‘The Journey Isn’t Over Yet’: Redvers on the Bittersweet Success of Siblings Heart Of Honor and Brotherly Love

[Wandering Eyes]

It's a tough old life. As we speak, David Redvers has just returned from a weekend in St Moritz for the White Turf meeting, one of the true spectacles of the horseracing world.

Between racing on ice and dancing on tables, the Tweenhills maestro has been enjoying a rather good week for graduates from his farm on rather more conventional surfaces, from the turf at Caulfield to the Chantilly all-weather and dirt of Meydan.

“We had the most incredible week last week in that we had Buckaroo, who came second in a Group 1 in Australia, and we had a winner every day of the week. Wonderful,” he says. 

“We had a smart maiden filly [Grande Baigneuse] win first time out in Chantilly that we bred. We had a nice horse called Blue Run by Nicky Henderson win a novice hurdle. It was just one of those weird weeks. Every day something else happened.”

Zoustar may not have returned to Tweenhills last year or this, but the team there is still actively involved in the Australian stallion's career at Widden Stud in the Hunter Valley and of course takes pride in the exploits of his runners. He has had a good spell in the northern hemisphere of late. 

Zoustar's daughter Sky Safari came out on top in a competitive running of the G3 Winter Derby on Saturday – a race won last year by Royal Champion (Shamardal), who on the previous weekend had won the G1 Howden Neom Turf Cup on the Saudi Cup card. Sky Safari's win came the afternoon after a decent double for the stallion. 

First Sir Les Patterson, bred by Widden at Tweenhills, won comfortably at Dundalk, his fifth win pushing his mark to 107 and presumably some future outings in black-type company. Ninety minutes later the Redvers-bred Brotherly Love won the Listed Dubai Road to the Kentucky Derby, claiming his second win of the current Dubai Racing Carnival and following in some notable family footsteps. The three-year-old is likely to be seen next in the G2 UAE Derby in which his half-brother Heart Of Honor (AP Honor) was just touched off to finish second by a nose last year. Heart Of Honor is now a four-time winner at Meydan, including at Listed level, and he was last seen finishing a running-on third in the G1 Al Maktoum Challenge. He is set to reappear this weekend in the G2 Al Maktoum Classic on Super Saturday.

But just in case it all sounds like things are going a little too swimmingly, there is a twist in the tale. Ruby Love, the Chilean-bred dam of Heart Of Honor and Brotherly Love, died last year after foaling a colt by another Tweenhills resident, Kameko.

“It's all a bit tinged with sadness,” Redvers says. “I bought Ruby Love carrying Heart of Honor for, I think, $90,000. She was champion two-year-old filly in Chile and by Scat Daddy. I was looking for a precocious, speedy mare for a Zoustar at the time and I just thought she sounded too exciting, really, to leave at that sort of money.”

He adds, “She had one of those torsion colics post-foaling. God, and we tried everything but, sadly, she couldn't be saved. It just goes to show the nightmare that is breeding horses.”

 

David Redvers, breeder of Heart Of Honor and Brotherly Love | Racingfotos

 

The mare had produced two foals prior to being bought by Redvers, the filly Unrelenting Love (Violence), who was placed in America, and the unraced Al Munthir (Lookin At Lucky). Her only other daughter, by Havana Grey, is a two-year-old named Hart Of The Matter who is now listed as in training with Karl Burke.

Redvers adds, “There's always a bit of a high risk when you buy a mare that's had a couple that haven't really been seen. But one of them I discovered had got travel sickness, going from America to Bahrain. So I just thought it was worth the chance.

“Heart Of Honor himself was a beautiful horse but by a stallion that nobody had the first idea what he was. The Halleys bought him as a foal [for 35,000gns]. He made everybody money all the way through.”

Reoffered as a yearling at the Goffs Orby Sale, Heart Of Honor sold for €42,000 from Galbertstown Stables and he then returned to the Arqana Breeze-up Sale in the Meadowview Stables draft and was bought by his trainer Jamie Osborne for $160,000 on behalf of owners Jim and Claire Bryce. Osborne clearly liked what he saw from the colt as a week before he made his debut at Southwell on October 21, 2024, the trainer had raided the Tweenhills draft at Tattersalls October Book 2 to buy Brotherly Love for the same owners for 40,000gns.

Redvers says, “Since then the pedigree has improved. Heart of Honour did all his winning afterwards. [The mare] had a nice Havana Grey filly, which we sold far too cheaply to Matt Coleman before anything had won, but I just absolutely loved her. I believe Matt bought her for a breeder and they've been offered fortunes for her but wouldn't sell.”

The Bryces have subsequently returned to the well to buy Ruby Love's Kameko yearling colt privately from Redvers. 

“At least she was a great success story, though she could have been a much bigger success story,” he says of the mare.

Redvers will be hoping for a success story of a different kind when it comes to the new Tweenhills stallion King Of Change, whose arrival in England was announced on January 2.

“He's gone down a bomb,” he reports enthusiastically. “He's very busy, covering away like a star.

“It's a surprisingly tough year commercially in the UK this year, with three new first-season sires in Newmarket, and bringing him into the market so late put him at a massive disadvantage. The breeders who do their homework, who look at the data and are looking for stallions that give them a proven edge, have all flocked to him. He's also got a lot of support coming in from Ireland as well. His fans are utterly committed and have seen a little bit of magic he can bring, so it's very exciting.

“I look out in my front yard at the moment and there are two pretty exceptional horses. One of them is a QEII winner and the other is a 2,000 Guineas winner.”

Whether or not Brotherly Love can line up for a Classic of a different kind remains to be seen. He has already earned points towards the Kentucky Derby and could yet increase his balance on Dubai World Cup day in the UAE Derby. And we know that his connections won't shirk a challenge as Heart Of Honor contested last year's Preakness Stakes, in which he finished fifth, staying on well after a tardy start, as is often his way.

“The extraordinary thing is their style of running is almost identical,” Redvers says of the brothers. “If you backed Brotherly Love in running the last couple of times, he would have been 5o-to-1 during most of the race. I mean, he just doesn't look like he's even at the races and then he suddenly comes with this incredible late rattle. And Heart Of Honor is the same, so it gives the trainer and the owner and the breeder a bit of a heart attack.

“But anyway, it's worth it in the end. I'm thrilled for Jim and Claire. It's been great and the journey isn't over yet.”

 

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