Tag Archive for: Brian Meehan

Monday Musings: Sam’s Masterstroke

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We’ve all read them, writes Tony Stafford. Streams of platitudes when somebody gets a new appointment. But last year, when Sam Sangster became one of three new youthful directors at the National Stud, his words were to prove so prophetic.

“I hope to bring added value to an already well-established team… I am excited to be part of the path they are heading towards – it promises to be a very exciting journey.”, he said.

With four solid stallions, heroic multiple Group 1-winning staying champion Stradivarius and ace sprinter Bradsell (from this year) among them, they were sure to keep the tills of the Jockey Club, which owns the National Stud, ticking over.

Then twice within a few days, Sam outdid what anyone could have thought possible for an operation which, by its own admission, is nowhere near the top table as far as owners of mares are concerned.

First, last week, there came the announcement that in a deal brokered by Sangster and put together with “several investors”, Diego Velazquez had been purchased out of the Aidan O’Brien stable. He will stand at the National Stud next year and, while remaining with O’Brien, will carry the famed colours of his late father Robert for the rest of the season.

To show just what a shrewd acquisition this is, look at the breeding. Diego Velazquez is by the unbeaten Frankel (by Galileo) out of a mare that bred Group 1 winner Broome and dual Group 2 victor Point Lonsdale. He cost just the 2.4 million gns as a yearling.

As a racehorse he had compiled a record of five wins, three at Group level, in a career of only ten races. Two wins at age two are always manna from heaven for a stallion owner and that overall record could have been even better had the realisation that he had speed in excess of stamina kicked in earlier. He was unplaced over 1m4f at Royal Ascot last year.

This season only started at the Royal meeting, when he was 8th to surprise winner Docklands in the Queen Anne Stakes. He dropped back another furlong for a Group 2 at the Irish Derby fixture, winning very easily, and Sam’s deal was brokered just in time to run in his colours in yesterday’s Prix Jacques Le Marois.

With Ryan Moore otherwise engaged on the disappointing favourite, Lion In Winter for the Coolmore owners, Christophe Soumillon stepped in for the ride. Always in the first three close to the outside, Diego’s big white blaze and four white legs were always easily visible in the first three.

Having taken over inside the last furlong from Roger Teal’s back-to-form Dancing Gemini, he had enough in hand to stay ahead of the fast-finishing Notable Speech, the 2024 2000 Guineas winner, in his case also showing he’s back to his best. The winner handsomely turned around the Ascot form with Docklands who finished fourth just behind Dancing Gemini.

 

 

What a difference those few centimetres have made. Diego Velazquez is now a Group 1 winner, and not a Mickey Mouse one either – this race is the acknowledged midsummer mile championship in France.

As such, it carried a first prize of £472,231, the head verdict making more than £280k difference to the detriment of the Charlie Appleby, William Buick and Godolphin-connected colt.

So now, having probably been aiming at a nice first-season figure for their colt, Sam and whoever else will be making the decisions from this point on, will no doubt have a higher figure in mind than they originally did. Then again, there is sure to be a flurry in interest in him, and a sensible initial amount would pull the numbers in. He will assuredly, whatever happens in the pricing of his services, give the staff at the National Stud a massive boost.

Through much of the late 20th Century the names of O’Brien and Sangster were irrevocably bound at the same Ballydoyle complex that houses the present Aidan O’Brien team. But it was Robert Sangster, Sam’s father, and Vincent (I must stress once more, no relation) O’Brien, as with his successor, the pre-eminent trainer of his generation on this side of the Atlantic. The present-day link of course is John Magnier, Vincent’s son-in-law and foremost among the Coolmore partners.

It’s been a while since a horse ran in the famed green, blue sleeves, white cap from Ballydoyle and I did suggest to Sam (tongue in cheek, of course) when the news of the deal broke that maybe he would need to take a set of silks with him to Deauville.

“We already have them there,” he said, referring to the fact that several of the Brian Meehan stable challengers had been involved running under Sam’s Manton Thoroughbreds banner over the past few days. Those syndicates have helped sustain the highly talented Meehan going through some testing times, and while they kept hitting the crossbar, more than 120k in placed earnings made this a lucrative venture.

Even when the numbers have been more limited, Meehan always has some nice two-year-olds; while the successes last week of the unexposed three-year-olds, the filly Lodge at Chepstow and the gelding Release The Storm, making it two from two at Doncaster on Saturday, promise an exciting finish to the season.

Release The Storm has a fast-ground action and had no trouble making all under his penalty in a novice race up the testing Doncaster 7f. There certainly ought to be overseas buyer interest in this gelding who carries the trainer’s colours.

One facet of his training this year has been that none of the ten individual two-year-old runners (five winners) he has sent out from his Manton base has raced on all-weather, from 30 collective starts. I’m not sure whether that’s just a coincidence, as I know he uses Lingfield’s Polytrack when he sends unraced horses for barrier trials.

The best part of the Meehan-Sangster partnership has been their two-way loyalty. Sam has had a horse or two most years lately with Nicolas Clement in France. He also had a winning filly with Tom Ward a couple of years ago but, as they choose all the young horses together, it’s great that they sink or swim together also.

You might have thought that, seeing as they were both in situ all over the weekend, Sam Sangster Bloodstock might have been among the purchasers over the first two days of the Arqana August Yearling sale which began on Saturday. Unless he is operating through proxies, which I doubt, he simply hasn’t bought any. He never overpays for the yearlings he buys and as a result leaves the first stages here, and mostly of Newmarket Book 1 and Goffs’ top sale, to the people with bulging chequebooks.

Whatever else happens to this highly personable (as with all the family) young man, now he will always go down as the man who single-handedly (with Aidan O’Brien and the Coolmore partners’ help of course) brought the National Stud of Great Britain right back into the horse breeding limelight.

From Deauville, all the big players will be sorting the private jets for four days at York. I’ll be going there much more prosaically, but Jim and Mary Cannon do have one comfortable room free, so that’s going to be my holiday for 2025. The weather apparently is taking mercy on those of us who don’t relish too much heat, so all we need is a winner or two. Got anything running, Brian? Doesn’t have to be there!

- TS

Meehan seeking stamina answers with Steventon contender Rashabar

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Brian Meehan is on a “finding-out mission” with Rashabar in Saturday’s BetVictor Steventon Stakes at Newbury.

A shock 80-1 winner of the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot last summer, the Holy Roman Emperor colt went on to finish second in two French Group Ones before the end of his juvenile campaign and kicked off the new season by finishing second to Jonquil in Newbury’s Greenham Stakes in April.

He has since chased home the brilliant Field Of Gold twice, placing fourth in both the Irish 2,000 Guineas and in St James’s Palace Stakes ahead of a first attempt at a mile and a quarter at Listed level this weekend.

Meehan said: “He’s very well and we’re on a finding-out mission to see whether he’ll get the trip.

“There was never any question mark about whether he’d get the mile, if anyone had doubts about that they were obviously watching a different horse to me, but the mile and a quarter is unknown territory.

“I’ve always felt he would stay and we’re doing it try to open up more possibilities for him. He’s a Group One horse and he needs to have different bullets in his arsenal really, to give him options to try to get that Group One win.

“He ran very well in the Irish Guineas and I was happy with his run at Ascot. He was hampered twice by two different horses up the straight and I felt he ran a very solid race.”

With rain forecast, conditions could ease at Newbury, which Meehan admits may not be ideal given the question marks over his stable star’s stamina.

He added: “I don’t think cut in the ground bothers him, but I don’t know how I’d feel about soft ground on a fact-finding mission over this trip.”

Monday Musings: Horses In Training

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We’re in that fallow period between the Cheltenham Festival and Aintree’s Grand National meeting, writes Tony Stafford. Not much happens although this time round my wish to see a horse go off odds on for the National early next month will not happen. Inothewayurthinkin was taken out of the race last week.

No doubt JP McManus thinks his other 7yo, Iroko, trained by Josh Guerriero and Oliver Greenall, can do the job in the Gold Cup winner’s place. That seems to be the wayhesthinkin, and with another five also potentially in the eventual line-up, it could be one more for the man whose support for racing and trainers in his native Ireland and the UK knows almost no bounds.

He has last year’s winner I Am Maximus at the top of the weights for Willie Mullins and, a bit lower down, Perceval Legallois, trained by Inothewayurthinkin’s handler Gavin Cromwell.

Gavin has played an almost classical National hand with this eight-year-old, picking up the 27-runner Paddy Power (formerly Leopardstown Chase) over 3m over Christmas and then snaffling another big pot on the same track in a hurdle race over 3m at the Dublin Racing Festival in early February.

