ground for young sires.

“They definitely love competition,” says O’Callaghan. “They’re very willing horses but when they’re on their own they can appear a bit lazy, they like a bit of company to help them focus on the job. The breeze-up men found it hard to get them to breeze. They’d all breeze well at home once, but once they’d done it once they’d figure why did they need to do it again?”

This laid back approach to life may well descend directly from Dark Angel himself. “He’s a gent of a horse,” says O’Callaghan. “He’s very easy to deal with and he’s always been very fertile, he’s great to cover mares. He covered big numbers almost every year because he never has many repeats.

“Dark Angel puts in lots of very positive attributes into his mares,” he continues. “He’s a very good walker himself but he won’t put a big walk into a mare that doesn’t already have one. So if you want a good sales horse by Dark Angel, you need a mare with a good hip who walks very well. Other than that, whatever other faults they might have, he will correct it.

“He puts in great feet, great bone, loads of scope. He’s a Middle Park winner but he’s not a short, compact horse like a lot of sprinters. He’s got a load of scope, and ultimately that’s probably why he’s been so successful because they get better from two to three, three to four, and can run over six, seven and eight furlongs.”

Getting better from two to three to four while running over six, seven and eight furlongs almost perfectly describes this year’s headline act. No runner has contributed more to Dark Angel’s championship-winning prize-money haul than Charyn, who won five races this season and collected £1,841,856 in the process.

Nurlan Bizakov’s colour-bearer struck in the Queen Anne Stakes, the Prix Jacques le Marois and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, and could be considered unfortunate not to win tactical renewals of the Lockinge and the Prix du Moulin to boot. Charyn’s valuable Group 1 success on British Champions Day also proved decisive in securing the sires’ title, as the leaderboard going into that meeting was virtually a three-way photo finish between Dark Angel, Dubawi and Galileo.

The Roger Varian-trained grey, who was bred by Guy O’Callaghan’s Grangemore Stud, was also high-class at two, winning the Group 2 Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte, and just kept on progressing to prove himself something completely out of the ordinary at four.

“It’s been phenomenal,” O’Callaghan

says of Charyn’s banner season. “In a lot of ways he could’ve won three more Group 1s this year. Through no fault of his own he ended up knocking on the door a couple of times, but he had a flawless season really. He never missed a beat. He became the most consistent performer over a mile since Rock Of Gibraltar nearly. To produce that level of form so often, it’s a level of consistency that you don’t see that often.

“We would’ve loved to have bought and stood Charyn,” O’Callaghan adds ruefully. “That would’ve been the perfect ending to the perfect story, if the horse that Gay bred became Dark Angel and came home to stand at Yeomanstown, then the horse that myself and Guy bred came back to replace him. Unfortunately the Sumbe team weren’t for selling, which is obviously understandable.”

Charyn, who is standing his first season for Sumbe in France at a fee of €35,000, may well have an important role to play in enhancing Dark Angel’s reputation as a sire of sires. But whatever he does, it is clear Dark Angel is already having an impact from further back in pedigrees.

So many of the traits that have made Dark Angel a successful sire are also being transmitted by his daughters, and he finished last year in 12th on the British and Irish broodmare sire standings. He has been represented on this front by Yorkshire Oaks winner Content and her three-parts sister Bedtime Story, an explosive winner of the Chesham and Debutante Stakes. The pair are out of Mecca’s Angel.

“He’s already proven himself to be very prolific on the broodmare sire side,” says O’Callaghan. “We have a nice bunch of his daughters and hopefully they will continue making a greater influence on the breed. They’ll definitely put in a soundless of limb and wind, which is a huge part of the battle, as well as a bit of heart.”

Dark Angel is also the damsire of rising star stallion Havana Grey, a horse O’Callaghan remembers with rather mixed emotions. “We actually underbid Havana Grey as a foal,” he says. “I still can’t believe we stopped! There’s a lot of Dark Angel in him.”

In many ways Dark Angel being crowned champion sire does not tell us anything we didn’t already know. The 20-year-old has long been confirmed as a precious upgrader of stock, passing on class, courage and soundness in abundance. But it is the origins of this story that makes it quite so remarkable.

“Definitely the biggest thing is that he was able to do it from essentially humble beginnings and not only that, but with humble support all through his life,” says O’Callaghan. “People who have anything from two to ten mares, they’re the ones who’ve made it happen. He never had really big support from any of the major groups. We were delighted when Darley bought into him in 2015 and they have been good supporters of Dark Angel over the years, but he’s done it without the best of the mares from Darley, Juddmonte, Coolmore or the Aga Khan.”

And this landmark result does not merely reflect where Dark Angel started, how he got to where is now or what he may yet go on to achieve. It also shines a light on those who have been with him every step along the way.

“He’s done huge things for us as a family and for Yeomanstown,” concludes O’Callaghan. “To have a horse like that, and to be able to use a horse like that for so many years, it’s huge. We’ve supported him and he’s obviously supported us. He’s enabled us to buy better mares and slowly expand everything over the last 20 years. To come across a horse like him is very rare. He’s been a life changer for us all.”

BILL SELWYN

Khaadem lands his second Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot

AI and tech in breeding

New technologies are helping breeders in their mating decisions as they try to produce tomorrow’s champion racehorses

Pedigree research in THE 21ST CENTURY

Broodmare owners can access artificial intelligence and a range of tech tools to unlock the future of thoroughbred breeding

Words: Virginia Lisco

For centuries, breeders have pursued the dream of producing the ultimate champion, a racehorse that embodies all the traits of greatness. At the core of this pursuit are physical attributes like speed, stamina and power, essential for dominating on the track. These qualities must be perfectly complemented by an agile physique and an unyielding competitive spirit, traits that define a true contender.

Just as crucial, however, is a calm yet determined temperament, enabling the horse to thrive under the pressure and demands of high-stakes racing. To achieve this delicate balance, breeders have meticulously studied bloodlines, refined selective breeding techniques, and sought the ideal genetic combinations. Over time, the racing industry has grown into a highly competitive global market, with breeders constantly striving to stay ahead of the curve. In this relentless pursuit of excellence, innovation has become a key factor in maintaining a competitive edge.

One of the most promising advancements slowly making its way into this traditional field is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and tech tools. These technologies are beginning to transform the breeding process, offering data-driven insights and precision that were once unimaginable. By integrating AI, breeders are unlocking new possibilities to refine bloodlines, enhance performance traits, and optimise the development of future champions.

The entry of AI and tech-tool companies into the racing industry has been a direct response to the evolving demands of an increasingly competitive and data-driven global market. Breeders today are under immense pressure to make decisions that are not only strategic

but also rooted in science and precision. This shift has opened the door to innovations that bridge the gap between traditional practices and advanced analytical capabilities. As Spencer Chapman, co-founder of Equine Match, explains: “We recognised the opportunity to bring sophisticated data analysis to an industry where major investment decisions could benefit from advanced analytical support. The gap between modern analytical capabilities and traditional bloodstock investment practices presented

“Having access to accurate, actionable data has become essential”

a clear opportunity for innovation.”

In an industry where decisions about bloodlines, breeding and performance investments carry significant financial and reputational stakes, having access to accurate, actionable data has become essential for success.

Reshaping the landscape

Tools like Etalon and Equinome (ZintoLab) exemplify how technology is reshaping the landscape by introducing methodologies that go beyond conventional pedigree analysis. These platforms focus on directly decoding and interpreting the horse’s DNA, providing a clearer, more detailed picture of genetic potential. The founder of

Etalon Equine Genetics, Christa Lafayette, was inspired to create the platform after personally testing her own horse. As she shared: “When I had my own horse genetically tested and received the results, it was wonderful, but I realised, who is going to translate all this for me?” This insight became the driving force behind the development of a platform designed not only to track genetic profiles but also to make this complex data accessible and understandable to breeders at all levels.

The goal of these tools is not just to advance science for its own sake but to equip breeders with the knowledge they need to make more confident and informed decisions. By integrating genetic insights with AI-driven analysis, these technologies enable breeders to predict key traits such as speed, stamina, temperament, and overall health with remarkable accuracy.

The gradual adoption of modern breeding tools is introducing a new era in the racing industry, with two distinct yet complementary methodologies gaining attention: the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithms for nicking through the cross-analysis of pedigrees, and the application of genetic analysis to study a horse’s unique DNA profile. While these approaches are still emerging in this traditional field, they have the potential to complement one another.

The AI algorithm used in pedigree analysis for horse breeding operates by analysing genealogical data to assess the compatibility between sire and dam sire lines. At its core, the system evaluates nicking patterns, specific interactions between sire and dam sire lines, and measures their contribution to the predictive accuracy of breeding outcomes. For example, in the case of Equine Match,

AI and tech in breeding

this process begins with a comprehensive database that includes over 67 million pedigree positions spanning more than 25 generations, meticulously compiled from proprietary historical datasets, public records, and real-time updates. This extensive dataset allows the AI to analyse patterns and trends that have emerged over decades of thoroughbred breeding.

The analysis itself is broken into multiple genealogical components, each contributing a measurable percentage to the overall predictive accuracy of the model. For instance, nicking patterns between sire and dam sire lines account for 4-5% of the model’s predictive power after normalising the data. This involves evaluating how the affinity between these lines improves the model’s overall performance, ensuring that the impact of nicking is quantified objectively. To do so, the AI measures the true gain in predictive accuracy that results from incorporating nicking data, applying the same rigorous methodology to all other features it analyses.

In addition to nicking, the algorithm incorporates other genealogical elements, such as inbreeding analysis within five generations, which contributes an additional 5% to predictive accuracy, and the assessment of genealogical proximity to elite performers sharing the same female line, accounting for 6%. These components complement the core focus on direct sire line influences, which contribute the largest share of predictive power (45-50%), and dam line factors, which account for 35-40%. By integrating these features, the AI creates a multi-faceted analysis that captures the complexity of breeding dynamics.

The AI system’s ability to evaluate these features relies on the seamless integration of historical and current data. Through partnerships with platforms such as Arion

Pedigrees, the database is updated weekly with the latest sire offspring records, while stakes results, which significantly influence predictive ratings, are refreshed daily. This combination of historical depth and realtime relevance ensures that the analysis is both comprehensive and current, reflecting the most recent trends in thoroughbred breeding.

Ultimately, the algorithm does not merely identify patterns but quantifies their significance in improving breeding decisions. By normalising and weighting each component based on its actual contribution to predictive accuracy, the AI offers breeders actionable insights into

“AI offers breeders insights into the compatibility of potential pairings”

the compatibility of potential pairings. This data-driven approach ensures that nicking, along with other genealogical factors, is evaluated with precision, enabling breeders to make informed, strategic decisions grounded in a rigorous analysis of both historical trends and current data.

Equine Match’s AI model, tested on 200,000 horses, achieved a log loss of 0.85, significantly lower than the 1.6 expected from random guessing in a five-class prediction. Its predictions closely matched actual outcomes, such as 1.08% of Group winners predicted versus 1.06% actual, demonstrating its consistency and precision in evaluating breeding potential.

DNA analysis

On the other hand, genetic testing offers breeders detailed insights into a horse’s potential and overall health. Two leading companies, Equinome (Zintolab) and Etalon Genetics, offer complementary approaches to DNA analysis that cater to different breeder needs. The process varies between the two, with Equinome requiring a blood sample and Etalon using a hair sample, but both aim to deliver actionable genetic profiles.

Equinome specialises in performancerelated traits through tests such as the Speed Gene Test, which evaluates the Myostatin gene to determine whether a horse is predisposed to excel in sprint/mile, middle-distance, or long-distance races. Additionally, their Checkmate Test provides a deeper analysis of genetic markers linked to key performance factors such as speed, stamina, and adaptability. These tools allow breeders to align their breeding strategies and training programmes with a horse’s genetic predispositions, optimising its potential on the racetrack.

Etalon Genetics takes a broader approach by not only focusing on performance traits but also addressing health and physical characteristics. Its tests can predict coat colour, analyse optimal racing distances, calculate the percentage of inbreeding in a horse’s lineage, and importantly, identify genetic predispositions to health risks. This ability to foresee potential health issues is a cornerstone of Etalon’s mission. As Holly Robilliard, a representative of Etalon, explains: “This for us is a crucial point because it gives us the opportunity to prevent certain conditions in horses and be proactive in terms of animal welfare.” By equipping breeders and owners with this information, Etalon enables better care for horses, potentially extending their performance careers and improving overall

BILL SELWYN

Genetic testing can reveal a horse’s optimal racing distance

AI and tech in breeding

quality of life.

In line with its forward-thinking approach, Etalon plans to launch a marketplace in 2025 that will integrate with its health-risk analysis platform. This marketplace will suggest specific products tailored to addressing or preventing the health conditions identified in a horse’s genetic profile. For example, it could recommend supplements, specialised feed, or other veterinary solutions that support proactive health management.

Both companies also offer flexibility in sharing genetic profiles, giving stallion and mare owners the choice to make their data public or keep it private. For stallion owners, sharing this information can enhance advertising efforts by showcasing the genetic qualities of their horses.

Despite their differences, these two methodologies are not mutually exclusive; in fact, they complement each other exceptionally well. Pedigreebased algorithms excel at identifying compatibility across bloodlines, offering predictions grounded in historical data, while genetic analysis provides a granular, individual-level perspective that is forwardlooking and personalised. By combining these approaches, breeders can not only predict the potential success of a pairing but also ensure that the traits being prioritised align with the unique genetic makeup of their horses.

This synergy allows for a more holistic approach to breeding, where tradition and innovation work together. For instance, a breeder might use AI-powered nicking to identify promising sire-dam combinations based on their pedigree and then apply genetic testing to confirm that the offspring would inherit the desired traits without undesirable health risks. By integrating these tools, breeders are empowered to make decisions that are not only scientifically sound but also strategically aligned with their goals, ensuring that both the lineage and the individual horse’s potential are fully considered.

Costs and plans

The cost of these advanced breeding tools reflects the broader goal of making them accessible across all levels of the bloodstock industry. As Chapman says: “Our broader vision is to make these advanced analytical tools accessible to all levels of the bloodstock industry.” To achieve this, companies like Equine Match and Etalon Genetics have developed pricing structures that are far from exorbitant, ensuring their services can be utilised by both small-scale breeders and large operations alike.

A blood sample can provide an insight into a horse’s genetic make-up

Equine Match offers a range of subscription plans tailored to the diverse needs of the breeding community. These include individual subscriptions for private breeders and bloodstock agents, enterprise solutions for larger breeding operations, and stallion farm partnerships where mare owners can access mating analysis tools to evaluate stallion compatibility. Additionally, the company provides customised arrangements for clients with specific requirements or largerscale operations, offering flexibility to suit various budgets and goals.

Etalon Genetics, meanwhile, provides clear, affordable options for its genetic testing services. Packages such as the Ancestry Package for $179 or the Performance Panel for $99 make cuttingedge genetic insights accessible to a wide audience. Furthermore, their plans can be customised, allowing breeders to select tests that align with their specific interests, whether focused on ancestry, performance traits, health risks, or other priorities.

By designing flexible and reasonablypriced plans, these companies are ensuring that advanced breeding tools are no longer reserved for elite players in the industry but are available to all breeders looking to enhance their decision-making. This democratisation of technology represents a significant step forward in equine breeding, providing a more equitable opportunity to harness the power of data and genetics.

The future of AI tools in equine breeding holds great promise but hinges on their acceptance within an industry rooted in tradition. Breeders have historically relied on a blend of pedigree knowledge, physical assessment, and market insight, methods honed over

generations. As Chapman notes: “The primary challenge lies in introducing new methodologies to an industry built on generations of experience and tradition.

“Investment decisions in bloodstock have historically relied on a combination of pedigree knowledge, physical assessment, and market intelligence. Our task is to demonstrate how data-driven analysis can quantify complex and disparate data in ways that enhance decision-making beyond traditional methods.”

A critical hurdle is overcoming scepticism among traditional breeders. AI tools may initially be perceived as undermining or replacing established expertise, but as Holly Robilliard of Etalon Genetics clarifies: “This is a tool that has no intention of replacing the excellent work breeders have done for centuries, nor does it claim that past breeding decisions were wrong. Instead, it is a support for breeders, offering scientific, peer-reviewed data that provides additional indicators to inform decisions.” This perspective underscores the collaborative potential of AI, positioning it as a supplement to traditional practices rather than a replacement.

The success of AI integration will likely depend on its ability to deliver clear, measurable results. As Chapman emphasises: “We approach this through evidence and results rather than theory. Our validation process demonstrates that while traditional selection methods have reached a natural performance plateau, analytical tools can provide additional insights that improve decision-making accuracy.” By quantifying complex data, AI tools can help breeders identify patterns and factors that might otherwise go unnoticed, adding a new dimension to decision-making. However, the adoption of these tools across the industry will depend not only on their demonstrated value but also on their accessibility and usability.

Despite this optimism, the transition is unlikely to be uniform. Some breeders may remain resistant, viewing these tools as unnecessary or overly complex. To bridge this gap, companies must focus on education, transparency, and demonstrating how these tools complement, not replace, the intuition and experience that have shaped the industry for centuries.

The integration of AI in equine breeding, while inevitable, will succeed only if it is framed as a partnership between innovation and tradition. The future will likely reward those who learn to use these tools effectively, as the competitive advantage will shift from whether to adopt them to how well they are applied to breeding and investment decisions.

Inkerman is delighted to produce the ROA Awards, and to continue to work with the racing fraternity, supplying trophies and replicas for owners, trainers and jockeys on racecourses throughout the country.

