YELLOWFORD Farm never saw a horse until Frank Motherway yielded to the pang of desire to have an involvement in the East Cork point-to-point scene. So, in 1972 he bought a mare but when she got injured, he decided to breed from her and see what happened.
More than 40 years of “tipping away” outside Killeagh have seen Motherway establish a thriving family business, marking him out amongst the most knowledgeable horse traders as a man to keep on the right side of.
He would never say as much himself of course, and happily recalls having the choice of Deep Run and Laurence O for the same fee of £120. He sent the mare to the latter the first three years.
“That was a huge mistake anyway!” he laughs loudly.
Part of the learning curve as a breeder is realising that you cannot get everything right but ensuring that you don’t repeat the errors. Make new ones and take the lessons on board.
The successes are many. Even by the farm’s high standards though, the last National Hunt season was a standout. The homebred Bellshill provided them with their first Grade 1 when winning the champion bumper at Punchestown, while Motherway also consigned Cheltenham-Aintree-Punchestown Triple Crown winner On The Fringe.
So he is in fine heart looking towards the National Hunt sale at Tattersalls next week, where he brings 16 foals and a couple of broodmares.
With 42 mares in foal next year, he doesn’t have the time to consign for others apart from a couple of long-standing clients. The pin-hooking days are behind him too.
Motherway had the €120,000 sales-topper at Fairyhouse two years ago. That was a Yeats colt out of Scandisk, the mare he bought before her most famous offspring, Hurricane Fly became possibly the greatest hurdler of all time.
That purchase is just one testament to Motherway’s shrewdness, and the calculated development of his thriving operation.
DÓC: Every NH breeder looks forward to Tattersalls.
FM: Of course they do. It’s where the pick of the pedigrees are. Our challenge is to present the best foals we can at that sale because it’s the premier sale; to get them there in one piece and have them looking as well as possible to attract the bidders. We’ve been trying to improve our pedigrees over the years, to be in the top 50% at least of the foals in the sale.
DÓC: It must be a painstaking process to climb that ladder.
FM: You have to work according to your budget as you go along. As far as replacing the stock, it’s a case of what the budget allows you to buy in terms of a new mare or filly to breed from. It’s step by step and can be a lifelong process.
DÓC: It’s a labour of love as much as a business.
FM: It would have to be but it has to be a business too as you need to survive in the game. It’s something you enjoy doing and it gets you rewarded; following the stock that you sell through their careers can be quite rewarding too. I used to buy foals and sell yearlings and older horses but once they were gone out of your hands, you wouldn’t have as much of an interest as you would have if you had the mare at home still… following what’s going on with the progeny, spotting if they ended up in the right places.
DÓC: What have you high hopes for?
FM: We’ve a very nice filly by Stowaway. She’d be a half-sister to Bellshill. She’s probably the star filly in terms of pedigree and she’s a good looking filly too so I’m sure she’ll stand out. We’ve a nice Shirocco colt out of a half-sister to Blackstairmountain. That pedigree is pretty hot now as well as he’s another half-brother, Fugi Mountain who’s won three bumpers this term.
We’ve a nice Yeats colt out of a mare Itsalark, who won a bumper (at Aintree) by 21 lengths on her only run. I think Yeats could be popular so I’d be hoping he’d do okay. Overall I think we’ve a nice draft of foals this year and it’s great to have a good few colts.
DÓC: When you’re looking to improve your pedigrees, the knack of being ahead of the game with an up-and-coming stallion is paramount.
FM: You just put your faith in a horse. A race record is very important for me. Looks are very important, and soundness. When a young horse has a little bit of progeny coming through, maybe four-year-olds first - that’s a very important year for a stallion.
You wouldn’t be expecting too many winners but if he threw up a few impressive winners, you’d be hoping that might continue and improve.
Take a horse like Stowaway. There’s a stallion who was under the radar for a long time but he’s upgraded his mares hugely and that’s the kind of stallion we’re looking for all the time.
King’s Theatre was a horse that I used extensively early on before he became popular. He was good to us, with Bellshill a good example, and we sold our stock well from him. I think the first National Hunt mare King’s Theatre covered was a mare of mine. That’s going back a good bit now. If you can see around the corner it helps but we’ve got it wrong a few times too.
You have the tried and tested ones too like Presenting. You pay for your insurance there. They cost you more but it’s an insurance policy because you’re going to have a racehorse and a sales horse as well.
DÓC: You mentioned the family involvement.
FM: It’s great to have Dee, Paul and Colin involved. Dee’s husband Conor is a huge part of the equation too as he’s a vet. That’s great as you could be transporting those mares all over the country. So he’s a resident vet. His father Pat has a big involvement too as he owns five or six mares and is a part-owner of Scandisk.
DÓC: Last season’s track successes were fantastic.
FM: It was brilliant. We consigned On The Fringe for a friend of mine, Pat Tobin who had the mare. That was a great thrill. He’s a horse we were watching for a long time ’cos he showed promise and went off the radar for a little while but he came back big time. He’s a fine, big chasing sort of horse with a lot of stamina and those chases suit him big time.
I thought going to Punchestown might have been too hard on Bellshill after the season he’d had but I was totally wrong because ’twas his best run by far. And of the bunch that Willie ran in Cheltenham, he finished the best.
He seems to have a great constitution and be able to stand racing. He’s a very big horse, at 16 3hh and he’ll make a nice chaser when he’s asked to do that.
DÓC: The purchase of Scandisk was pivotal in your development.
FM: She’s been very lucky for us. She’s carrying her seventh foal in seven years since we bought her. We’ve used Yeats four times on her - she’s got a two-year-old Yeats gelding (the sales-topper from 2013), and we’ve got a four-year-old called Avichi who’s in Willie Mullins’s in a minute. We have a full-sister called Blixt going to Willie’s after Christmas. She’s got a yearling Yeats filly at home. She’s got a colt foal by Camelot and she’s back in foal to Camelot again.
