Channel A Fine Start For De Barros

[Wandering Eyes]

Parisian businessman-turned Normandy horse farmer Samuel de Barros describes his short time in the Thoroughbred industry as a “friendship story.”

It is likely he will be friends for life, then, with agent Bertrand Le Metayer and trainer Francis Graffard after the trio teamed up to produce this year’s G1 Prix de Diane winner Channel (Ire) (Nathaniel {Ire}), de Barros’s first–and up until recently only–racehorse.

“We’re all the same age, we’re all 40, we got started pretty much together,” de Barros said last month at the Arqana August yearling sale in Deauville. “It’s been a really fun story between what’s become quite a strong team just around this filly starting from scratch.”

De Barros described Diane day, when Channel burst through an opening in midstretch and held on by a head at 9-1 on her fourth start-as “madness,” and ranked it behind only the birth of his children and his wedding day as the best days of his life.

De Barros’s wife, Elodie, is an accomplished breeder of trotters, and about 10 years ago at Elodie’s urging the couple moved from Paris to Normandy to live on their farm where they keep about a dozen high-quality trotting mares and about 15 horses in training. Now fully immersed in country life, De Barros decided he wanted to dabble in the horse game himself, but he didn’t want to compete with his wife, who among her accomplishments had already produced two homebred stallions and won a handful of group-level races. So Samuel turned to Thoroughbreds.

“I had been visually attracted to the Thoroughbreds for quite some time and I wanted to share the involvement in horses with my wife, but I wanted to have my own thing within the horses,” De Barros explained. “Elodie has done what she’s done for years and I wanted to have my own thing, but now I’m trying to get Elodie to share in the Thoroughbreds with me.

“I’m very attracted to the international side of the Thoroughbred business. It’s very eye-opening that you can travel and meet people all over the world and buy and trade horses with them. Trotting is a very protected market in France. With Thoroughbreds you meet so many different people around the world and there are so many more opportunities than with the trotters. I want to be part of this international industry.”

The first step was finding the right expert to guide him, and De Barros was introduced by a mutual associate to Bertrand Le Metayer.

“One of their friends and racing advisors in the trotters contacted me one day and said, ‘I have some clients who would like to look into Thoroughbreds,'” Le Metayer recalled. “He said, ‘that’s not my game, I don’t know anything about it, would you mind meeting them?’ We met at their farm and they told me they wanted to get into breeding Thoroughbreds to potentially sell and sometimes race one or two fillies.”

The first stop was Tattersalls December in 2017, where the couple found the market to be quite different to the Standardbred market they were accustomed to.

“Samuel and Elodie are used to, with the trotters, when they want a mare they can almost certainly have her,” Le Metayer explained. “They were surprised when they discovered what the Thoroughbred market was all about: we got beat nine times before buying the first mare. There was some frustration in the early stages because we went to Tattersalls to buy some nice commercial mares and just couldn’t get one. We managed to buy one the first year after bidding on 10, and then one in the Arqana February sale, a very nice mare from a dispersal. Then we bought a mare in partnership with Newsells Park.”

De Barros’s broodmare band after that first sales season comprised Embiyra (Ire) (Tamayuz {GB}), a now 6-year-old granddaughter of the Aga Khan’s excellent producer Ebaziya (Ire) (Darshaan {GB}), the dam of G1 Gold Cup winners Estimate (Ire) (Monsun {Ger}) and Enzeli (Ire) (Kahyasi {Ire}) and G1 Irish Oaks victress Ebadiyla (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells), bought for 260,000gns at Tattersalls December in foal to Gleneagles (Ire) (she has subsequently produced a filly); the stakes-winning Lbretha (Fr) (Exceed and Excel {Aus}), whose third dam is the multiple French champion Allez France (Sea-Bird) for €260,000 at Arqana February; and the 4-year-old Pinkster (GB), who is incidentally closely related to Channel being by Nathaniel and out of Puce (GB) (Darshaan {GB}), whose granddaughter Prudenzia (Ire) (Dansili {Ire}) has produced G1 Irish Oaks winner Chicquita (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}) and G2 Ribblesdale S. winner Magic Wand (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). Pinkster’s second dam is Ecurie des Monceaux’s Souk (Ire), and Channel was produced by another branch of that mare, her second dam being Souk’s G1 Cheveley Park S.-winning granddaughter Magical Romance (Ire) (Barathea {Ire}).

So De Barros had established the foundations of an enviable broodmare band when the racecourse began to call.