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HORSERACING AWARDS 2024

AWARDS PHOTOS BY JON BRADLEY

OUTSTANDING NOVICE CHASER

GREY DAWNING

Owned by Robert Kirkland

Received by Tom Messenger and Matthew Blackmore

Presented by Bobby Burns

Sponsored by Fitzdares

OUTSTANDING CHASER

GALOPIN DES CHAMPS

Owned by Audrey Turley

Received by Audrey, Greg and Sarah Turley

Presented by Nevin Truesdale

Sponsored by Jockey Club Racecourses

NATIONAL HUNT SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT

Owned by JP McManus

Received by JP McManus

Presented by Mark Spincer

Sponsored by ARC

OUTSTANDING NOVICE HURDLER

Owned by Ronnie Bartlett and David Manasseh

Received by David and Adrianna Manasseh, Hayley Bartlett-Kanu and Simone Bartlett

Presented by David Lawrence

Sponsored by The Tote

BALLYBURN STATE MAN

OUTSTANDING HURDLER

Owned by Marie Donnelly

Received by Marie Donnelly

Presented by Alice Birch Sponsored by The Tote

OUTSTANDING NATIONAL HUNT MARE

LOSSIEMOUTH

Owned by Rich Ricci

Received by Joe Chambers

Presented by Marc Blackford

Sponsored by Venatour

OUTSTANDING SPRINTER

BRADSELL

Owned by Victorious Racing

Received by Archie Watson and Oliver St Lawrence

Presented by Patrick Chesters

Sponsored by Large Independent Racecourses

OUTSTANDING FILLY/MARE

BLUESTOCKING

Owned by Juddmonte

Received by Mike Saunders

Presented by Edward Rosenthal

Sponsored by The Owner Breeder

OUTSTANDING JUVENILE

LAKE VICTORIA

Owned by Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith and Sue Magnier

Received by Kevin Buckley

Presented by David Leyden Dunbar

Sponsored by ARC

FLAT SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT

Owned by Amedeo Dal Pos

Received by Amedeo Dal Pos

Presented by Sam Bullard Sponsored by EBF

KYPRIOS PRAGUE

OUTSTANDING STAYER

Owned by Moyglare, Magnier, Tabor, Smith and Westerberg

Received by David Keegan Presented by Alastair Warwick Sponsored by Large Independent Racecourses

OUTSTANDING ALL-WEATHER HORSE

THE CRAFTYMASTER

Owned by S Barton, T Stamp, R Miles & Partner

Received by Steve Barton, Roger and Val Miles, Lisa Judd and Tony Carroll

Presented by Steph Wethered Sponsored by ARC

FOR THE GRIT & THE GLORY

OUTSTANDING MIDDLE DISTANCE HORSE CITY OF TROY

Owned by Sue Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith

Received by Christy Grassick

Presented by Anthea Leigh

Sponsored by Large Independent Racecourses

OUTSTANDING MILER CHARYN

Received by Roger and Hanako Varian, Diar Bizakov and Arsen Amankulov

Presented by Alex Eade

Sponsored by Large Independent Racecourses

Owned by Nurlan Bizakov

OWNER OF THE YEAR

JP M c MANUS

HORSE OF THE YEAR BLUESTOCKING

Received by Team Juddmonte

Presented by Charlie Parker

Sponsored by Racehorse Owners Association

Owned by Juddmonte

Received by JP McManus

Presented by Charlie Parker

Sponsored by Racehorse Owners Association

Breeders’ Digest

‘I’ll miss it enormously but I won’t be far away’

Tattersalls’ long-serving Marketing Director Jimmy George leaves his role at Terrace House having witnessed the most extraordinary sales season. The company’s turnover for the year came to 424,471,500gns, which surpassed the record set in 2022 and was all the more remarkable given the apprehension that pervaded ahead of the yearling sales. That all changed during the company’s October Book 1 Sale, when high-end investment from a range of players, notably Kia Joorabchian’s Amo Racing, helped propel that week to new heights which in turn benefitted the market beyond.

“I was looking at the Bloodstock Sales Review, my favourite publication, for 1986,” says George, “That was the year I joined Tattersalls and its turnover was just over 79 million guineas. Only a couple of years before I arrived it had been 40 million guineas. This year it was 424 million guineas.

“I joined just after the real market explosion, which had been most dramatic in Kentucky – the heady days of Keeneland July and Northern Dancer, the like of which we’ll probably never see again. Although we keep saying that. I thought we’d never see 2022 again and two years later we comfortably surpassed it. So never say never in this game!”

George leaves Tattersalls following a 23-year stint as Marketing Director although the change is not quite so dramatic as it appears since his new role as managing director of the International Racing Bureau [IRB] is stationed just yards away from Terrace House on Newmarket’s High Street. He will also continue to assist Tattersalls in various overseas markets.

“Tattersalls is a fantastic company,” he says. “I was very fortunate to get the job in the first place and proud to have stayed here as long as I have.”

He adds: “My parents have no interest in racing at all. My grandmother was Jamaican and that side of the family had horses in training there and when we visited, we would go racing every weekend. The first racecourse I ever went to was Caymanas Park and that’s where I got the love of racing. When they came over to England in the summer, they would go racing and if I asked

nicely they’d take me along, so the first racecourse I went to here was Windsor.

“I had absolutely no thought of working in racing at that point but midway through my time at Exeter, I thought ‘Christ I better get a job’. In those days, everyone was going into the City but I thought to myself ‘what do I enjoy –what about horseracing?’”

Open at that time was a spot in the bloodstock department at Tattersalls and thereby began an association that was punctuated only by a period on the magazine Pacemaker

“I was very fortunate because if it had been a year earlier or later, there wouldn’t have been a job at Tatts,” says George. “There was a role in the bloodstock room. I wasn’t a horseman but what I had was a lot of enthusiasm and somehow I managed to convince Martin Mitchell and Michael Watt that enthusiasm was better than nothing!”

He adds with a chuckle: “Luckily they fell for it!”

That was 1986, a very different world to the one today. Tattersalls has naturally moved forward in that time, mostly under the leadership of current Chairman

Edmond Mahony, but while also staying true to its heritage.

“It has a very definite ethos rooted in a very long and proud history,” says George. “But it also has a reputation for integrity and doing business the right way, and for being fair and scrupulously honest with everyone, whether buying or selling.

“Equally it’s a very different company to the one that I started with. It’s retained those basic principles that make it the special company that it is but it’s also very forward-looking.

“Edmond became Chairman in 1993 and has steered it with fantastic judgment during that period. He’s modernised it and continues to do so, a prime illustration being our latest online sale which featured a dedicated section for mares covered to southern hemisphere time. That’s a sale hosted in collaboration with a southern hemisphere sales company [Inglis] in which we bought a large share 16 years ago. Again, that was about looking to the future with an eye on the global aspect of the business which continues to grow. I’d like to think that Tattersalls has harnessed that and embraced it.”

That online sale in question turned

Jimmy George: ‘I’m proud to have stayed at Tattersalls as long as I have’

over close to 730,000gns last month, 430,000gns of which was realised by the mares bred to southern hemisphere time. Its indicative of the growth of the online auction sector, which was accelerated during Covid and is now an integral part of Tattersalls’ sales calendar. That in itself has grown out of recognition in recent years; there were 47 individual auctions during 2024 staged under its umbrella, which also consists of Cheltenham and its arm in Ireland.

However, it was those two weeks at Park Paddocks during October, when a Frankel filly sold for 4.4 million guineas amid new records for turnover, average and median, that provided the defining point of the 2024 European sales season.

“It’s been an extraordinary few months beginning with Book 1,” says George. “It did take us a bit by surprise although we knew that we had a very good catalogue on paper that was backed up by some outstanding individuals.

“We also knew going in that we had some really strong teams of buyers attending and some of them for the first time. You quietly hope all that will produce a successful sale – but not on the scale that it was.

“A lot of people look primarily at the Amo factor and of course it had an enormous impact. But there were other participants who made it the sale that it was, and they were active at all levels of the Book 1 market. American buyers were more prominent than ever before

and we had buyers from Australia, Japan and Hong Kong. But equally I thought the high-end British buyers were more prominent than we’d seen in recent years – the Valmonts and Tony Blooms of this world who stepped up to another level.

“And when you have those 20 grand pinhooks in Book 1 making 80,000gns or 100,000gns, then that shows there were really no gaps to that market. This is a great industry and to see people’s hard work rewarded is rewarding in itself from

“To see people’s hard work rewarded is rewarding in itself”

a sale company’s perspective.

“Then the momentum that began in October was there for all to see in December. The wider industry will hopefully continue to reap those rewards into next year and beyond.”

The wider market does remain polarised to some extent but there is also an incredible strength to the top end of business that played out in December to the tune of more records, whether

Nancy Sexton Bloodstock Editor

it be the 900,000gns record top lot at the December Yearling Sale, the 2,500,000gns Frankel filly who matched the previous European auction record for a foal at auction set back in 1997, or the record turnover achieved for a day of European trading during the second session of the Mares Sale.

No fewer than ten lots changed hands for a million guineas or more at the Mares Sale including Village Voice, in whom George owned a share with Patrick Cooper and Bill Oppenheim. The trio paid just 38,000gns for the filly as a breezer in 2022, campaigned her to win four races including the Prix de Flore and were rewarded as she sold for 1,300,000gns to John Stewart’s Resolute Bloodstock during Tattersalls’ blockbuster second day of the Mares Sale.

“I’ll miss it enormously but I won’t be far away,” says George. “I’ll still be working a bit with Tattersalls.

“I’ve worked with some wonderful people and it’s the people who make a company like this. Everybody works incredibly hard to maintain the standards that Tattersalls is revered for around the world, and all you try to do when working here is try and continue that.”

He adds: “My wife Jane has actually been at the IRB longer than I’ve been at Tattersalls. Along the way, she’s had to put up with a lot of the rigours of me working for Tattersalls. She’s been an enormous help. And now her reward is having me turning up for work in her office!”

Jimmy George’s final Tattersalls December Mares Sale as Marketing Director featured the sale of Village Voice, in whom he owned a share

Sales

Circuit •

By Carl Evans

Records continue to tumble as sales season ends on high

Tattersalls December Foal Sale

Chaldean, winner of the 2,000 Guineas in 2023, sold for a thumping 550,000gns at this sale in 2020, but few could have imagined his full-sister would make nearly five times that sum and create a record at the latest edition.

So continued a remarkable run of auctions at Tattersalls’ HQ, while another chapter was added to the enduring tale of Suelita, a 15-year-old daughter of Dutch Art whose progeny of racing age have all won and who form part of an outstanding period in the history of Hampshire’s Whitsbury Manor Stud. It would be taking things too far to say who needs stallions when you have a mare that can produce such outstanding sale-ring results, but with Havana Grey, Showcasing and Sergei Prokofiev adding to a heady Hampshire mix, what a time to be the stud’s owners, the Harper family.

At Europe’s biggest annual sale of Flat-bred foals, Suelita’s progeny have turned up and sold out. Alkumait made 150,00gns in 2018 and went on to win the Mill Reef Stakes before taking a place at stud. Two years later Chaldean did not let the side down, two years after that Kassaya made a round 1 million guineas, and in 2023 a Showcasing foal sold for 260,000gns.

At the same year’s Mares Sale, Get Ahead, a Showcasing four-year-old filly out of Suelita, but who had been leased for racing, made 2.5m gns when sold by Whitsbury Manor, and that same seven-figure sum was reaped at the latest edition of the Foal Sale when Amo Racing’s Kia Joorabchian (who

else?) outflanked Paddy Twomey to make the winning bid for her Frankel filly. The price set a European record for a filly foal and has been matched just once by a colt of the same age. That was back in 1997 when BBA agent Joss Collins bought a full-brother to Derby winner Generous for racehorse owner Satish Sanan.

Joorabchian has raided Tattersalls’ recent catalogues with the alacrity of a very confident man. Having some well-heeled allies to back his passion has put his spending power on another level and it will be fascinating to see how his purchases perform over the next few years. Bearing in mind that Suelita, a 21,500gns purchase by Chris Harper, is another example of an inexpensive horse outperforming far more highly-valued specimens, it is certain that nothing is certain, but it can be said Joorabchian has stirred up the top of the market.

At this sale he headed buyers when picking up four lots for 4,675,000gns, his other purchases including a son and daughter of Frankel who realised 850,000gns each. Adrian and Philippa O’Brien’s Hazelwood Bloodstock sold the filly, a daughter of Listed winner Auria and a bloodstock auction high for

The Frankel sister to Chaldean sells in front of a packed ring for 2,500,000gns

MV Magnier struck at 1,000,000gns for this Sea The Stars colt from Genesis Green Stud

breeders Mick and Fiona Denniff, while the colt was consigned by Genesis Green Stud’s Michael Swinburn having been bred by his sister-in-law Alison and foaled by Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf winner Audarya.

One lot later, Genesis Green trumped that when selling a Sea The Stars colt to Coolmore Stud’s MV Magnier. First dam Angel’s Point is a five-year-old granddaughter of Sabria who became a flag-bearer for the Swinburns’ broodmare band, while a Too Darn Hot filly out of Sabria’s daughter, Madonna Dell’orto, made 480,000gns at this sale when knocked down to Zhang Yuesheng.

Among other British stud farms that enjoyed a very good sale was James and Anita Wigan’s Dorset-based West Blagdon, which reaped just over 2m

TALKING POINTS

• It would be easy to allow the greeneyed monster of envy to become part of one’s character when perusing results from Tattersalls’ auctions in recent months.

Yet bloodstock breeding, selling and horseracing form part of an industry where large and little sums can lead to big hits and jackpot profits. When they do they should not be envied, but admired.

Ed Harper, who sold the 2.5m gns Frankel filly out of Suelita at Tattersalls’ Foal Sale, summed it up when saying: “It is an aspirational industry, and that is what makes it so exciting.”

• It really should not be a talking point in 2024 that a woman took her place on the auctioneers’ rostrum, but then no European auction house had, until the December Foal Sale, ever given the gavel to a female conductor. Well done to Tattersalls, the oldest bloodstock auction house, for breaking the mould and giving Shirley Anderson-Jolag the opportunity to join the hitherto all-

C Frankel – Audarya

F Frankel – Auria

F Frankel - In The Mist

gns when trading an eight-strong draft, headed by an 800,000gns Frankel filly who was another Magnier purchase.

His input helped carry the fourth and strongest day’s trade to a record set of highs and a 90 per cent clearance rate. Turnover shot up 72 per cent to nearly 31m gns, while a 66 per cent average price increase saw that figure reach nearly 160,000gns.

Further down the scale in terms of mare and stallion quality it was tougher, as results at the first and weakest day were to prove. A smaller catalogue helped ease the clearance rate up two points but at 61 per cent it meant a lot of stock went home. Those who sold did so at an average of 12,086gns, although that sort of figure gives entrants to pinhooking a chance to get on the ladder.

male roster. Anderson-Jolag, who took her turn twice on the podium during the four-day auction, has a sound knowledge of this trade, is respected widely on both sides of the Irish Sea and deserved her chance.

When you consider the number of women correspondents working for the BBC and other broadcasters who step fearlessly into war zones – often being the first to arrive and send back reports – then there is no reason why women should not handle tense situations in an auction ring.

Tattersalls’ Chairman Edmond Mahony commented on the range of buyers in his close-of-sale statement, referring to “a combination of veterans who have been plying their trade for many years and hordes of the younger generation whose enthusiasm and commitment provide encouragement to the wider industry looking forward.”

He added that more memorable results “shone a positive light on the industry”, and there was no doubting those results looked good when the final tallies were revealed.

Turnover of 43.7m gns was up 46 per cent, while the average gained 52 per cent at 67,658gns and the median gained 43 per cent at 30,000gns. And the mares sale was still to come...

Statistics

Sold: 661 (75% clearance)

Aggregate: 43,504,000gns (+46%)

Average: 67,658gns (+52%)

Median: 30,000gns (+43%)

Stud

Hazelwood Bloodstock

West Blagdon Stud

Michael Swinburn: sale to remember

Tattersalls December Foal Sale

TATTERSALLS

Shirley Anderson-Jolag makes history

Sales Circuit

Tattersalls December Mares Sale

After outstanding results at Tattersalls’ major yearling and foal sales, the industry would have been surprised had this auction produced a disappointing outcome.

It breezed, full of running, into the sales company’s final furlong of 2024, and, with a bevy of thoroughbred beauties to offer, was soon producing figures that set it on course for a raft of statistical records. At its conclusion, after four days of trade inside Park Paddocks, annual turnover for the company in Newmarket alone had leapt more than 20 per cent to just shy of 430m gns. This sale added 83m gns to that total, a rise of 23 per cent on its contribution of one year earlier.

The average price was up 16 per cent to 124,539gns while the median gained 27 per cent to 38,000gns, and there was enough statistical trivia to fill a bloodstock version of cricket’s Wisden Almanack. Trade on the second day, which included one of two Sceptre

Sessions for the very best of the best, turned over more than 55m gns, making it the highest grossing day in European auction history, while Tattersalls Chairman Edmond Mahony added to the list of breakthrough moments in his end-of-sale statement when pointing out “it is the first December Sale to have three fillies in training selling for 3,000,000gns or more”.

He was referring to Classic heroine You Got To Me, who at 4,800,000gns (£5,040,000) had become “the highestprice filly or mare in the world this year”, to Vertical Blue, who at 3,200,000gns

Tattersalls December Mares Sale

“became the highest priced two-year-old ever sold at public auction in Europe”, and to Believing, who changed hands for 3,000,000gns.

