THE closest that anybody has come to the exploits of Ballydoyle in the last two weeks is the top rated Australian three-year-old filly Global Glamour who, last Saturday, won her second Group 1 race in seven days.

This came in the Thousand Guineas at Melbourne’s Caulfield, exactly one week after the filly had won the Flight Stakes at Sydney’s Randwick. This is all the more remarkable when you consider that, in the intervening time, the filly travelled by road - a journey of almost 900km.

Global Glamour is owned by a syndicate of 40 women from seven different countries, which were assembled, and are now managed, by my fellow Goffs Director Elaine Lawlor. Elaine is, of course, far better known by her sobriquet “Legs” Lawlor, (for the very reason that I am not known as Legs Nugent).

Having spent several years in the USA, where her jobs included PA to John Gosden and racing manager to Tom Tatham, the breeder of Sunday Silence, she acted as the Irish representative for Highclere Thoroughbred Racing before re-joining Goffs, for whom she had acted as USA agent for many years.

A huge number of international buyers, many of whom attended the recent Orby Sale, see Legs as their first point of contact with the Irish sales scene.

Last year she married Melbourne businessman and racehorse owner Peter Barnett and they now spend their life divided between Australia and Ireland. At the Magic Millions Sale in January 2015 Legs was travelling to the sale with her friend Anne Seitz, who works with Fasig Tipton in Kentucky. Magic Millions’ major shareholder is Gerry Harvey, (owner of Harvey Norman) and his wife Katie Paige-Harvey, herself a highly successful businesswoman, had put in place an initiative at Magic Millions to introduce more women into racing and ownership.

GAI WATERHOUSE

Legs and Anna decided to buy a modest priced filly and engaged bloodstock agent James Bester to find them the right animal. He secured a filly by Star Witness for AUS $65,000.

Legs and Anna quickly syndicated the filly among a total of 40 ladies from seven different countries and including associations to five sales companies.

In addition to the Goffs and Fasig Tipton connections, “It’s All About the Girls” shareholders include Anne Hoyeau (wife of Arqana’s Eric), Nic Cox (wife of Magic Millions CEO) and Petrea Vela, a director of New Zealand Bloodstock.

Choosing the trainer must have been the easiest part and Global Glamour’s victory at Caulfield was a first win in the Thousand Guineas for her remarkable trainer, and the first lady of Australian racing, Gai Waterhouse.

As for Global Glamour, who has now won almost 10 times her purchase price, she will target the $2 million Magic Million Fillies Classic in January at the Gold Coast. Having spent five or six years in the late 1990s as guest auctioneer at the Magic Millions, I can only imagine the party if all goes according to plan.

Following a major race in Australia, connections each make a speech and that task fell last weekend to James Bester on behalf of the owners- the token cock among the hens. Not only is he a gifted bloodstock agent but he is a social tour de force to match any that I have encountered on my travels in the racing world.

No surprise then when he stood up to the microphone and announced “That’s the first time in my life I’ve been able to please and satisfy 40 women within 90 seconds.”