‘I Appreciate Every Mare That Arrives’: New Phase for Ballyhane as Magnum Force is Launched

[Wandering Eyes]

There are two types of people in life: those who are bowed by adversity and those who stare it in the face and dare it to try to bring them down. 

For more than a year Joe Foley has been involved in an ongoing court battle with Steve Parkin. Prior to that the pair had a long and successful run on the track with Parkin's Clipper Logistics operation, which Foley managed. Recent highlights include the homebred Classic winner Fallen Angel, who is now in the ownership of Wathnan Racing. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the current situation, the loss of a once-close friendship must hurt deeply, even if neither side would wish to admit it.

Amid all this, it appears that Foley and Parkin hit on a stallion with real potential. Sands Of Mali, the Group 1-winning sprinter, was bought from the Cool Silk Partnership for €225,000 and joined Foley's Ballyhane Stud in 2021. 

From an initial fee of €6,500, he has been turning heads to the degree that when it was decided that the stallion must be sold he became the subject of a fierce bidding war among some of the most renowned commercial studs in the business. In November, he was auctioned privately for many millions, with Yeomanstown Stud the successful bidder. Parkin also sold Shaquille, whose first foals were well received last year, to Harrison Li's Ace Stud, which is the new name of Dullingham Park.

What are the odds of finding a successful stallion? One in 10, if you're lucky? Now it appears that Foley has been both lucky and unlucky. Is he bitter? It doesn't appear so, as he is currently in 'head down, drive on' mode to launch the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint winner Magnum Force (Mehmas) a year after recruiting Sakheer (Zoffany) to stand in partnership with owner KHK Racing.

He says first of his old friend Sands Of Mali, “He's a very exciting stallion, possibly a brilliant stallion. And I wish them all the absolute best of luck for him. I was delighted to buy him in the first place, and I remember when I was considering buying him, I knew that Gay O'Callaghan was also considering buying him, so if anybody was to end up with him, they deserved to have him.”

Foley continues, “They paid plenty of money for him but I'm convinced he will repay their investment in him. I know [trainer] Richard Fahey rated him extremely highly, in the same breath as Wootton Bassett. I loved his physique, I loved the pedigree, I loved the [grandsire] Miswaki, the whole Mr. Prospector thing. I thought he'd be a lovely outcross for mares, but also a lovely horse to inbreed to other Mr. Prospector mares, like Dark Angel mares and Machiavellian-line mares. And I thought he was a very interesting project, especially given he was such a good racehorse at the height of his powers. That's why I was keen to buy him. 

“I was experimenting with some mares with him, multiplying Mr. Prospector, and that seemed to really work out. Time For Sandals, for example, was a Rathbride Stud-bred filly, and she's inbred 3×3 to Miswaki.

“As I said, it was a pleasure to have him in Ballyhane, and I've no doubt that he's going to be a very important sire for Ireland for years to come.”

When it comes to finding new stallions, for smaller independent studs the competition can be fierce, with greater risks being taken to buy into racehorses earlier in their careers, gambling on an eye-catching two-year-old building on that promise at three. 

“When I started there was quite a lot of stallion prospects available to be bought 20, 30, 40 years ago,” says Foley. “But nowadays, the big operations are concentrating on buying yearlings to make stallions, so they're getting in at ground level to have stallions in their portfolios.

“So the number of stallion prospects that are openly for sale has diminished over the years. On the flip side of that, there are not as many stallion farms as there were 20 or 30 years ago. So there's less demand for horses and sometimes I feel sorry for people who have colts who are just not quite good enough to make the commercial stallion business.”

 

Magnum Force at Ballyhane | Emma Berry

 

Magnum Force may as well have the word 'commercial' spray-painted across his quarters. For a start, he's by Mehmas and, though there is a growing number of his sons at stud, commercial breeders who can no longer afford to use Mehmas will be rolling the dice and hoping that one of the next in line will prove a hit. Magnum Force's page pretty much screams speed, with notable sprinters such as Acclamation, Royal Applause, Fastnet Rock, Danehill, and Bahamian Bounty all among the male influences in his first three generations, and his first two dams having both been winning sprinters.

Eyes firmly on the horizon, Foley says, “We've moved into a new phase of Ballyhane, which is terrific. I started with Sakheer last year, who stood alongside Sands of Mali, and maybe suffered for that, considering both of them were at the same fee. But notwithstanding that, he attracted a very solid book of mares. He covered 130 and has great fertility.

“Luckily then I was able to buy Magnum Force in conjunction with his breeder, Sheikh Abdulla bin Isa Al Khalifa, and I'm delighted to welcome him to Ballyhane.

“I'd seen him at the racetrack but when I went to Ger Lyons's in September to see him I was so struck by the horse that I really thought I had to have him. 

“He's what I look for in a horse: first of all, a beautiful looking horse, which is so important for the Irish stallion market. Irish breeders are very shrewd judges. Importantly, he had a lot of ability, and then pedigree-wise, he's by a sire that looks to be exceptionally talented, he's out of a Fastnet Rock mare, which I like, from a good Jeff Smith family. On top of that, he's a lovely-tempered horse, so he looks to be going down very well so far.”