In a strange and very rare occurrence, the top three lots from this famous auction are all likely to race on, even the Ralph Beckett-trained You Got To Me, a 200,000gns yearling who has nothing to prove having won the Irish Oaks for a partnership involving Valmont and Newsells Park Stud. The last-named operation consigned the three-year-old, and stud owner Graham Smith-Bernal went deep to buy out his partners, but

You Got To Me: Irish Oaks heroine was another high-profile buy for Amo Racing

Sean Grassick: original purchaser of desirable two-year-old The Palace Girl

Amo Racing’s Kia Joorabchian, the Robin Hood of the ring throughout the busy autumn sales season, popped up with the winning bid and secured the prize. In the immediate aftermath he said she could return to Beckett to race on, although a date with one of his new stallions, King Of Steel, was also on the cards.

Joorabchian went on to buy ten lots for 8,375,000gns, making him comfortably the leading buyer, while a newcomer to Tattersalls took second place in that table through five purchases

TALKING POINT

• Kia Joorabchian’s investment in stock at Tattersalls during the company’s headline autumn sales makes for remarkable reading.

Taking in the October Yearling Sales Books 1 to 3, and all three elements of the December Sales, sports marketing impresario Joorabchian bought 37 horses for 34,235,000gns in the name of his Amo Racing. Seven lots were purchased for a seven-figure sum.

He made his Tattersalls debut under his own banner in 2021 when buying six horses with a high of 95,000gns, tucked in a little more heartily the following year when gaining ten lots with a 460,000gns high, went quiet in 2023 with just one purchase, then caused a sensation in 2024.

It has been a good year, too, for his ringside advisor, Alex Elliott, who, during the December Sale, was awarded the Federation of Bloodstock Agents’ award for Agent of the Year.

• Tattersalls Marketing Director Jimmy George was set to leave the company and join the International Racing Bureau at the end of December.

The three-pronged December Sale, which achieved record results, was therefore a fitting conclusion to a long association between George and his employers. What many would not know is that he has long bought and sold horses through Tattersalls in a partnership involving his friends Patrick Cooper and bloodstock journalist Bill Oppenheim – and with a stunning outcome just as George was about to clear his desk.

The trio offered Village Voice, a four-year-old who had been trained by Jessie Harrington to win four

for 6,265,000gns. This was John Stewart, whose Resolute Racing has been buying big and racing with success in his American homeland, but who had recognised that he needed some European blood to bolster his future chances of success. He was not alone among his countryman in spending with conviction at this auction.

It was Stewart’s bid of 3.2m gns which secured Prix Marcel Boussac winner Vertical Blue, a daughter of Mehmas set to return to her box at Francis-Henri

races including a Group 3 event in France. Bloodstock agent Cooper had bought the daughter of Zarak for 38,000gns, then watched her sky-rocket up to 1.3m gns when bought by John Stewart’s Resolute Racing at the Mares Sale.

George, happy to go in front of a camera whenever some marketing of Tattersalls was needed, slipped quietly from view when the hammer fell, but Oppenheim was happy to talk to his press colleagues. Saying he and George were “just passengers”, he credited Cooper and Harrington with all the credit for a great result.

• One of the remarkable elements of current bloodstock trading is the variety of buyers at all levels of the market.

A few years ago the top end of a major sale was often heavily leant towards Godolphin and Coolmore, and vendors would often sum up a sale by saying ‘thank God for their input’. The problem with two-horse races is that if one fails to turn up the result is a walk-over, so the way in which fresh faces are now making for much bigger fields is a boost to vendors. Admittedly, the top ten lots sold at Tattersalls December Sale did include three transactions involving horses sold to American John Stewart’s Resolute Racing, but he is a relatively new racehorse owner-breeder and still building an empire.

The other seven top-ten lots were knocked down to different buyers, with only one horse among them being sold to Coolmore/MV Magnier.

The Irishman bought just two horses for a combined spend of 3,625,000gns, while Godolphin made a single purchase valued at 500,000gns.

Graffard’s yard in order to campaign again as a three-year-old. Graffard trains Stewart’s King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner Goliath.

Also returning to her old stable was Believing, another daughter of Mehmas, and the latest in a long line of triumphant racehorses to carry the Highclere Thoroughbred Racing colours. Bought for 115,000gns as a breezer, she gave her syndicate of owners great value when racing 24 times over three seasons, winning in Group 2 company and regularly reaching the places in the top grade, while picking up £625,000 in prize-money. She then added 3m gns when knocked down to MV Magnier at this sale, and to the delight of trainer George Boughey was soon back in his care but for her new owners. Magnier said a tilt “at something like Dubai” in early 2025 was a likelihood for Believing, followed by a match up with Coolmore Stud new boy City Of Troy.

Other seven-figure sales during the second session of the Sceptre Sales included another filly from Ralph Beckett’s yard, namely Group 3 winner River Of Stars who was sold to online buyer Oakley Creek for 1.65m gns, while US-based Woodford Thoroughbreds added to its future broodmare band with the 1.55m gns purchase of two-year-old The Palace Girl, a €30,000 BBAG September yearling who had finished runner-up at the Curragh in October on her sole start in 2024.

Her trainer and part owner, Kevin Coleman, brother of former top jump jockey Aidan, would in most cases have then trained her for a maiden, but on the same afternoon that she ran her halfsister, Tamfana, won Newmarket’s Sun Chariot Stakes for David Menuisier’s stable. With that update The Palace Girl had to go under the hammer, and her syndicate of owners were well rewarded.

Just one horse hit a seven-figure sum during the first Sceptre Session, and she too came from a bargain basement background. Caught U Looking, whose dam had been bought by Peter and Sabina Kelly for just 7,000gns, won twice as a two-year-old – including the Group 3 Weld Park Stakes – for a partnership involving the Kellys and Tally-Ho Stud’s Tony O’Callaghan, and at three finished a

Statistics

Sold: 667 (86% clearance)

Aggregate: 83,067,200gns (+23%)

Average: 124,539gns (+16%)

Median: 38,000gns (+27%)

Sales Circuit

close fifth to You Got To Me in the Irish Oaks.

The filly’s profile appealed to a number of heavy hitters, which drove her price up to a remarkable 1.8m gns before Zhang Yuesheng’s online bid in the name of his Willingham operation was declared

Tattersalls December Yearling Sale

A rampaging final quarter of the year at Tattersalls’ HQ in Newmarket continued apace with record business at this single session sale, one that has become a valuable Plan B for vendors of yearlings.

Record figures across-the-board –something that could not have been predicted at the start of the year – was the primary theme, while a 900,000gns top lot gave the event a beacon at the summit. In truth the results were following on from outstanding editions of Books 1 and 2, and since a number of horses entered in this sale would have been offered at one of those two auctions but for minor issues or hold-ups, perhaps the outcome was possible to predict.

Whether anyone could foresee a 38 per cent rise in the average price to just under 52,000gns, a 50 per cent median increase to 30,000gns and another 50 per cent gain in the aggregate to 7,170,000gns is debateable. That turnover figure beat the previous best set in 2006, which was also the year in which a 700,000gns filly set a top-lot record that endured for 18 years.

That filly was knocked down to Demi O’Byrne for Coolmore interests, and, having been named Moonstone, she went on to win the Irish Oaks. Anything of similar merit would be most welcome for connections of the new queen of the ring, a Dark Angel filly out of the Pivotal mare Entreat and sold to Henry Lascelles who headed interest from Zhang Yuesheng. Lascelles was acting for a British breeder whose purchase was

TALKING POINT

the winner. Spokesman Vin Cox said Caught U Looking would race on in Australia.

Away from these upper-echelon sales trade was tougher, but not bleak. At the final and weakest session, a smaller number of offered lots – 85 compared to

137 in 2023 – helped the clearance rate rise to 69 per cent, a much better return than the 50 per cent of the previous year. The average price of 5,512gns resembled a clear-out figure, down eight per cent, yet the median gained 16 per cent at 3,500gns.

foaled by a mare with a wonderful record.

Entreat, who Clara Stud’s James Cloney bought for 14,000gns seven years ago when she was ten, has foaled eight winners from nine foals of racing age. They include ace sprinter and now sire Golden Horde, plus high-class juvenile Camille Pissarro, who at the Arc meeting in October won the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere. Cloney sold him for 1,250,000gns at Book 1 just over a year ago, and can hope for another good

• What seems like very unfortunate timing one day can appear highly fortuitous within a month or two.

Take the case of a Blue Point colt offered at the Tattersalls December Yearling Sale, and sold by his breeders at Plantation Stud for 240,000gns to Anthony Stroud.

The same yearling was due to go through the same ring in early September when, as a colt out of a Group 3-placed mare, he could have been expected to sell for a profit. Whether he would have made as much as he did in December will never be known, but Plantation manager James Berney said: “He missed his earlier slot in the Somerville Sale, but that might have worked out for the best as he has done very well through the autumn.”

payout if Entreat throws a quality Justify foal in early 2025.

Marc Chan’s racing ambitions are now progressing into breeding, too, and he gained a Norelands Stud-consigned daughter of Sea The Stars following a bid of 400,000gns by agent Jamie McCalmont. Chan owns the filly’s Ralph

This Dark Angel half-sister to Camille Pissarro set a new sale record at 900,000gns

Jamie McCalmont was active on behalf of owner Marc Chan

Beckett-trained full-brother Seacruiser, who powered up the Rowley Mile to good effect when winning his maiden in the autumn.

On a good day for Sea The Stars, he was also responsible for a colt who made 375,000gns to a bid from Zhang Yuesheng’s Willingham and a

Goffs November Foal & Breeding Stock Sales

A €1m foal gave this six-day auction a stellar moment when most assumed nothing could come close to a banner headline after the Niarchos partial dispersal of 12 months’ earlier.

On that occasion a parade of sevenfigure mares from one of Europe’s legendary racing and breeding operations produced a single-session turnover of nearly €40m, smashing all Irish bloodstock auction records out of sight. Two mares, Alpine Star and Alpha Centauri, each made €6m.

None of the mares listed in this year’s catalogue had any hope of coming within two furlongs of that valuation, but the four-day foal sale might throw up something special, and duly did when a son of Sea The Stars out of the Pretty Polly Stakes winner Ambivalent strolled in from David Cox’s Baroda Stud.

The foal’s family are no strangers to big-money transactions, for Ambivalent sold at this sale 12 months earlier for €925,000, while her daughter, the Prix Vermeille winner Teona, had topped the 2023 Tattersalls December Sale when bought by Juddmonte for 4.5m gns. Another half-brother, Al Hilalee, won the Prix Hocquart for Godolphin, and it was to Sheikh Mohammed’s powerful stable that the latest family member was destined.

Anthony Stroud, representing Godolphin, was at the ring, and his €1m winning bid was followed by the comment “all the stars aligned”. Baroda Stud consigned the youngster on behalf of Rifa Mustang Europe, an entity headed by Zhang Yuesheng.

Strong and in some cases exceptional

360,000gns filly bought by trainer William Haggas. The Barton Stud-offered colt will race in Europe, at least initially, said Vin Cox representing Yuesheng, while Haggas said the filly, who was presented by The Castlebridge Consignment, was for a current patron at his Newmarket yard.

Tattersalls

December Yearling Sale

trade for yearlings just a few weeks earlier meant desirable foals by leading sires were likely to prove expensive and popular. This was borne out on day three of the weanling sale when 158 of the 180 offered lots found buyers at a clearance rate of 88 per cent. The session also achieved rises at or above 50 per cent in the figures for turnover, average and median, an indication that Goffs’ plea for quality stock to sell had been heard by vendors.

Darley stallion Night Of Thunder helped the figures when one of his sons made €550,000 and another €440,000 with each colt bought to be resold as yearlings. The latter entered the ring from Swordlestown Little and was knocked down to Germany’s Philipp Stauffenberg, a man not averse to a bold pinhook but invariably rewarded for his bravery, while

the former came from The Castlebridge Consignment and was sold to the sales company’s Scandinavian agent Filip Zwicky. He was acting for John and Alice Weiste Christensen of Denmark’s JC Organisation APS, who it is thought will return their prize asset to Goffs and the Orby Sale later this year. John Christensen said he enjoyed “high-end pinhooking” and that he was about to celebrate with a Guinness. What else?

The foal sale’s headline filly was a €450,000 daughter of Lope De Vega who was sold to the Regan family’s Newtown Anner Stud having been consigned by Adam Morgan of Greenville House Stud. The filly was a half-sister to speedy two-year-olds Living In The Past and Jungle Drums, while her dam, Ayr Missile, is a half-sister to Suelita, dam of Classic winner Chaldean among others,

The Baroda Stud team celebrate following the sale of its Sea The Stars colt for €1 million

Sales Circuit

and whose Frankel foal was to top the Tattersalls December Sale of weanlings.

Morgan, who gained experience at other stud farms before returning home four years ago, has been well supported

by some leading breeders and quickly established an important consigning operation. His top-priced filly was bred by Newlands House Stud and the Lope De Vega Syndicate.

Day one of the mare sale involved a horse that did not sell, then did, to head trade at €725,000, and another whose valuation rose to €5m in the ring, only for auctioneer Henry Beeby to scan the room for further interest and then utter the oft-heard words “that’s not enough”. Gouache, the 12-year-old dam of this year’s King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes victor Goliath, was therefore returned to her owners. She had been bought by Agrolexica International Trading for a relatively humble €200,000 at Arqana last year before Goliath slew

The 13-year-old mare who headed trade had also heard the hammer fall softly, indicating no sale, when her valuation stalled at €850,000. However, the ever-industrious agent Alex Elliott struck the €725,000 deal outside the ring with owners Hugh and Peter McCutcheon and duly bought Her Honour, a daughter of Shamardal, who was placed, but unsuccessful, in four runs on the Flat for Cheveley Park Stud. She had been covered by Night Of Thunder, came from the family of top-notch performers Harzand and Emily Upjohn and had been bought by Elliott for an English breeder who would board her at the Cox family’s Baroda Stud.

At the conclusion of her racing career from John Gosden’s yard, Her Honour

was sold as a three-year-old for just 6,000gns, then 9,000gns a few months later at the February Sale. With two foals on the ground she changed hands once more in 2018 for 20,000gns, a few days after her Brazen Beau daughter Vadream had made a winning two-year-old debut. Vadream went on to win a couple of Group 3 races and prove herself a very capable performer, while Pattern-race placings for two further foals added to their dam’s new and much higher valuation at Goffs.

The 2015 Oaks winner Qualify, carrying a foal by Dark Angel, was sold for €650,000 by Godolphin to Ballylinch Stud and a likely mating with Lope De Vega, while seven-year-old JM Jackson, the dam of leading two-year-old Big Mojo, was knocked down for €480,000. The vendors were Ringfort Stud’s Veitch family and the buyer Conor Quirke acting for Big Mojo’s owners, Paul and Rachael Teasdale. They now own two broodmares and are likely to send their latest investment to another sprint star of theirs, Big Evs, or to his sire, Blue Point.

When the guts of €40m, the sum accrued by the Niarchos draft in 2023, was taken out of the results to make a meaningful comparison there was a fall in turnover of 19 per cent – but from a smaller catalogue – while the average remained even at just over €51,000 and the median gained 22 per cent at €22,000.

Goffs’s MD Henry Beeby said he was “perfectly content with trade for better mares”, while accepting that business at the short second session, when 72 mares were offered and 57 sold for an average of €7,816, was “a rather sobering end to a

his rivals at Ascot.

GOFFS

Henry Beeby congratulates buyer Anthony Stroud, flanked by Zhang Yuesheng

This Night Of Thunder colt was bought for €550,000 as a pinhook prospect

GOFFS

Her Honour topped the sale when bought in a private transaction for €725,000

big week”.

Of the foal results he took pleasure in saying several buyers had “pencilled in” their purchases to be offered at his

company’s Orby Sale of yearlings. The world of bloodstock trading in northern Europe is undoubtedly lucky to have three companies – Goffs, Tattersalls and Arqana – staffed by talented operators and all hungry for business. Competition is a quality which cannot be overlooked.

Breeding stock statistics (comparisons without 2023 Niarchos draft)

221 (79% clearance)

€11,295,000 (-19%)

€51,341 (+6%)

€22,000 (+22%)

C Night Of Thunder - Sonata Ultima

C Camelot - Many Colours

Jm Jackson 7 No Nay Never - Kawn

Scarlett O’Hara 4 Frankel - Dream Of Tara

Arqana Autumn and November Yearling Sales

Buyers had to be nimble during the third week of November when important sales were held, albeit with differing catalogues, at Arqana in France and Goffs in Ireland.

Being in two places at once remains a challenge, even with the invention of AI, but there were no excuses for missing a horse given the easy-to-operate online or telephone purchasing opportunities which bloodstock auction houses have perfected.

Arqana’s Deauville sales ring commenced proceedings with a session of

Flat-bred yearlings, followed by a day of viewing, then a session of horses-intraining from Flat and jump racing, another day of two-year-old stores and jumps-bred yearlings (with the latter category spilling over into another session), followed by a final-day of jump-bred breeding stock involving foals, fillies and mares. It is a sale that is nothing if not multifarious, but on this occasion none of the categories could match results achieved in 2023.

“Selectivity” and “prudence” were two words used to describe trade. Given results at the autumn’s major

Among Ballylinch Stud’s acquisitions was the Oaks heroine Qualify, bought for €650,000

Ballylinch Stud Managing Director John O’Connor was busy stocking up

Sales Circuit

European yearling auctions – where the cream of the crop was guzzled like the elixir of life, but vendors of lesser horses faced challenges in selling stock – it was no great surprise that the opening yearling session saw a decline in figures. A 74 per cent clearance rate was not the worst news, although it was down nine points, but a 24 per cent fall in the average to just over €5,000 and a 30 per cent decline in the median to €3,500 was disappointing.

