Vocalised A Diamond For Bolger

[Wandering Eyes]

Jim Bolger has campaigned some top-class homegrown talent over the years. Dawn Approach (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}) and Pleascach (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) are two recent multiple Group 1 winners that he bred, trained and owned in their early days, while he also trained each of their sires before they were ultimately purchased by Darley to stand at stud.

Bolger has now taken this process another step forward in regards to two of his recent stakes winners Cimeara (Ire) and Sometimesadiamond (Ire), as he not only bred, owns and trains them but he also stands their sire Vocalised (Vindication) at his Redmondstown Stud in Wexford. The two 3-year-old fillies also demonstrated the versatility of the stallion as Sometimesadiamond made her stakes breakthrough when winning the Listed Yeomanstown Stud Irish EBF S. at Naas over six furlongs while Cimeara backed up her G3 ISF Stanerra S. win at Leopardstown to win the Listed Kingdom of Bahrain Vinnie Roe S. over a mile and six furlongs at the same track.

“We’re very happy with the way Vocalised is going,” Bolger said. “I never had any great doubts about him to be honest. Once he got the first few winners from very ordinary mares I felt we were in with a good chance.”

Both recent stakes winners share something in common as they are both out of Galileo (Ire) mares, a broodmare sire that features quite heavily among Bolger’s herd. “I was fortunate enough to use Galileo before he became Galileo and I sent a lot of mares to him when he was good value so we have quite a few mares here now by the sire. I think I only ever sold one of them and I have kept the rest of them so long now that I might as well see it out as they have been very good to me,” he added.

Vocalised is now a 12-year-old and he was unusual for a Bolger horse in that he was purchased expensively as a yearling in America, costing $560,000 from his co-breeder Hill ‘N’ Dale Farm at Keeneland in 2007. He developed into a smart runner for Bolger and co-owner John Corcoran, breaking his maiden on his second attempt as a juvenile before completing a stakes hat trick on his first three starts at three, including the G3 Greenham S. at Newbury and the G3 Tetrarch S. at The Curragh. Vocalised’s form tailed off after that, thus rendering him unpopular for the commercial operations to stand so Bolger took the bull by the horns and decided to support the horse with his own mares, something that he has done a few times in the past with stallions like Lil’s Boy (Danzig) and Project Manager (GB) (Ahonoora {GB}), though neither had the level of success of Vocalised.

While the early minor winners by Vocalised were enough to satisfy Bolger that he had a genuine stallion prospect on his hands, a win in the G3 Killavullan S. with Steip Amach (Ire) (Vocalised) in 2014 served as confirmation of the same to the wider racing community. That filly added a G3 Amethyst S. win to her CV in 2016 before being sold to Haras d’Etreham.

However, 2017 was undoubtedly the breakout year for Vocalised. Vociferous Marina (Ire) won the Listed Coolmore EBF Salsabil S. a Navan at the beginning of the year and the Bolger- owned, Brendan Duke-trained Warm The Voice (Ire) worked his way up the handicap ranks, winning three times before running a close third to Saxon Warrior (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) in the G2 Juddmonte Beresford S. At this stage Bolger had already unleashed Verbal Dexterity (Ire), who earned a ‘TDN Rising Star’ when making a stunning winning debut at The Curragh in June by nine lengths. A second to Beckford (GB) (Bated Breath {GB}) over an inadequate six furlongs was followed by a four length reversal of that form when he won the G1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National S. at The Curragh, a first top-level win for the stallion. Despite a slightly disappointing effort in the G1 Racing Post Trophy, Verbal Dexterity still went into winter quarters as a major Classic contender for this year but a minor injury in the spring has left Bolger frustrated that his stable star has yet to appear on course in 2018.

“Unfortunately our big horse got sidelined for the first half of the year but we are hopeful of having him back for the [G1] Irish Champion S. at Leopardstown in September. I’m not sure if we will have an opportunity to get a prep race in before then but I don’t think that is vital anyway,” he said.

As a Group 1-winning juvenile, Verbal Dexterity has achieved as much or more than some of his peers that retire to stud, so another conundrum may arise for Bolger especially if he can get the horse back to performing at his best. “I don’t think I could manage the two of them here so Verbal Dexterity might have to go somewhere else but I would like to keep a big interest in him wherever he goes because he is such a good horse. If he comes back to his best and gets through the [G1] Champion S. in good shape I would like to keep him in training as a 4-year-old so there is no great rush to decide his stallion future.”

Despite last year’s high-profile success for Vocalised, Bolger has no intention of trying to capitalize commercially on that by actively seeking outside patronage for the stallion, though he is happy to accept a small number of outside mares.

“There were some enquiries from other breeders and he does cover a few outside mares but I don’t want to go into that business. I’m happy enough to cover our own mares with him and if he continues to produce racehorses for me I’ll be happy.”

Unfortunately, there will be a shortage of Vocalised juveniles on the track next year as he missed most of the 2016 covering season due to a back problem, but luckily for the Bolger team he made a full recovery and resumed covering duties for the past two seasons. Ken Bolger, nephew of Jim, oversees the running of Redmondstown Stud and he reports the stallion fresh and well after a successful breeding season.

“He covered 60 mares this year, including a number of mares for other breeders,” he said. “The Galileo cross seems to be working very well so we continued with that theme, I only wish we had a few more mares by him as you can see that with one filly [Sometimesadiamond] winning over six and the other [Cimeara] over a mile and six anything is possible with a Galileo influence. It’s a pity Jim won’t have many Vocalised juveniles to run next year but there will be plenty of 3-year-olds to keep up the good work.”

Having started at the bottom with Vocalised and developed him into a Group 1 stallion with their own team of mares, Ken Bolger is now hoping to replicate that model with Parish Hall (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}), the 2011 G1 Dewhurst S. winner who has also retired to Redmondstown and whose first foals arrived this year.

“We’re delighted with Parish Hall’s first foals, he seems to stamp them well, just like Vocalised. He [Vocalised] started out in similar fashion, covering mares that weren’t superstars and he has proved himself the hard way so we will try and give Parish Hall the chance to do the same.”

Similar to Galileo where ‘anything is possible’, the same applies to the Master of Coolcullen and Jim Bolger has already reaped many rewards by backing his own judgement, whether in the business of training, owning, breeding or standing stallions and Vocalised is yet another prime example of how backing that judgment is once again paying dividends.

View the full article