‘We Had No Intention of Standing Stallions’: Royal Scotsman Heralds a New Era at Genesis Green Stud

[Wandering Eyes]

The road sign at the turn-off from Ousden towards Wickhambrook reads 'This is a quiet lane'. Drive a mile or so down that lane and it becomes considerably less quiet as one arrives at Genesis Green Stud. There, the unmistakably booming voice of Michael Swinburn greets visitors, who will be arriving in increasing numbers over the next few months, and he is unmistakably excited about the reason behind this.

“Come and see him,” Swinburn says with gusto of the stud's newest arrival, the Group 2 winner Royal Scotsman, who is about to turn Genesis Green into a stallion operation for the first time in its near-70-year existence.

Alongside him is his father, the sprightly Wally, who will turn 89 in a week's time. “Forty-two years we've been here and everything is working well and now he drops this on me,” says Wally in a mock huff, but with a gleam in his eye which suggests that he will relish every bit of what is coming.”

He adds, “I mean, can you imagine an ex-jockey buying a stud farm?” 

Well, yes actually, it is easy to imagine if that jockey happens to bear the name Wally Swinburn, the champion in Ireland in 1976 and 1977, who also rode with great success in Britain, France and India. And in fact, he and his wife Doreen bought the farm from another former jockey, Harry Carr, who set it up in 1958.

Three generations are ensconced there now. Doreen ushers us in to her 'Irish kitchen', as welcoming as that title implies. Their neighbour, bloodstock agent Grant Pritchard-Gordon, has come to view Royal Scotsman and to pick the brains of Michael and Nicky Swinburn's youngest son, Jake, who has recently completed the Godolphin Flying Start course and is now employed by Total Performance Data. Leaf-blower in hand, Jake is clearly actively involved with all the goings-on at Genesis Green, while his brother Ben is currently working in Ireland at Yeomanstown Stud. Lively conversation ensues, overlapping from different corners of the table, son often correcting father, from one generation to the next.

You get a lot more than you bargained for when going to view a Genesis Green stallion, especially if you happen to be a lover of racing history. There in the hallway is the bronze gifted by the Aga Khan of Shergar and Walter Swinburn, Wally and Doreen's much-missed son, alongside a photo of Wally holding the great horse at Ballymany Stud just a month before his kidnap. 

Then there are Wally's fascinating tales – of taking Stanerra to Tokyo to win the third running of the Japan Cup for Frank Dunne in 1983, of Charles Engelhard and riding Romulus, of being jocked off Blue Wind by Lester Piggott in the Oaks the year Walter won the Derby on Shergar.  Father and son did at least end up completing a Derby/Oaks double of sorts as Wally rode Blue Wind when she won the Irish Oaks. 

We could stay for hours – we did! – and eventually conversation turns to the five-year-old son of Gleaneagles whom the Swinburns have known since his weanling days. 

 

Royal Scotsman | Emma Berry

 

Genesis Green Stud, which now comprises 165 acres across two neighbouring farms, is well established as a commercial consignor on the sales beat, once emotionally topping the December Foal Sale at Tattersalls when selling a Dubawi colt to Godolphin for 1.8m gns. That same year, 2021, Genesis Green consigned on behalf of breeder Rabbah Bloodstock the colt who would become known as Royal Scotsman to Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Sale, selling him for 125,000gns to Ed Sackville for owners Jim and Fitri Hay.

“We had no intention of standing stallions,” says Michael Swinburn as he begins to recount the tale of the return to Suffolk of Royal Scotsman, who at one stage had been pencilled in to begin his stud career in France. 

“There was a little bit of a problem [with that plan] and there had been a lot of conversation with [the Hays' racing manager] Alex Cole. When Jim heard I might be interested in him as a stallion, he said that he wanted him to stand in England and to breed to the horse. 

“Basically, Alex came back with a proposal and we bought half the horse. It all happened that quickly and that suddenly, but he was always a horse I was interested in breeding to anyway.”

He continues, “He came here as a weanling and he was an absolute belter. This was just an opportunity really too good to pass by.”

Certainly, breeders calling in to see Royal Scotsman will be unlikely to leave disappointed as he has lovely balance and is a fine stamp of a horse, standing a little over 16.1hh. His race record is worth rereading, too. 

Breaking his maiden on his second start for Paul and Oliver Cole at Goodwood by five lengths, he then went straight to the Coventry to finish third to Bradsell and Persian Force, with Blackbeard two lengths behind him in fourth. On his next start at Goodwood, he landed the Richmond Stakes before finishing fifth in the Gimcrack, with a subsequent poor scope being given as the reason for that disappointment. Royal Scotsman's best run at two, however, was undoubtedly his seasonal swansong in the Dewhurst in which he was beaten a head by Chaldean.

That pair would meet again on the first Saturday of May the following year. Chaldean again had the upper hand, with Royal Scotsman taking third behind Hi Royal in the 2,000 Guineas. After sub-par efforts in the Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James's Palace, Royal Scotsman sat out the rest of the year “with a niggle”, but he was back at four to win the G3 Diomed Stakes at Epsom and finish second to Topgear in the G2 Challenge Stakes.