We’ll either race Blixt ourselves the same as we’ve done with Avichi or we’ll lease her. We have one unraced filly with Willie already. We have a few fillies leased in England. One is with Nicky Richards that won a couple of weeks ago called Mardale. It’s the first winner I’ve owned after several attempts down through the years! I have a nice Robin Des Champs filly with Alan King called Cajun Fiddle, who will probably go in two weeks’ time.
We have had great success with leased fillies. Cornerback won three races and Brijomi Queen won two. Lyrical Theatre won a listed bumper and was Grade 1-placed for Willie Mullins and he also has Dreambaby, a recent bumper winner. All these fillies came through Yellowford and hopefully there’s many more to come. The plan is that they come back at the end of their racing life, ideally with a bit of blacktype, to continue as broodmares at Yellowford. It doesn’t always work out but that’s the dream.
DÓC What did you see in Scandisk?
FM: Hurricane Fly had won a couple of races at that stage, he might have had one graded race won, and looked promising. But she was a really good looking mare with a good walk. We were in the market for a mare at that stage and she just fit the bill.
We’ve been fairly lucky since. They don’t all turn out like that I can assure you. Hurricane Fly surpassed all expectations. We’re just hopeful that she breeds another horse even half as good as him. That would be great.
The two-year-old by Yeats was a gorgeous looking foal. The way Yeats is going at the moment, he’s looking very promising. If himself and Scandisk gel together we could have a nice horse coming through there. Time will tell.
DÓC: Have you ever dabbled in the flat?
FM: I have absolutely no interest in the flat but my son and daughter, Paul and Deirdre have a few mares between them at this stage and they’re dabbling a bit in the flat. It’s probably a bit of the fear of the unknown with me at this stage. I think I’ll stay where I’m at now.
DÓC: So what is it like economically for the NH breeder now?
FM: The filly trade seems to have improved, looking at the Derby Sale and the Land Rover and I think it’s mainly due to the fact that the ITBA has put in a very good bonus scheme for fillies which props up the prize money an extra €5,000 for 74 races in the season, which is a big plus.
Now we have Weatherbys coming on stream sponsoring four more mares’ bumpers this season as well. And in England, they also have improved their blacktype races for this season.
So those three initiatives are very much welcomed by the breeders. They have improved interest in fillies which was definitely needed because they were definitely the poor relation from the breeder’s point of view. You rarely see fillies taking on the colts or geldings in the flat. In the jumping game you don’t have as much opportunities. I think you need to follow what they do on the flat.
If you look back to the likes of Dawn Run and those, they were all built like geldings but they were the exception. Most fillies are built like fillies and should have their own races I think.
DÓC: What common mistakes do you see newcomers making?
FM: Maybe people who aren’t in it long wouldn’t have the knowledge of people who have been at it all their lives. A lot of people that came in when the Celtic Tiger was roaring seem to have given up the game quickly enough.
But at the same time, small breeders are the backbone of the industry. In East Cork there’s I suppose 30 small breeders with one-to-five mares and it’s as much a love as a business to them in many ways. When the hammer comes down for them it’s like passing the winning post… well, it is for me as well! That’s the pot of gold.
Every day’s a school day. I’d hope to learn from other people. Everyone does it a little bit differently. It’s whatever works for you.
DÓC: Going to Fairyhouse in November with a foal for a breeder must be like going to Cheltenham with a live prospect.
FM: Of course it is. Especially if you’ve got a good colt that’s entitled to make a good price. Hopefully the next step for that particular foal is to do it again when he goes to the track and you get that buzz again.
DÓC: Do you let the market decide what your foal is worth or would you set a reserve?
FM: I would say 90% of the cases at least, we’d leave the market decide. We have to because we have to move 90% of the foals because we’ve another crop coming after Christmas and we have to make room for those, so we have to clear the decks. We’d rarely keep a nice filly to breed from and that might happen every third or fourth year
Two years ago I gave €55,000 for a filly foal. She’s now a two-year-old in foal. That’s what I tend to do with replacement stock. Buy as good a filly as I can find and cover them as two-year-olds.
By the time that filly is seven, she’s got a four-year-old all going well, and a three-year-old and a two-year-old as well if you’re lucky enough. But she’d have to have top-class pedigree and look the part. There’d be a lot of boxes to tick but that will cost you.
You’d get the odd cheap filly too. We bought the half-sister to Blackstairmountain for €4,000 and she’s been very lucky for us.
Her first foal made €20,000 by Scorpion, her second foal last year made €25,000 by Stowaway, she’s got a Shirocco colt in the same sort of mould that should make that kind of money as well and she’s in foal again. And Blackstairmountain won that big race in Japan (the Grand Nakayama).
She was a nice mare that didn’t cost an arm and a leg and it worked.
DÓC: The rumour mill must go into overdrive up there, particularly in relation to new stallions?
FM: It would. Take for example young stallions with four or five-year-olds on the ground. You’d hear all these type of things, their wind is wrong, or a fella is breeding them wrong or there are other issues. But a lot of the time, when you look two or three years down the line there’s no justification for them at all.
You’d prick your ears and listen to what fellas were saying but you’d have to be satisfied yourself down the road because it isn’t always right. It takes most stallions a few years for people to work out what mare they need.
Going back to King’s Theatre, he certainly had a lot of rumours in front of him saying they couldn’t jump and were too small the first few years. They probably were a little small, being sent to too small a mare but breeders got to know what kind of mare suited him and it took a few years for that to filter through. When it did then he was a huge success.