Hugh Bleahen of Clifton Stud was busy at Goffs, but he popped in a long-distance bid of €23,000 to buy the top lot, a Jedburgh Stud-consigned colt by Darley sire Cloth Of Stars. That was the lowest sum paid for a top lot in the five years of this yearling auction’s existence – the previous year’s high was €85,000 – and given that the horse in question was a half-brother to Melbourne Cup runner-up Heartbreak City and to the smart hurdling mare Coqueliot, it is likely Bleahen obtained good value for money.

Wildcard entries dominated trade during the in-training session, with top-price honours going to the Carlos and Yann Lerner-trained Newlook, a three-yearold New Bay gelding with a Listed win over 2,500 metres in his form line. With that profile, Australian interests were bound to be hovering, and a €480,000 bid by Jarred Magnabosco of Best Bloodstock ensured Newlook would be living up to his name from the stables of expatriate Kiwis Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young, who are based in Melbourne.

Newlook had changed hands as a yearling for €90,000, but four-year-old

Statistics – Yearlings

Sold: 119 (74% clearance)

Aggregate: €601,800 (-37%)

Average: €5,132 (-24%)

Median: €3,500 (-30%)

Westminster Moon had been a snip at €15,000 when bought by Thomas Janda at the Tattersalls Ireland September Sale. The son of Sea The Moon became a star in Poland, was then placed in Group company in Germany, and, after entering the ring at this event, was knocked down to agent Tony Jones for €260,000 on behalf of Irish trainer Tony Martin.

The latest Grand National winner I Am Maximus was bought for €26,000 at this sale in 2017 by Hubert Barbe of Horse Racing Advisory. Barbe was back in action at the latest edition and paid €220,000 for five-year-old Jet Blue, a Group 2 AQPS winner on the Flat. He later won over jumps, but not before being bought for just

Statistics – Horses-in-Training

Sold: 321 (75% clearance)

Aggregate: €9,455,000 (-24%)

Average: €28,914 (-20%)

Median: €15,000 (-25%)

€30,000 at this sale in 2023 when a shrewd purchase by Antonin Pelsy. For Hugo Merienne’s stable he progressed, hence the valuation he achieved when returned to the ring. Barbe was acting for author and racehorse owner Professor Caroline Tisdall who he said would campaign her purchase in France; the gelding ventured across the Channel to capture a Grade 2 hurdle at Cheltenham on December 14.

Similarly, the sports drink manufacturer and billionaire Mike Repole will keep Elbaz in France with Jerome Reynier after the colt was sold for €210,000, one of ten lots that made a six-figure sum, which compares to 23 at the session a year ago.

Statistics – NH breeding stock

Sold: 130 (68% clearance)

Aggregate: €2,644,500 (-22%)

Average: €25,110 (-18%)

Median: €13,000 (-23%)

Newlook 3 g New Bay – Skysweeper

Westminster Moon 4 c Sea The Moon - My Daydream

C (Y) Galiway – Kendalee

Jet Blue 5 g Martaline - Blue Beryl

Elbaz 3 c Siyouni – Elennga

Newlook is destined to continue his career in Australia following his sale for €480,000

Invincible Spirit x Cabaret

A Group One Futurity winner at 2 and a Classic 2,000 Guineas-winning 3yo and the only son of Invicible Spirit to do so

Half-brother to European Champion 2yo and Wold Champion 3yo St Mark’s Basillica

Out of Cabaret, a Group winning 2yo over 7f by Galileo

£5,500 1st Oct SLF CHARMING

Invincible Spirit x Cabaret

The highest-rated Son of Oasis Dream to stand in the UK

A Group One Middle Parks Stakes winner at 2yo

Produced Group 3 winner

Amy C and Group Placed and Listed winner

Charterhouse

£3,000 1st Oct SLF

Sales Circuit

The sections dedicated to jumps-bred adolescents became the Doctor Dino show, for his yearlings commanded a host of higher prices. Haras du Mesnil’s 23-year-old stallion has been responsible for a who’s who of talented jumpers and received another fee increase to €24,000 for the upcoming covering season. Little wonder buyers were keen to invest.

Top-lot honours, however, went to a regally-bred son of Haras de Colleville’s Galiway and the mare Kendalee, a sister to young sire Beaumec De Houelle and dam of the German Derby winner Sisfahan. A bid of €255,000 by Nicolas De Watrigant on behalf of racehorse owner Alain Jathiere sealed the deal, although it involved a partnership with the colt’s breeder Yannick Fouin.

Among top-end Doctor Dino yearling sales there were sums of €142,000 for a filly to Paul Basquin of Haras du Saubouas, €130,000 for a colt to Joffret Huet on behalf of the Papot family and €110,000 for a son of the sire knocked down to Bertrand Le Metayer.

Shrewd brains from the north-west of

Goffs Coral Gold Cup Sale

Tweaking the layout for the second edition of this sale of young point-topoint and bumper horses, Goffs staged another satisfactory auction.

The change saw the selling part move from the winner’s enclosure to the pre-parade ring with the auctioneers taking up position inside the owners’ and trainers’ bar and restaurant. On a surprisingly warm November evening, the sliding doors were pulled back and buyers and sellers had the option of going al fresco or indoors, although a glitch with the PA system made for a sticky start.

Sixteen lots went under the hammer, the majority coming from the allimportant ranks of Irish point-to-point

England combined to send a Blue Bresil colt to the sale where he was consigned by the Astons’ Goldford Stud on behalf of Will Kinsey and his Future Bloodstock partners. They bought his dam Stormy Ireland (now a ten-year-old) for £75,000 in 2021, and reaped €105,000 for her yearling at this sale. Charlie Aston said that despite Blue Bresil’s French background his stock was commonplace in Ireland, but relatively rare in his homeland. The thinking paid off when Nicky De Balanda went to six figures to buy her yearling.

A group of 57 two-year-old stores proved popular with an 82 per cent clearance rate, but that was partly due to the value on offer, and there were falls in the other key figures. Tom Malone’s bid of €62,000 bought the top lot in this section, a gelded son of Cokoriko whose siblings included Paul Nicholls’ high-class chaser Black Corton.

To the jumps breeding stock which concluded the show, and a bid of €160,000 by Guy Petit resulted in the sale of five-year-old mare Garde De Burge, a daughter of Kapgarde. She was one of 129

lots offered at this final session, resulting in a clearance rate of 68 per cent, which was slightly up on last year, although other figures reflected falls experienced earlier in the week.

A Grade 2 winner over jumps at Auteuil, and carrying a first foal by popular Haras du Hoguenet stallion Jigme, Garde De Burge will stay in France for an anonymous client said Petit, who added: “The market has softened, so this is an ideal time to invest.”

Adam Bloodstock and Equos Racing teamed up to secure the choicely-bred four-year-old filly Royale Flandes Has for €95,000 on behalf of Edwige Le Metayer’s Haras du Buff, while two foals that made their mark were a €120,000 Saint Des Saints colt and an €88,000 Walk In The Park filly.

The colt, who forms part of the penultimate crop of his outstanding sire, was sold to Sofiane Benaroussi’s Ecurie de Launay, while the filly, a half-sister to top-class chaser Chacun Pour Soi, was signed for by Marc-Antoine Berghgracht on behalf of an Irish client.

GOFFS

Lingstown debut winner Kindly Prince led the way, selling for £320,000

Fresh from winning the Coral Gold Cup with Kandoo Kid, Paul Nicholls was busy

WELL BRED, TOUGH AND CONSISTENT STAKES WINNER

OUTSTANDING PEDIGREE

Half-brother to 6 Stakes horses including Gr.1 winner Matterhorn and Gr.2 winning 2yo and 3yo The Foxes, descending from Fall Aspen. Only son of Australia to stand in GB.

WON/PLACED IN 8 STAKES RACES

Including winning the Gr.2 York Stakes, Gr.3 Classic Trial and L Winter Derby Trial (twice).

FIRST BOOKS INCLUDE STAKES PRODUCERS/PERFORMERS ON THE FLAT AND OVER JUMPS

Fee: £3,000 1st October FFR

SIRE OF GR.1 WINNERS ON THE FLAT & OVER JUMPS

52% WINNERS TO RUNNERS Tough, sound and versatile progeny, from 2yos up.

PATERNAL HALF-BROTHER TO THE LATE JEREMY

A leading NH sire of Gr.1 jumpers, Our Conor, Appreciate It, Sir Gerhard, Corach Rambler, etc.

Fee: £4,000 1st October FFR

Trueshan

Champion Stayer and triple Gr.1 winner

Gran Diose 2024 Gr.1 French Chase and dual Gr.2 winner

Sales Circuit

handlers who put some quality lots into the catalogue. From their number emerged top lot Kindly Prince, who was knocked down to former jockey David Mullins for £320,000.

Wexford trainer Johnny Fogarty is enjoying a tremendous spell with good racecourse and ring results, and he was responsible for saddling Kindly Price to win at Lingstown six days before his appearance at Newbury. The son of Great Pretender had been mighty impressive in that victory, as befits a horse who had been sold in France for €100,000 as a two-year-old store. Mullins said little about plans for the four-year-old, other than to say he would be heading back to Ireland for a new owner.

Dan Skelton’s rise among the ranks of jump trainers has been marking him out as a potential champion for some years, and he edges closer. After saddling a double on the Newbury card he added to his string when Ryan Mahon, who represents the yard at bloodstock auctions, brought the hammer down for Real Quartz, a four-year-old son of Soldier Of Fortune who made £190,000. The gelding had won a point-to-point on debut one week earlier.

Also shopping after a very good afternoon’s work on the racecourse was Paul Nicholls, whose Kandoo Kid had

TALKING POINTS

won the day’s feature race, the Coral Gold Cup. Tom Malone’s £165,000 bid secured four-year-old Suburban Legend, an easy winner of a point earlier in November, and one who Nicholls said he would put “in the shop window”. In other words, a horse who, if an owner came

• A change at the helm which saw Ed Donohoe become the new chief at Goresbridge Horse Sales in Ireland led to two sales aimed at trading point-topointers in 2024.

The first took place in the spring, the second was held two days before Goffs held its Coral Gold Cup Sale at Newbury. A potential conflict of interest for vendors of pointers, particularly those based in Ireland, was avoided because Goffs focussed on a select sale, while the Goresbridge catalogue was a Div II affair with a top lot of €62,000 and a clearance rate of 64 per cent.

Undeterred, Goresbridge is adding a third such sale to be held in June next year.

• Britain’s point-to-point season, which started five weeks after its Irish counterpart, took a while to engage forward gear in November due to weather issues, and there were no entries from that sport in the Coral Gold Cup Sale.

That was a pity, because young graduates from Britain’s point-to-point scene have been scoring under Rules with welcome regularity and there was a double for such horses on Punchestown’s card the Sunday before the Newbury auction. The pair are trained by Gordon Elliott, who seems to have noticed the value in buying British.

Goffs Coral Gold Cup Sale

knocking, was on the premises and easy to view.

Adding a touch of Gallic flare to the occasion was a big French filly called Kernie D’Airy, a four-year-old who had won a bumper impressively on debut. The runner-up scored at a meeting in Lignieres a few hours before this sale opened, and that update will not have harmed Kernie D’Airy’s appeal.

Consigned by Antonin Pelsy’s Spincourt Bloodstock, the daughter of Sir Gino was sold to Tom Malone on behalf of Jamie Snowden for £155,000.

Sixteen lots faced the auctioneer, five fewer than last year, which partly explains a 30 per cent drop in turnover to just over £1.5m. The average price was clipped nine per cent to nearly £109,000, while the median fell 18 per cent to £90,000.

Statistics

Sold: 14 (88% clearance)

Aggregate: £1,510,500 (-30%)

Average: £107,893 (-9%)

Median: £90,000 (-18%)

Among the purchases made by Paul Nicholls with Tom Malone was Suburban Legend

Kindly Prince 4 g Great Pretender - Belle Princesse Jonathan Fogarty Racing

David Mullins

Real Quartz 4 g Soldier Of Fortune - Miss Elderberry Skehanagh Stables (Sam Curling)

Ryan Mahon/Dan Skelton

Suburban Legend 4 g Harzand - Donnelly’s Hollow Milestone Stables (Colin Bowe)

Malone/Paul Nicholls

HERITAGE THOROUGHBREDS Welcoming new clients

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charlie@heritagethoroughbreds.co.uk

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Dr Statz Angel breaks new ground

Never before in the past 50 years has there been a more speedorientated champion sire in Britain and Ireland with a profile like Dark Angel, whose stock aged three and up have an average winning distance of 7.8 furlongs. Traditionally, racing in Europe has been organised to favour the sires that can produce top-class middle-distance performers, as Group 1 championship races outside the sprint spectrum have been lavished with far more prize-money, thus handicapping some of our top-class stallions down through the years.

It is therefore to Dark Angel’s great credit that he will become the first such sire to land the championship and he will have achieved the feat with no major two- or three-year-old contributor, as is normally the case. In essence, the 20-year-old grey son of Acclamation has combined the quality of older horses like European champion miler Charyn and Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes winner Khaadem with the earnings from over 260 runners, which is the most by any other sire this year.

History shows us that only 15 other sires, based in Britain or Ireland, have been crowned champion sire since 1970, and only five of them had a lifetime progeny stamina index of less than ten furlongs. The champion sire that comes closest to Dark Angel’s profile is Coolmore’s Danehill Dancer, who was champion in 2009. Like Dark Angel, Danehill Dancer was a smart two-year-old (Timeform 117) rated just four pounds higher than Dark Angel which was good enough form to land him the Phoenix Stakes.

Unlike the Yeomanstown Stud stallion, many of Danehill Dancer’s top runners conceived in Ireland were middle-distance

horses. In fact, he never sired a Group 1-winning sprinter as Dark Angel has done with the likes of Battaash (Timeform 136) and Harry Angel (Timeform 132). Danehill Dancer’s top six Group 1 winners by Timeform all stayed a mile and a quarter and feature the 129-rated Mastercraftsman, who contributed greatly to his sire’s title in 2009.

The only other champion sire with a stamina index of less than nine furlongs is Danehill Dancer’s sire Danehill, who bridged the gap between the Sadler’s Wells (14 titles) and Galileo (12 titles) dynasties with three championships from 2005 to 2007. As everyone knows, Danehill was an extraordinary sire, not least for his ability to come up with

BRITAIN AND IRELAND-BASED CHAMPION SIRES SINCE 1970

top-class progeny at all manner of distances. His Timeform 130-plus Group 1 winners from his northern hemisphere crops feature sprinter Mozart (131), milers Rock Of Gibraltar (133) and George Washington (133), middle-distance stars Dylan Thomas (132) and Duke Of Marmalade (132), as well as the top-class stayer Westerner (130).

Dark Angel is also unique among the home-based champion sires in that the six furlongs of both his Middle Park and Mill Reef Stakes victories was his maximum winning trip, and it’s unlikely he would have been tried over longer had he stayed in training at three. There is no question that both he and Mehmas have excellent prospects of extending their sire’s lineage well into the future. That is a fitting tribute to Acclamation, who was retired from stud duty late last year just a few weeks before he passed away, not long before his best-ever progeny Romantic Warrior won his third Hong Kong Cup.

While prize-money tables still decide who wears the champion sire crown in every breeding jurisdiction, it is well worth looking at some other metrics.

It is Dubawi that leads the stakes winner count in Britain and Ireland with 16, as he does in Europe with 25. At the time of writing and with virtually no opportunities for his rivals to close the gap, he leads the field by six in Europe, but by only two on the home front.

PETER MOONEY

Dark Angel: a rare speed-orientated British and Irish champion sire

John Boyce cracks the code

Internationally, he has also delivered more stakes winners than another sire, his 33 just one ahead of Lope De Vega. Moreover, among the sires with ten or more stakes winners, his strike-rate at 10.2 per cent is better than all others bar his own remarkable sire son Zarak, who weighs in with 19 stakes winners at an impressive 12.1 per cent to runners.

Dubawi has also sired the most Group winners (20) across the world but has to give way to Lope De Vega (six) and Wootton Bassett (five) among the active sires when it comes to Group 1 winners.

On the two-year-old front, this season has been all about Wootton Bassett’s first crop of Coolmore-sired two-year-olds, and they have certainly lived up to expectations. His 20 stakes horses, 13 stakes winners and ten Group winners all represent single-crop world records for a sire of two-year-olds, while his four Group 1 winners equals the number sired by Justify last year and is only one fewer than Sadler’s Wells’ five sired in 2001.

Moreover, Wootton Bassett’s strike-rates are broadly similar to all the major sires he’s eclipsed this year, so his records are not all due just to sheer weight of numbers – they are the result of his access to better mares at his new home. Remarkably, 66 per cent of Wootton Bassett’s 56 stakes winners to date are two-year-olds, although his five Timeform top-rated Group 1 winners, Almanzor (133), King Of Steel (125), Al Riffa (125), Wooded (121), and Audarya (120), were all at their best at age three and above.

Wootton Bassett also leads the race to be Britain and Ireland’s champion two-year-old sire by earnings and occupies the same place on the European chart. However, given that all his four Group 1 winners earned their top-flight status abroad, it is Mehmas and No Nay Never that are joint top with seven juvenile stakes winners apiece in Britain and Ireland.