“At the end of the day, he's not just a Group 2 winner or a Group 3 winner who was a fast horse: he was a class horse,” Swinburn says. “He was unlucky not to be champion two-year-old. Third in the Coventry, he won the Richmond in a faster time than Mehmas or Vandeek. He holds the record for the Richmond. He was basically unlucky in the Dewhurst, hence his rating of 118 as a two-year-old.

“He's a good-looking horse with a lovely pedigree. He's everything, really, that I look for in a stallion: good two-year-old, trained on, out of a black-type mare.”

 

Chaldean

-©racingfotos_76274325132-300x214.jpg" alt="" width="598" height="426" /> A tight finish in the Dewhurst between Royal Scotsman and Chaldean | Racingfotos

 

Out of the twice Listed-placed Cheveley Park Stud-bred mare Enrol (Pivotal), Royal Scotsman is a half-brother to the multiple Hong Kong winner Encountered (Churchill), who was runner-up to California Spangle in the G2 Sha Tin Trophy. He comes along at a time when his sire Gleneagles is enjoying something of a resurgence via his recent Group 1 winners Calandagan, who is vying with Ka Ying Rising for 'world's best horse' honours, Mill Stream, who is now ensconced at Yeomanstown Stud, Arrow Eagle, and Palladium. And, if you like this kind of thing, Royal Scotsman has a double dose of the influential broodmare Special in his pedigree.

The announcement of his arrival to Genesis Green Stud came late in the year but, at a time when a lot of smaller breeders are perhaps leaving their mating decisions later than usual, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Swinburn has been encouraged by the response so far.

He says, “Even at the December sales, we weren't sure whether it was going to happen or not. But the thing that has surprised me is the amount of goodwill. People have been coming up to me and saying, 'Well done, Michael.'

“We sent 14 mares to Ireland last year and, since Brexit, that has become prohibitively expensive. It used to be just under £1,000 to get one over and back for us to do it ourselves. Now it's close to £2,000. So you could go to Ireland for a €5,000 to €10,000 stallion, or you could have a good value £6,000 stallion here. I'd like to think breeders commercially can make money out of him.

“Because he didn't run [in 2025], we decided to be very aggressive with the price to hopefully get to pick the mares that we wanted. We're not going to compete with the big stallion Irish operations covering 150-200 mares. One, there aren't the mares in England to do that. And two, nor did we want to do that, to be perfectly frank. Are we going to be leading first-season sire? With winners, no. But I'd like to think we'll have a good shout at being leading sire by winners to runners.”

He continues, “I want it to be like Tim Rogers used to do in the olden days. He used to stand them low, pick his mares – with Habitat, all those stallions. We're not looking to be out in three years on this horse. Hopefully he'll be here 15 years-plus covering mares.”

Swinburn is realistic in his assessment of the issues currently facing the breeding industry through a contracting foal crop and he has seen through his own boarding business the gradual loss of some of the traditional smaller owner-breeders. Despite this and the competitiveness of the stallion market he insists that his new stallion will not cover mares without a suitable profile. 

“I'll manage that part of it in the nicest possible way,” he says of potentially having to let down breeders whose mares have been poor producers for a number of years. “Someone has to tell them, in a nice way. If IKEA were making tables for £100 and selling them for £50, they wouldn't be making those tables for very long. We've got to be open with ourselves and say that.”

He does however believe that there is still room for optimism. “I think the GBB scheme [Great British Bonus] is important, especially for the market that he's going to be in, which is middle to low end. The GBB is a big thing for British breeders.”

He adds, “The thing that's gone is basically what our old clients were – the owner-breeder, like Peter Pritchard or the Scotts. Those people had them in training and wanted a place to put their mare. The returns, the economics of it doesn't make sense now, unless they're able to wheel and deal a bit.

“To be perfectly honest, I would say our sales are subsidising our owners here. It's nice to have the cashflow coming through from them but we couldn't survive as a farm just having walk-in mares or permanent boarders. It wouldn't pay. Keeping mares and doing it properly – coming in for a feed every day, not being fed in the paddocks and stuff like that – that takes labour.”

And he is adamant in his view that racing's leaders have to make a stronger case to government when it comes to the importance of British breeding.

“At some stage, we're going to have to turn around and say, 'Hold on a second, you're not paying us enough.' How that's done is going to be a difficult decision,” he says.

“But I don't think the solution is that hard. When you've got the bookmakers saying there are not enough horses per race, you've got to say, 'Lads, why? It's costing the breeders 10 grand to breed a horse and you're giving them five.'

“We have to make a decision: are we an industry or are we a hobby? If we're a hobby, fine, keep going as we are. If we want to be an industry, the product has to be paid for.”

In launching a stallion that he believes has a chance to be commercially successful, Swinburn will naturally be backing Royal Scotsman with his family's mares and says that the Hays will also be sending him at least 10 mares. 

“Jim wants the horse to stand in this country because he wants to race his progeny,” Swinburn notes. 

“Had I not thought he has a great chance of doing it, I wouldn't have bothered, to be perfectly honest. I'm standing him because I think he has a great chance, and it's a commercial decision. So, that's it.”

Plenty have already wished Swinburn luck and it is easy to see why. The tale of this family of excellent horsemen and women has taken an unexpected twist, but in Royal Scotsman there is an exciting new chapter just waiting to be written.

 

The post ‘We Had No Intention of Standing Stallions’: Royal Scotsman Heralds a New Era at Genesis Green Stud appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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