Had that been a chase it would have put him into the stratosphere but, like Iroko (10st11lb), he has a nice racing weight at 10st12lb. You wouldn’t put it past JP to win the race yet again with one of these or the trio lower down the betting lists.

What did happen for me though was the always welcome arrival of the new version of Horses In Training. The 2025 book, sent kindly by Sir Rupert Mackeson of Marlborough Books and Prints, arrived a nice few days earlier than last year.

One would expect the horse population to have fallen in these troubled times as well as trainers giving up. The front cover says 522 trainers (538 in 2024) and 17,681 horses, down from 17,906, are listed, so not all doom and gloom by any means. Especially when you consider none of the massive Richard Fahey team gets a mention.

That’s also the case with several teams’ juveniles who aren’t listed, such as John and Thady Gosden’s, so the actual number will be well over 18,000. At an average of maybe between a minimum £350 a week to train the horses and, at the elite stables, nearer £700, plus Vat, and Newmarket (and other, as well as private) gallops fees, it’s remarkable how well the figures have stood up.

The Guerriero/Greenall stable houses two McManus horses other than Iroko, in Jagwar and My Noble Lord. Jagwar was the 3/1 favourite when bolting up in the Trust A Trader Plate, a 20-runner handicap chase at the Cheltenham Festival. My Noble Lord, a hat-trick scorer to end his three-year-old career with Michael Bell, struck first time of asking over hurdles but has been plodding along nicely enough at a level since then. No doubt there are bigger fish to fry with him. We know JP has plenty of patience.

The double Gs – with apologies to the Double Greens, messrs Munir and Souede – have 108 horses listed at their Stockton Hall Farm near Malpas in Cheshire, only two more than last year. Others have enjoyed spectacular increases, none more so than James Owen.

In the 2024 book, Owen had 31 horses under his control, five of them owned by the Gredley Family, including Burdett Road, also a Michael Bell graduate. He had already won his first two hurdle races for Owen and was a prime candidate at the time for a Triumph Hurdle challenge, but injury ruled that out.

He has bounced back very well to win the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham and then, earlier this month, he took advantage of the general carnage of the Champion Hurdle to finish second to Golden Ace, picking up £97k for his efforts.

Later in the meeting, on Bill Gredley’s 92nd birthday, East India Dock, developed by James Fanshawe, was a hot favourite for this year’s Triumph but was beaten in a tight finish by 100/1 shot Poniros, on debut, and Lulamba.

Bell and Fanshawe, respectively with five each last year for the family, are down in numbers but do retain an involvement. Ambiente Friendly, last year’s Derby second to City Of Troy, has moved from Fanshawe to Owen, symptomatic of the way his stable strength has soared thanks to his remarkable achievements so far.

Taking out a licence for the first time in 2023, Owen didn’t have a winner until the 2023/24 jumps season when he had 38 winners. He’s up to 54 this season.

On the flat, again, there were no winners in 2023, but last year exploded to 63 victories with another 24 already in the AW phase of the 2025 campaign. My pal Mick Godderidge is happy that his syndicate horse Carlton has provided two each either side of the New Year over Chelmsford’s 1m6f.

This year’s book shows that Owen’s team has multiplied exactly four-fold. The Gredley family had five listed including of course Burdett Road, but it was probably Owen’s exploits with a later arrival, the Kameko colt Wimbledon Hawkeye, that got Bill and son Tim sitting up and paying proper attention, prompting them to go all-in.

Wimbledon Hawkeye made a winning start at Kempton in late May, then after a couple of placed efforts at Group level, won the Royal Lodge (Group 2) at Newmarket. He finished off with a third place in the Wiliam Hill Futurity, a race his sire won before collecting the following year’s 2000 Guineas.

So, from having a smattering of mainly jumps horses for them in his Green Ridge stables along the Hamilton Road, now James Owen has seven older horses, including last year’s Derby runner-up. He can add to that ten three-year-olds an,  astonishingly, 29 juveniles for the family. That makes it 46 of the 124 in his yard. Some compliment, but at the same time some responsibility for the former point-to-point and Arab racing trainer.  Phew!

You don’t like to focus on trainers going In the other direction but I was so heartened to see after a few absences, the return to the pages of Brian Meehan’s team. The Sam Sangster Manton Thoroughbreds have been a constant over the past few years and Brian and Sam’s sales partnership has found gold many times at value prices. Brian fought back in 2024 and 2025 and now has 43 animals listed, 22 of them juveniles.

Last year, the exploits of his three-year-olds Jayarebe and Kathmandu, second in the French 1,000 Guineas, thrust him back in the headlines and it was cruel when Jayarebe collapsed and died after finishing a close seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Turf race at Del Mar. He would have had a big season in front of him as Brian had been careful not to over-race him.

That was the race Meehan had won twice previously as a trainer, including for Jayarebe’s owner Iraj Parvizi with Dangerous Midge. Parvizi renewed his acquaintance with the stable when Sam Sangster Bloodstock paid Euro 180,000 at the 2022 Arqana October Yearling sale.

Jayarebe was one of two Group 2 winners for the stable at Royal Ascot last year, the other being the juvenile Rashabar. He won the Coventry Stakes on the unfavoured far side of the track when the next nine home in a 22-horse field all came down the stands rails.

He ended his season with a staying-on neck second to the Aidan O’Brien colt Camille Pissarro in the Group 1 Jean-Luc Lagardere Stakes over seven furlongs on Arc day at Longchamp. He will no doubt be campaigned for the races this year that Isaac Shelby contested as a three-year-old in 2023, when he won the Greenham Stakes and finished second in the French 2000 Guineas.

His owners, Wathnan Racing, have retained him for breeding and he stands this year at Newsells Park Stud in Hertfordshire at a fee of £7,000.

There are so many trainers and so many good young people on the way up too. I used to see young Jack Morland at Brian’s Thursday work mornings when his father was a prominent member of the earliest Manton Thoroughbreds syndicates. Jack has made a good start and lists 15 horses in his care, with Sam Sangster the owner of the previously unraced four-year-old Farrh filly Nature’s Charm.

Sam also has a foothold in his nephew Ollie Sangster’s stable. Robert Sangster’s grandson has 59 horses under his care at his much-improved and sympathetically developed yard at Manton, just a few hundred yards from Meehan’s stables. Surprisingly, only ten juveniles are listed, but no doubt there will be some more waiting to come in from his good breeders’ connections when ready and, like everyone else, the breeze-ups at Newmarket, Doncaster, Ireland and France offer the potential for more arrivals. Let’s wish them all continued success in 2025.

-TS

Monday Musings: Play it again, Sam

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Visitors to Ascot racecourse on Saturday, at least the older ones, might have been excused for having their memories jolted back to a 1970 Woody Allen film, Play It Again Sam, writes Tony Stafford. Woody plays a man obsessed with Casablanca, the 1942 film in which Ingrid Bergman asks Dooley Wilson to "Play It Sam, play it."

The song she was asking for was As Time Goes By, and she was about to leave Humphrey Bogart. Everyone, however, remembers her words incorrectly as “Play it again, Sam” - and Sam Sangster was certainly playing it again with another of his fiendishly cheap yearling buys.

On the same course where in his late father Robert’s treasured colours Rashabar was the 80/1 winner of the Coventry Stakes at the Royal meeting from the wrong (far) side of the track, now it was Law Of Design. On only his second start, Law Of Design showed he was already worth many times that yearling price of 25 grand from whence he was recruited into another of Sam's Manton Thoroughbreds syndicates.

The common theme of course is the revived Brian Meehan training them both on the Manton estate which the late Robert Sangster bought in 1984.

I’ve often referred to Sam Sangster’s inherent understanding of what makes a racehorse when perusing the animals at the sales, almost always in Brian‘s company. Law Of Design is from the first crop of the Prix du Jockey Club and then, at four, Prix de l’Arc to Triomphe winner Sottsass, a son of the great sire Siyouni.

Siyouni stands in France for €200k. His top-class son, who also has a further Group 1 win on his record of six victories from 12 starts, is standing for one-eighth that amount at Coolmore stud.

There’s an uncanny similarity between Sottsass so far and the early stage of Galileo’s stud career when his first crop was slow to get going – until they were able to run over seven furlongs and then bam! The rest as they should say, rather than history, was transformative of the entire breed.