Tally-Ho Stud’s Mehmas has also been rewriting the record books with his world record tally of 69 individual single-season two-year-old winners (56 in Britain and Ireland) so far, already eight more than his stud companion Kodiac’s record 61 winners sired seven years ago. Bred on the same Acclamation/ Machiavellian cross as Dark Angel, Mehmas also delivers plenty of classy types and he has nine juvenile stakes winners to his name this year, including three – Magnum Force, Scorthy Champ and Vertical Blue – at Group/Grade 1 level, which ties him with five other sires behind only Wootton Bassett and Galileo on the all-time list of leading sires by single-season stakes winners.

Just like Wootton Bassett, Mehmas has benefitted enormously from the better-class mares, in his case those he covered in his fifth season, earned on the back of his world-best 56 first-crop

winners which featured Middle Park Stakes scorer Supremacy. None of this year’s first-crop sires have got anywhere near Mehmas’s first-year score and the tables in Britain and Ireland, as well as Europe, are delicately poised, with Sergei Prokofiev leading with 22 winners ahead of Mohaather (19) and Pinatubo (17) in the Britain and Ireland race. Sergei Prokofiev (26 winners) also leads the race in Europe from Mohaather and Pinatubo, with 21 apiece. Mohaather (three stakes winners) is the only freshman so far this year to sire more than two stakes winners.

Easton, Suffolk

BILL SELWYN

Camille Pissarro (10) was one of Wootton Bassett’s star two-year-olds in 2024, seen here winning the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere

Sexton Files

Quality aplenty within Europe’s young sires

The 2024 group of first-crop stallions appeared to be one of the most competitive of recent years, ranging from top two-year-olds of the ilk of Pinatubo and Earthlight to milers such as Kameko and Mohaather and a middledistance performer with the brilliance of Ghaiyyath.

With a season of racing behind us, it turns out that the more productive among them are so far a pretty evenly matched bunch, with several different leaders when it comes to prize-money, percentage of winners and quality of runners.

Whitsbury Manor Stud’s Sergei Prokofiev set the pace from the outset, firing in an impressive winner on the first day of the Irish Turf Flat season in Arizona Blaze which was swiftly backed up by a series of scorers in the month that followed.

Arizona Blaze went on to play a key role in Sergei Prokofiev’s season overall by winning the Group 3 Marble Hill Stakes and running stakes-placed on multiple occasions for Adrian Murray. A tough colt, arguably his best performance came right at the end of his busy campaign when second in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint at Del Mar.

Sergei Prokofiev was a fast, precocious two-year-old himself, relatively typical of the Hennessy and Scat Daddy sire line, and many of his runners who made it to the track in 2024 followed suit. At the time of writing, he had sired 26 winners and the earners of almost £675,000 in Europe to confirm his place as the year’s leading first-crop sire. In addition to Arizona Blaze, they also included Listed scorer Enchanting Empress while multiple winner Mghally is one of the best of his generation in Saudi Arabia. Yet plenty seem to have inherited the stallion’s size so it will be interesting to see how they fare at three and beyond. Unlike several of his contemporaries, he also continued to cover good-sized books beyond his first season so has plenty of younger representatives to go to war with as well.

Sergei Prokofiev was one of 11 European first-crop stallions to sire a stakes winner and one of five to be represented by two or more. The leader in that division was Shadwell’s Mohaather, who ended the year with three stakes winners to his credit.

Mohaather’s season is representative of a lesson in patience. Well supported as a well-bred Sussex Stakes winner, he sired his first winner on July 11, by which time the

bulk of his contemporaries were off and away. But then the floodgates opened to the point that he heads into 2025 with over 20 winners on his record, among them the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes scorer Big Mojo and Listed winners Yah Mo Be There and Merveilleux Lapin.

Mohaather was a Group 3-winning two-year-old and belongs to a sire line, that of Oasis Dream, which is not short of juvenile pace. But he was best as a four-year-old when successful in the Group 1 Sussex Stakes, and so it’s not hard to envisage there being plenty more to come from his progeny.

Kameko, Hello Youmzain, Sands Of Mali and Far Above also ended the year with two stakes winners apiece. Kameko deserves special mention as his duo consist of a Grade 1 winner in New Century, successful in the Summer Stakes in Canada, and another potential top-notcher in the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes winner Wimbledon Hawkeye. His fee has been raised to £20,000 at Tweenhills.

Hello Youmzain’s fee is also on the rise at Haras d’Etreham, leaping from €22,500 to €40,000. The Kodiac horse, a high-class two-year-old himself who was a Group 1-winning sprinter at three, earned early

Tapit daughters dominating late season American action

Tapit is one of those rare all-rounders for Gainesway Farm, a stallion whose influence will live on both as a sire of sires and damsire much like his grandsire A.P. Indy and sire Pulpit before him.

The difference is that Tapit had to make his way from a fee that slumped as low as $12,500 while A.P. Indy and Pulpit always held high order at their respective homes of Lane’s End and Claiborne Farms.

Now 24, Tapit is still in service at Gainesway at $185,000. His days as a multiple record-breaking champion North American sire are behind him but he remains very capable as illustrated by the past 12 months, during which the Grade 1 Whitney Handicap winner Arthur’s Ride and Grade 2-winning juvenile May Day Ready flew the flag among seven stakes winners.

Meanwhile, there are 15 sons stationed at stud in Kentucky headed by the proven Grade 1 sire Constitution, who tops WinStar Farm’s roster at $110,000, and unbeaten champion Flightline, who heads into his third season at Lane’s End at a fee of $150,000. For its part, Gainesway continues to throw its weight behind the line as the recipient of two new sons for 2025 in the Grade 1 performers Charge It and Tapit Trice.

It is as a broodmare sire though that Tapit really excels. Having been a fixture among the top ten leading North American broodmare sires since 2020, he ended 2024 as the champion in that department for the second year running. Beneath him are a host of venerable names who are either deceased or pensioned; in fact, Tapit is the only active stallion within the top 12.

2023 was underpinned by the champions and/or Classic winners Cody’s Wish, Pretty Mischievous and Arcangelo, and once again Tapit’s latest assault on the title was aided by a typically high-profile collection of individuals.

Kingsbarns, one of three Grade 1 winners for the year by Uncle Mo, signed off his career with a win in the Stephen Foster Handicap while Society bagged her second Grade 1 win in the Ballerina Handicap to add further impetus to the highly productive Gun Runner - Tapit cross. Among the two-year-olds, Tenma won the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante Stakes in October and Grade 2 Starlet Stakes in December. She is bred along similar lines to Kingsbarns as a daughter of Darley’s Nyquist, the first major son of Uncle Mo to stud.

The damsire of 120 stakes winners

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positive reviews from the breeze-up sector and has duly made his presence felt as the sire of over 20 winners including Group 3 scorers Electrolyte and Misunderstood.

Far Above, who stands for €5,000 at Starfield Stud, has been represented by a pair of Italian Listed winners while Sands Of Mali also deserves credit for holding his own throughout the year off a first-year fee of €6,500. A high winners to runners strike-rate has been one of the hallmarks of his season – it was hovering around 41 per cent at the time of writing – while there is plenty of quality too as illustrated by the Listed winners Ain’t Nobody (winner of the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot with another by the stallion, Aviation Time, in third) and Ellaria Sands alongside the Group 2 Lowther Stakes runner-up Time

overall, Tapit was represented in 2024 by 32, a figure that places him second on a worldwide scale to Galileo, whose collection of 53 underlines how utterly dominant the late Coolmore phenomenon remains.

Yet there were shades of Galileo to Tapit on one Saturday afternoon in December when each of the Graded juvenile stakes races in the US fell to the progeny of one of his daughters. They included Tenma’s victory in the Starlet Stakes at Del Mar. Meanwhile, over at Aqueduct in New York, there was also a Graded stakes double courtesy of Poster and Muhimma.

Godolphin have fared well out of Tapit’s daughters for some time, notably as the breeders of Pretty Mischievous and Cody’s Wish, and it appears to have hit the mark again through another daughter Pin Up, dam of the unbeaten Grade 2 Remsen Stakes winner Poster. The Remsen, staged over nine furlongs

For Sandals. He offers something a bit different as a son of Panis, a sparsely-used French-based stallion by Miswaki, so should he continue to showcase himself in a good light, he has the potential to become quite an important outlet. It was a tightly run race between Sands Of Mali and Pinatubo for second behind Sergei Prokofiev in terms of European prize-money won. Plenty was expected from Pinatubo as a champion two-year-old son of Shamardal, and he was duly well supported at Dalham Hall Stud, initially at a fee of £35,000. He wasn’t so rapid out of the blocks as some of his rivals but he ends the year as the leader by percentage of winners to runners – it was a strong 46 per cent at the time of writing – and a collection of five stakes horses.

at Aqueduct, is generally a good indicator regarding the fledgling American Classic crop and in winning the race for Eoin Harty, Poster picked up ten points on the road for the Kentucky Derby. Just for good measure, Tapit was also damsire of the narrow second Aviator Gui, yet another good example of the Uncle Mo - Tapit cross.

Tapit mares also provided a sweep of the top two placings in the other major juvenile event at Aqueduct that day, the Grade 2 Demoiselle Stakes. Shadwell’s Muhimma, who carries the grey Tapit colouring, justified short odds to make it two from two for Brad Cox ahead of the Medaglia d’Oro filly Ballerina d’Oro, with the pair well clear of the third.

Incidentally, both Poster and Muhimma are by Coolmore’s veteran Kentucky sire Munnings. One of the first sons of Speightstown to stud, Munnings is similar to his sire in that he is capable of throwing talented runners on both

Pinatubo finished the year with a series of promising looking maiden winners as did fellow Darley stallion Ghaiyyath. Time was always going to be a friend to Ghaiyyath’s progeny and as fate would have it for those selling his yearlings, he fired in a flurry of maiden winners just as the major round of yearling sales came to an end. They included six-length Nottingham scorer Gethin, easy SaintCloud debut Al Uqda and the Aga Khan’s homebred Mandanaba, who entered the Classic reckoning for 2025 when the six-length winner of her debut at Chantilly.

At the time of writing, Ghaiyyath had sired ten winners in Europe, the same figure as Arc hero Sottsass. Now based in Japan following his sale to the JBBA by Coolmore and Peter Brant, his progeny can also be expected to improve with time.

Earthlight didn’t finish far off the leaders thanks to almost 20 winners headlined by the Group 1 performer Daylight while another son of Shamardal, Shaman, was represented by a high-profile earner in Brian, the winner of close to £100,000.

It should also be worth keeping an eye on Without Parole. His winners to runners percentage consistently hovered between the 35 to 40 per cent mark throughout the year and included several highly-rated performers led by the stakes-placed fillies Fiery Lucy, who ran a fine fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, and Sea To Sky. Given that he found his own feet as a three-year-old when successful in the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes, that start surely bodes well for the future.

turf and dirt. It’s a generally pacy line so it will be interesting to see if the pair can stretch out to two turns next year. There is encouragement in Poster’s case given his dam Pin Up is a three-parts sister to Bernardini, who was exceptional over 1m2f back in his day.

The pair were bred when Munnings stood for $40,000. His fee rocketed up to $100,000 for 2023 off the back of a year in 2022 highlighted by the multiple Grade 1 winner Jack Christopher, but it’s back down to $65,000 for 2025. He consistently covers three-figure books at Ashford Stud and given the late flurry of juvenile action, is likely to remain extremely popular at his new fee.

There will undoubtedly be plenty of Tapit mares coming his way too, not just in light of Poster and Muhimma but also Juddmonte’s exciting prospect Ramify, another bred on the cross who made light work of the opposition on her debut on that same Remsen weekend.

BILL SELWYN

Sergei Prokofiev: one of the success stories among the 2024 group of first-crop sires

The importance of pre-weaning foal nutrition

Words: Laura Steley

We all know foal nutrition starts long before they make their grand entrance into the world via the mare whilst in-utero. Once safely delivered, it is our job to do all we can to ensure the foal is receiving the nutrients they need to survive and thrive. Whether breeding commercially and the foal is destined for the sales, or breeding to race, a well-planned and continually monitored feeding regime is paramount.

The first year of life is a pivotal period for a thoroughbred, which can ultimately influence their future success on the racecourse. A healthy foal will grow rapidly, gaining in height, weight and strength almost before your eyes. Studies of growth patterns in thoroughbreds indicate that foals reach up to 90% of their mature height and up to 65% of mature weight by age 12 months, sometimes putting on as much as 1.5kg per day. Although we know much regarding the fundamental nutritional requirements of young thoroughbreds, every foal will have specific needs dependent on physiological and environmental factors meaning careful consideration is essential.

“Foals will nurse as often as every ten minutes during the first few days of life”

The first few days

If the foaling process has gone as nature intended with the foal standing and looking to nurse within four hours, a foal’s first and most important meal will be colostrum. Often referred to as a ‘liquid gold’, colostrum is a viscous yellowy fluid – it has a very different composition than milk and is specifically tailored to meet the needs of that individual foal. If the mare is going to board elsewhere for foaling, it is good practice to move her by the eight-month gestation mark. This will allow the mare to acquire the relevant antibodies ensuring that her colostrum is suitable for the newborn

A mare’s milk is 98% digestible and therefore perfect for the newborn foal

foal’s environment.

Colostrum is absorbed via the small intestine and is full to the brim with carbohydrates, proteins, fats and electrolytes. The high amount of protein is largely due to the increased levels of immunoglobulins (antibodies). Immunoglobulins provide the foal with protection against environmental threats immediately after birth and help to stimulate the foal’s own immune system; this is called passive transfer immunity. It is absolutely vital that the foal ingests the mare’s colostrum in a timely manner. Absorption via the foal’s small intestine is thought to be at its optimum from birth to eight hours of age, with absorption rates decreasing substantially after 12 hours and ceasing at approximately 24 hours postpartum.

If the immunoglobulin levels, specifically Immunoglobulin G (IgG), which is the most common and crucial, in the colostrum are insufficient (identified via refractometer testing), foals should be bottled or tubed higher quality colostrum or a colostrum replacer.

After the foal has nursed for a minimum of 12 hours, the level of passive transfer immunity can be checked via the levels of IgG in the foal’s blood and if low, or failure of transfer immunity is observed, your vet may advise intravenous administration of equine plasma or a specialised plasma product. This will be particularly important if the foal is nearing 24 hours of age. Without blood being taken, failure of passive transfer will often not be recognisable in the foal until they

are two or three days old, at which point the window of opportunity to improve the foal’s immunity is negligible.

Nursing

Once the foal has devoured all the mare’s colostrum via multiple bouts of nursing it will be replaced with solely milk, usually within 24-36 hours. When awake, foals will nurse as often as every ten minutes during the first few days of life, decreasing to around one to three times an hour by one month of age and around three times every two hours by four months of age.

As long as the mare and foal are healthy, the foal’s nutritional requirements should be met solely via the mare’s milk and grazing in their first three months – a mare’s milk is 98% digestible and therefore perfect for the newborn. Liz Bulbrook, Director of Nutrition at Baileys Horse Feeds, comments: “Mineral intake from milk and pasture alone in the first three weeks is insufficient to meet the foal’s requirements so the foal utilises mineral stores accumulated in the liver whilst in utero, to meet the demands of this early developmental stage. Clearly, if the mare hasn’t received a balanced diet throughout pregnancy, there may be a deficiency which, without additional nutritional support, could result in developmental problems during the foal’s first three months of life.

“The foal is reliant on its mother’s milk for these first three months, before the enzyme activity of its digestive tract has developed to enable the efficient digestion of starches and proteins found

GEORGE SELWYN

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in cereals and forage. This is why the quality and availability of that milk is so crucial and influences the foal’s growth rate and body condition.”

Louise Jones, nutritionist at Connolly’s RED MILLS, states: “Proper feeding of the lactating mare is obviously essential to ensure she can produce sufficient high-quality milk. Foals that are weak or backward or those whose dam is not producing adequate milk can be introduced to a suitable creep feed as early as two weeks. These individuals are likely to require a commercial feed specifically designed to provide young foals with a higher calorie intake.”

At peak lactation a mare will be producing up to 3% of her body weight in milk each day in order to sustain her foal. To put that into context, that is 15kg of milk per day! It is worth mentioning that milk is naturally low in copper and zinc, both of which are required for cartilage development. Broodmares should have been supplemented with copper before or in late pregnancy to ensure the foal will have built up adequate stores of trace minerals in the liver prior to birth. Low levels of copper are associated with physitis (inflammation of growth plates) and osteochondrosis (cartilage lesions). Also, calcium requirements for lactating mares are at its highest level during the early stages of lactation, and insufficient calcium intake increases the chance of bone demineralisation.

Microbiome development

Access to pasture turnout is a great source of many nutrients, therefore this should be facilitated as soon as possible after birth. From almost day one, a foal will gradually ingest and ‘build’ a microbiome full of good bacteria from their mother’s milk, udder, the outside environment, and older horses’ droppings. If the foal is for any reason under increased stress/on limited turnout, this can be detrimental to the gut microbiome and extra support may be required. As discussed in a 2024 article, a recently published cohort study found that the risk of developing specific diseases as well as potential athletic performance is directly linked to the bacteria present within the foal’s gut in the first few months of life. It will be very interesting to see what else will be discovered off the back of this research.

