Luck Being a Lady to Nash

[Wandering Eyes]

Serendipity is priceless in this business. Though they number no more than 20, for instance, this is the second time that one of the Dromingrove Farm mares has been steeply elevated by events. And you may recall an equally startling outcome, in Dubai a couple of years ago, after Delia Nash had found herself reluctantly obliged to retain and race an unsold horse. But then Nash has been around horses all her life, back to her County Limerick girlhood, and understands that no matter what you get right, the most important thing is to be lucky.

“Oh, don't worry, I don't think I've cracked it!” Nash says wryly. “I've been around long enough to know there's a hell of a lot more bad days than good. So you need to take every little bit of energy and enjoyment from the good ones, when they happen. And then, those bad days, you need to just suck it up and try for the good days again–because they do come.”

On this occasion, mind, it was literally a case of Lady Luck entering her life. For that was the name of an unraced Medaglia d'Oro mare she found herself inspecting at the Keeneland January Sale in 2022.

“She wasn't on my list because on the face of it, the pedigree wasn't super-exciting,” Nash admits. “But when I went to the Gainesway barn, Sean Tugel asked could he add one to the three or four I wanted to see. And he pulled out this very attractive mare. Big, strong, plenty of scope, a very kind eye. Just a lot of class about her. The type of mare you like looking at, out in the field.”

Tugel mentioned how Lady Luck's half-brother by Uncle Mo had made $450,000 the previous September. The word was that he was shaping well for his powerful owners, and on his way to Brad Cox. And meanwhile their dam, after both Lady Luck and then a Tapit colt had failed to make the gate, had lately got off the mark with a son of Into Mischief–Strava, later placed in a couple of stakes–at the Keeneland fall meet.

“So all the kind of things you want to hear,” Nash says. “Of course you do also kind of go, 'Yeah, yeah, whatever.' But a potential upside is always something I'm looking for. Because if they're already proven, I can't afford them. So she stuck in my mind.”

After all, Nash had just seen for herself the kind of thing that can happen, rolling the dice on a young mare.

Back at the 2018 Keeneland November Sale, Nash had bought another 5-year-old after she had fallen short of her reserve at $19,000. At the time, Lemon Liqueur (Exchange Rate) only had a yearling by Honor Code and a weanling filly by Quality Road, and was now empty. But then her filly was bought by Peter Brant at Saratoga the following summer, named Bleecker Street, and had just extended her unbeaten start to three in a Tampa Bay allowance.

By the time Nash took her half-sister by Flatter to Keeneland, that September, Bleecker Street had added four graded stakes, including the GI New York Stakes. Brant duly gave $475,000 for the Flatter filly, and this September returned with the same sum for a brother to Bleecker Street. In between, Nash had retained a stake in Lemon Liqueur's Not This Time 2022 colt when hammered for $535,000 to CJ Thoroughbreds. As Mesero, he ran second in the GIII Old Dominion Derby in September.

“So that mare has been an absolute blessing,” Nash said. “And actually I ended up buying the Flatter filly back as a broodmare prospect at Keeneland last November.” (She's now in foal to Good Magic).

Could something similar happen here? Nash went back next day for another look at Lady Luck and decided that she might stretch to $100,000.

In the event, she has her friend Emma Quinn to thank for venturing one last bid at $135,000.

“I was like, 'No, I'm done,'” Nash recalls. “But Emma was beside me and said, 'Go on, hit her one more time!' So I did. And I never regretted it. When I turned her out in the paddock that evening, I looked at her and thought: 'I overpaid for you, but I'm glad to have you.' And it turned out that I didn't overpay at all!”

In fact, she cleared the whole investment in one hit, when the Maclean's Music filly she was then carrying brought $300,000 as a yearling. By that stage, Lady Luck's half-brother by Uncle Mo was up and running, winner of his first two before missing the GIII Peter Pan Stakes by a head. Bishops Bay was held up in 2024, but has bounced back with a five-for-seven campaign this year, including three graded stakes–most recently the GIII Forty Niner Stakes. In the meantime, moreover, Catch My Drift's next foal had proved still more exciting: Catching Freedom (Constitution) won the GII Louisiana Derby before running fourth in the GI Kentucky Derby itself.

Bishops Bay | Hodges Photography

“I knew there was a Constitution who'd just turned a yearling when I bought her,” Nash recalled. “And I saw that the Albaugh family bought him that September, and that he ended up in the same barn as Bishops Bay. So I was kind of following him along, watching his works, but then next thing I knew he was on the Triple Crown trail.”

With those updates on the page, Lady Luck's first foal for Nash–a Yaupon colt–made $350,000 from Centennial Farms at the 2024 September Sale.

