Tag Archive for: Sam Sangster

Monday Musings: Breeding Hope

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The first weekend after the Cheltenham Festival, also a fortnight before the Aintree Grand National meeting, has evolved into a special opportunity for mares (and sometimes four-year-old fillies) at either end of the country, writes Tony Stafford.

Kelso, two, and Newbury, one, offer valuable races exclusively for females, but the biggest individual prize is the £65,000 to the winner Goffs Hundred Grand Bumper, also open to geldings at Newbury. Five females were among 19 runners, all of which were previously offered at auction by Goffs. The outcome was a thrilling finish between two four-year-old fillies, debutant Lady Hope (33/1), trained by Hughie Morrison, and Nicky Henderson’s once-raced and well fancied Madam Speaker.

Both youngsters finished strongly past Irish Goodbye, who seemed to have the race won coming to the closing stages; but close home Lady Hope was drawing away under Jonny Burke, and Sean Bowen on the runner-up could do nothing about it. Irish Goodbye’s effort, conceding 7lb to the first two, suggests there will be much more to come from the Twiston-Davies gelding in the future.

Understandably, Morrison was elated afterwards, regarding the daughter of Nathaniel as a potential staying star over jumps. “Her mother is by Midnight Legend and is out of the great mare Lady Rebecca. She’s only four, so we’ll take our time with her.”

She wasn’t cheap at £55k as a three-year-old, bought for Martin Hughes and Michael Kerr-Dineen. Former trainer Paul Webber was part of the selection panel with Morrison and the would-be owners. Hughes sent Eyed to Morrison when Webber retired from training in the summer of 2024 and he has won three races over fences with him.

It was a great day for Nathaniel as in the previous race at Newbury the BetVictor mares’ limited handicap hurdle, his daughter Charisma Cat came through strongly under Tom Bellamy to win for Alan King and Annabel Waley-Cohen, family and friends.

Grand National time of year always resonates with the Waley-Cohen name, through the exploits over a decade or more of amateur rider son Sam, whose record for completions and wins over the big fences has never been matched by any professional. Winning the big race on his last ride in 2022 on father Robert’s Noble Yeats was an emphatic and fitting final gesture from this modest young man.

Hughie told me there was also a GBB bonus attached to Lady Hope’s race. He wasn’t sure whether it would be 20k or half that amount. “Let’s be positive and say it’s 20k,” he said. “When can you run first time and win 85 grand? My trainer’s share of that will probably pay the staff wages for four days!”

In the spring sunshine, Hughie and wife Mary were heading off to Fonthill Stud where they have a couple of siblings to Secret Squirrel and one to Mary’s home-bred Filanderer, winner of five of his last seven races. One of the Secret Squirrel relatives is by Marmelo, his Melbourne Cup runner-up.

Now 13, Marmelo “has had six days out drag hunting and had his first team chase the other day, when he led the team throughout his round,” said Morrison. Marmelo covers the odd mare and one of his clients with a young horse is Mr Perriss, owner of Cheltenham Festival winner White Noise.

Hughie reckons it costs upwards of 30 grand to keep a horse from birth to their three-year-old days. “Then there’s the stud fee to consider. It makes no sense really. How many prizes like Saturday’s are there to spread around?”

Newsells Park Stud has stood Nathaniel ever since he retired from racing as a dual Group 1 winner of the Eclipse and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. His fee for this year is £17,500 and Gary Coffey, the stud’s racing manager, reckons he will have a similar number of mares to last year’s 115. When all the accounting is sorted, it could be around 120.

Despite the excellent achievements of his progeny over jumps, the vast proportion of mares sent to Nathaniel are for flat racing. That’s hardly surprising as he is the sire of once-in-a-lifetime filly Enable and Derby hero Desert Crown.

Newsells has three other stallions: A’Ali, Without Parole and Isaac Shelby. That last-named horse’s first foals are now on the ground and Sam Sangster has had excellent reports of them. Sam initially bought Isaac Shelby with his trainer Brian Meehan for one of his Manton Thoroughbreds syndicates and they all had a commercial dividend when he was bought in mid-career by Wathnan Racing.

Isaac Shelby was the easy winner of the Group 3 Greenham Stakes which he followed with a close second in the French 2,000 Guineas. Coffey says Isaac Shelby, who stands for £7,000, is the only son of top 2025 UK/Ireland money-earner Night Of Thunder to stand at stud in the UK.

In overall European earnings, Night Of Thunder fell behind the recently deceased Wootton Bassett and Sea The Stars, whose overall tally of more than £10 million was boosted by the £2.36 million earned when Daryz won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe for Francis Graffard last October.