Introducing hard feed

At three months old, a foal will still be relying on the mare’s milk to provide 3050% of their nutrients, the most essential being calcium, copper, phosphorous

and zinc. However, at around the third month of lactation, the mare’s milk production declines even though the foal’s nutritional needs continue to increase, thus creating a nutrient gap. As well as a decline in milk production, the milk’s trace mineral content will also decrease and therefore nutrient requirements for optimal development may not be met. At this point creep feeding can be very useful in ensuring the foal receives adequate nutrients. Also, by feeding the mare and foal individually, we can tailor their diets to meet specific needs and ensure they receive the correct amount of feed. Bulbrook advises: “At three months of age, as the enzyme activity in the foal’s gut changes from one reliant on milk to being able to digest plant-based proteins and forage, then a gradual introduction to stud balancers (or if calories needed then stud cubes or mix) is recommended. Establishing foals gradually onto hard feed is recommended rather than a sudden introduction at weaning.

“If using a stud balancer, then starting at about 0.5 kg at three months moving to 1.5kg by weaning at five or six months is usually recommended, or if using higher calorie feeds then consult the manufacturers recommendations.”

A general rule of thumb would be to feed 1% of the foal’s body weight per day (1kg per 100kg of body weight).

Bulbrook continues: “Early foals that are weaned in the summer months may have an abundance of grass, however later born foals weaned in the autumn may require additional calories due to declining grass quality.” Jones agrees, saying: “For nursing foals that are maintaining weight well, without supplementary feed, introduction of a suitable creep feed at around two or three months of age, coinciding with a

reduction in the nutritional value of milk, is recommended.”

By selecting a feed specifically made for foals we can ensure correct nutritional balance and suitable feed composition e.g. pellets, for easy mastication via their soft deciduous teeth. The concentrate should contain 14-18% protein and, as previously mentioned, have added calcium, phosphorus, copper and zinc. It is important to provide a balanced ration as the ratio of calcium to phosphorus and zinc to copper is very important. Additionally, high levels of vitamins A and D are also provided to support bone growth. Foals should be fed regulated amounts, preferably two or three times a day so as to not overload their immature digestive tract.

It is very important at this stage to keep an eye on the foal’s growth; regular weighing is advised to ensure a consistent but steady growth rate to maximise skeletal development during this highly influential time period. Emphasis should be placed on maintaining a lean body condition (ribs not visible but can be felt with mild pressure over the flank; loin, croup and neck have smooth outlines without creases or visible bony structures). An obese foal (obvious crease down the back, ribs cannot be easily felt) will suffer undue stress on immature bones and joints. Creep feeding is beneficial pre-weaning, allowing the foal to gain some ‘independent’ feeding practice before they step out on their own without the mare’s reassurance and guidance. We can encourage the foal to use a creep feeder by placing it where mares tend to gather and rest.

If foals are seen to consume a proportion of the mare’s feed daily, assuming that the foal is of healthy body condition and the mare’s feed is providing the necessary nutrients for growth, this

GEORGE SELWYN

The immature skeleton requires loading in order to develop and strengthen

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›› can be an acceptable feeding regime. If using this method, extra attention must be paid to the foal’s weight as this regime may facilitate over-eating or under-eating, both of which will have negative effects on foal growth and health.

Orphan foals

Sadly, many breeders will be left with an orphaned foal at some point in time. If possible, the best option is to foster the orphan foal to a foster mare – this will give the foal the absolute best chance. If this is not an option, the foal will of course require careful management, but they can certainly thrive if due attention and consideration is paid. Jones advises “The recommendations for feeding orphan foals varies according to the age at which they are orphaned.

“Foals aged 31⁄2 months and up can do well on forage and a suitable foal creep ration and may not require supplementary milk. However, foals orphaned at under 31⁄2 months of age will need a milk-based diet. In addition, foals orphaned in the immediate post-partum period will also require adequate quantities of good quality colostrum and IgG status should be tested to ensure failure of passive transfer has not occurred.”

Turnout is crucial

A recent cohort study undertaken by the RVC looked into the possible relationship between turnout practices on UK stud farms and rates of musculoskeletal injury in young thoroughbreds. The study consisted of 134 thoroughbred foals based across six stud farms. Average turnout durations, paddocks sizes and paddock group sizes were recorded at seven and 30-day periods. The results showed a higher risk of musculoskeletal injury in foals under the 9-23 hours per day over the seven- day regime compared to foals turned out 24/7. Disruptions to turnout duration and routine should be avoided where possible and larger paddock sizes at four months of age showed a reduction in the occurrence of musculoskeletal disease and injury between six and 18 months.

The immature skeleton requires loading in order to develop and strengthen. Limited turnout in a small nursery is sometimes required (on veterinary advice) in the first few days of life, for example if the foal is particularly slack. It can be tempting to wrap the foals up in cotton wool by keeping them in a smaller paddock and not mixing them with others, however, if we can manage our mares and foals as nature intended this is usually the best approach.

Supplementation

In a simple world, all thoroughbred foals would be raised on correctly balanced nutritious pasture with ample room whilst receiving perfectly comprised milk from their dam. As much as this is and should be the aim for all of us, factors such as limited pasture, veterinary issues, movement of youngstock between locations/countries and commercial pressures, to name but a few, mean this is not always achievable. Supplementation certainly has its place within the youngstock sector, helping to safeguard against common issues which most of us will encounter.

TRM’s Orla Queally says: “Calphormin ensures that young horses receive nutrients critical for healthy cartilage, bone matrix formation, and overall structural soundness. This is particularly important in reducing the risk of developmental orthopedic disorders such as osteochondrosis (OCD), which can compromise a horse’s future performance and soundness. Breeders and trainers who use Calphormin have reported improved conformation and reduced incidence of bone-related issues, making it a staple in many breeding programmes.”

TRM’s Purav Shah adds: “The preweaning period, spanning the first four to six months of a foal’s life, is a critical stage of rapid growth and development, requiring precise nutritional management to ensure long-term health and performance. TRM’s Foal Care is a scientifically-designed supplement tailored to meet the specific needs of young foals during this developmental phase. It provides a balanced combination of essential vitamins, trace minerals and digestive support to promote healthy growth, robust immunity, and optimal digestive function.

“Vitamins such as A, D and E play crucial roles in vision, bone strength and cellular protection, while B-vitamins support energy metabolism and red blood cell formation. Trace minerals like copper, zinc and selenium are integral for bone and cartilage development, immune health, and protection against oxidative stress. Additionally, Foal Care includes prebiotics such as Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) to nurture the developing gut microbiome (particularly Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus), enhancing nutrient absorption, bolstering the immune system and easing the transition from milk to solid feed, while laying the groundwork for long-term health and growth.”

Balanced nutrition and healthy/ consistent foal growth is more likely when using concentrate feeds and/or supplements which are tailored for the young thoroughbred from reputable feed companies. Ensuring mares and foals are turned out to pasture as quickly and as much as possible is pivotal. Bulbrook concludes: “Providing the correct nutrition from birth onwards will support healthy growth and development, ensuring that the foal’s requirements are met at all times and reducing the risk of nutrition-related developmental problems”.

References - Mouncey R, ArangoSabogal JC de Mestre A, Verheyen KL. Associations between turn out practices and rates of musculoskeletal disease and injury in Thoroughbred foals and yearlings on stud farms in the United Kingdom. Equine Vet J. 2024; 56(5): 892–901 (2024), Early-life gut bacterial community structure predicts disease risk and athletic performance in horses bred for racing. Equine Vet Educ, 36: 33-33

Excellent nutritional care will ensure foals thrive, whether or not they are set for the sales

FRISKA FOAL

> Folic Acid & B12 – in combination have a key role in haemoglobin function

> Vitamins B1, B2 & B6 – supporting metabolic function

> Vitamin A – to aid mucosal development and ocular health

> Vitamin D – essential for calcium absorption and vital for immune defence

> Vitamin E – a powerful antioxidant to support the immune and nervous systems

> Inulin – Prebiotic to aid the development of benefcial bacteria in the hind gut

Owner Relations set to launch this year

Owner Relations is a new function due to launch in 2025, with the primary objective of improving the retention of owners within British racing.  Owners are crucial, investing circa £500 million annually in training and racing fees alone – when you factor in the cost of buying a horse, the total value is far greater. Figures show that year after year, our total net owner number is declining – more owners are leaving than joining – especially true for

those with sole ownerships. So how do we at least start to address this issue? To have even the smallest impact or influence here, we need to understand why it is happening.

All owners should feel like valued investors because like any customer, they have choices about where to spend their money.  We need to understand why owners leave; at present we simply don’t know all the reasons and that is why a key objective for the new team, at

Festival marquee tickets on sale

Tickets are now on sale for our ever-popular Cheltenham Festival marquee. As revealed last month, the facility has now moved back to our previous location next to the shopping village, making access to and from the paddock and viewing areas much easier for guests.

Numbers for the 2025 marquee will be capped for the comfort and safety of everyone in attendance. Members can book places for themselves and up to three guests on each of the four days, but please note that only daily badges are available.

As in previous years there will be hot and cold food on sale, a private bar, Tote facilities and numerous TV screens so you

won’t miss any of the action. Seats and tables are available, but please be aware that these cannot be reserved.

Access to the marquee requires Club admission, which is not included in the price of the marquee badge but can be purchased directly from the racecourse.

The 2025 prices per day are:

• ROA MEMBERS: £70 members, £80 guests (up to three guests per member)

• RACEGOERS CLUB MEMBERS: £80 members, £90 guests (up to three guests per member)

All prices are inclusive of VAT.

The ROA marquee is always extremely popular so we would urge you to book as soon as you are able.

least in the short-term, is to keep owners in racing.

Providing dedicated resources in this area was a key recommendation of a cross-industry working group, tasked with looking holistically at the owner experience. The future vision for the new team is that anyone investing in ownership is known to the industry and recognised for their investment, whether that’s through sole, shared or a combination of ownerships. The Owner Relations work will be led by the ROA, advocating on behalf of all owners within British racing.

If you would like to speak to one of the Owner Relations team please contact Kate Freeman, Head of Owner Relations, at kfreeman@roa.co.uk.

Retaining owners in British racing is a key aim behind the new project

GEORGE SELWYN

The marquee returns to its former location next to the shopping village

Our contact details:

Sponsorship options in 2025

From January 1 all yearlings turn two, opening the doors to the ROA Tote Sponsorship Scheme and VAT registration under the Racehorse Owners VAT Scheme.

One of the main reasons that owners seek sponsorship for their racehorse(s) is to meet the sponsorship agreement condition under the Registration scheme for racehorse owners (VAT Notice 700/67, section 1.3) allowing owners to reclaim VAT on their racing-related expenses.

To qualify to register for VAT, the racing entity must:

• Own at least 50% of the horse

• Have a registered sponsorship agreement with the BHA

• Have the horse in training in the UK

There are several sponsorship options available for two-year-olds:

1. Tote sponsorship: ROA members with two-year-olds may be eligible for Tote sponsorship.

2. Training yard sponsorship: Some trainers offer sponsorship agreements for horses in their care. Speak to your trainer to see if they have a yard sponsorship.

3. Tattersalls sponsorship: Horses purchased at certain Tattersalls sales may qualify for sponsorship for their

two-, three- or four-year-old seasons. Visit the Tattersalls website for more information.

4. Third-party sponsorship: Owners can also secure their own third-party sponsorship and register it with the BHA.

The ROA VAT Solution team is on hand to assist you with all your digital VAT matters. Appointing us as your VAT Agent is straightforward. To engage our services, contact Davina, Glen or Rebecca on vat@ roa.co.uk or call 01183 385685 today.

Want to know more about the Tote Owner Sponsorship Scheme?

ROA members have access to the Tote

Membership fee

Owner Sponsorship Scheme as one of their benefits of membership. We can provide sponsorship for horses in training which are wholly owned by ROA members.

In the case of a racing club or syndicate, then all club/syndicate managers need to be ROA members in order for the horse to be eligible for the scheme.

Where the horse is owned in partnership, all owners need to be ROA members.

Sponsored horses will need to carry a Tote logo on the chest and collar of the owner’s colours, and the ownership entity will receive a payment of £100 per year for the sponsorship. To apply or for more information visit www.roa.co.uk/tote.

The ROA membership fee will increase to £286 from January 1. The increase of £6 reflects increases in operational costs for the organisation.

We continue to invest in both the infrastructure and benefits offered as part of the ROA membership and we appreciate your ongoing support.

Joint membership is available for two members living at the same UK address. All benefits remain the same, but you will be sent just one copy of the magazine. The joint membership fee will increase to £480 next year, an increase of £10. To switch to joint membership, please email the ROA on info@roa.co.uk.

There will also be a small increase in the membership fee for Racegoers Club members, with single members now paying £56 and joint members £82.

BILL SELWYN

Double Powerful, owned by Equi ex Incertis Partners, strikes at Cheltenham in November under Dylan Johnston carrying the Tote logo

ROA Forum

OUR PARTNERS SECTION

Partnership goes from strength to strength

While the ROA continues to advocate on behalf of the owners who contribute so much to the sport, the organisation is also helping to support the wellbeing of those working in the industry through their partnership with Racing Welfare, which was formalised in 2022. Last year that partnership went from strength to strength, with ROA members able to access exclusive opportunities, providing enhanced awareness of Racing Welfare’s services among those who play a vital role in the racing ecosystem, and contributing vital funds to support the charity’s work.

One of the key success stories has been Bid to Give, a monthly online auction available exclusively to ROA members, featuring money-can’t-buy experiences and packages secured by Racing Welfare. The auction is on track to have exceeded the fantastic £25,000 raised for the charity in 2023 thanks to bids from ROA members – a sum which could pay for the charity to provide five instances of critical incident support following a traumatic event at a workplace, such as an accident or death. That involves immediate access to trained counsellors and includes the option to have counsellors on site for inperson support after 48 hours if required.

Sadly, in 2024, Racing Welfare had to initiate critical incident support on four occasions, with welfare officers making multiple visits to those workplaces in the aftermath, providing vital, ongoing support to employers and their staff members in their time of need.

The two organisations also paired up at various events throughout the year. Highlights included the Racing Welfare Aintree lunch on the opening day of the Randox Grand National Festival in the Hospitality Pavilion, which drew a crowd of over 400 people. The ROA was the headline partner for the third consecutive year and that is set to continue for the 2025 renewal with tickets already on sale.

The ROA once again sponsored the Epsom Awards, organised by Racing Welfare. The annual black-tie event brings together the Epsom community to celebrate the achievements of the town’s National Hunt and Flat horses, owners, trainers and industry staff over the past year. Among the winners on the night was Racing Welfare’s own Katy Ferguson, who picked up the Stanley Wootton Award for her outstanding contribution to the local racing community since she joined as a welfare officer.

One of many people to sing Katy’s praises is Louisa Allen, Head Person for Epsom trainer Jim Boyle. She said: “Katy has been amazing – she has worked so hard to bring racing’s people together. The community had become fragmented, but the change in recent years has been outstanding… Katy always checks in on every person that has accessed services in our area, it is very reassuring to know she is there for us all.

The Tote: galloping ahead in 2024

The Tote has enjoyed another successful year. Here are a few highlights from 2024:

• Growth in the UK and Ireland: There have been positive developments with the UK and Irish pools growing 7.3% along with a 4.3% increase in customers. This growth is due to a relentless drive on improving the value and experience the Tote offers customers.

• Market-leading value every day for customers: The Tote win price exceeds the Industry Starting Price (SP) 25% of the time and is never worse due to the Tote guarantee. The Tote Exacta dividend exceeds the Forecast 60% of

the time and the Tote Trifecta dividend beats the Tricast 72% of the time.

• Increasing contributions from World Pool to racing: Since its inception in 2019, World Pool has contributed over £50 million to racecourses in the UK and Ireland. It has become the most important new revenue stream into racing in recent years.

• Customers better off on World Pool days: The huge pools created by World Pool ensure exceptional value to Tote customers: A £10 bet with the Tote on each winner on the 22 World Pool days for British and Irish racing in 2024 would have

made you £2,078.60 better off than betting with the SP. The Tote Win price beats the SP in 55% of races on UK and Irish World Pool days, while matching on the remaining occasions and returning on average 9% more.

Looking ahead

The Tote’s Chief Executive Alex Frost was a speaker at this year’s Asian Racing Conference in Sapporo, Japan where a number of important issues were discussed which will shape the future of racing around the globe. One of these was the future of betting, recognising

Racing Welfare’s Katy Ferguson receives the Stanley Wootton Award

“I contacted Katy for help with the countless niggles I was facing. I’d injured my shoulder and my lower vertebrae in separate incidents, and the injury to my back in particular was starting to see effects on other areas of my body, such as shooting pains down my leg. There was a point where I didn’t want to carry on due to the pain. I’d lost faith in my GP and my back pain was so bad that I was struggling to even sit in the saddle at one point.”

Katy was able to arrange physiotherapy for Louisa through Racing Welfare’s Occupational Health Service.

“I can safely say that without the physiotherapy Racing Welfare provided the pain would have been unbearable and I wouldn’t have been able to continue working in a racing yard at all. I’m not exaggerating when I say that my everyday life is genuinely so much more enjoyable now!”

Support from the ROA directly helps Racing Welfare continue to provide these services, which are so crucial to the wellbeing of the industry and its people. Reflecting on the partnership, Racing Welfare’s Chief Executive Dawn Goodfellow said: “Having the support of the ROA is hugely beneficial to the charity on a number of levels, from collaboration on joint events, to raising awareness of our services and generating crucial funds so we can ensure that every individual working in the industry has access to the support

they need, when they need it.

“We are grateful to the ROA and their members for their continued support and look forward to working together again in 2025.”

