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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
With the two only realistic contenders of the three runners contesting Wednesday's Listed British Stallion Studs EBF Stonehenge Stakes at Salisbury, Darley's first-season sire Palace Pier was almost guaranteed to make his breakthrough in black-type company and so it proved as Morris Dancer led home A Bit Of Spirit for a neat one-two. Runner-up in the Vintage at Goodwood last month, Godolphin's homebred surprisingly drifted to 11-10 second favouritism to see off the Clive Cox-trained 5-6 market-leader and after taking over from that peer approaching the furlong pole drew away to do so by four lengths. “He ran a huge race at Goodwood and he's learning on the job, is very genuine and straightforward,” jockey William Buick said. “It was a far-run race and you can take a bit out of it–there was no bias and so you can take that form seriously. He won't mind a bit of juice in the ground and he can go back to seven furlongs or stay at a mile.” The post First Stakes Winner For Palace Pier As Morris Dancer Leads Stonehenge One-Two For Freshman appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Three new auction items, with all proceeds benefitting the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, Permanently Disabled Jockeys' Fund, and Belmont Child Care Association, will become available for bidding beginning Aug. 14-20. Items include: a complete set of artist Greg Montgomery's signed Travers Stakes poster series from 1986 through 2025 in one-of-a-kind presentation packaging; the Museum's box seats at Saratoga Race Course for this year's Travers Stakes day; and Twice the Heart, a limited-edition casting designed by artist Jocelyn Russell based on the monument completed in 2023 depicting Secretariat in retirement at Claiborne Farm in Paris, KY. To view and bid on these items, please click here. The post Auction Set To Benefit National Museum Of Racing, Belmont Child Care Association And PDJF appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Leanna Packard has been appointed Head of Marketing and Partnerships at TBA and Aushorse to take effect Sept. 1, the company announced Wednesday. Originally from the United States, Leanna is a graduate of The Ohio State University and began her career in marketing at WinStar Farm in Kentucky before relocating to Australia. For the past eleven years, she has served as Marketing Manager and Racing Coordinator at Newgate. In her new role, Leanna will lead marketing across both TBA and Aushorse, manage sponsorships and partnerships, and drive stakeholder engagement initiatives to further elevate the visibility and influence of Australia's thoroughbred breeding and racing industry. Also joining the TBA/Aushorse team: Meagan McGrath as Head of Advocacy & Communications, Gemma Cameron as Head of Finance & Administration and Madison Tims as Head of Education & Projects. “These appointments mark an exciting new chapter for TBA and Aushorse,” said TBA and Aushorse CEO Andrew Hore-Lacy. “With the guidance of our Boards and the support of our members, we are well positioned to strengthen our industry and advance the interests of Australian breeders both nationally and internationally.” The post Leanna Packard Named New Head Of Marketing And Partnerships For Thoroughbred Breeders Australia appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Fergus Galvin, their consignor, called it “one of the greatest pinhooks of all time.” To Blaise Benjamin and Charles Hynes, it was just another example of the way every new day at Ashford Stud brings a fresh lesson, a fresh opportunity. That might just involve quietly clocking the way one of the old hands reassures a nervous horse, or it might mean catching the $1,000 Tiz the Law weanling who fell through the cracks at the New York Mixed Sale at Saratoga last fall. Back in the same ring last Sunday, she brought $170,000. Benjamin and Hynes, along with their contemporary Michael Norris, happened to sit down with TDN ahead of the auction to share their privileged sense of how their work, by daily increments, nourishes their evolution as horsemen. But all three also stressed how they are encouraged to convert observation to opportunity. The whole Coolmore saga having begun with its founders' flair for stockmanship and trade, staff are always encouraged to participate in the market themselves. Because there is no better way to understand clients' needs than to share their ups and downs—the painful challenge to your