“We had our first three mares and it was all going well and then Samuel said, ‘I’d love to have my silks,'” Le Metayer recalled. “He designed his silks, which was a fun process, and then one day around breeze-up time he said, ‘we need a horse for my silks.'”

So Le Metayer, De Barros and trainer Francis Graffard headed to Arqana’s May Breeze-Up Sale, where they found a bay filly by Nathaniel at the Mayfield Stables consignment. She was from a family that has featured prominently at Arqana over the last few years-Magic Wand topped the August Yearling Sale in 2016 at €1.4-million and this year a Dubawi (Ire) filly and a Galileo (Ire) colt out of full-sisters Prudenzia (Ire) and Prudente (Fr) were the top two lots-but she flew under the radar perhaps because of her slight stature and De Barros was able to secure her for €70,000.

“I had said, ‘why don’t we buy something good value?'” Le Metayer said. “‘The breeze-ups are all about speed, so let’s go the opposite and buy a staying filly from a good pedigree.’ She was a great mover and breezed very well for what she was physically, and we decided to go for her. We weren’t expecting much, although she had a lovely family and an amazing page.”

The bay filly headed to Graffard’s Chantilly yard and De Barros and Le Metayer turned their focus back to the burgeoning broodmare band. They bought two more mares last December: Aurora Gold (GB) (Frankel {GB}), an unraced daughter of six-time Group 1 winner Midday (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}) for 550,000gns from the Juddmonte consignment at Tattersalls December in foal to Kingman (GB), and the German Group 3 winner Peace In Motion (Hat Trick {Jpn}) for €860,000 at Arqana December. And De Barros has given his mares the matings they warrant, using top sires like Dubawi, Sea The Stars (Ire), Showcasing (GB) and Siyouni (Fr).

All the while, they continued to check in on Channel.

“Samuel kept asking, ‘have you heard from Francis?'” Le Metayer said. “I said, ‘yes, he says she’s ok.’ Five months later: ‘have you heard from Francis?’ ‘Yes, he thinks she’s ok.’ And then Francis called and said, ‘would you be ok if we put her in the Prix de Diane?'”

Channel was sent off at 11-1 for her career debut going 2000 metres at Saint-Cloud on Mar. 30, 2019 and found only Coolmore’s Secret Walk (Ire) (Dansili {GB})–a 600,000gns foal out of the G3 St Simon S. winner High Heeled (Ire) (High Chaparral {Ire})-a half-length too tough.

“We haven’t seen [Secret Walk] again but Andre Fabre said she was really good,” Le Metayer said. “And this tiny little filly [Channel] really came and got to her heels. We thought, ‘maybe she is ok.'”

Four weeks later, Channel broke her maiden by two lengths under Pierre-Charles Boudot at Lyon Parilly. She followed up three weeks later in a Diane course-and-distance conditions race at Chantilly, leaving her connections no choice but to pitch her into the Classic. Breaking swiftly at Chantilly on June 16, Channel took up an ideal stalking position while avoiding the early scrimmaging in behind. Sitting a joint third and bottled up behind the pacesetters as they climbed the hill and turned for home, Channel and Boudot found a seam as Amarena (Fr) (Soldier Hollow {GB}) began to tire approaching the 300. The pair struck the lead inside the final furlong and held off late drives from a handful of fillies, with about a length separating the first six across the line.

Channel didn’t enjoy quite as seamless a journey next out in the G1 Nassau S. at Goodwood on Aug. 1, tiring late to finish seventh of nine against older fillies and mares, but she will have a chance to redeem herself in Saturday’s G1 Prix Vermeille, where she will step up to a mile and a half for the first time.

“With the way the Prix de Diane was run we can question her best trip; we’re not quite sure because she’d had so little experience before the Diane,” Le Metayer said. “She’d only run three times and she’d never seen the whip before the Diane. She went and won quite gamely. We wouldn’t like to over race her; she’ll probably have a few more races and then we’ll send her to a nice stallion.”

As For De Barros, his racing stable has now doubled in size to two–he picked up a filly by Dabirsim (Fr) for €130,000 at this year’s Arqana May Breeze-Up Sale that is now named Whistle (Fr) and in training with Graffard-and with the promise of his quality broodmare band coming up beneath, there is every reason to think De Barros will enjoy many more big days on the racecourse. That could eventually include, he said, some international involvement.

“It would be wrong to think it couldn’t,” De Barros said. “I’ve started young and started with good stock so it would be wrong not to think about it. I’ve been quite curious about Thoroughbred racing internationally so I just want to make the experience worthwhile and keep the business plan going.”

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