Racing Welfare needs to raise £3m each year to provide its services to the industry’s people and is entirely charitably funded. If you would like to support the charity’s work, you can get involved by:

• Donating an auction lot for our Bid to Give initiative. Contact jschofield@ racingwelfare.co.uk

• Sign up to become a Friend of Racing Welfare. For as little as £5 per month, a Friend of Racing Welfare can pledge their long-term support to the charity, providing stability for the charity and ensuring that Racing Welfare can continue to be there for racing’s people when they need us most. Go to racingwelfare.co.uk/friends-racingwelfare/

• Become a Platinum Club member and commit to donate between £25k and £250k per year for a three-year period. The Platinum Club offers a range of bespoke options tailored to suit the individual, which either ensure and respect the donor’s preference for privacy or, alternatively, offer supporting PR, named projects or other ways of recognising their donation. Contact jjackson@ racingwelfare.co.uk.

• Give a one-off donation. Please contact rjudson@racingwelfare.co.uk.

the vital role World Pool is playing in uniting the sport on a global level and generating new income for individual racing nations.

Under the banner ‘Be Connected, Stride Together’, Winfried EngelbrechtBresges, Chair of the Asian Racing Federation (ARF) and Chief Executive Officer of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, summarised the challenges for racing and betting when he said: “We have to evolve globally. There are differing priorities locally, but we have to think globally, especially when it comes to having the necessary protections to keep our social licence.”

The Tote’s Year Five Review –‘Galloping Ahead’ – can be read at www.uktotegroup.com/thetote.

In brief

Industry Course applications

Applications are now being taken for The Racing Industry Course (TRIC), which will take place from January 27-31 at the British Racing School in Newmarket.

Whether you already work within horseracing or simply have a desire to learn about what goes into running and administering the multi-millionpound industry, then TRIC is the course for you, attracting delegates from all over the world, supported by a topclass line-up of speakers throughout the week.

TRIC provides a fascinating overview of all facets of the racing industry, from the history of the sport to promotion and its contribution to the British economy. Leading lights in the industry give their perspective on racing, while the sport’s top administrators detail the day-to-day running of thoroughbred racing and breeding in this country and in other racing jurisdictions and examine the issues it faces today.

Duncan Gregory, Operations Director at the British Racing School, said: “This is an outstanding opportunity to learn about the intricacies of the racing industry and to explore the many issues it faces.

“This course provides the perfect opportunity to spend a stimulating and informative week in the company of others from across the industry, learning through visits and talks from a host of top speakers. Places are limited so be sure to reserve yours and take your understanding of racing to a new level.”

To reserve a place please contact Cath Goff at the British Racing School on cath.goff@brs.org.uk or call 01638 669039. Further details are available on the British Racing School website.

Racing Together Industry Day

The third Racing Together Industry Day takes place at Nottingham racecourse on Thursday, February 6. Keynote speaker Baroness Dido Harding, Senior Steward at the Jockey Club, joins contributors from the world of racing to discuss the value of racing and community engagement. Delegate early-bird prices are £75. Find out more at https://www.racingtogether.co.uk/ industry-day/

World Pool: growing revenue for racing

HOW CHANGES TO APR & BPR IMPACT STUD FARMS

Recent reforms to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR) introduce new complexities for stud farms and agricultural estates. Understanding these reforms is essential for navigating succession planning and inheritance tax relief

KEY CHANGES TO APR AND BPR

Agricultural Property Relief (APR)

Current Rules: Stud farms qualify for APR if they breed and rear horses alongside land occupation. Relief is 100% if the landowner farms it themselves, leases it under specific conditions, or operates under certain tenancy agreements. To qualify, the property must be owned and used for agricultural purposes for at least two years (by the owner) or seven years (by others). Farmhouses can also qualify if occupied by individuals involved in farming.

New Rules: From 6 April 2026, the first £1 million of combined APR and BPR claims will remain eligible for 100% relief. Beyond this threshold, relief drops to 50%. The allowance is not transferable between spouses. Anti-forestalling measures mean lifetime transfers from 30 October 2024 onward will also be subject to these rules. APR remains limited to the agricultural value of the property, which is often significantly lower than its market value.

Business Property Relief (BPR)

Current Rules: BPR offers 100% relief on active trading businesses and 50% on certain assets, such as shares in listed companies where control is retained. Eligibility requires a genuine trading business with more than 50% of operations focused on trade rather than passive investment activities.

New Rules: From 6 April 2026, the relief for unlisted shares, previously at 100%, will be reduced to 50%. The combined £1 million threshold for APR and BPR will apply, further limiting the tax benefits for landowners.

IMPACTS ON STUD FARMS

Relief Eligibility for Stud Farms

Stud farming qualifies as agriculture if it involves systematic horse breeding on occupied land. HMRC’s criteria emphasise breeding records, advertising, and the trading activity’s commercial nature. However, horse liveries, racing, and eventing do not qualify for APR and must rely on BPR instead. Landowners must demonstrate active trading to secure BPR, as passive activities like leasing grazing land often fail to meet the criteria.

Changes in Tax Liability

The reduction to 50% relief for property exceeding the £1 million threshold increases inheritance tax exposure. For example, agricultural properties valued beyond this threshold will incur a 20% tax rate on the excess, compared to complete exemption under current rules. This creates additional challenges for landowners whose properties are valued well above their agricultural value.

Impact on Dual-Relief Properties

Properties qualifying for both APR and BPR now face proportional application of the £1 million threshold. This complicates estate planning, particularly for diversified estates combining farming and business activities. For instance, a stud farm also offering livery services must carefully assess which reliefs apply and how to maximise them.

Jennie Brown Tax Partner Streets Bloodstock

AREAS OF UNCERTAINTY

Equestrian Properties and APR/BPR Eligibility

While stud farms are explicitly included in APR, other equestrian activities remain ambiguous. It is unclear whether training yards or ancillary businesses supporting racing operations qualify for reliefs. The lack of detailed guidance leavesthe equestrian industry uncertain about its tax obligations.

Valuation and Agricultural Value

APR is based on agricultural value as set out in the legislation, which is often much lower than market value. The reforms may exacerbate this disparity, as owners of high-value land receive limited relief. Clarification is needed on whether the government will revise agricultural value assessments to reflect modern market conditions.

Spousal Allowance Transfer

Restricting the transfer of unused APR/BPR allowances between spouses or civil partners disproportionately impacts estates where one spouse dies first, potentially reducing the total relief available to the surviving spouse.

Trusts and Succession Planning

Trusts holding agricultural or business property face uncertainties under the new £1 million combined threshold. The government needs to clarify how relief will be allocated among multiple trusts established by the same estate. This lack of clarity complicates estate planning for families relying on trusts to manage succession.

Lifetime Gifts and Anti-Forestalling Rules

The introduction of anti-forestalling measures prevents individuals from avoiding tax by gifting property before the changes take effect. Lifetime transfers made after 30 October 2024 will be subject to the new rules. The retrospective application of these rules introduces complications for current estate planning strategies.

COMMERCIALITY AND COMPLIANCE

Stud farms and equestrian businesses must emphasise commerciality to qualify for relief. HMRC’s focus on active trading highlights the need for robust business plans, profit-driven operations, and systematic record-keeping. Landowners should consider regular audits to ensure compliance with APR and BPR requirements.

Preparing for the Future

The reforms to APR and BPR demand careful planning and professional advice. Stud farms and agricultural estates must adapt their strategies to minimise tax liabilities and ensure smooth succession. Key considerations include:

l Maximising Relief: Review the business’s structure and activities to optimise eligibility for APR and BPR.

l Valuation Strategies: Work with professionals to assess agricultural and market values accurately.

l Succession Planning: Address the non-transferability of allowances and trust implications.

l Compliance Monitoring: Conduct regular audits to align with HMRC’s evolving requirements.

The full implications of these reforms remain uncertain, and further government guidance is needed to clarify key issues. Until then, landowners and businesses must remain proactive, seeking tailored advice to navigate this complex tax landscape.

Employment law changes from 2026

The election of Keir Starmer and the Labour government has heralded a whole host of improved worker rights in the UK, writes Rachel Flynn. Wasting no time, on October 10, the government published the Employment Rights Bill, proposing a multitude of changes beyond anything we have seen in a very long time. Whilst this is a draft and many of the proposed changes are not due to be implemented until 2026, the changes are coming and so it is best to be aware of what is on the horizon.  Presently, the key proposed changes are as follows:

1. Day one protection against unfair dismissal rights: Presently, employees must have two years’ service to claim protection against unfair dismissal. The government will be making protection against unfair dismissal a day one right. This will be a massive change and will have a big impact on the way employers are obliged to manage staff. There will be new rules allowing for a statutory initial period of employment, but we do not yet know what the new rules will be.

2. Statutory Sick Pay (SSP): The government is proposing to make SSP a right from day one and to remove the lower earnings limit. For some low earners, the SSP weekly rate may be abolished and replaced by a percentage of their weekly salary.

3. Trade union protection: Trade union involvement in businesses and trade union protection will be significantly extended. Trade unions will have the right to access to the workplace

and it will be easier to obtain union recognition.

4. Unlawful hiring and firing: The government is against the practice of dismissing and re-engaging employees in order to change their terms and conditions of employment. In practice, not many employers in my world do this but if you are looking to make significant changes (e.g. to benefits), you should look to implement this as soon as possible and ensure all new hires are engaged on the chosen new terms.

5. Zero hours workers: It is clear that the government is against zero hours workers and supports providing greater predictability and stability of work and remuneration for zero hours workers. It could be that zero hours contracts are outlawed entirely at some point, or any benefit of them eradicated by rules and regulations such that they are no longer a viable option.

6. Day one rights for paternity, parental and bereavement leave: Further details to come.

7. Enhanced duty to prevent sexual harassment: The law changed on October 26, 2024, to require all UK employees to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. These rules will be extended to require employers to take “all reasonable steps”, which will be an expansion of the law. Under the new rules, liability for third party harassment will also be introduced. Again, this is a significant change.

8. Equality action plan and menopause support: Large employers will be

GEORGE SELWYN

Rachel Flynn: highlighting the areas that employers should consider now

required to develop equality action plans and provide menopause support.

9. Collective consultation: The rules will be changed so that if the business makes 20 or more people redundant, it will have to enter into collective consultation. The requirement for the 20 employees to be at one “establishment” will be removed. This will be particularly impactful for larger employers that may go through rounds of redundancies in different parts of the business, which may then find it is more frequently caught by the obligation to collectively consult. Future reforms are expected to include legislation regarding the right to switch off; a new single definition of “workers”; and amendments to parental leave and carers rights.

Things to think about now

Recruitment: It sounds obvious but try to ensure you appoint the right candidate and minimise poor recruitment decisions. This can include:

• Ensuring references are obtained. It is surprising how many references are not up to date. If you are struggling to obtain references, this may be a red flag.

• Having a well-managed probationary period:

• A well-drafted probationary clause can confirm that probation is only passed once confirmed in writing. The probationary clause can also state that in the event of employee absence the employer will have to make a decision on the information available. This can

help where the employee goes on sick leave to avoid the review meeting.

• Diarise the probation review date and set it in stone. Ensure you diarise regular probation reviews before then and stick to them.

• Ensure you record in writing all concerns during the probationary period.

Changes to terms and conditions: If you haven’t reviewed your employment contracts in the last three years, now would be a good time. It will be easier to engage new recruits on new terms and, if you address your employment contracts now, you will have time to effect the new employment contract (if different) for existing staff. If you wait, it is likely to become more difficult. So:

• If there are certain rules, policies or terms of employment you are thinking about implementing or need to implement, again, now is the time! Changes will only become harder to effect when the law changes.

• Are your job descriptions drafted broadly enough to enable you to require employees to undertake additional duties where reasonably required?

• You may want to be able to make organisational changes without these alterations being deemed to be a change to terms and conditions.

New joiners? Consider allowing new recruits access to better terms over time to encourage longevity and minimise your exposure during the initial period of employment. Are there benefits you might prefer to not offer new employees that they could ‘earn’ over time?

How about your policies? Consider making all your policies relevant to a modern workplace: be explicit about levels of conduct and performance expected in the business, in particular around disciplinary matters, relationships at work, and use of internet/social media.

Proactive management: Train your managers and require them to manage staff proactively and comply with your policies and procedures. Minor disciplinary matters should be properly dealt with and recorded, as they often lead to bigger issues down the line. Ensure you keep a record of all important communications –more than ever, this could come back to haunt you.

Apply now for 2025 Elite NH Mares’ Scheme

Owners of elite National Hunt mares have only until the end of the January to get their applications in for the 2025 HBLB/TBA Elite NH Mares’ Scheme.

The 2025 scheme has seen an increase in funds available to breeders across all three categories, with grants of up to £4,500 available for eligible mares.

Additionally, more proven mares (category b) can access the scheme following changes to rating eligibility, bringing them in line with category a.

Scheme details

Category 1a

Mares that achieved a peak Official Rating of 150+

Category 1b

Mares who have produced a NH horse officially rated 150+ (mare) or 160+ (gelding), in Great Britain, Ireland or France

Category 2a Mares that achieved a peak Official Rating of between 140-149

Category 2b Mares who have produced a NH horse officially rated 140149 (mare) or 150-159 (gelding), in Great Britain, Ireland or France

Category 3a Mares that achieved a peak Official Rating of between 130-139

Category 3b Mares who have produced a NH horse officially rated 130-139 (mare) or 140-149 (gelding), in Great Britain, Ireland or France

ARRIGO

BANGKOK

CANNOCK CHASE

CAPRI

DARTMOUTH

DINK

FRONTIERSMAN

GENTLEWAVE*

GEORDIELAND

ITO JACK HOBBS KEW GARDENS

KINGSTON HILL

LOGICIAN

OCOVANGO

PASSING GLANCE

PETHER’S MOON

PLANTEUR

POSTPONED*

SADDLER’S ROCK

SCHIAPARELLI

SUBJECTIVIST

TELESCOPE

YORGUNNABELUCKY

* Available only to Category 1 & 2 mares

To find out more about the scheme visit the Elite Mares’ Scheme page on the TBA website where there is an application form. Alternatively, contact Rob Davey in the office at rob.davey@thetba.co.uk.

Ocovango is one of the stallions available

Stallions in 2025 Elite NH Mares’ Scheme

TBA Forum

Starlust sparkles at the Breeders’ Cup

The 2024 Breeders’ Cup returned to the place where the turf meets the surf, Del Mar, and the Branton Court Stud-bred Starlust produced a scintillating home-straight run to capture his first top-level win in the Turf Sprint. Previously placed in the Nunthorpe Stakes, the three-year-old squeezed through a gap in the closing stages before getting his head in front near the line, defeating fellow British-bred Motorious. His victory was adding to a stellar season for Ralph Beckett, who had already landed Group 1 wins with Britishbreds You Got To Me (Irish Oaks) and Bluestocking (Arc).

Later in the month and a king was crowned in Bahrain. Spirit Dancer, bred by Sir Alex Ferguson, won a second successive Group 2 Bahrain International Trophy. This year, against a stronger field, the son of Frankel put in a more impressive performance, mowing down the field in the home straight to take the prize by one and a quarter lengths. Newmarket concluded its season at

the beginning of the month and offered late-season Listed contests. The Crypto Bloodstock-bred It Ain’t Two won the Bosra Sham Fillies’ Stakes, whilst fellow juvenile Smoken, a daughter of Too Darn Hot, took the Montrose Fillies’ Stakes. She was bred by Highview Bloodstock and A Swinburn. That same day and the Sheikh Mohammed Obaid homebred Bolster captured the James Seymour Stakes.

The Curragh finished off for the season on November 3 and Hamish was a country mile better than his rivals in the Listed Finale Stakes. This was a ninth stakes win for the son of Motivator, who was bred by the late Brian Haggas, who had passed away only a few days previously.

The Floodlit Stakes at Kempton Park was won by the Abdulla Al-Khalifa and Isa Salman-bred Military Academy, whilst the Fleur De Lys Stakes at Lingfield Park went to the James Wigan homebred Doom, a daughter of Dubawi.

In Italy, the Group 3 Premio Guido e Alessandro Berardelli was won by the

Trebles Holford Farm Thoroughbredsbred Hanting, a son of Harry Angel, whilst the Premio Umbria was captured by the Branton Court-bred Noble Title

In France, the Juddmonte-bred Better Together, a homebred daughter of Oasis Dream, won the Prix Zeddan and on the same card at Deauville, the Rabbah Bloodstock-bred Mount Athos took the Prix Irish River.

The Lowe Family-bred Sparks Fly has been a true success story and she garnered further stakes glory when victorious in the Prix Isola Bella at SaintCloud. A couple days before at Lyon Parilly, Daring Prince, bred by Yeguada Centurion, won the Prix du Grand Camp.

November signalled the start of the jumps season proper and the Gredleys’ Stetchworth and Middle Park Studs were in flying form, collecting four black-type contests over hurdles with homebreds. Starting off the month was the juvenile hurdler Liam Swagger, a son of Iffraaj, in the Wensleydale Juvenile Hurdle at Wetherby.

A couple of weekends later and another juvenile, East India Dock (Golden Horn), produced a top-quality performance to spreadeagle the field in the Triumph Trial Juvenile Hurdle, whilst a day later his half-brother Burdett Road, winner of the aforementioned Grade 2 last term, proved too good in the Greatwood Handicap Hurdle.

The quartet was completed with another juvenile hurdler, Opec, a Sea The Moon full-sister to Allmankind, in the Listed fillies’ juvenile hurdle at Newbury.

All four are trained by James Owen, who has had a glorious autumn with his runners.

Back into mares’ company and down in trip, Kateira (Kayf Tara), bred by the Chuggs at Little Lodge Stud, won the mares’ Listed hurdle at Kempton Park, whilst a couple of days later, Marsh Wren (Schiaparelli) made a successful return in the Listed Bud Booth Mares’ Chase. She was bred by the late Rene Robeson.

