“Trainers are not very nice to jockeys sometimes because we’re under pressure from owners and they blame me, I blame the jockey, the jockey blames the horse, so that comes back to me. Then I blame the person who bought the horse.”
Jessica Harrington, Irish Racing Yearbook 2018
SPARE a thought for the poor old bloodstock agent; the person that has been given the responsibility by an owner to spend their money; the person who has proclaimed this horse to have potential to at least win a race – and if the outlay is significant – to win Cheltenham races. Never getting the public profile when it goes right but sure to get it in the ear if it keeps going wrong.
There is pressure when a horse you have bought is favourite for the Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase or Stayers’ Hurdle but it will have achieved a certain amount to reach that status. According to Anthony Bromley, who has enjoyed victory in all four championship races as a partner at Highflyer Bloodstock and is likely to have a connection with almost 100 horses running at the foot of Cleeve Hill next month, including Buveur D’Air, Altior, Might Bite and Footpad, the most stressful period is far from the madding crowd.
NERVES
“If you’ve bought an expensive purchase, the most nerve-wracking time is before they’ve had their first run in the new owners’ colours,” remarks Bromley. “After that, obviously in the big races that’s a different type of nerves. But it’s exciting. Definitely the first day brings the most pressure.”
You can’t win them all of course but Bromley and his partner David Minton have made a good stab at it. In the past 10 years, Highflyer has enjoyed 61 Cheltenham Festival triumphs. A whopping 37 of those have been at Grade 1 level. This season alone, the firm has seen its acquisitions garner 61 graded and listed races, 16 of them top flight.
Among the champions associated with the firm, there is Kauto Star and Long Run (Gold Cup), Punjabi and Buveur D’Air (Champion Hurdle), Master Minded and Azertyuiop (Champion Chase) and the four-time Stayers’ Hurdle victor Big Buck’s.
Bromley grew up among horses as the son of well-known breeders Bill and Di, who owned and ran Wood Farm Stud in the North Shropshire hamlet of Ellerdine until their retirement in 2012. He joined David Minton Bloodstock straight out of school and was made UK director when the company was taken over by the British Bloodstock Agency.
In 2001, Minton and Bromley left to establish Highflyer and the success they have enjoyed for the likes of Nicky Henderson, Alan King and Paul Nicholls among others, has been stunning.
“Minty describes himself as semi-retired now but you wouldn’t think that when you see him around the store sales in the summer ‘cos he works so exceptionally hard. I’ve learned a great deal from him over the years, from a professional eye looking at young horses, to integrity, how to behave; on many levels. We’ve had a great partnership for many years. I went to work for him when I left school as a tea boy in 1987 so we’ve gone full circle. Now I’d probably be the senior person in the partnership but he’s great for advice and he still has a number of big clients. We help each other.
“Tessa Greatrex joined us the last few years and has been doing an excellent job buying for a number of trainers as well, like her husband (Warren) obviously but also such as Ben Pauling, Oliver Sherwood, Charlie Longsdon. It’s keeping the Highflyer banner up there with plenty of good winners through the winter.”
HOMEWORK
He always buys to order, maintaining that to acquire a horse without a buyer would make him a dealer and bring unnecessary complications into an already difficult business. Like all successful agents, he is detailed in his homework before deciding to go for a particular horse.
“You try to do as much due diligence as you possibly can on any purchase. The longer I’m in the game, there’s more people you come into contact with and your network of people you bought nice horses from and who have recommended you good horses that have done well subsequently is constantly improving.
“In the Irish point-to-point scene I’ve had a lot of success from a number of different vendors and when they want to recommend one to you, you have to take notice of it. However, you don’t just solely base it on that. You judge the horse as an individual for longevity, its conformation, its pedigree and race performance.
CRYSTAL BALL
“Race performance once they start racing is clearly a big factor. When you’re buying a store you can only look at its pedigree and looks and you have to gaze into a crystal ball to work out what’s under the bonnet. That’s a slightly more riskier proposition but obviously that’s built into the prices normally, that stores are cheaper than the horses that are proven and have won.