I’m not suggesting that Sottsass will be another Galileo, but with the gelded Law Of Design’s smooth win at Ascot, he now has three winners, two of them fillies, so this was his first male victor. The shortest winning distance is seven furlongs, with a runaway Christopher Head filly at half a furlong more in France and the Dr Richard Newland/Jamie Insole inmate Veraison winning at the third time of asking at Wolverhampton.

With two wins each on all-weather and turf this year, the Insole half of the partnership has been concentrating greatly on juveniles in their revamped operation. Insole is the main force in that direction and Veraison wasn’t cheap. She cost €120k at the sales.

Jamie Insole is from an Irish family, his grandfather Victor Kennedy, first a jockey who rode Bigaroon – I backed him! - to win the Irish Cesarewitch, then became a successful trainer. Jamie grew up in Billericay in Essex but learnt to ride on frequent trips to the family home in Ireland.

He had spells with Alan King and then as assistant to Charlie Hills before coming to the notice of the Grand National-winning trainer, Dr Newland. The new partners, like another jump specialist Warren Greatrex and his stable owners Jim and Claire Bryce, have made a great start to training on the flat.

The 2023 haul of twenty or so yearlings included 19 who went through a sales ring. The Sottsass filly was the most expensive, but they have certainly given themselves a chance with the average price at around the 50k mark. Greatrex’s story differs as their juveniles were acquired at breeze-up sales this year.

Sottsass stands at €25k at Coolmore, a similar figure to what Galileo was standing for after his first season’s runners had been on the track.

I’ve mentioned many times the Royal Ascot card when eight of his first-crop three-year-olds competed in five different races on the same day. Just because Galileo had been a Derby, Irish Derby and King George winner, it still wasn’t guaranteed that the Coolmore partners who owned him would immediately dominate ownership of the mares sent to him. Each of the eight horses that ran on that Friday at Ascot had a different trainer and all bar one had been through the sales.

Red Rocks and Sixties Icon were second and third in the King Edward VII Stakes, trained respectively by Brian Meehan and Jeremy Noseda. Sixties Icon went on to win that year’s St Leger, Red Rocks the Breeders’ Cup Turf.

The Queen’s Vase, then a two-mile race for three-year-olds, featured Galient in second for Michael Jarvis and fourth-placed Road To Mandalay, running in the Michael Tabor colours after being bought for 420 grand at the sales from Timmy Hyde’s Camas Park stud. He was the lone O’Brien runner from the octet. Kassiopeia, bought in by his vendor for 195,000 gns, was unplaced for Mick Channon.

While the Dermot Weld home-bred filly Nightime ran poorly in the Coronation Stakes, she thrived later in her career. At stud, she is notable as being the dam of world champion Gaiyyath, coincidentally a stallion also making a halting start to his new career for the boys in blue.

Two further competitors on the day were Lake Poet, trained by Clive Brittain (57k) and fourth in the King George V Handicap, and the unplaced The Last Drop (75k) for Barry Hills. All top trainers and it wasn’t until the exploits of the unbeaten champion two-year-old Teofilo for Jim Bolger that the die was effectively cast and the bulk of the Galileos stayed at home.

Sottsass raced for one of the semi-inner circle at Coolmore. Peter Brant bought the colt for €340k at the Arqana Deauville August yearling sale in 2017 and sent him to be trained by Jean-Claude Rouget. After his spectacular exploits on the track, Brant chose to send him to stand at Coolmore with his good friends Messrs Magnier, Tabor and Smith. He is in several of the Coolmore racing partnerships too – often those that run in his green colours.

You would think that the Sottsass progeny would appear in the list of Aidan O’Brien juveniles. They do, but only once, a colt out of a Hat Trick (Japanese) mare. He was bought in partnership by Brant and M V Magnier at the same Deauville August Arqana sale last year for €380k.

Just because a horse has great form it doesn’t follow automatically that he will be a top stallion, or indeed be given preferential treatment before he shows himself deserving of it. No Nay Never and Wootton Bassett, two of the rising, indeed arrived already, stars at Coolmore both needed to show that they had what it takes. Then the boys go full bore, even buying Wootton Bassett when it was evident there was promise aplenty to come.

I’m not sure how Sam Sangster managed to get the half-brother to three useful winners trained by Richard Hannon (two) and William Haggas for just the stallion’s covering price, but it says for the umpteenth time he knows what’s he’s doing. Why not? It’s bred in him, and Brian, a dual Breeders’ Cup-winning trainer, fits into the profile so well.

The second of Brian’s Breeders’ Cup Turf wins came with Dangerous Midge and, after more than a ten-year gap, those colours of Iraj Parvizi have returned with a vengeance with Jayarebe. The Royal Ascot winner might not have been able to handle Economics in France last time, but not many horses will.

As to fellow Royal Ascot winner Rashabar, he showed his class and potential for the future when only narrowly edged out by an inspired Ryan Moore on Whistlejacket in the Prix Morny at Deauville last month.

Rashabar had the worst of the draw that time too, coming very wide up the middle of the track, probably not near enough to respond to the O’Brien-trained winner as he might have done if they had been racing closer together. Brian said on Saturday after Law Of Design’s win that Rashabar will probably go next to the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at the Arc meeting next month.

As to Law Of Design, the future is looking bright. With both horses – for now – still in the Manton Thoroughbreds ownership, they will need to avoid each other, although their stamina profiles are very different.

There’s no chance of a UK Classic campaign for him as he is a gelding, but the way in which he drew away in the last furlong at Ascot – two and a half lengths, the official margin, looked nearer four! - he could be a major player at a mile next time, and over a mile and a half next year! Play it again, Sam – and Brian, of course.

- TS

Monday Musings: Brian’s Back

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They say you can’t keep a good man down, writes Tony Stafford. Well, I promise you, if that good man has a chosen profession as a racehorse trainer, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. Simply cut off his access to horses of talent and potential and he’s gone in a year.

Some, often against their better judgment (not to say their other halves and more importantly their bank managers) can struggle on with diminishing returns and in many ways embarrassment at to where they have slipped. The always fashion-fickle world of racing is quick to dismiss them, forgetting the knowledge in forging those fantastic careers they already have on their record.

Thank heaven, then, for the Racing Post which retains such a history in its Big Race wins section under each trainer’s statistics. One of the mostly forgotten, but now bouncing back with renewed vigour and optimism is Brian Meehan, who can point to three full pages under his name, that is were it not for his modest character.

I’ve known Brian for a long time, seen his traditional Thursday galloping days at first hand for several years and always admired the ability to assess a trio or quartet of horses flashing past right in front of his nose. I’m sure every successful trainer in the country has that facility, but Brian has it in spades.

Trawling back through those Racing Post lists, it is striking just how successful he was in training two-year-olds, then equally how adeptly he developed middle-distance horses. Red Rocks (from Galileo’s first crop) and Dangerous Midge won at the Breeders’ Cup, and another globe-trotter, David Junior, picked up a host of races with the massive prize of the Dubai Duty Free in one of the early editions of the Dubai Carnival.

Then owners either aged and cut back, or of course sadly died, inevitable over a 30-plus year career. Where he used to manage up to 140 horses in the period of his biggest achievements in the first decade of this century, the numbers ebbed away.

Results too, so last year for the first time, nine wins represented a nadir. Then again, he still produced the Sam Sangster buy Isaac Shelby to win the Greenham Stakes, then finish a close runner-up in the French 2000 Guineas before being sold lucratively (to stay in the yard) to Wathnan Racing.

Isaac Shelby has yet to reappear, but a couple of this year’s crop have already moved onto the big-time scene. Jayarebe won the Group 3 Feilden Stakes in the manner of a high-class performer last month. He disappointed at Chester next time, but it would be a mistake to condemn him for that as plenty of horses struggle around the Roodee.

Incidentally, the vastly experienced and accurate commentator Mike Cattermole showed at the meeting that anyone can make a mistake. Mike referred during one race there as being on Town Moor – an extreme blip in Mike’s case as two tracks could hardly more different than the one-mile round of Chester and the extreme gallop of Doncaster’s Town Moor, almost twice its circumference.

As I hinted earlier, Brian quickly won such races as the Prix Morny with Bad As I Wanna Be and the Cheveley Park with Donna Blini. Incidentally, Donna Blini, winner of three from four as a juvenile didn’t stay the 1000 Guineas trip, finishing last to Speciosa, and had just one more win, over five furlongs at the Newmarket July meeting. She was to have a much bigger part to play, though, in the international scene than anyone could have believed.