Another to make a successful reappearance was Strong Leader. The son of Passing Glance, bred by the Rainbow family, carried a Grade 1 penalty to success in the Grade 2 Long Distance Hurdle at Newbury.

In America, the Holiday Cup at Aiken was won in impressive fashion by the Golden Horn gelding Little Trilby. He was bred by Rebecca Philipps. Meanwhile at Callaway Gardens, Frankel’s Juddmontebred son Westerland captured the Supreme Hurdle Stakes.

Results up to and including November 30. Produced in association with GBRI.

Rossa Ryan guided Starlust to a thrilling success in the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint

BILL SELWYN

Breeders in focus at Warwick

EVA vaccines and health testing protocols

National Hunt breeding was the focus of attention at the inaugural Breeders’ Day at Warwick on November 21.

The day started with a forum session that was well-attended by breeders, owners, industry representatives and enthusiasts, and hosted by presenter Jess Stafford. She was joined by Alne Park Stud’s Grace Skelton, Molland Ridge Stud’s Jess Westwood, leading vet John Spencer, young horse producer Charlie Poste, and TBA NH Committee Chair Simon Cox, to discuss the topic of ‘Starting Young’.

Discussion centred on providing an insight into how developing young NH horses earlier could be of benefit to them and attendees, as well as

a development pathway that could incorporate Junior NH Hurdles. The topic threw up plenty of questions and provided a good discussion amongst panel and attendees.

Lunch followed before an afternoon of racing, which featured four maresonly contests and threw up some promising horses for the future, especially in the novice races. Warwick provided gifts to each of the seven winning breeders.

The TBA would like to extend its thanks for Warwick for coming up with the original concept, each panellist, all attendees and to each of our sponsors who supported the day.

Membership fee

Following this year’s AGM, a small increase in membership fees was proposed and the new rates for 2025 agreed by the vote of the members in attendance.

The following membership subscription rates will come into effect from January 1 and will be applicable upon membership renewal:

• Full UK/overseas membership will rise by £5 to £175

• TBA ACCESS subscription will remain at £60

If you pay by direct debit this change will be automatically applied.

The TBA strives to keep membership fees as low as possible whilst ensuring subscriptions can support the services offered to members.

Benefits such as GBB discounts, legal and tax advice, business support, fortnightly e-bulletins and free courses on TB-Ed ensure that TBA membership continues to represent good value.

As Zoetis has recently advised that Equip Artervac is unlikely to be available again before June 2025 and an import licence for the live vaccine, Arvac, is unlikely to be granted by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) in time to be administered to stallions prior to the 2025 northern hemisphere breeding season, it has been necessary to review and update the NSFA Breeding Regulations to ensure additional blood testing of mares continues throughout the forthcoming season.

As per last year, mares who have not been outside of the UK and Ireland within the last 12 months will need an EVA taking as soon as possible after January 1, as well as within 30 days of covering. The TBA would encourage breeders to have dialogue with their respective stallion studs at the earliest possible opportunity if they wish to a) cover fillies in training or b) make decisions later in the season to cover mares who did not have an EVA blood test taken routinely in January 2025 to understand the specific requirements for these horses, which are at the discretion of each stud.

The TBA has consulted broadly across the British thoroughbred breeding community in the formation of this protocol and whilst it was recognised that an additional blood test(s) does equate to increased costs, it was considered important to monitor the population in case of disease outbreak, which could create huge equine health and financial implications for the sector.

Some previously vaccinated, lapsed stallions may still be seropositive but will have reduced immunity, whilst Britishbased first- and second-season stallions will not have been vaccinated to date, meaning they are vulnerable to infection. EVA is a notifiable disease, which is often subclinical. Equine Infectious Disease Surveillance (EIDS) has produced guidance and a decision tree for stallion managers to ensure they are compliant with the requirements of Defra’s Animal Disease Policy Group in implementing the EVA Order (1995).

The health and welfare of the British thoroughbred population is of paramount importance to breeders and the TBA is grateful to all participants for taking these necessary extra biosecurity measures to safeguard the industry’s EVA disease-free status, which is critical in facilitating further improvements in the policy and process for moving high health status thoroughbreds across the borders.

An expert panel informed attendees while Charisma Cat (right) was one of the winners during the afternoon

STEVE CARGILL

Breeder of the Month

Words: Tom Peacock

STETCHWORTH & MIDDLE PARK STUDS

A decision by one of Britain’s legacy Flat breeders to expand its interest in National Hunt racing is proving of great benefit to the sport with a yellow and black wave of success for a group of classy young hurdlers.

The Gredley family’s Stetchworth & Middle Park Studs in Newmarket enjoyed an extraordinary month, highlighted by a Graded race double from half brothers at Cheltenham’s November Meeting.

First came East India Dock, a son of Golden Horn who sauntered to victory in the JCB Triumph Trial while 24 hours later it was the turn of Burdett Road (by Muhaarar), who repelled all-comers in the Greatwood Hurdle.

Bill Gredley, who works closely with son Tim, has other smart prospects such as Opec and Liam Swagger, all with rising star trainer James Owen.

“Dad said to me in the middle of the year that he really enjoys being kept busy in the winter with the hurdlers,” Tim Gredley explains. “I won’t pretend it was some masterplan but it was just convenient that we had five or six juvenile horses that had the right profile to have a go and it’s worked out really nicely.”

Burdett Road and East India Dock’s dam, Diamond Bangle, is a Galileo sister to top-class miler Rip Van Winkle, who would have been bought more with Classic-winning progeny in mind.

“It’s funny isn’t it,” Gredley says.

“We didn’t get a lot from the mother at the beginning, then we decided to go with a bit more stamina and it seems to have worked.

“With the link with Burdett Road, it was an obvious thing to look at doing the same with East India Dock but he came into himself on the Flat in the second half of the year, which gave us the confidence.

“He’s much more of a jumping stamp than Burdett Road, who is quite a light framed horse, and this lad will be even better next year.

“One thing I’ve learned about horses is they don’t all turn out what you’d hope but they’ve all got a place and if one route

doesn’t work, you can have just as much fun making a plan to go another route.”

Meanwhile, Liam Swagger earned Listed status in a juvenile hurdle at Wetherby and Opec rounded out November in the same class at Newbury, tearing clear from the front in a style reminiscent of her full brother Allmankind, a Grade 1 winner over both hurdles and fences who was essentially the catalyst for this jumping project.

“Opec couldn’t win a race on the Flat but I always kept saying to James she looked like the Flat racing was just too fast for her,” says Gredley.

“I’d be lying if I said I expected her to do what she’s done, but like her brother she obviously really enjoys that kind of environment and the hurdling. She’s exciting, she’s still growing and really enjoys that soft ground. Allmankind was the same, he came into his own when it got messy.”

The stud’s status is still, of course, primarily one specialising in middle-distance Flat horses in the mould of its masterpiece, the 1992 Oaks and St Leger winner User Friendly.

This year has also seen the Gredleys finish second in the Derby with Ambiente Friendly and land the Royal Lodge Stakes with Wimbledon Hawkeye.

Tim Gredley can now be justifiably optimistic that high-class winners should continue to flow right through the calendar.

“I know every owner-breeder is excited at this time but we’ve got about 30 yearlings to go in, most of them homebreds, and they do seem to have a bit of quality about them this year,” he says.

“There are none that I’m not looking forward to seeing on the track and we’re going to keep a lot of the older horses, too.

“I’d imagine some of those that are hurdling at the moment will stay on to find some good handicaps on the Flat. It’s always nice to have those horses there that are going to be competitive at the big festival meets.

“We’re really enjoying breeding them. I feel like now we’ve decided to keep them and give them time, we’re probably going to see the best of our stock when they’re three, four, five, and hopefully in those good middle-distance races.”

Tim and Bill Gredley have enjoyed a purple patch in recent weeks, notably as the breeders of East India Dock and Burdett Road

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View from Ireland

Joining the fold!

Anew year and we can’t say a new kid on the block but rather a venerable established one as the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association (ITBA) is delighted to join Owner Breeder from this month to give its wide circle of readers an insight into and news from the Irish breeding industry.

Established nearly 100 years ago –we have a big centenary year in 2026 – the ITBA is the official representative body of the Irish thoroughbred breeding industry at government level, both at home and internationally.

We support and represent all breeders, big and small, Flat and National Hunt, across the island of Ireland, from Derry and Antrim in the north to Kerry and Cork in the south, from Galway and Mayo in the west to Dublin and Louth in the east. We were an association up to July 2024 when we became a limited company with a very experienced and knowledgeable board of directors headed by our proactive Chairwoman, Cathy Grassick (Newtown Stud), and highly experienced Vice Chair, Cathal Beale (CEO, Irish National Stud). Backing them up on a day-today basis are a dedicated office staff based at our HQ beside Goffs in Kill in Co. Kildare.

Our mission is not only to safeguard the future of the Irish thoroughbred breeding industry and keep it firmly at the top of the premier division but also to safeguard the health and welfare of

the thoroughbred breed, a task ever more important in the current climate. We do this by supporting, educating, promoting and advocating for all Irish breeders.

As all of us in the industry know, there are many headwinds that we face so we are delighted to liaise and work closely with our counterparts in the UK via the TBA, Europe via the European Federation of Thoroughbred Breeders Associations (EFTBA) and globally via bodies such as the International Thoroughbred Breeders' Federation (ITBF).

As Nelson Mandela said, “the youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow” so through our ITBA Next Generation wing (members must be under 30) we provide a platform for young people to get an in-depth insight into the breeding and racing industry. Run by an energetic committee that organises seminars, stud and racing yard visits, it is underpinned by our recently reintroduced internship programme. This programme is very popular and gives four young individuals the opportunity to learn about different facets of the industry through a series of placements over a year.

That will give you a very good flavour of who we are and what we are about.

There is never a dull moment in this industry, with the past 12 months seeing issues like the importation of Arvac, the proposed new EU Transport Directive,

the Primetime RTE programme on equine welfare and new initiatives on traceability from our Department of Agriculture, all coming to the fore.

As we grapple with these matters, working in partnership in many cases with our overseas counterparts, we also have successfully enhanced some of our existing initiatives. For example, our NH Fillies Bonus Scheme, established in 2013 to stimulate demand for NH fillies, saw its initial bonus increase from €5,000 to €7,500 for eligible Irishbreds, so potentially an owner who wins three races in this series could net €17,500 in total on top of their prizemoney. Owners really appreciate this initiative – like the UK, prize-money, or lack of, is a big headache here too.

Engagement is key for any industry body, so we have had an active year of forums and seminars. These included ‘Girl Power: The Importance of Fillies in Breeding & Racing’ – a seminar we held at the Curragh in July with a stellar panel including luminaries like Dermot Weld, Jessica Harrington, Pat Downes and Willie Mullins, and our first foray into the political sphere with our ‘Paddock to Parliament’ seminar on Halloween night. This was definitely a treat rather than a trick as Jane Mangan chaired an evening of insightful discussion on the intersections of politics, bloodstock, and agriculture with distinguished panellists including Minister Pippa Hackett, Senator Fiona O’Loughlin and recently elected MEP Nina Carberry, the last-named showing that her ability in the saddle will shortly be matched by her political nous.

We look forward to being a wellthumbed page in Owner Breeder and over the next 12 months we will be keeping you abreast of what is happening in the industry in Ireland, as well as giving you an insight into some of the interesting people and places that have helped shape our industry into the global force it is today.

An expert panel discussed the importance of fillies at our seminar at the Curragh in July

The ITBA: safeguarding the future of the Irish thoroughbred breeding industry

Think Tank

Our jury answers the big questions: How would you adapt or alter the racing programme to make the sport more competitive?

Clive Hadingham Founder of Surrey Racing

“

The BHA should consider introducing divided handicaps to enhance the overall racing experience for owners and the public. We have two horses in training in France where the appeal of the racing programme, particularly its prize-money and well-structured race programme, is evident, with divided handicaps that attract plenty of entries. These races are split by rating, ensuring competitive fields and guaranteeing runs for all declarations, while the large field sizes generate substantial betting turnover. Many owners in Surrey Racing buy into the experience to enjoy high-quality racing but are often disappointed with low-quality racecards, especially at evening all-weather meetings featuring Class 5 and 6 races. These

Alan Spence Owner and ROA Board member

Is it time to remove the ‘restricted’ Flat novice and maiden races and replace them with ‘open restricted’ contests?

Racing needs to create an environment that rewards and encourages investment by owners in the sales ring. The current set-up of the restricted maiden/novice system does the opposite of this – owners and trainers who make that jump up in the sales ring from Band C/D to Band A/B have less options and are faced with stiffer tasks.

At the end of 2024, British racing had staged 689 two-year-old maiden/novice events of which 406 (59%) were open and 166 (24%) solely restricted to Band C/D. Owners/trainers who have spent more money in the sales ring are having their opportunities limited. The threshold for Band B (£39,601) and Band A (£66,001) are below both the average and median prices of a yearling in 2023 at the major sales – owners who make that jump into spending more money are being forced to take on the best of the best.

Owners who are happy to spend more money for a Band A/B horse are having their chances limited and there will come a point at which it makes more sense to spend less money in the ring, knowing you will have more chance to win on the racecourse if you are guaranteed easier opportunities in the current Band C/D format.

events lack atmosphere, with low public attendance, and dilute the prize-money pool. Additionally, race planning is inconsistent, with multiple similar races scheduled on the same weekend. The BHA should prioritise the regular race programme over events like the Racing League and Shergar Cup, which take up many Class 3 and 4 races. These events, despite offering good purses, do not appeal to Surrey Racing owners, who take pride in being associated with the brand and are always seen in yellow and blue attire. A similar issue arises in jump racing, where finding a suitable race for the 139-rated stayer Surrey Quest is challenging, with only one or two options each month. In contrast, a 100-rated horse can race frequently, diluting the prize-money pool further. ”

Band C/D restricted races are providing the less competitive racing and producing a lesser betting and viewing product. For three-year-olds and above since the start of 2012, the average SP of the winner (3.39lower than open races (4.43-1), while the number of runners in restricted races (7.6) is also lower than open races (8.5).

The concept of open restricted races should replace the current high value development races. Removing the restrictions on runners, opening the races up to more horses, and increasing the number of bands and the weight given from band to band will make for a more exciting betting and viewing product, with bigger field sizes too.

Think Tank

Stuart Williams Flat trainer

“

If the current affordability debacle isn’t sorted out in racing’s favour, I fear all we are doing is rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic!

We need to get away from the ‘pile it high and sell it cheap’ model that the racecourses and bookmakers, assisted by an impotent regulator, have promoted over the last ten to 15 years.

I would like to see clearly defined Flat/ National Hunt/all-weather seasons, with meaningful breaks between each and a big fanfare to start and finish. Owner/trainer/jockey championships should also be clearly defined in this way.

Of course, I can only speak for the Flat racing programme, as we don’t do National Hunt.

Would it be a silly idea to re-introduce the necessity to finish in the first four in a maiden/ novice race before receiving a handicap mark? It worked very well in nurseries for many years – horses would receive a rating after six runs if not finishing in the first four. Along with this stipulation I would like to see a minimum rating of 55; this would make novice/maiden races immediately more competitive, with all runners

trying to finish in the top four or achieve a rating above 55.

On top of this, a clear prize-money meritocracy, with minimum and maximum values with each grade worth at least £5k more than the previous grade, should be introduced, again to promote aspirational campaigning of horses. This would need a dynamic race programme directly linked to the horse population; the BHA have this information, all it would need is for the trainers to indicate each month which horses are ready to run in the following two months.

In my ideal world this system would run alongside a comprehensive claiming programme, similar to the one used in the USA.

Obviously, a different funding model would need to be introduced to fund my master plan – this is imperative in my opinion – with Britain bottom of the pile when it comes to betting turnover returned to racing. ”

Richard Kent Owner of Mickley Stud

“

We should have more barrier trials for two-year-olds and even three-year-olds – I don’t think it’s good to run young horses so often just to get a [handicap] mark.

Barrier trials are a better way to run young horses in an honest fashion – it’s more affordable, and a good way to assess a horse’s ability from an owner’s viewpoint. I think the handicap system has outlived itself. England is now a trial ground for the world – and getting more like that every day. However, everyone wants to race here because of the history and quality, as well as having the best governed and policed sport.

But we must move with the times.

We’re short of good National Hunt horses because of the affordability of the sport. At one time we could breed 40 jumping foals in a year and sell two thirds of them at a profit. Now, unless you hit on a

fashionable stallion, you won’t get it. The average British tax-payer can’t afford to give £100,000 for a three-year-old [jumps prospect].

If a new owner came to me with £25,000 to buy a horse for a bit of fun, you wouldn’t dream of mentioning National Hunt racing –you’d go down the Flat route.

There’s too much low-class jump racing and poor prize-money. We ran a jumper in France recently, he came second and picked up £5,800 plus another 20% in premiums. It won’t pay all the training fees, but it will cover a third of them in his first season. In England you can have a horse in training for two years, finish third in a bumper and get £500.

I’d get rid of summer jumping completely and if courses can’t put up decent prizemoney for 20 meetings they should stage five meetings. In France they have 300 racetracks, supported by the PMU. For every horse you have in training in France, you receive a €3,000 travel allowance per year. To me, every owner of every horse should be able to turn up at a racetrack free of charge.

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Almost half his 120-strong first crop have been retained by their breeders. Theyʼre a peerless list, too.

Dalham Hall Stud,