THOUGH the current breeding season is over, I recently received correspondence from a well-known, very successful National Hunt breeder and stallion master. With his letter, he enclosed an article from the fondly recalled Stud & Stablemagazine, a monthly publication that I always looked forward to seeing on my late father’s desk.

The cutting was a five-page feature on Blackrath Stud, a farm that still operates today as a stallion stud. Written by Peter Towers-Clark, it appeared in the December 1972 edition, just short of half a century ago, and profiled the success of the stud’s owner Frank Latham. Frank was something of an icon for me within the industry as I grew up, always dressed in a suit, wearing a hat and with a pipe not far away.

Almost 50 years ago this feature carried the telling headline, ‘Blackrath Stud – the stud that changed the pattern of Irish jumpers’. While that pattern has changed again since, some of what Frank achieved was ground-breaking, and lessons can still be learned from his actions. My correspondent reminded me of the importance of Vulgan as a sire and his influence, a stallion who did not cover large books of mares and was what some would consider small in stature, measuring ‘barely 16 hands’.

At the time of the article’s appearance, Vulgan was arguably the most successful sire of jumpers to stand at stud, having been imported to Ireland in 1951. The French-bred, like others before the days of the country of birth suffix being part of the name, was adopted as one of our own, though the process took some time. Recalling the time, Frank said: “I stood him at 40gns at first, but I sometimes had to take as little as a fiver to keep him full. They all wanted these big, raw-boned horses standing 16.3. So they looked at [Vulgan] and went away saying ‘only a pony’ or ‘far too small’.

Harness horse

While one famous breeder described Vulgan as “only a harness horse”, the late Charlie Rogers summed the stallion, and his success, up when he told Frank Latham that “I don’t like your horse, but I’ve got to buy them as they are what everybody wants”. The first stallion to sire the winners of 1,000 National Hunt races, he was champion at least 10 times and one of his main challengers for that title at the time was a horse who stood beside him, Escart III.

Vulgan sired a host of top-class runners, and the winners of the Champion Hurdle, Gold Cup and three Aintree Grand Nationals. He had to do it the hard way, and it was only when he had been at stud for 12 years that he became ‘fashionable’. His final season at stud was at the age of 25 in 1968, when he got a dozen of the 18 mares he covered in foal. His death was not due to any loss of vigour, rather he shattered his hock when he stood up on his hind legs after covering a mare.

What attracted Frank Latham to Vulgan? The stallion master admired his courage, toughness and consistency, having seen him run in England. Vulgan traced back to a well-known Irish jumping family too. Even so, he was a winner from two to four and also won the Gloucestershire Hurdle (now the Supreme Novices’) at Cheltenham on his only start over jumps.

French-type

In a statement at the time of the Stud & Stable article that could have been a template for another time, Frank said: “So I thought, if they want quicker maturing, smaller, French-type horses, why shouldn’t I get something to do it. Vulgan seemed to me to be the perfect horse for covering big Irish mares, so I asked the BBA to buy him for me at the Newmarket Sales, which they did for 510gns.

“I got pretty ribbed after he arrived, but I think it is fair to say that he changed the whole conception of Irish breeding of jumpers. Instead of the long, gangling sort of horse, he produced set, sturdy, short-coupled and sharp animals who were ready to go on with at three or four. What is more, they keep going. They are not over-lumbered, so they do not break down.”

Who was to know at the time that Frank was not only a great horseman, but he was a prophet too?