“I couldn't go to Uncle Mo with her at that stage,” Nash reasons. “Bishops Bay hadn't done anything yet, and I'd only had her a few months. Then she went to Good Magic, but spent the afternoon out there and he wouldn't cover her. It was getting late in the year, so I tried sending her to Uncle Mo on the way home. But she didn't take, so she had no yearling for this year. But now she has an Uncle Mo filly on the ground, who's very nice.”

And that's the great thing about this story: both Bleecker Street's dam and Catching Freedom's half-sister were young enough to exploit their upgrades. Smaller programs often find that things like this happen too late: the mare has been retired, maybe, or even sold on.

“I've been very lucky,” Nash acknowledges. “Both my best mares had success very young, so touch wood they'll keep producing for me. I'm also fortunate that it's not my primary business. I don't want to lose money, raising or racing horses. I'm very competitive by nature, and just want to be successful no matter what I do. But it does mean I have a little bit of leeway, in terms of the stress of when those bills fall.”

Nash joined the Kentucky Performance Products in 2000, four years after first sampling the expatriate Irish community around Lexington on an Equine Science placement from the University of Limerick. Hers was under Pat Costello at Crescent Hill.

“I think there were 13 or 14 of us that came over to different farms,” she recalls. “We worked hard, and partied equally hard. But we showed up for work every day and made some great connections. I knew, leaving, that this was where the future was.”

She took a stake in the nutrition supplements business in 2016 before buying out her partner in 2024.

“It's grown dramatically, especially the last seven or eight years, so that's been a lot of fun as well,” Nash says appreciatively. “Business–whether in racing, nutrition or whatever–is the same, always volatile. Doesn't matter how good your decisions are, at the time, there are lots of external factors that you've no control over. So it can be stressful, but it's also very rewarding when you see something evolve and grow. Again, you have to enjoy the successes and learn from the mistakes.”

Clients range from local to international, from Thoroughbreds to show jumpers and eventers. But Nash discourages people from treating supplements as rocket fuel.

“Not every horse needs to supplement,” she emphasizes. “You identify a need, and find a product that has some efficacy for that need. We do a lot of work with universities, so that we have peer-reviewed, independent research behind our products. I have no control over the outcome of that research. Either something works or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, I don't want to put my name to it. So I focus on that, rather than the shiny label that tells you that it cures everything. I have to believe in something to be able to sell it. As opposed to telling people, 'Oh, I feed two scoops of this and half a scoop of that and my horse runs brilliant.' If only it was that easy.”

Sibelius | Ryan Thompson

The true vagaries of the racetrack were measured by a short yearling from the first crop of Not This Time, bought as a pinhook with Jun Park at the 2019 Keeneland January Sale ($62,000 RNA).

“When we brought him back, in September, he had turned into a very nice yearling,” Nash recalls. “He had a few little things in the X-ray, but nothing that we thought might stop people buying him. But it turned out he failed every vet. Neither of us owned racehorses, but we said we'd break him and send him to Jerry O'Dwyer, and hopefully sell him as a racehorse.”

Sibelius broke his maiden at Keeneland second time out, but it was with maturity as a 4-year-old that he got on a real roll, with a couple of stakes wins and the GIII Mr. Prospector Stakes earning him a crack at the G1 Golden Shaheen.

“Did we feel we had a very nice horse?” Nash asks. “We did. We felt he deserved to be there and was going to be competitive. But we also knew we were up against the best sprinters in the world. I still watch that race and say, 'I know I was there. I know I witnessed that. But did that really happen?' He was a horse that we felt always needed to run towards the front. And that day he broke late from the one hole and got cut off. Ryan Moore gave him a dream ride. He never panicked and, when he got a gap, he gave that horse so much confidence to go through.”

As recently explored by colleague Sara Gordon, Sibelius has continued to thrill his owners with a second career in dressage under O'Dwyer's wife Alison.

“That horse gave us the adventure of a lifetime,” Nash says. “And, as so often, it wasn't something that we set out to achieve, either. He brought a really good group of people together, and we just had a great time. I still get stuck for words, thinking about it.

“But look, I pinch myself daily. I've been very fortunate to have been given so many opportunities, to have been surrounded by such good people. There's a fantastic community here. We all go out and compete against each other, very aggressively, but it's very close-knit as well.”

The inadvertent expansion of her program has required Nash to lease some overspill.

“I bought a little farm, and built a barn before a house–as all good horse people do–but I have outgrown that,” she admits. “I suppose it's the worst thing that can happen, to have a little bit of success. You think, 'Oh, this is great, let's just build on that.' Because it's addictive. I mean, I swore I would never have a racehorse–and then I had Sibelius, and now I've bits and pieces all over, and another addiction. But it's so exciting, to be watching horses run and families getting updates on a Saturday afternoon. If it is an addiction, it's a very enjoyable one.”

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