Barry Quick to Praise Fellow Pinhookers

[Wandering Eyes]

There is no exact science in racing and breeding and, along with sound judgement and good horsemanship, we need an awful lot of luck—a fact highlighted by Luke Barry on several occasions as we look back on the 2019 yearling sales.

In conjunction with Kitty Fitzpatrick of Loughmore Stables and Ryan McElligott, Barry achieved some notable pinhook successes under his family’s Manister House Stud banner this year, but he remains realistic in his outlook.

“Things can go wrong and horses can make fools of you,” he said. “And the next thing you know, you have an expensive foal going south in valuation very quickly.”

The farm’s most impressive sale of the season was not an expensive pinhook. The son of Maxios (GB) was bought as a foal for 15,000gns, in a year when the sire’s yearlings sold for an average of 17,206gns, but as Barry explains, there’s more to selling than sire power.

“He was a very nice foal,” said Barry. “He didn’t change much physically in that he came back a very nice yearling. I suppose it just proves if you have a very nice individual, you can get lucky. We got lucky, because two people were on him. Ross Doyle and Richard Hannon, Jr. obviously took a great shine to him and they took on Angus Gold.

“I bought him in partnership with a pal, he saw an angle to the cross. I looked at him because he’s out of a Galileo (Ire) mare and after that, we got lucky. I try to look at everything out of a Galileo mare, because there’s always a chance that yearling buyers will forgive an unfashionable stallion with a good damsire.”

A first-crop daughter of Twilight Son (GB) added to a fine Premier Sale for the Manister team, blossoming from a 29,000gns foal purchase into a £75,000 yearling.

Reflecting on her appeal as a foal, Barry said, “The 2-year-old had been placed first time out for William Haggas, so there was hope for an update. She made our list without us realising that fact and so when she was selling, we took a punt and it worked out, because the half-sister ended up being rated 95.”

There’s always another side to the coin, as he points out.

“We bought another Twilight Son from the same draft and still own him,” he remarked. “I still believe he’s a good horse so time will tell.”

There is no crystal ball, unfortunately, when it comes to buying horses, and Barry said there is nothing unusual about his team’s methods.

“We’re no different to anyone else—we try to buy foals that will be attractive to the market the following year. Sometimes, we can take the mystery out of it and pay big money to tick more boxes, like a sexy sire or black-type in the first dam.”

Not that making a profit is the be-all and end-all. The vest advertisement for any breeder or consignor is the success of their graduates on the track. A good example for Minister House Stud was a Due Diligence colt that he bought in a scheme run by Sam Hoskins and Matt Coleman. A £40,000 foal, he failed to find a bid as a yearling.

Barry said, “He had a great shape and a very loose action, but didn’t grow enough from foal to yearling stage. He did grow from a yearling to breezer, but then he got sore shins. The Byrnes in Knockgraffon Stud thought quite a bit of him, but it was difficult to push him. Phillippa Mains saw something noone else did and gave £13,000 for him, but he’s the best horse to come out of that sale this year. His name is Streamline (GB) and he won the G3 Sirenia S. We lost money on him, but we’re still proud to have pinhooked him.”

Then there are those whose profit you benefit little from, but remain just as special.

“Though I didn’t pinhook her, I took a lot of satisfaction in keeping a Pride Of Dubai (Aus) filly on the farm and selling her for 15 or so members of the Blind Leading The Blind Syndicate,” he said. “Led by Harry Eustace and James Horton, they bought her for 14,000gns, allowed us to look after her, and we sold her for 115,000gns to Joe Foley. The current market is creating good opportunities for smaller operators buying at that level.”

There is also the added enjoyment of cheering on the underdog, and in pinhooking terms, that often means the bargain foals who transform into expensive yearlings. Success at that level, even when achieved by someone else, encourages all pinhookers that it can be done.

“Everyone involved showed it can still very much be done—buying at a lower level and hitting a home run,” said Barry. “Vikki Hancock had a really lovely filly by The Last Lion (Ire) stabled beside us at the Open Sale in Goffs. She sold for €78,000, having cost her €1,000 as a foal. And it’s not the first time she’s done something like that.”

Pinhookers don’t just concentrate on the foals they bought themselves—they’re always looking at those they didn’t, for one reason or another, and Barry is no different.

“John Foley had a cracking No Nay Never colt in the same yard as us in Book 2, which he’d bought in partnership with the Flannerys of Egmont Stud,” he explained. “He marched up and down all day and had action to burn; he was a belter. I looked back at my notes and remembered Kitty and I couldn’t get a step out of him at all as a foal, but they saw something we didn’t. Fair dues to them—he came back a proper horse and they got justly rewarded.”

At the end of the day, though, so much of it is out of your hands.

Not that it fazes Barry, who said, “You make your own luck; if you work the sales hard enough, some luck might just come your way.”

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