Sam Sangster, trainer Ollie’s near-contemporary and uncle, can point to such as Rashabar and Kathmandu as yearling purchases that went within a whisker of Group 1/Classic success, both with Meehan. Brian’s stable should be more powerful this season as Sam reckons there’s around ten horses rated at 100 or more, reporting that multiple Group 1-placed Rashabar, now four, will be brought back to a mile this year.

The filly Esna, owned by Martin Hughes and partners, is rated 107 after her fourth in the Marcel Boussac at the Arc meeting. She will be aimed at the 1,000 Guineas, while the progressive Bourbon Blues, rated 105, is another Hughes horse. He was just edged out at Group 2 level in France in mid-November and will also have an attacking programme early in the season. Both were Sam Sangster buys as yearlings.

A new arrival is the former Gosden-trained Miss Justice. This five-year-old by Triple Crown winner Justify, won at Listed level at Salisbury and ended her time with the Gosdens with a close second at Group 2 level at Newmarket. She cost 750,000gns at the December sale and has been pleasing her new trainer since then.

Until Sam pounced in midsummer to buy the Aidan O’Brien-trained Diego Velazquez, he had never been able to say: “I bought a Group 1 winner.” Days after the purchase though, Diego Velazquez did just that, and not any old Group 1, but France’s Prix Jacques Le Marois at Deauville where subsequent Breeders’ Cup winner Notable Speech was the runner-up.

At £17,500 a pop at the National Stud, where he is owned by a consortium, he has been hot property indeed, and Sam says that a total figure north of 120 covers is likely. Also, he is to have a shuttle season to Australia.

“He was a no-brainer really”, says Sam. “By Frankel, even without the Group 1 which was a great bonus for the owners, he was a multiple Group 2 winner and is a fantastic stamp of a horse. He has attracted a smart bunch of mares, notably Lucida, winner of the Rockfel at two for Jim Bolger and then second in the 1,000 Guineas. It gives him a great chance of a fast start.”

Diego Velazquez is a half-brother to Broome and Point Lonsdale, but as that Deauville win shows, he is much the quickest of the trio, with his best performances being at seven furlongs and a mile. Exciting days all round.

- TS

American adventure on the cards for Diego Velazquez

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Diego Velazquez will make the final two starts of his career in America after his poignant Prix Jacques le Marois success in the famous Sangster silks.

Transferred into the ownership of Sam Sangster on behalf of a syndicate he heads in the days prior to the Deauville Group One, Aidan O’Brien’s son of Frankel produced a career best to deliver a nostalgic victory that harked back to the glory days of old at Ballydoyle.

Now the Diego Velazquez team have their sights set on further big-race glory, with first a trip to Keeneland for the Coolmore Turf Mile on October 4, a race that serves as a ‘win and you’re in’ for the colt’s main objective, the Breeders’ Cup Mile in early November.

Reflecting on France and looking ahead to the future, Sangster said: “It was an incredible day and I was filled by confidence by Aidan before the Marois and he ran as he said he would. Aidan said he would give everything on the track and he’s so tough and genuine.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if he goes on and wins another one now before the season is out. We’ll absolutely take him to America now and he’s a horse who will really suit the Breeders’ Cup being at Del Mar.

“We wouldn’t be waiting for Del Mar so the obvious step would be Keeneland for the race there. He’s a horse that travels and it’s a ‘win and you’re in’ for the Breeders’ Cup Mile so it ticks a lot of boxes for his programme.”

Diego Velazquez’s Stateside adventure will bring the curtain down on his on-track career. He is set to join the National Stud for stallion duties in November and there is plenty of excitement building around the next stage of his journey.

Sam Sangster enjoyed a day to remember at Deauville
Sam Sangster enjoyed a day to remember at Deauville (Mike Egerton/PA)

“One chapter closes and the next one will start and hopefully this is a story of many chapters,” continued Sangster.

“Already talking to breeders from the UK and Ireland there has been a hugely positive response to the horse and he is going to qualify for some very nice mares.

“The guys who have bought into him are also very keen to support him with some proper mares, as will I myself.

“So the end of the racing career is just the icing on the cake for a project with the wheels already in motion to make sure we do everything we can to ensure the horse makes it as a stallion, and hopefully it all pays off.

“It was a dream day at Deauville and the world is his oyster now. He’s going to be a stallion to suit many people and as one door closes the next chapter will open at the National Stud in November.”

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

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: 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