Sold for 500k to Katsumi Yoshida, that was only the beginning of her story. In Japan, one of her first matings, to the immortal Deep Impact, produced the filly Gentildonna, winner of nine of her 17 races. Two of them, at age three and four, were in the Japan Cup, Japan’s greatest race, the second time ridden by Ryan Moore. In all she won £12 million in stakes, also beating the top-class French gelding Cirrus Des Aigles in the Sheema Classic in Dubai.

I’m sure Brian’s career and optimism have been saved for a large part by Robert Sangster’s second-youngest son, Sam, still only in his early 30’s. He resolved to use his many connections to set up Manton Thoroughbreds, selling shares in yearlings which he and Brian had sourced at the sales. Initially, the prices were modest (mostly around 50k), but now the odd six-figure sum has been creeping in as the team has become more confident.

On Saturday at Newmarket – always one of Brian’s favourite tracks – his newcomer Invincible Song, a 140,000gns acquisition, showed excellent speed before being overtaken by Ascot-bound Godolphin homebred Mountain Breeze, who had the benefit of an earlier win on the course.

Invincible Song, by Invincible Spirit, flashed that speed but also inexperience almost in equal measure, making the running while edging first right then left. She kept on nicely in this valuable (20k to the winner, almost five grand for third) fillies’ race. She will step up on that.

Twenty-four hours earlier at local track Newbury could have been a day of days for the Manton stable. It started with the unraced Organ. Condemned to the unfavoured one draw in a field of 22, he kept pace with the leaders on the stands side and was only edged out late from second into fourth place close to home. Had he been anyway near decently drawn, he might well have won the race – at 80/1!

The decision of Martyn Meade, to hand in his training licence and concentrate on his stallion operation, brought Organ and around nine others of his team to Brian. Meade is the owner of the 3,000-acre estate where Ollie Sangster, Sam’s nephew but in age almost a contemporary, has made such a bright start.

So, you ask, what was special about an 80/1 fourth, however unlucky. I’ll tell you. Half an hour later, Monkey Island, reappearing for the first time in 2024 having had a gelding operation, made all the running over the straight seven furlongs, winning at, you guessed it, 80/1. If Organ had won, that’s a 6,560/1 double. The place part at 288/1 would have been highly acceptable – it was for a couple of my pals who had their bet with a bookie paying out on the first four. Grr!

Last weekend, for the second year in a row, Meehan went very close to winning a French one-mile Classic. His filly, Kathmandu, a 50k buy for Sam and one he’s kept a half-interest in along with raffia-furniture magnate Ed Babington, was caught in the last strides at Longchamp.

I reckoned the Coronation Stakes would be the obvious target but when I looked, having hastily added the words to last week’s missive as I’d unbelievably been oblivious to the race, her only Royal Ascot entry was in the Commonwealth Cup over six furlongs.

Brian said she would probably miss both, settling on the Prix Jean Prat, a Group 1 race for three-year-old colts and fillies over 1400 metres (seven furlongs) at Deauville, the week after Ascot. “She almost made it at Longchamp”, said Brian. “But she’ll never get up the hill for the last furlong at Ascot”. No stranger to the three-year-old Group 1 races at the Royal meeting, Meehan won the St James’s Palace Stakes with Most Improved.

I also made a nonsense of Roger Teal’s plans for his French 2,000 Guineas runner-up Dancing Gemini, a strong runner into second behind Metropolitan. Of course, Mr Obvious suggested the St James’s Palace would be the way to go. Speaking to him the following day, he said: “I had a word with Aidan (O’Brien) and he said that breeding never lies.
“He’s by Camelot and never mind the fact that Aidan always wants to win it for Coolmore and at the time had the favourite, he encouraged me to go to Epsom. I’m torn between the Derby and the Prix du Jockey Club over 10.5 furlongs the following day at Chantilly.”

Last Thursday’s Dante Stakes set the cat among the Derby pigeons, Economics showing not a glimmer of economy in slaughtering his opponents including the prominent in ante post betting Arabian Wisdom. Economics’s trainer William Haggas had taken the big colt out of the Derby believing the track would not suit him and, despite the manner of his victory, his opinion hasn’t changed though he fears the decision will be taken out of his hands. I know whose opinion I’d be listening to!

The day before was a red-letter day for the Meades’ stallion Advertise. I had sat enjoying the excellent lunch in the York owners’ room before racing with a well-known and long-established bloodstock agent referring to Advertise, top-class sprinter as a racehorse, as unlikely to make much of a stallion.

Less than two hours later, after Advertise’s daughter Secret Satire had bolted up in the Group 3 Musidora Stakes at 22/1, we exchanged a few smiles as the Andrew Balding filly returned to unsaddle. It’s always dangerous to have an entrenched position in racing and good luck to the Meades who also stand Aclaim.

- TS

Monday Musings: Willie’s Big Nose(s)

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I was going to try to demean a little Willie Mullins’ amazing Saturday at Ayr, his four-timer surely guaranteeing him a first and unique UK NH trainers title for an overseas stable, writes Tony Stafford.

My line was: where were the Gordon Elliott hordes, seven in the previous week’s Grand National and, who can forget, 14 in the Troytown Chase at Navan in November?

I thought maybe the two dominant forces (one rather more than the other it’s true) might have had a chat, but on further research, I see Gordon didn’t run anything in the Ayr race last year either!

So it was left to Willie to run six, mostly horses that had been slogging through heavy ground all winter and now faced with a much faster surface. The shortest-priced, Mr Incredible, refused to jump the first fence from miles behind, and another unseated there, but that was it.

The remaining quartet finished first, for £110k, then fourth, fifth and sixth in the 26-runner race – if they can run 26 around Ayr, why not 40 at Aintree? Only one horse fell.

Here, it’s about time we started to marvel at the skills of Paul Townend, for so long dismissed in some circles as merely an inferior replacement for Ruby Walsh. Like the big-race win on Macdermott, ridden by Danny Mullins, the following three-mile handicap hurdle success on Chosen Witness was also by a nose, clinched in the last stride.

Earlier, multiple Grade 1 hurdle winner Sharjah was coaxed to stay a previously never attempted three miles under 12st in a novice handicap chase in the patient hands of Townend. Might we see the winner in next year’s Grand National as a 12-year-old?

There was a marmite-like divided reaction to the no-fall Grand National debate last weekend. The BHA and no doubt the top Irish trainers, for; others, like Chris Cook of the Racing Post and Geoff Greetham, former boss of Timeform, sharing my view that it’s not really a Grand National anymore. Probably, if anything, the once-feared fences will remain at best as they were last weekend, or even become easier to placate the ever-closer attention of the Animal Welfare adherents.

Gordon Elliott does have entries for Sandown’s end-of-season party on Saturday but unlike in the earlier days of the Pipe/Henderson and Pipe/Nicholls last-day cliff-hangers, his will only add to the potential Irish domination on the day.

The four Mullins horses that took chunks of the money on offer in Saturday’s big race would generally have been hard to assess, mostly stepping up in class. The trainer has an abundance of horses already at the top but many more coming through the grades. How can you (or maybe even he) put a figure on such potential for improvement?

After Sandown, there’s Punchestown of course. I wondered how many of our top trainers will be involved in a competitive way? Nicky Henderson has ten entered at the opening stage, including Aintree winners Jonbon and Sir Gino, slipped in surreptitiously almost into a Mullins-dominated meeting often with up to ten potential contenders in each race.

Mostly, none of the stars was needed to collect the two biggest prizes at Aintree and Ayr.

Dan Skelton seems to be giving it a miss while Paul Nicholls’ trio includes the so far unraced for him but eagerly anticipated €740k buy Coldwell Potter. Jonjo has a quartet in one bumper and we might see Aintree bumper runner-up Tripoli Flyer for Fergal O’Brien. Less likely, there’s an entry for Corach Rambler.

As I said last week, Willie Mullins takes his success with great dignity, but it does tend to get on one’s nerves after the continuing monopoly!

*

The 2024 flat-race season finally got going with Newmarket and Newbury last week and now it’s less than a fortnight to the first two Classic races. If anyone was expecting the Craven Stakes to indicate a potential threat to City Of Troy, they would probably be thinking again.

Richard Hannon had his Haatem ready to make a winning return and last year’s Group 2 Richmond Stakes scorer added another good prize to his tally with an authoritative three-and-a-half length verdict over the Gosdens’ Eben Shaddad. Sighters from the Charlie Appleby and Aidan O’Brien teams were well behind.