tenacity, when things don't work out, as well as the euphoria or simple relief when they do. “A lot of us have got involved in the game ourselves: pinhooking, breeding, racing,” Norris confirmed. “That way, you're immersed in the industry on a day-to-day basis. Even though I'm now based more in the office, come sales season we're all out there every day: we see every colt, every filly, by any of our stallions. We rate the progeny, make notes on them all, compare what a mare produces from different matings.” There is a natural confluence, after all, between that exhaustive appraisal and the quest by any regular pinhooker for outlying value. And, working where they do, they will never lack for paragons. “Because you're lucky enough to see what the good ones look like, you can then go out and try to apply that,” Hynes said. “Going to the sales is the greatest perk of the job. Touch wood, I'm still getting educated, but the grounding you get here is a huge part of any touches we have managed to have at the sales.” In this particular case, the daughter of an unraced sister to Grade I winner Unbridled Mo (Uncle Mo) was the first weanling Benjamin and Hynes wrote up as they set to work last fall: she had some growing to do, but she was a fluid mover with great genes and so they lined up a couple of partners to follow her through. They barely had time to ask each other what they might have missed about her when the hammer fell. They sent her to Hannah and Aidan Jennings at Killora Stud, Tiz the Law gained momentum, and the rest is history. But such are the potential destinations, once the individual roads taken by this generation converged at Ashford. Their inception tended to be very different. Norris, for instance, was raised at storied Jockey Hall Stud in Ireland, and his great-grandfather owned Cottage Rake. Benjamin, in contrast, spent his boyhood in Jamaica and, when first urged that he might work with horses, replied: “With what!? Absolutely not.” Michael Norris | Coolmore Yet now they find themselves sharing a renewal, at Coolmore, parallel to the way Justify is reopening the kind of transatlantic transfusions that once nourished its rise, through sons of Northern Dancer. For a new cycle is also underway in the responsibilities nowadays entrusted, most obviously to M.V. Magnier, but also to numerous of his contemporaries. All, naturally, have been well schooled in a familiar corporate ethic of self-effacement. As such, the three 30-somethings giving us their time represent but a snapshot of peers making an increasing impact across the organization. Each happens to be earning his stripes at Ashford. But many of their colleagues in Ireland and Australia would recognize the pattern: coalface experience, around the farm, before embracing fresh opportunities with the sales team. Norris, as already noted, was bred for the game. Besides Cottage Rake, his “page” includes grandfather Paddy, who trained winners of the Coventry and Irish Grand National–and whose mother-in-law owned Vincent O'Brien's first Classic winner, Chamier (1953 Irish Derby). Norris's father is an equine vet; his mother operated the highly-regarded Jockey Hall consignment; and aunt Ines Malone works for BBA(Ireland). “Open the gate and you'd be looking straight onto the Curragh plain,” he recalls of home. “My mother consigned all over Europe, yearlings and especially mares. So, yes, I was kind of born into it. And when I said I might want to get into the industry, and where should I go, Mum's only suggestion was Coolmore. 'They're the best,' she said. 'And that's not going to change.'” But coming here was a chance he had to earn. His prior resume duly included junior experience at Gilltown, a stint in Australia and, in 2015, the Irish National Stud course. When finally arriving in Kentucky, he pictured staying a year. That was over a decade ago. Having started with barren and maiden mares, Norris moved onto stallions for several years, including shuttles to South America. He has also loved following the Ballydoyle careers of yearlings he helped to break, like Tenebrism (Caravaggio), evidently as tough then as she proved in her races. The adolescent Benjamin, for his part, had never shown the slightest interest in Jamaica's single racetrack when his parents moved to Florida, fortuitously settling at Ocala. “Originally they were thinking Tallahassee,” Benjamin recalls. “But when he was driving north, my dad started seeing all these big oak trees. And I remember him calling my mom and saying, 'Found a spot.'” And, actually, there