“You’re constantly learning. You never think you’ve got the game tapped. And if you think you have, you should be questioning yourself because horses have a habit of causing you surprises, both good and bad. It’s a brilliant sport to be involved in but it’s a rollercoaster ride for owners and trainers. It’s a great leveller as well; we can all talk but when the flag goes down, the talking stops and the horse has to go and win that race.”
KAUTO THE BEST
Kauto Star won plenty but he wasn’t the most obvious purchase for a long while. What’s more, while Bromley’s profiling of the 21st century superstar proved spot on in the end, there was a time when it didn’t look so sure.
“The longevity of his career at the very top level for so many seasons stands him out as going to be the best horse I’ll probably ever be associated with. The day Master Minded won his Champion Chase as a five-year-old marked him as potentially the most exciting horse I’d ever seen and been involved with but he couldn’t keep up those brilliant performances over anything like the longevity of career Kauto Star did.
“Big Buck’s was a great horse I was involved with, as was Long Run, but Kauto Star will be the one I’ll be most remembered to be tied in with. He opened plenty of doors for me and I’ll always be grateful to him.”
“He’d raced quite regularly as a juvenile in France and while he was one of the better four-year-olds, he wasn’t the best. It was just his last run in France, when he’d started to blossom in the spring, he looked a million dollars in his coat.
“By all accounts the trainer said the horse had been a little bit under the weather all winter but he’d continued to run him. He felt the horse had suddenly come to himself in May, when he won a graded race in Auteuil. He was a very expensive horse and it took a little bit of a leap of faith for Clive Smith to go with me on it because though he’d won four times, he’d been beaten six times. But we took it pretty much on the last performance, which was pretty impressive.
“I remember saying to Clive he might make a horse for the King George. Then I had to keep quiet because for the next two years he was campaigned as an Arkle and Queen Mother Champion Chase horse. But in the end, he did end up being a King George horse (winning the Kempton feature five times). To win so many Grade 1 races was amazing really. One year, he was champion in the Anglo-Irish ratings at all distances: two miles, two and a half miles and three miles plus. That’s pretty rare.”
MANAGER
It is through buying horses for them that he became racing manager for Simon Munir and Isaac Souede. It was a natural progression for the duo, who would not have the time to attend to the minutiae of race planning, to have him deal directly with trainers. It is a role Bromley enjoys, retaining a direct involvement and watching the progress of a horse he believed in sufficiently to buy.
Munir and Souede are kept informed on a daily basis and are involved in all the major decision-making, such as the call not to go the Grand National route with Bristol De Mai this year. Their commitment to racing is long haul.
“They’re quite private people but are thoroughly enthusiastic about the game. They’re even getting into the breeding side of it now with a lot of the mares that they raced breeding in Normandy so they’re looking at it longterm, that’s encouraging.
“The first three-year-old homebred won in Auteuil in November and there are a few more coming through. Gitane Du Berlais’s first foal is a yearling now, by Kapgarde, and it’s gorgeous. Gitane De Berlais was trained by Willie Mullins and was a good mare. She looks like she’s going to be a really good producer for them and they’re very excited about that side of things.
“With everything being so hard to buy these days, breeding from your own graded winning mares is perhaps a good way to go forward. Their very best race mare, Ma Filleule, who was second in the Ryanair (to Uxizandre) when Don Cossack was third, she had her first foal this week and it’s a Martaline colt so the dream lives on. They may start their careers in France but they may come to Ireland and England to race as well.”
Daryl Jacob is the man that has flourished wearing the owners’ two-tone green colours. The relationship has been vital as the Wexford native rebuilt his career after losing his job as Paul Nicholls’ first jockey. Now, he is advertising his talent and good temperament on a weekly basis.
HAPPY
“He’s a great asset in the team. Simon and Isaac have placed great faith in him and I feel they have very much reaped the benefit of a very confident jockey who’s riding at the peak of his powers. I know that it’s given the owners a great deal of pleasure to have the feedback from their own jockey so much and I’m so pleased to see Daryl so happy and riding so well. Hopefully, it all goes right for him leading into the Cheltenham Festival.