When Haatem won the Richmond, it followed an earlier six-and-a-half length demolition by the O’Brien colt in the Superlative Sakes on Newmarket’s July Course. Haatem’s final run coincided with City Of Troy on his next appearance, an all-the-way victory in the Dewhurst Stakes by almost four lengths from Alyanaabi – Haatem was eight-and-a- half lengths back in fifth.

You can still get 4/6 about the brilliant Coolmore horse, his price only buttressed by second favourite Rosallion, trained by Haatem’s handler Richard Hannon. His horses have made a great start to the season, not least winning nice races for long-standing stable owner Julie Wood.

I love her strategy. Rather than keep her good horses, she enjoys racing them and then, even the fillies, sells them on. Last week she had two first time out winners on the same Newbury card, Voyage in the ten-furlong maiden, and Star Style, a Zoustar filly in the seven-furlong newcomers’ race.

Stretching more than five lengths clear of some well-related if less talented fillies, Star Style filled the usual Julie Wood sourcing pattern.

Preferring to buy on her own judgment as foals rather than wait for agents to tell her what’s nice a year later, she happened to take a liking to this filly, who is out of a mare she raced, Sweet Cicely. Star Style will, I’m sure, more than live up to her name.

One agent who is becoming ever more prominent is Sam Sangster, with his horses with Brian Meehan. Last year they had Isaac Shelby as an example of his skills at the sales and, at Newmarket last week, Jayarebe romped home in the Feilden Stakes in the manner of a guaranteed high-class performer.

Up with the pace throughout, he strode clear of some smart types to win by almost four lengths in the fastest time of the day on the drying ground.

Half an hour later Godolphin’s five-year-old Ottoman Fleet gained a repeat victory in the Group 3 Earl of Sefton Stakes, fully extended to hold fast-finishing Astro King, winner of last year’s Cambridgeshire under a record weight, and Hi Royal, last year’s 2000 Guineas runner-up. The two winners carried the same weight of 9st2lb which makes the three-year-old’s performance 10lb superior, allowing for weight-for-age.

He carries the lucky (for Meehan) colours of Iraj Parvizi, whose Dangerous Midge won the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Turf for Meehan at Churchill Downs. Jayarebe has no Classic entries, but the likelihood is that he could be supplemented for the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby) at Chantilly.

Later on the card, there was a suggestion of yet another great buy by Sam Sangster when the three-year-old filly Kathmandu outran her 40/1 odds to finish third in the Group 3 Nell Gwyn Stakes behind Pretty Crystal, trained by Richard Fahey, and 1000 Guineas hopeful Dance Sequence, trained by Charlie Appleby.

It was a messy race and many thought Dance Sequence ought to have won. She’s still only 7/1 for the Classic on May 5.

Before the race, Kathmandu’s connections – they go by Sangster and (Ed) Babington and she runs in Robert Sangster’s colours - were already on a winner with their 50 grand purchase. The previous evening, Kathmandu’s two-year-old half-sister by New Bay was bought for 525,000gns to join Godolphin on the first stage of the Craven Breeze-Up sale. That and black type, too.

“We’ve always thought she was good, so we entered her three weeks ago for the French 1000 Guineas. The decision on whether she runs, as ever, will be left to Brian.” Quite right too!

- TS

Monday Musings: Ebor Wrap (and a word on a late friend)

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The fashion had been highly acceptable for the first three days of York’s Ebor Festival, but I hadn’t been prepared for what was to confront me on Saturday, writes Tony Stafford. I arrived early as usual, and it was only when I ventured from the box after an early cup of coffee, that ranged before me was a sea of colour.

Looking closer, the wearers of those extravagant dresses were rarely past mid-teens, some even as young as eight or nine. It was Travellers’ rather than Ebor day, and by no means for the first time, but I had generally gone home before the final day of the meeting, so it was totally unexpected for me.

But regulars were fully aware of the make-up of the day and watching more closely, you could also discern the young men, again many in early teens. Both sexes were immaculately turned out, suits and ties for the boys, fulfilling the old-time posh enclosure style requirements (largely relaxed nowadays) and the girls, beautifully coiffed and their dresses looking fit for a catwalk at Paris Fashion week.

As I made my way out of the stand aiming at the paddock, those 70 yards were a minefield – no hint of trouble, just difficult to navigate through the throng which swayed back and forth all day.

I learnt that the travellers come from all over the UK for this day, swelling the crowd on Ebor Day on which inevitably Frankie Dettori, now operating without his long-time business manager Peter Burrell, took the riding honours.

He conveniently collected the big race (£300k) on Absurde and the other half-million Group 2 City Of York Stakes on Kinross to end a most astonishing fortnight of achievement.

Referring to the Burrell issue – Pete was the man who set up the book deal when I ghosted Frankie’s Year in the Life book. Frankie said the other day: “That must have been 25 years ago! <27 in fact> and added, “Pete didn’t like that I was retiring – it was as if he was the one retiring.”

You would have thought that the rider/manager bond would have been able to withstand this after 35 years together but apparently not. The way Frankie is riding though, you wonder whether he might go through his enjoyable winter spell in California with Bob Baffert and think, maybe, “just one more year?”  - the punters will love it if he does.

A little admin followed by a catch up: I failed to deliver an article last week – I was almost halfway through an Ebor preview when we were forced to take our 15-year-old lovely little Yorkie Josephina to the emergency vet. She had suffered a sudden seizure and they said there was no alternative but to euthanise her. Here we are, on a happier day not long ago...

Tony Stafford and his beloved pooch, Josephina

Tony Stafford and his beloved pooch, Josephina

 

The week before, I suggested Frankie had probably picked up around £40k for his percentage of the half-million first prize for the Jacques Le Marois at Deauville. He took a few days off after that and from that point, he had ten more rides, mainly at York.

Five wins from the 11, with two second places both in valuable contests and one third place, his total tally of prize money amounts to £1,882,000. His percentage – bearing in mind the place earns a jockey considerably less – will still be the best part of £150k. Nice work.

Before he changed out of his civvies, a smart light-blue suit as befitted the general air of sartorial elegance on the day, Frankie spotted Brian Meehan in the paddock. “What a winner, 16/1, why didn’t you tell me?” “Why would a jockey want to know?”, asked Meehan before Isaac Shelby’s run - he finished a slightly disappointing fourth to Kinross.

Frankie had time for his lightning change into the Kinross livery while I spoke to Sam Sangster about his ever accelerating career as a buyer of yearlings. The 16/1 shot Frankie referred to was Friday’s Newmarket debut scorer Jayarebe, who had tracked and then outpaced 4/11 shot Broadway Act, a Charlie Appleby/ Godolphin colt who had already had a good debut.

Sangster had bought him for €180k at Arqana’s October Yearling sale and the colt was passed on to the returning Iraj Parvizi, owner of Meehan’s 2010 Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Dangerous Midge at Churchill Downs 13 years ago. Parvizi had been out of racing for some time and Meehan’s predictable comment was, “It’s great to have him back.”

Jayarebe could be in line for some big-race action and the decision seems to be the Royal Lodge Stakes over a mile rather than the Dewhurst at seven. That would seem sensible for the son of Zoffany who is a half-brother to a true two-mile mare and decent staying hurdler, Ian Williams’ Malakahna.

Sam Sangster said that the 180k he paid for Jayarebe was comfortably the most he’d ever paid for a yearling; Isaac Shelby cost €92k to his bid two years earlier. The Greenham winner, and runner-up in the French 2,000 Guineas and the Lennox at Goodwood has picked up £340,000 on the track but realised a good few times more than that (Sam remains coy about just how many times) to Wathnan Racing before the French Classic.

He says he has bought 12 Group performers, ten of which have been trained by Meehan – the other two by Nicolas Clement in France. Four of them have been Group 1 performers, although he has yet to supply a Group 1 winner. The average price paid for those smart performers has been a very modest £51,000, given the amazing prices paid at the sales these days. He truly is Robert Sangster’s son.

When I spoke to Brian Meehan on Friday morning, he was very measured in his analysis of Jayarebe. “He’s very, very nice.” On Saturday I tasked him with, “You put me away. You said he was very, very nice. He’s very, very, very nice!”

In performance terms, on debut he beat a field chock-full of potential and almost all with big-race entries this autumn. He put up the fastest time of the day, rare enough for a two-year-old. You could imagine Derby thoughts going through the minds of trainer, owner and talent spotter. It’s early days but if he did win the Royal Lodge, it could be within the realms of possibility.