was a family connection to the Turf: trainer Jose Pinchin is married to Benjamin's aunt. It was Pinchin who suggested that he might find work, pending a crack at college, in one of the many Thoroughbred programs around his new home. We already know what Benjamin thought of that notion. But his dad urged him to give it a try. “You never know,” he said. “What do you have to lose?” Benjamin Blaise and Golden Pal | courtesy Benjamin Blaise So he did six months with Bo Hunt. “And I will tell you, the first month I absolutely hated,” Benjamin recalls. “But then one day I caught a loose colt. That was my first proper interaction. Before that, they'd just had me wrapping bandages. But that day the manager said, 'Right, we're putting you in a stall tomorrow.' So I started mucking out, and gradually got to be more hands-on. And I just fell in love with the whole thing.” Then followed three years with Eddie Woods. “That was an eye-opener,” Benjamin acknowledges. “It was tough work, and Eddie was tough too–but fair. And, again, I loved it. I got to go to all the sales with him, just watching quietly all the way. The way he ran that operation, it's second-to-none.” In 2009, with the Woods juveniles processed, Benjamin landed a summer posting with Todd Pletcher. Grooming a horse owned by Coolmore partner Michael Tabor secured an introduction to Ashford manager Dermot Ryan, and an invitation to the farm on his way back from Saratoga. “I'll never forget pulling up to those big gates and thinking, 'What in the world is this place?'” Benjamin recalls. “I drove down the main avenue, called my mom and said, 'Yeah, I don't think I'm coming home.'” The HR manager thought they could find him something from January. In the event they called a week before Christmas and asked whether he might conceivably come early? “I was 19, didn't have any real ties to Ocala other than my parents,” Benjamin recalls. “So I said, 'Absolutely.' My mom was like, 'You're going right before Christmas?' I told her, 'Don't worry, I'll be back.' That was 15 years ago.” They put him straight in with the stallions. Strong as he was, that would knock the edges off anyone. “But no, it was great,” Benjamin replies. “After working with 2-year-olds, I wasn't sure what to expect. The first horses I groomed were Fusaichi Pegasus and Tale of the Cat. He had a mean streak. You just had to do things his way. Try and fight him, he's going to win every time. FuPeg? He was temperamental. I wouldn't say he was a bad horse, but he could be a bit silly. But I learned so much under Richard Barry. Hard as he had to be, what a man of knowledge. It was like he was put on this earth to take care of stallions.” As for Hynes, he followed a middle path: though raised in a tradition of stockmanship, in Co. Roscommon, he had no exposure to Thoroughbreds. “I did have an interest in horses, and studied equine science at university,” Hynes explains. “My father would go to every horse fair in Ireland. He was a carpenter, but we had cattle at home, and gradually he got into dealing in ponies, just as a hobby. I think it's a great grounding, if you're able to look after animals from a young age.” In 2010, at the University of Limerick, he was lucky to land an internship in Kentucky; luckier yet, to be allocated Ashford. “I was put under Bob Davis: in my opinion, the best in the business,” Hynes recalls. “From foals and yearlings, to pasture management it: all levels of farm management. I came here green as grass. But if you were at all willing, he'd encourage you. And I picked up early that if you walk into a barn where everything's neat and tidy, and you and the horses are well presented, straightaway that creates a positive impression.” Hynes was welcomed back straight after completing his degree. Here was a second education: foaling barn, yearling prep, breaking. The first horse he ever lunged was Take Charge Indy. After a spell back in Ireland–another to take the National Stud diploma–in 2012, Hynes returned to Ashford and within a few weeks found himself escorting 11 stallions to Australasia. Nowadays, besides his work in the sales team, Hynes assists Davis at Brookside with the cream of the broodmare band. And that's what can happen here. No need to formalize modules: if the management like how you take one chance, you'll be offered another. That aggregates to its own kind of flying start. “That's the great thing about Coolmore, you've so many options,” Hynes says. “Everything's here in one spot. If your attitude is right, you can get to see every part of