WHEN Robson Aguiar picked up a Magician colt for 14,000 guineas at last year’s Tattersalls Ascot Sale, he had a unique insight that it’s unlikely anyone at any sale could have had.

That was that he’d ridden the colt’s sire regularly as a two-year-old during his time as a work rider in Ballydoyle. Racing is an opportunistic industry but it’s unlikely too many people go from riding work on subsequent stallions to then pinhooking their progeny later on, but that’s the link the Brazilian has crafted for himself.

Aguiar sold said colt for 95,000 guineas to Michael O’Callaghan at this year’s Tattersalls Guineas Breeze-Up Sale, creating a profit of 81,000 guineas in what was just another successful sales trade for one of the most progressive outfits in the country.

From Sao Paulo to Mullingar and from work rider to breeze-up consignor and advisor to the burgeoning British-based outfit Amo Racing, Aguiar’s rise through the ranks has been a remarkable success story.

He began as a rider in his native country at the age of 10, riding in cross-country races, then pony racing, before attending the Sao Paulo Jockey Club’s riding school and subsequently riding 220 winners in his native land.

Competitive

“In Brazil the racing is very competitive and the weights the riders have to do are very light,” Aguiar explains. “I started riding from 10 and when I got to the apprentice school, I learned very quickly. At the same time I was there, Silvestre De Sousa was there and Joao Moreira. A lot of the riders that I was there with moved around the world, places like Dubai, Singapore, America, Malaysia.

“Guys talked about Ireland that you could earn as much riding out as you could as a jockey in Brazil and that the weights weren’t as light. But I mostly decided to come to Ireland because I wanted to try something different, something new. I wanted a new opportunity. And you can’t be a jockey forever, so I was thinking about that as well.”

Aguiar followed the lead of De Sousa and moved to Ireland three years after his compatriot did in 2006. When he arrived he got a job with Paul Deegan, with whom he spent three years. Perhaps unsurprisingly rides were hard to come by for him, considering he had no claim, and to date he has ridden two winners in Ireland, both at Dundalk, the first on Adrian Murray’s Shes Ranger in 2016 and the second on Ascot Dreamer in 2019.

He left Deegan’s to work at Ballydoyle where along with Magician, whom he rode as a juvenile, he was entrusted with working the likes of Camelot and Excelebration. It was also at Ballydoyle that he formed a relationship with Roger O’Callaghan of Tally-Ho Stud and this appears to be the significant link Aguiar made to form the ladder to position he now holds.

“I became friends with Roger and I said to him that I’d like to do my own thing and could he help with that,” Aguiar explains. “So I went to work at Tally-Ho in the mornings and then did my own thing in the afternoons. Roger has been very good to me. He helps me and I help him. I started working at Tally Ho to get experience and I still work there now.”

Aguiar entered the breeze-up sector by using other consignors to trade horses but in the last two years, he trades under his own title of ‘Aguiar Bloodstock’ and continues to rent his boxes at Deravarra gallops, just a couple of miles north of Mullingar.

Robson Aguiar and Dermot Farrington at Goffs UK

Bashiba was the name of the first horse he bought and sold. He picked up the son of Iffraaj privately for €16,000 after he was led around unsold at the 2012 Orby Sale before selling him on for 50,000 guineas at the Tattersalls Guineas Sale the following May.

Momentum

That was the push-off he needed and since then his boat has picked up substantial momentum.

He has had startling success with horses bought for bottom-of-the-barrell prices and sold on for significant profits. In 2017 he bought subsequent Group 3 winner Queen Jo Jo for just £11,000 and Dubai Dominion for €26,000 before selling them on for 68,000 guineas and £140,000 respectively.

Robson with daughter Nicole and Rafael and Julia, nephew and niece, on his right

In 2018 he picked up Summer Sands for a mere £2,000. That son of Coach House made £85,000 after his breeze before going on to win the Redcar Two Year Old Trophy before selling on for 625,000 guineas. He now runs in the colours of Chantal Regalado-Gonzalez and is trained by Joseph O’Brien.

And yet, last year was even bigger. Aguiar sourced the subsequent Norfolk winner The Lir Jet for just £8,000, while he also bought Queen Of Rio, listed placed, for just €1,000. He also produced the Gimcrack runner-up and Dewhurst fourth Devilwala and bought Group 3 winner Star Of Emaraaty, who now runs in the renowned colours of Teruya Yoshida, for just €3,500.