Deauville’s month of excitement came to a climax with a big win for Paul and Oliver Cole, their Jack Darcy winning the Group 2 Grand Prix de Deauville at 11/1. A winner of his first two races, Jack Darcy’s best run since had been a second place to the smart William Haggas seven-year-old Hamish, who would have been top-weight for Saturday’s Ebor if he had taken up the entry. But 10st9lb (including a penalty) would have been too much, requiring a 9lb higher weight-carrying achievement than Sea Pigeon’s 44 years earlier, in 1979, to win.

It was great last week to see Sea Pigeon’s winning Ebor rider, Jonjo O’Neill, still looking in his prime. He reported his team at Jackdaws Castle is ready to go as the jumps season gathers pace. One jumps trainer, though, whose horses are always primed obviously is Willie Mullins.

When I bumped into him, asking if it was right that he was expected in the same place that had been my base all week, he said: “Sorry no, I’m off to do the day job. Maybe later.” You could say it was day job done after Absurde had won with a peach of a ride from Dettori. Later I saw him leaving the track and said, “You might be okay at the day job, but you aren’t much good at coming up for a drink.” He laughed and said: “Next time.”

- TS

Monday Musings: Of Rich Men and Trainer Fashion

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There are a lot of very rich people in the world. There are also many very talented racehorse trainers in the UK, in Ireland and France, writes Tony Stafford. Many wealthy individuals like to own racehorses, preferably blue-blooded ones.  As trainers enter their middle years, though, the tendency is for all but the legends like Sir Michael Stoute and John Gosden on the flat and Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls over jumps, to feel the draft from the younger, thrusting upstarts.

These can be talented, too, but as I often refer to in spring, there are some stark, indeed harsh, facts on this seemingly inevitable trend to be gleaned from the Horses In Training book which lists the strings of most stables.

I was shocked to see one entry upon receiving my volume later than expected because of the present state of Royal Mail. Colour coded and fully traceable stamps aren’t much use if it takes a week (more in this case) to get a little book a hundred or so miles.

Some surprised me by how many more horses they are now training compared to just a year or two ago. But the biggest shock was reserved for a trainer who won a nice handicap at the Craven meeting at Newmarket and then followed up with the same horse in the Victoria Cup at Ascot on Saturday.

The trainer, Amanda Perrett, the horse Rebel Territory, a 5yo home-bred gelding who streaked away at the end of the Ascot feature in the manner of a potential stakes horse. Home-bred is the key here, loyal but ageing owners that are so hard to replace.

I’d noticed that Amanda and husband Mark were listed as training only 19 horses at the famed Pulborough stables in West Sussex, base of her father Guy Harwood. He was the trainer of the peerless Dancing Brave and the equal in his day of Sir Michael and Sir Henry Cecil where Classic performers were being mentioned.

Amanda has held the licence at Pulborough since the late 1990’s and between 2000 and 2019 only twice did she and Mark send out fewer than 25 winners with a peak at 60 in the immediate aftermath of Guy’s heyday.

I canvassed several friends and racing experts, one of them who previously had horses there, asking how many they thought were in training now. Most estimates were around the 40 mark. “I wish it were,” Mark Perrett might have been saying when he told the media after the nice win on Saturday that “we only have 22 in, but we could always train a good horse when we got the opportunity, and we still can.” No question, Mark, and eight wins at 23% hit rate so far this year is a great start.

That intro was a long way round into coming to my main point. When you have a very good horse in your ownership and far from being one of the leading owners in the world, but you are part of a small, friendly syndicate, what do you do?

The history of the turf is littered with stories of people that did not take the opportunity presented to them when unexpectedly they got a good horse. Often, after refusing a nice offer, the horse in question does not fulfil expectations.

The fact that Isaac Shelby, winner of last month’s Greenham Stakes at Newbury in smart fashion, was owned by one of Sam Sangster’s Manton Thoroughbreds syndicates and trained by the pragmatic and vastly experienced Brian Meehan, ensured that when their opportunity to make a killing rather than agonise about it came, they agreed, albeit reluctantly, allowing the deal to go though.

“It was an agonising decision”, said Sangster, “but the chance for everyone to do well from the deal and at the same time welcome a potentially important new owner into Manton for Brian, made it the right choice. Everyone walked away with a smile on his face!”

It behoves a one-time journalist to try to delve beyond what little they want to reveal and find out rather what everyone else out there wants to know. But young Mr Sangster was not playing. Back in the bosom of his family, he continued: “Sorry Tone, there’s no way I can tell you how much Wathnan Racing paid for him.” “What was that? How many shareholders? Not sure.”

Knowing the present state of the market and the value of top racehorses, the number for a potential imminent Classic winner will be a minimum seven digits. “Not eight, I wish it was!” was as much as Sam could be pinned down to admit to. Neither would he say whether a contingency would have applied had Isaac Shelby won yesterday, or indeed if he picks up any other Group 1 race later in his career. Sorry Sam, I had to ask but I’ll leave you in peace, now!

It’s hard to remember all those years ago, but was it as difficult to break down Robert Sangster (Sam’s dad), and John Magnier’s, similar reticence when things like the multi-million Storm Bird or El Gran Senor stallion deals were having their problems? It’s hard to be sure through the mists of time – maybe I was just better placed in those days to pick up the correct rumours!

So, rather than work on trying to wheedle out of one of the future giants of the bloodstock business what he’d rather keep private – fair enough – instead I’ll pass on what I’ve found out about Wathnan Racing. This Qatari owning entity has been put together by Australian Ollie Tate, who can take full credit for setting up Godolphin’s operation Down Under in around 2002 when still in his mid-20’s.

He’s done plenty in the industry since, with his own operation for the past six years. Recently he was tasked by Qatari Abdullah Mana Al-Hajri to set up a racing operation back home. So rapidly has it developed that over the recently concluded season which ran from October to March, he was leading owner in Qatar with many winners of both thoroughbred and Arabian races.

The biggest acceleration for Wathnan came after an all-out assault on last year’s Newmarket Autumn Horses in Training sale. He bought nine mostly three-year-olds for a total of £1.75 million, an average of close to 200k each. Significant among them were Charlie Hills’ Inverness for 380k; Persian Royal, a 450k recruit from the Charlton stable and Hamiki, 260 grand from William Haggas.

He has enjoyed pleasing results at some of the more important meetings there. His local trainer is Alba De Mieulle and his go-to rider for the major days when international races were staged was Mickael Barzalona, who won several important races in his Technicolor silks.

It would not have escaped Mr Al-Hajri’s notice yesterday that just when Isaac Shelby looked home and hosed, ready to provide a Classic winner at the first time of asking, that along came the said M. Barzalona. Riding the 26/1 shot Marhaba Ya Sanafi, they got up right on the line by a short neck.

Another irony was that that the winning horse’s owner, Jaber Abdullah, a long-standing associate of Rabbah Racing in Dubai, had been selling off a good number of his surplus animals at the HIT part of the Guineas Breeze-Up sale at Newmarket just over a week ago.

Brian Meehan had been very confident of Isaac Shelby’s chance before the race and Sam said, “He was gutted!” They thought the gallop had been inadequate and having made all the running in the Greenham Stakes, there must have been the thought afterwards that it may have been better to have forced the pace again.

Meehan and the new owner’s representatives – the deal was brokered by Richard Brown of Blandford Bloodstock – will talk about the next target, but Royal Ascot, where a winner for Mr Al-Hajri would presumably be a major ambition, comes next this side of the Channel at least. As well as the St James’s Palace Stakes, which Meehan won with Most Improved in 2012, a sideways look might be glanced at the six-furlong Commonwealth Cup, in which the colt also holds an entry.

At this stage, though, the mile option looks more likely. Isaac Shelby certainly didn’t fail through lack of stamina yesterday and most bookmakers have him as one of the first four in the betting on the race.

I’ve spent many wonderful work mornings at Manton with Brian and Sam down the years. Their loyal relationship, which encouraged Sangster to pay a higher-than-usual 92,000gns for the son of 2000 Guineas winner Night Of Thunder as a potential syndicate horse, stands out in an often more routine game between owners and trainers of musical chairs. But make no mistake, Brian Meehan, has long been an outstanding trainer who, like the Perrett’s, just needs the raw material and he’ll get the job done at any level.

When Mr Al-Haji finally makes it to Marlborough, I’m sure he will fall in love with the place as so many before him have over the centuries.

- TS

Monday Musings: Déjà vu

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There is no question that one male and one female jockey transcend all others in the perception of people who may not be regular followers of our wonderful, but undeniably niche, sport. ITV are valiantly and very professionally increasing coverage on the main free channels it controls and nowadays have great flexibility on which platform they use. Tough if you can only receive ITV1, but even you would have seen both those famous people in action on Saturday.

