‘The Obvious Next Step’: Barton Back in the Stallion Business with Scorthy Champ

[Wandering Eyes]

During the Second World War, in the early years of what has grown into a world-renowned breeding operation, the Aga Khan III leased Barton Stud, not far outside Newmarket, where his resident stallions included Dastur and Umidwar.

It is a link that echoes in Barton's new recruit, Scorthy Champ, whose arrival sees a return to the stallion business for the farm owned for exactly a century by the Broughton family and run by Tom Blain. Skip back four generations in Scorthy Champ's female line and you will find the name Sharamana, a Darshaan half-sister to Shergar, who was of course bred by the Aga Khan Studs and won the G3 Prix Minerve. (In fact, nine generations back you'll also find the aforementioned 1934 Champion Stakes winner Umidwar.)

Along the way, Herbertstown Stud bought Sharamana's daughter Sharafanya and bred from her the Noverre mare Ceist Eile, who in turn produced Scorthy Champ's dam Fidaaha, bred by Jim Bolger.

Noble lineage aside, it would have been a bit of a stretch to make a case for Fidaaha's entry to stud on the back of her ordinary race record. But the 46-rated daughter of New Approach had been a €200,000 Goffs Orby yearling when sold by Bolger's Redmondstown Stud, and Tally-Ho Stud took a chance on her at €15,000 when put back through the ring two years later. Add several sprinklings of magic Mehmas dust and sure enough Fidaaha has proved to be quite the dab hand at producing black-type winners.

First came Malavath, winner of the G2 Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte and half a length behind Pizza Bianca when second in the G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. She was later bought for €3.2m by Moyglare Stud, having started out as a £29,000 yearling.

Her full-brother Knight then proved that this was no fluke by winning his first two starts, including the G3 Horris Hill Stakes, and later finishing second to Angel Bleu in the G2 Celebration Mile.

Scorthy Champ, Fidaaha's fourth foal, also by Mehmas, is her first at the highest level. He won the G1 Goffs Vincent O'Brien National Stakes on just his third start for Joseph O'Brien, beating subsequent G1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains winner Henri Matisse, having been third behind that same colt in the G2 Futurity Stakes. Scorthy Champ, who raced in the purple and gold colours also carried by the Wexford GAA team, raced for Rectory Road Holdings Ltd, Barry Fowler and Annemarie O'Brien, and the O'Briens will remain supporters of his at stud.

“He's a horse that we've been following for a couple of years. He was obviously an incredibly good two-year-old, he won the National Stakes, but I never thought we'd get him because, being a new stallion operation, I just thought he was going to be too good,” explains Tom Blain, who is now leasing the entire 300-acre Barton Stud and does not hide his delight at being able to add a stallion element to what is already a thriving boarding farm and sales consigning business. 

“It was only towards the end of this year, after speaking with Joseph, that we realised that there probably was a deal to be done. There were a number of other people interested, but Joseph was very helpful in helping us get the horse and was very keen to support us.”

In more recent years, Night Shift stood at Barton before joining Coolmore, and Sir Philip Oppenheimer's Most Welcome was also in residence, but still two decades have passed since then, and with Blain's more commercially-focused tenure of the farm close to Bury St Edmunds, returning to the stallion market was, he says, “the obvious next step”.

“Barton's got a rich history of standing stallions and I've been running the stud for 13 years. Ever since I first came here, it became apparent to me that we could do it, and it's something I've always wanted to do. It's taken me 10 years or so to build the business up, we've got the consigning, we've got a great team of clients here that support us, we've got amazing mares,” he says. 

“We've looked really hard [for a stallion]. We've looked at a lot of horses, we've travelled all over the place – France a number of times. We haven't got the big budgets of some places but we're starting and it's something that I want to do more of, so it's a good beginning.”

It has been a good year on the track for horses bred at Barton, led by the Group/Grade 1 winners Ciecero's Gift and Choisya, bred respectively by Fiona Williams and Rabbah Bloodstock.

“I've been blown away by the clients that we do have,” says Blain, who has since 2017 served on the board of trustees of the Thoroughbred Breeders' Association (TBA). “The support that they've already shown, they've all sort of jumped in behind this horse. I feel very lucky in that regard. A lot of the clients have become my friends and they've seen the progression of the business. It means a lot that they're coming in and supporting us.”

He continues, “I started off breeding from one mare. I know how hard it is, it's only getting harder. I just want to help British breeders do as well as they can and then we all do well. It's as simple as that. It is an industry that has its many struggles, but I'm an optimist, always have been.”

The TBA chairman Philip Newton has warned frequently in the past year of the potential of a “catastrophic collapse” for British breeding in light of reduced foal crops and a falling number of breeders. 

Blain, while admitting that it is worrying when looking at the figures, says, “What I try to think is that the people who do the job well will survive and be good at it. And I think if you can mate your mares properly, and you look after the horses properly and you raise the horses properly, there is money to be made in this industry.

“I think the people that don't do those things, they'll be the people that struggle first. Whether we can help everybody, I don't know. But certainly with my TBA hat on, I think what is encouraging is schemes like GBB [Great British Bonus] have been amazing. And you see as a consigner, as a breeder, they really help. So I do think we can find a solution. We have to work together, as everybody says.”

Following a year in which only three Flat sires retired to stud in Britain, there is renewed optimism, with eight new recruits to the UK for 2026, including the G2 Richmond Stakes winner Royal Scotsman, who heralds the entrance of Genesis Green Stud to the stallion market. Though Barton has an important heritage in this field, for Blain, this is an exciting new venture, and the amenable and scopey Scorthy Champ is already playing his part well, even in the early weeks of his residency.

“It means a lot to me. It means a lot to the team,” Blain says. “The day he arrived, it's a different feel to have a stallion with a stallion yard back open. I think it's how a stud should be run, especially a stud of our size. We've got loads of space.

“I just want to knuckle down and give it our best shot, and to give him the best shot.”

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