This year’s breeze-up sales season has come and gone and Aguiar is content with his lot from the various sales. Beautiful Sunshine and Go Bears Go were two of his big Royal Ascot contenders this week, and the latter came tantalisingly close to giving him a remarkable second winner in the Norfolk Stakes in a row, winning his far side battle against favourite Cadamosto, only to be head away from Perfect Power who emerged best on the near side.

Six-figure lots

That son of Kodi Bear was one of multiple six-figure lots Aguiar sold, however he doesn’t define his success by prices and profits. Speaking from Ascot earlier this week, on the traditional breeze-up consignor’s business holiday, he explains: “This year we had our biggest number for the breeze-up sales and they sold well. I prefer not to concentrate on the prices but on what the horses do on the track and I think they can do very well. All I care about is the future of the horses I sell. There is no point focusing on only the prices. Sometimes horses sell well and don’t do as well as you expect and sometimes horses are cheap and do better than you expect.

“Next year, maybe we will have to go more gentle because this year, not as many owners wanted to buy horses. It’s tough for some people. They have businesses struggling because of the pandemic and maybe it will take two or three more years for them to come back. I will work hard to keep my business going but I think we need to be careful.”

Aguiar’s story is a highly successful one but perhaps not outrageous when you see his CV, which has the ingredients for a concoction tailored for the breeze-up game.

He has talked before of how he learned to ride horses bareback in Brazil, which improves a rider’s balance, and he talks of paying attention everyday at Ballydoyle at how horses were conditioned and trained. He learned and still learns from breeze-up business masters in the Tally-Ho team and clearly has the work ethic to complement what his experiences.

“If you see all my horses in the breeze-ups, they don’t do the fastest times but they do it straight,” Aguiar explains. “We teach them to be like a racehorse. We don’t drill them. We do a lot of slow work, we work them like a two-year-old would be worked for the season as a whole, not especially for a breeze.

“We teach them how to be a racehorse, try to get them to be calm and relaxed. That’s the job. We don’t think the breeze-up is a race day for them. We use the breeze to show the ability they have, their action. A racehorse needs a good action and to relax when they travel. If you make them as a two-furlong horse, maybe some won’t make it as a racehorse. You get them too wired up.

“In the breeze-ups, everything you’re doing is important. You have to know how to buy, you have to know how to break, you have to know how to train and you have to know where you’re going to send them.”

On his eagle eye for a bargain at the sales, Aguiar adds: “I work very hard at the sales. If I like a horse and they are in my budget, I will try to buy but I don’t just buy a cheap horse because it’s a cheap horse. I like to see every horse at a sale. A lot of the horses I cannot buy because of their pedigrees but I prefer to buy the horse before the pedigree anyway.”

Robson leads work on the Deravarra gallops

Amo Racing

Aguiar’s success has opened up other doors and through a chance meeting with prominent football agent Kia Joorabchian at the sales, he fashioned himself a role with burgeoning and big-spending outfit Amo Racing.

The purple silks have been carried to victory 13 times by juveniles already this season and have been one of the driving factors in the remarkable record of the George Boughey yard. They also had the 50/1 runner-up in the Derby in Mojo Star who could be bound for the Curragh next week.

“I met Kia at the sales and recommended that he buy Devilwala because I knew he was a good horse from working with The Lir Jet at home. Since then we’ve started working together and it’s great for me because Amo Racing is exciting. We’ve had a lot of winners and the job is always to find the next top class horse. It’s not an easy task but if you work hard you can do it.”

Pre-trained

Aguiar pre-trained 15 horses for Amo Racing during the winter but also acts as an advisor to Joorabchian, making suggestions of horses to buy. That has allowed him to stand around sales rings with the opposite role to his usual stance and at a much higher end of the market.

Aguiar has rode two winners in Ireland following 220 wins in Brazil \ Healy Racing

In the last year he bought a Kingman colt for 300,000 guineas and a Kodiac colt for 420,000 guineas on the behalf of Amo Racing.

The breeze-up sales remain his main business and after another good year, he hopes to continue his progress starting again at the yearling sales this autumn. His operation is one with a significant family and Brazilian influence and the tight-knit team clearly work well together.

“I love what I do, working with good horses, and I work very hard because I want to produce good horses,” Aguiar explains. “The people that work for me, they are mostly all family. We do everything together and we’re a good team.

“Maybe some day I can buy my own farm. I’m in Ireland for 15 years now and my family are very happy here.”