More accurately, the gentleman, Frankie Dettori, was in frequent, albeit unrewarding sight at Newbury. Rachael Blackmore, his female counterpart, Darling of Cheltenham, and Aintree, was on a first visit to Ayr along with her boss Henry de Bromhead.

She was there to ride another of Scotsman Kenny Alexander’s horses, in the same colours as the great Honeysuckle. At a Cheltenham meeting full of epic events, that superstar’s final act on a racecourse in winning the mares’ race at the Festival last month, following two Champion Hurdles, was the highlight of the week for many.

With the TV cameras and presenters watching every move on Saturday, Rachael successfully negotiated one fence on her mount Telmesomethinggirl, before being dumped unceremoniously when unseated at the next.

Being deposited on the turf – and Ayr’s was less than ideally receptive as the host of absentees from its £120k to the winner Scottish Grand National, testified – must have been a jolt.

Hopefully, she will be fit for one of her’s and de Bromhead’s most important fixtures, the five days of Punchestown, starting tomorrow. As with Leopardstown at Christmas and the Dublin Racing Festival in February, there is massive prizemoney available, and she won’t want to be side-lined for any of it.

Meanwhile Dettori had already bitten the turf 20 minutes earlier. The 52-year-old is, as everyone knows, in his final year as a jockey and he will be hoping to cherry-pick the best of opportunities all around the world right up until his final day.

He has a regular spot in California whenever he chooses to take it for Bob Baffert. This will always almost guarantee a top prospect or two for his final Breeders’ Cup in the autumn. Meanwhile he would dearly love another UK Classic winner or two to go with the 20 he already possesses as he stretches deeper into his sixth decade.

Hopes were high that Chaldean, the Andrew Balding-trained Juddmonte-owned colt he rode to victory in last year’s Dewhurst Stakes, would sort out the first of those five possible additions. Despite being slightly uneasy in the betting as the horses milled around behind Newbury’s stalls before the off, nobody could have anticipated the shocking outcome soon to occur.

The gates opened and Chaldean obviously made a troubled exit, as Dettori was dumped even before his mount could take a step, his horse suffering both from a violent left-handed swerve by the horse in the neighbouring stall to this right and the fact there was no horse to his left to help correct the unwelcome deviation due to two blocks of stalls connecting at that point. Chaldean decided, jockey or no jockey, to show these upstart horses what’s what and joined in the race all by himself. Meanwhile the Italian was slowly picking himself up in a state of disbelief. Unlike in almost every other sport, when something like that happens, that’s it – no comeback.

One man’s dismay can usually mean joy for somebody else and that was the case for Brian Meehan, once a regular challenger for Group and Grade 1 prizes around the world, but now operating on a smaller scale. The numbers might be down, but the talent and awareness of the ability of the horses he does control is firmly intact.

When discussing the race with me on Saturday morning, he acknowledged that Chaldean might be the superstar of the 2023 Classics, so his horse Isaac Shelby would not be taking any notice, he’d just be doing his own thing. Isaac Shelby broke nicely from his low draw at the left-hand side well away from the favourite. Sean Levey soon had him ahead and must have thought he was seeing things as the riderless Chaldean came into his vision off to the right.

In fairness, Chaldean would have been the only other horse he did see, as the Meehan colt settled into his stride and, when anything looked like getting on terms, he kept pulling out extra. At the line, he had three lengths and five and a half lengths in hand of Roger Varian’s colt Charyn and the Gosdens’ Theoryofeverything. If anything from the race is going to win the 2,000 Guineas, it is surely only Chaldean.

This is in large part because Meehan and close collaborator Sam Sangster, who bought the Night Of Thunder colt for £92,000 as a yearling, have not swayed from the original plan to go for the French 2,000 Guineas over a mile at Longchamp, rather than Newmarket on Saturday week with Isaac Shelby.

Time enthusiasts will have noted the Greenham was run in two seconds’ faster time than the immediately preceding Fred Darling (or whatever it’s called nowadays), for Classically-intending fillies. Its significance may be diminished, as that was the exact difference in the two races’ times last year.

Isaac Shelby won his first two races as a juvenile, a maiden at Newbury (good to soft) and then the Group 3 Superlative Stakes at Newmarket on good to firm ground. The going was nearer the opposite end of the spectrum on Saturday, riding at around one second per furlong slow. Saturday’s winner took seven seconds longer than Perfect Power did for the Richard Fahey stable in 2022, so probably not too dissimilar a performance.

Isaac Shelby’s only career defeat came after a slow start and a wide course in the Dewhurst at a time when getting into the middle of the track was very unrewarding. Brian just shrugs that off. It wasn’t his day, is the gist of it. Saturday certainly was!

Perfect Power failed to stay the mile in the 2,000 Guineas but went to Royal Ascot, where he comfortably won the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup over six furlongs. Perfect Power retired at the end of the season and stands this year at a fee of £15,000 at Sheikh Mohammed’s Dalham Hall Stud.

Despite a quiet (for them) Dubai World Cup meeting, there is little sign that Godolphin are any less acquisitive when seeking out talented horses at sales, in addition to their extensive and increasingly successful breeding operation. I finally received my Horses In Training Book (thank you Rupert!) this week and note that Charlie Appleby has 254 horses in his care this year.

He’ll have at least one more after last week’s Craven Breeze-Up sale at Newmarket, which I attended only on the first evening. Hence, I missed the sale of the Blue Point colt bought by Anthony Stroud and David Loder for a joint top-priced 625,000gns.

Blue Point, like Perfect Power, also stands at Dalham Hall, and he has gone off like a rocket with his initial lot of juveniles. Blue Storm won for the James Tate stable at Newmarket on Tuesday, making it three already in the UK. I understand he’s had a winner in France, too. [He has, Keran, trained by Jean-Claude Rouget for the Aga Khan, is Blue Point’s sole French runner so far, winning at Tarbes last Thursday – Ed.]

The other joint top was a son of Havana Grey, who on Wednesday was responsible for 28/1 winner Mammas Girl, also ridden by Sean Levey, this time for his long-standing boss Richard Hannon, in the Group 3 Nell Gwyn Stakes.

The Hannon stable has always been able to pull one out of the hat in Guineas races, both before Richard junior took over from his father and since. Don’t be shocked if this fast-improving filly – now as short as 6/1 – makes an impact in the Classic.

There have been some artistically planned big-race coups over jumps recently, but nobody seems as sure-footed as Christian Williams, who followed last year’s 1-2 in the Scottish Grand National with another well-executed win in the four-miler on Saturday.

In 2022, his mare Win My Wings led home a stable 1-2, the 13/2 joint-favourite sharing that price with Williams’ other runner, Kitty’s Light, a staying-on second. Win My Wings was retired earlier this season, but Kitty’s Light, having dropped in the handicap, easily won the Eider Chase at Newcastle last time.

Even after being reassessed for that, Kitty’s Light was able to run off 3lb lower than a year ago, and now as the 4/1 favourite he had the typical Christian Williams acceleration at the end of marathon distances. As with Win My Wings last year, his horse seemed to be going nowhere and then shot past the rest of the field to win easily. It was very much a case of Déjà vu.

Watching Robert Sangster’s colours come home in front on Isaac Shelby, it was so good to have a reminder of the long-term owner of Manton. His son Sam, through his Manton House Thoroughbreds syndicates, is keeping the tradition going with Meehan, while Sam’s nephew Ollie, son of elder brother Ben and wife Lucy, is embarking with great promise on a training career there. Déjà vu indeed.

- TS

Monday Musings: Horse Traders

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For a few years now I’ve had a constant companion on my bedside table, writes Tony Stafford. Horse Trader, published in the early 1990’s and written by Patrick Robinson with Nick Robinson, tells the story of Robert Sangster’s unlikely path to the pinnacle of international racing and breeding.

I’ve read it cover to cover at least six times and when I tell you it must be the best part of 250,000 words (at least three times as long as my sporadic offerings over the years) that’s plenty of reading material.

Nick Robinson, like the young Sangster, prospective heir to serious money, back in the late 1960’s had knowledge of racing through family connections. Over time in a Liverpool coffee house then favoured by the sons of leaders of Northern industry, he imbued his friend, the heir to the Vernon’s Football Pools fortune, with a similar love of the sport.

Without Nick Robinson there would have been no Sadler’s Wells, no Golden Fleece, no Galileo. None of the many champions of the past 40 years to have emanated from Ballydoyle and its adjunct Coolmore stud in its two distinct phases. The first, which goes to the end of the book in 1992, is basically pre-Arab domination.

