Glittering Spell For Tourgeville

[Wandering Eyes]

Of the many stud farms dotted around the Normandy countryside, none is closer to the Arqana sales complex than Elevage de Tourgeville, just three kilometres outside Deauville.

It has been the home of the Lepeudry family for three generations, with a fourth waiting in the wings, and during that time, the human dynasty has cultivated an equine family which now stretches to its seventh generation and has been much celebrated in Europe of late. One of the latest to emerge from Pierre Lepeudry’s purchase of the Abernant (GB) mare Dilly-Dally (GB) in the 1960s is lot 71, the Muhaarar (GB) half-sister to Group 1 winner Robin Of Navan (Fr) (American Post {GB}), one of two offerings by Tourgeville in the select session of the August Sale.

Robin Of Navan’s juvenile season was highlighted by consecutive victories at listed and Group 2 level before his G1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud win and, now six, Harry Dunlop’s pride and joy is still on the boil and recently won the G2 Meilen Trophy in Dusseldorf.

The family’s current revival was augmented last season by the G1 Prix Marcel Boussac victory of Lily’s Candle (Fr) (Style Vendome {Fr}) from a different branch of the Dilly-Dally clan, while farther afield there has been another top-level victory for the family in Lys Gracieux (Jpn) (Heart’s Cry (Jpn), a half-sister to Lily’s Candle’s dam Golden Lily (Fr) (Dolphin Street {Fr}) and winner of the GI Takarazuka Kinen in Japan.

Antoine Lepeudry is the current head of the farm and is closely aided by his sons Felix, currently assistant trainer to David O’Meara in England, and Jean-Charles, an equine vet with Baker McVeigh. Antoine’s mother Monique is the breeder of both Robin Of Navan and Lily’s Candle from her only two broodmares at the farm. Her husband Pierre died in 2013.

“My grandfather started with some Thoroughbreds and had a few older mares. He had a bit of success but then for some reason he stopped with Thoroughbreds and started breeding trotters,” Antoine Lepeudry recalls. “When my father took over he was very good friends with Dick Warden from the CBA and he got involved in one mare in particular because The Marshal (Ire) (Martial {Ire}) had just won the Jacques Le Marois and he was given a nomination. So he went to Newmarket and bought Dilly-Dally.”

Citing patience as the key requisite for any breeder, Lepeudry continues, “Nothing really appeared in this part of the family until Good Bye My Friend, he was the first decent one.”

Good Bye My Friend (Fr) (Kendor {Fr}), named in memory of the Lepeudry family’s late friend and client Rico Erculiani, is a half-brother to Robin Of Navan’s dam Cloghran (Fr) (Muhtahir {GB}), their dam The Wise Lady (Fr) (Ganges) being a fourth generation descendant of Dilly-Dally. Another of The Wise Lady’s offspring, the G3 Premio Sergio Cumani winner Ming Zhi Cosmos (Fr) (Duke Of Marmalade {Ire}), is about to return to the fold after a round-the-world tour which has seen her also race in Singapore and start her breeding career in the southern hemisphere.

“This little pedigree of Normandy is starting to shine all over the world,” says Felix Lepeudry. “We inadvertently saw Ming Zhi Cosmos in a catalogue the other day at Magic Millions, so at 4 a.m. in Yorkshire before I started work we were bidding for a mare in Australia for my family and we got her for a bargain.”

And Felix, who has also worked for Roger Varian in Newmarket, has his sights set on adding a new element to the family business. He explains, “My personal project is to carry on breeding with the family and then start training eventually. The ideal for me would be to be on the farm and have a small string of horses here in Deauville. That’s the dream but I need to have the full support of the family as well.”

He has whet his appetite for seeing through the careers of some of the Tourgeville graduates by being able to keep an extra close eye on David O’Meara’s stable star of the season, Lord Glitters (Fr) (Whipper), who was bred by his family and sold by them as a yearling for €25,000 at the 2014 Arqana October Sale.

“Being able to have followed a horse that we bred at the trainer’s yard has been very nice,” he says. “David is excellent–he speaks his mind and teaches me a lot about how to run the business and how to be more competitive. He trains winner after winner.”

Lord Glitters provided the Lepeudrys with yet another proud day when winning the G1 Queen Anne S. at Royal Ascot, having finished runner-up in the race 12 months earlier. Extra poignancy is found in the fact that one of their partners in his dam is Erculiani’s widow, Hilary.

“We were all together at Ascot with Mrs Erculiani and our mother,” Felix says. “We don’t see each other very often so for us all to be together was very special.”

With four mares from Dilly-Dally’s family still on the farm, the Lepeudrys take pride in trying to adhere to the approach of patriarch Pierre when it comes to deciding on matings.

“Our grandfather always said speed, speed, speed, and then you can add the stamina to a family later, but the baseline must be your speed,” advises Felix. “Cloghran is by Muhtathir, who tends to produce longer-distance horses, so coming back to Muhaarar seemed to make sense. We replicated all the same inbreeding as Robin Of Navan and Liliside–the inbreeding to Lyphard and Riverman. They were stallions our grandfather was completely mad about but could never afford.”

Few could begrudge the family its current run of success, especially when taking into account a particularly bitter piece of luck with Liliside (Fr) (American Post {GB})–now the dam of Lys Gracieux–who finished first past the post in the G1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches in 2010 but was subsequently demoted to sixth place following a stewards’ enquiry which gave the race to Juddmonte’s Special Duty (GB) (Hennessy).

“Liliside should have been our first Classic winner,” says Antoine. “When we were watching Lily’s Candle at Longchamp last year we were thinking back to what happened nine years ago and there was a lot of emotion but it was a wonderful result in the end as the Marcel Boussac is like a Classic race to us.”

He adds, “The most important thing in this business is to be patient.”

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