Certainly there were plenty of rave reviews from those who saw Magnum Force on the recent Irish Stallion Trail, where he had to fight for attention with Jane Foley's pair of miniature daschund puppies. Hetty Spencer was so smitten with the latter that she forgot to book a nomination but left Ballyhane heading for the pups' breeder and bought two for herself that afternoon. Doubtless, though, there were others who put their names down on the list to send a mare to Magnum Force. 

Foley has been buoyed by the continued goodwill which has come his way during some less-than-happy times. But it's a two-way street.

“One of the biggest kicks I get is when one of my clients either has a big payday in a sale ring, which is very important for people to stay afloat and remain in the business. That's number one, but obviously when they breed a very good horse, that's fantastic,” he says. 

“I try to stand stallions at a fee that gives people a chance of making a profit. I know that's a weird thing to say, but I think it's important not to squeeze the lemon dry in stallion fees. You have to leave some room for margin, or profit, for the mare owners, because it's such a difficult business.

“So it's not all a monetary thing, it's a way of life as well, and it's tremendous to see breeders, who, in a lot of cases, are my friends, be successful by taking the trouble, and trusting me, to send one of their mares at 7 o'clock in the morning to a stallion in Ballyhane. I appreciate every single one of the mares that arrives in the gate at Ballyhane, and I appreciate that they've trusted my judgement with the stallion, and I get a big kick out of it one day when that decision by them is justified.”

 

The distracting Ballyhane puppies | Emma Berry

 

And it's not just the Ballyhane clients who benefit from Foley's seemingly boundless energy. Currently chairman of the Irish EBF, he has also served as chairman and president of the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders' Association (ITBA), which is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2026 and has its immensely popular annual awards night this Saturday.

Along with current ITBA chairman Cathal Beale, whom he credits as being a “very bright guy”, Foley was instrumental in launching the Irish Incentive Scheme which rewards the winners of certain ITM-backed races with a €10,000 voucher on top of prize-money to spend at the Irish sales. He was also instrumental in the launch of the Irish Champions Festival.

“It's just great to see that a lot of people are trying to make the industry better,” he says. “I've had a privileged life of travelling around the place. I used to share a house in Newmarket with David Redvers, who is a great friend. With the Qatar team of Sheikh Fahad and Peter [Molony] and Hannah [Wall], I saw the birth of British Champions Day up close. It struck me on the first British Champions Day that we could do something similar in Ireland, and that became the genesis of the idea of Irish Champions Weekend. It's the same with the Irish Stallion Trail – a lot of people have credited me for coming up with that idea. I didn't, I just nicked the idea from the Route des Etalons. I saw the wonderful PR that the French stallions were getting out of that, and I thought, given the quality of the stallions in Ireland, that we could mimic that, so I suggested it to Charles O'Neill of ITM, who ran with the idea.”

Foley continues, “I enjoy the Irish EBF role because the stallion farmers voluntarily put a lot of money into a fund to help prize-money in Ireland. Prize-money is vital, and I still don't think that message is quite out there, but it's great to see that HRI [Horse Racing Ireland] have put a significant amount into prize-money for the 2026 season, even given the fact that their horse and greyhound fund from government has stayed static. But they've managed to budget, with the help of others, to get a significant rise in prize-money, which is very necessary, and that needs to continue growing.

“Be it the Irish EBF Median Auction Series, the Red Mills Auction Hurdle Series, that we co-sponsor with them, the Smullen Series that we sponsor, we see that they have a positive impact on Irish racing and horses in training in Ireland, and it's good to be able to influence some of that. And once again, with the Irish EBF, we'll be co-sponsoring the Ballyhane Stakes on August 3.”

He adds, “We've got a lot of pillars built up now, a lot of high-class racetracks in Ireland – the Curragh, Leopardstown, Naas, Punchestown and many other tracks, but we just need to make sure prize-money keeps at the level it needs to be.”

Clearly, he wears a lot of hats, but Foley insists that the branding be that of Ballyhane Stud.

He says, “Ballyhane is my first gig, and the rest I do on very much a part-time basis, but I enjoy meeting other similarly-minded people.”

That said, he compiled the 100 questions for last weekend's Mark O'Hanlon Memorial Quiz and is on the organising committee for the awards this coming weekend. Sure, sleep is over-rated anyway. 

“The ITBA is now 100 years old. The first ever meeting was in the Shelbourne Hotel on January 13 in 1926,” he says, proudly spouting this fact after somehow having found time to read the minutes of the inaugural meeting. 

And he is relishing the thought of this Saturday's action. “It's one of the huge nights of the year because you get all the top politicians, including our Minister for Agriculture, who's coming again this year. We've had the Taoiseach there in the past, and they come because they know the racing and bloodstock industry is a big industry within Ireland. Ireland's a small country, and it's still an agricultural economy, even though it's matured and grown up rapidly in the last 30 or 40 years. But the agriculture sector is very important to Ireland in terms of GDP and the bloodstock industry is a huge employer – it's a green industry.

“So it is great for the politicians to see the awards won by normal people who live in normal villages and towns around the country, and to see the influence that they have around the world with the Irish flag wrapped around them.”

Perhaps no-one has this flag more tightly wrapped than Foley himself, but Irish racing can count itself fortunate to have such a passionate advocate. 

 

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