Then there is the second period where the skill and enterprise from Vincent O’Brien’s successor, the not related Aidan, linked always by the constant of John Magnier, Vincent’s son-in-law. Magnier of course was the man who recruited the young O’Brien to succeed Vincent as well as embracing Michael Tabor and later Derrick Smith to the party in place of such as Sangster and Danny Schwartz as well as others who dipped in and out, like Stavros Niarchos.

At one time the owner himself of more than 1,000 horses worldwide and at the time of the book’s conclusion, owner of shares in all the best Coolmore stallions, Sangster’s destiny seemed secure. His six children, sons Ben, Guy and Adam and daughter Kate from his first marriage, and Sam and yet to be born Max from his third, could anticipate a never-ending stream of wonderful thoroughbreds in the family ownership.

But, as Sam said when I suggested it to him one day last year: “As if!”  Recently though, the wider family fortunes on the racecourse have shone, particularly with Saffron Beach, the four-year-old filly trained by their Australian-born step-sister Jane Chapple-Hyam, daughter of Sangster’s middle wife, Susan mark 1. Winner of the Group 2 Duke Of Cambridge Stakes at the Royal meeting last month, Saffron Beach is owned by Ben’s wife Lucy, James Wigan, and Ben and Lucy’s son, Olly.

The success of the Sangster, O’Brien, Magnier formula only came to its conclusion as the competition from the Arabs strangled the team’s buying power in Kentucky. For more than a decade their team of unrivalled experts had monopolised the best-bred and best-conformed individuals almost to the extent of “what we want we get!”

In some of the latter years, that buying power had greatly eroded and people like Schwartz, who was accustomed to put up his few million dollars every July (as it then was) and sit back and wait for the Classic and Group/Grade 1 wins to roll in and the stallions to roll off the production line, could no longer rely on that certitude.

Classic Thoroughbreds was the would-be replacement scheme whereby Vincent thought the Irish racing fan would take the opportunity to buy into his proven “buy and win the biggest races” formula. It needed, though, many thousands of small shareholders rather than a few major players taking serious financial positions to work.

It did initially succeed, to the extent that Royal Academy, the yearling O’Brien coveted above all those of the 1988 Kentucky yearling crop, won the July Cup and then later memorably the Breeders’ Cup Mile. Ridden by Lester Piggott on that never-to-be-forgotten day at Belmont Park in October 1990, only weeks after Piggott’s release from his prison term, he came past the whole field to win under his 54-year-old jockey. But it was unsustainable.

Meanwhile, Sangster had bought Manton, the historic Wiltshire training estate, spending lavishly under Michael Dickinson’s brief stewardship. The first year’s meagre return of four wins inevitably ended the Dickinson era and as MW went on to win major races in the US, Sangster battled on.  Barry Hills had a successful stint there but when Barry moved on to open a public stable in Lambourn, his assistant Peter Chapple-Hyam took over, making an instant impact.

Dr Devious had been a hard-working two-year-old, winning even before Royal Ascot, where he finished runner-up to Dilum, before his Superlative and Dewhurst Stakes successes. Sold to Jenny Craig and husband Sidney, he was bought principally to run in the Kentucky Derby and after a prep race second in Newmarket he shipped to Kentucky but he could finish only seventh to Lil E.Tee.

In such circumstances he was in some ways a surprise Derby winner, returning after such a short time, his toughness enabling him to beat St Jovite by two lengths. St Jovite got full revenge in the Irish Derby, but the Doctor gained a second narrow win over his rival in the Irish Champion Stakes for Jim Bolger and owner Virginia Kraft Payson that September.

Earlier that year, 1992, Rodrigo De Triano had given Lester his final English Classic win in the 2000 Guineas, adding to it at The Curragh with the Irish equivalent a fortnight later. He did take his chance in the Derby under Piggott and actually started the 13-2 favourite, but could finish only ninth of 18. Returned to shorter trips, further success came in the Juddmonte at York and in the Champion Stakes. He was sold as a stallion to Japan.

Chapple-Hyam was still at the helm when Commander Collins won the 1999 Superlative Stakes and Racing Post Trophy in front of young Sam Sangster, but then the rift came. John Gosden took over as the Millennium turned with Jimmy Fortune as his stable jockey. After Robert’s death in 2004 his older boys kept the show going with Brian Meehan as their trainer.

Success was never far away and Meehan, previously assistant to Richard Hannon, always had a sure hand with young horses and also developed many high-class fillies. Over the years he has won big races all around the world - one of his Breeders’ Cup successes came with a first-crop son of Galileo, the three-year-old Red Rocks who won the Turf race in 2006.

In later years the Sangsters sold Manton, although Ben still lives in Manton House and has also moved the mares and young stock of the family’s Swettenham Stud to land close to the house. Martyn Meade, now training in conjunction with son Freddie in another part of the 2,000-acre estate, is its owner.

When I started this piece, I used Horse Trader simply because of an encounter at Newmarket on Saturday afternoon after Isaac Shelby, trained by Brian Meehan, won the Group 2 Superlative Stakes. The colt is owned by Manton Thoroughbreds, a syndicate set up by Sam Sangster, who buys all the stock, usually as yearlings.

Earlier in the meeting, before Isaac Shelby ran a brave race to remain unbeaten after a drawn-out battle with 5-4 favourite Victory Dance, another Sangster yearling buy, Show Respect, was an excellent second in the Group 2 July Stakes. He is also trained by Meehan.

I’ve had the privilege of visiting Manton many times, and as I go through Marlborough and along the half-mile-plus long drive down to the Meehan stable area, the excitement never fails. It was there that I saw the gallop when Derby favourite Crown Prince flopped many lengths behind Delegator. I backed the latter at 33’s that morning, forgetting to add the words “each-way”. Sea The Stars had the temerity to beat him!

Sam and Brian, along with Brian’s wife Jax, were suitably thrilled on Saturday when all the chat, much of it fuelled by an on-the-ball Matt Chapman, was about the last winners of the Superlative Stakes to win in those colours – Sam has secured the use of his dad’s green, blue and white for Manton Thoroughbreds – to much approval on Saturday.

Everyone remembered Derby winner Dr Devious – sold by Robert to Jenny Craig, the California diet magnate, before his Classic win – but Sam also recalled Commander Collins. “I came that day with dad and I think I was ten or maybe eleven.”

Incidentally, Commander Collins was named after one of Robert’s great friends, Old Etonian trainer AK “Tony” Collins, who found fame or rather infamy for his role in the Gay Future affair, when some of the horses linked in multiple bets rather mysteriously did not manage to leave their stables on that Bank Holiday. The one that did, Gay Future, won and with bookmakers prevented from laying off commitments when the phones went down, it caused a furore in those innocent days. You couldn’t cause a whole telephone exchange to be out of commission nowadays – or could you?

Well A K spent Friday afternoon in the owners’ restaurant at Newmarket in the company of another grand old stager, former trainer Bill Watts. From a famous Newmarket training family, Bill left to go north to Richmond, Yorkshire, from where he sent Teleprompter and Tony Ives to Chicago to win the Arlington Million in 1985. Watts has moved back to Newmarket since retiring from training.

I managed a quiet word with Sam when the excitement died down a little later and said: “I always told you that you were the most like your father,” a suggestion that always brings its share of embarrassment for him. But he did say: “You know Horse Trader? Dad is wearing a tie on the front, and I’ve had it in my possession for years, but am wearing it today for the first time,” pointing to the rather old-fashioned neckpiece.

Trying to find potential Classic and Group-race winners in face of such incredible competition is getting ever harder and to secure the Night Of Thunder colt Isaac Shelby, Sam had to stretch to 92,000gns, one of his more expensive buys. The Godolphin-owned runner-up, by Dubawi, and trained by Charlie Appleby cost £700k. In this market, that colt will be regarded by connections as being right on track and showing terrific potential, so Isaac looks very well bought.

For me, the best part of the Sangster/Meehan operation is their mutual trust and loyalty. Brian has had some quieter years from the heyday when he had more than 100 horses in his team but, like most longer-established trainers, he finds it harder to get new owners and therefore new blood.

Sam, still in his early 30’s, does though have access to younger businesspeople who find enjoyment in the syndicated horses he unearths and buys. Meehan, as with Isaac Shelby, does the rest. If that ends up with a Group 1 success, which looks eminently possible about this still unfurnished and to the shrewd John Egan’s eyes, “still up-behind” colt, that could easily be the eventual outcome.

- TS