it. And our core group of grooms is so strong, mostly you're picking up from the people you're working with.” Charles Hynes | Coolmore “The Coolmore 'school of education' can rival any program in the world,” agrees Norris. “The one thing I was always told, coming here, was: there are no stupid questions. Ask, and you'll get the answers. You'll be shown the right way to do things. Because the way they do it here is the best way. There are other programs that might have a more formal, more academic emphasis. But here we've all come up through the ranks. Everyone in the office has put in the practical work on the farm.” Benjamin puts it well: “I never went to college, per se–but I ended up at the Yale of horses.” But the privileges of that education are all earned. “Everybody's given the same opportunities,” Benjamin says. “It's about who goes and grabs the bull by the horns. Dermot has been a phenomenal mentor. If he sees you want to learn, he'll give you the chance.” In fact, Benjamin was just 23 when placed in charge of the breeding shed: an extraordinary responsibility at that age. Pretty much all Ryan said to him was: “Don't let me down.” Even then, Benjamin too could diversify. In June, he typically moved onto yearlings. (He remembers taking care of a lazy, big-walking colt from American Pharoah's first crop: Four Wheel Drive.) Then, a couple of years ago, he joined the sales team. “And again, in this organization, that's a broader job,” Norris suggests. “You're helping with ads, and obviously the clientele is so large. It's a great team: Aisling [Duignan], Charlie [O'Connor], Adrian [Wallace], Robyn [Murray], they're the best of mentors, in my opinion the best around at what they do.” (Not least because this team, despite the gender bias in this sample, also benefits from feminine intuitions! As Ryan acknowledges, “Aisling and Robyn have been absolute standouts when any of these lads has looked for advice in how to handle a difficult situation.”) While some stalwarts stay half a century, the industry is full of horsemen who learned their trade here before going solo. That, too, forms part of the wider Coolmore legacy. But precisely that willingness to let people take responsibility also means that the whole empire, through an ongoing transition between generations, has achieved sustainability. “The environment is very calm, and at the same time very professional,” Hynes says. “That comes from the top, and it's encouraged all the way down. Then it's up to all of us to maintain that same standard and atmosphere. If people are good enough to start their own thing, best of luck to them. But they will have that steady grounding behind them. If you're able for it, and have the appetite, you'll get opportunity. And that gives you a responsibility, in turn, to encourage the next people coming in.” “It's always about what happens next,” Norris adds. “When Galileo was producing the best horses in Europe, they needed outcross options. And look at what Wootton Bassett did then, from standing in France for €4,000. That's the kind of thing that happens with an organization that's at the forefront, but always striving for better.” “Just look around you,” says Benjamin, shaking his head. “What a testament to everything Mr. Magnier has built up. It's crazy to think about. When they do something, they do it right. And, knock on wood, they've created something that should be around a very long time. Being here, I just count my lucky stars every day.” The post Next Generation Keeps Coolmore Evolving appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Frankel's Helenium (lot 50) was knocked down for €600,000 to Quirke Bloodstock on behalf of Coolmara Stables halfway through Autav's Jean-Pierre Dubois Sale on Wednesday. Already the dam of a pair of fillies by Kingman, the 6-year-old half-sister to the late Calyx (Invincible Spirit) is carrying once again to that Juddmonte stallion. Helenium was bred by Dream With Me Stable, Inc. Out of the G3 Prix d'Aumale heroine Helleborine (Observatory), Helenium is also a half-sister to the listed winner and GII Distaff Turf Mile second Coppice (Kingman). Under the second dam is G1 Sprint Cup heroine African Rose (Observatory), the ancestress of multiple group winner Fair Eva (Frankel) and Classic winner and sire Native Trail (Oasis Dream). The post Calyx’s Half-Sister Helenium Brings €600k From Quirke Bloodstock On Behalf Of Coolmara Stables At Auctav appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article
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