“He’ll obviously have the pick of all the rides but he is the English retained jockey and we hope that Ruby (Walsh) can get back for Willie (Mullins)’s horses at the festival and Ruby would be on Footpad if he’s back, and Daryl would be on Sceau Royal.”
Where a horse ends up is determined at the time of purchase by which racing programme in Ireland, Britain or France is deemed to suit a horse best. It is why we are unlikely to see the exciting Guillaume Macaire-trained five-year-old, Edward D’Argent, a winner of nine races, six of them graded, crossing the English Channel, though there are opportunities in France for horses that have gone too high in the handicap to make the reverse trip.
Bromley does have “slight concerns” about how the industry could suffer post-Brexit, with the mid-to-lower tier markets in particular danger. Yet he marvels at the resilience of racing people and remains optimistic that the appetite will always exist for good horses.
Right now, it is ultra-competitive at all levels, but the demand for the next Kauto Star is constant. So Bromley is looking to tweak his approach, looking for possible new angles. His representation in Cheltenham suggests he isn’t doing much wrong but to stand still in any elite pursuit is to go backwards.
To that end, the English point-to-point scene, for so long playing last fiddle to any other sector when it came to sourcing horses, appears to be getting its act together.
“The English point-to-point scene is obviously a less mature one than the Irish for bringing young horses on and selling them on but it’s starting to come of age in the last couple of years. This season has seen a number of smart English point-to-pointers having been sold at the sales and coming through and doing well on the track.
ENGLISH POINTS
“There’s a number of people now specifically in England buying youngsters, bringing them on and selling them on and it’s good that they’re getting success with them as are the new owners. Blackbow is one that Willie’s got and we’ve had some success with them as well. The Cheltenham sales, the Doncaster sales, they’re doing a good job as well.’’
With Cheltenham imminent what makes a good festival?
“You hope for one winner to start with, on the first day and then hopefully you get a few more than that!
FOOTPAD V SCEAU ROYAL
“AT the moment both trainers are happy and they’ve gone through their trials over two miles. There’s no real reason to change from their plans. I’ve always been consistent in saying that if that’s where the trainers want to go and they think it’s the best chance for the horses, they’ll both turn up in the Arkle on the first day of the festival.
“I was very impressed by Saint Calvados at Warwick on Saturday. He worries me slightly and I’m sure that we’re going see Petit Mouchoir finish a lot closer. He’s going to progress from the run he had in Ireland the other day and will be a danger to them all as well. Those four horses look a smart quartet in the Arkle and it’s certainly going to be an exciting race.
“The fact that Footpad stays further will hopefully hold him in good stead because I think to win an Arkle you need to stay further than two miles. He’s versatile about tactics. He certainly doesn’t need to blast out in front. The fact that he’ll be finishing off means that we can catch Saint Calvados late on I hope.”
TOP NOTCH
“HE’S got to go to the Ascot Chase (today) and hopefully he’ll go on to the Ryanair after that. It’s a very hot renewal of the Ascot Chase but if he can win that, he’d have a very good chance in the Ryanair. He hasn’t run since December so it’ll be great to see him back on the track. He’s one of my favourite horses for the owners.”
WE HAVE A DREAM
“HE goes in the Triumph Hurdle unbeaten in England in four starts. In 2015, Simon Munir and Isaac Souede had the one-two in Peace And Co and Top Notch. I’m not sure he’s in that league but he’ll be there. He’s a good jumper, he’s not ground dependent so he’ll give a good account of himself. He might find something to beat him but we’ll go in there with a good shout.”
BRISTOL DE MAI
“HE is a head scratcher, there’s no doubt. I don’t think he’s probably the easiest to get spot on. The feeling is that the big target for 2018 is to win a second Betfair Chase in November and we probably need to work back from that. With that in mind, the idea is to have just one more run this spring and to have him fresh for the flat track in Aintree. The Grand National is a year too early for him and off a slightly up-and-down season, I’m not sure it’s the right thing to go for the National, so he’ll probably be aimed for the Betfair Bowl. And then all roads lead to the Betfair Chase again in November.”