Spotlight on the Night of the Stars: Onshore

With a star-studded lineup preparing to go through the ring on a night showcasing some of racing's most prestigious broodmares and broodmare prospects, Fasig-Tipton's Boyd Browning has high praise for Onshore (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire) — Kalima {GB}, by Kahyasi {Ire}), a royally-bred Group I producer who will sell as Hip 216 at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale.

“I believe Onshore is one of the most exciting broodmare offerings that we've had the privilege of selling in my lifetime at Fasig-Tipton,” Browning said. “She embodies everything you look for in the Thoroughbred industry. She has an amazing Juddmonte family. She's in foal to Wootton Bassett, who is a very influential rising star in the European stallion ranks. She has produced a Grade I winner in Onesto (Ire) (Frankel), who has demonstrated tremendous ability on the racetrack. I can't imagine any mare having a brighter future with the resume she has put together thus far.”

The Sea The Stars mare now has five foals on her produce record led by her brilliant son Onesto, the winner of this year's G1 Grand Prix de Paris. At the 'Night of the Stars' sale, Onshore will be consigned by Gainesway.

“It's a privilege to be able to offer a mare like Onshore,” said Gainesway's Alex Solis. “To be just nine years old and the dam of a French Classic winner with your second foal, that's pretty remarkable. She could be the cornerstone of any broodmare band wherever she goes.”

Onshore was one of the first remunerative Thoroughbred purchases for Adam Bowden's Diamond Creek Farm (profiled by Chris McGrath here). Diamond Creek launched as a Standardbred operation in 2005, when Bowden was just 24, and then made its foray into the Thoroughbred business several years ago. During one of Bowden's first buying trips overseas, he found Onshore at the 2016 Tattersalls December Mares Sale.

“She fit the bill for what we were looking for,” he recalled. “She had a well-bred pedigree and physically, she fit the European style of racing. She was in foal to Frankel, who was young at the time but I was a huge fan of his.”

Bowden purchased the maiden mare from Juddmonte for 320,000gns. Diamond Creek liked her resulting filly so much that the next year, Onshore returned to Frankel. That mating producing Onesto.

“I actually never got to see him as a foal because it was during the COVID year,” Bowden explained. “My advisor there, Eddie Fitzpatrick at Coolmore, told me that he was a nice horse and that I shouldn't give him away.”

When the colt failed to meet his reserve as a yearling, he shipped to Ciaran Dunne of Wavertree Stables and sold for $535,000 to Hubert Guy at the 2021 OBS April Sale before making his way back to Europe. Onesto landed with trainer Fabrice Chappet and earned the 'TDN Rising Star' nod when he broke his maiden on debut as a juvenile. This year, he took the G2 Prix Greffulhe before claiming his Group 1 score in the Grand Prix de Paris while also placing second in the G1 Irish Champion S.

 

“Anyone who has watched Onesto run has to be impressed by his turn of foot,” Browning noted. “He's explosive when he makes his move. He demonstrates the brilliance that is so critical to racing around the world, but especially in Europe.”

Onshore's produce record also includes an unraced juvenile filly by Australia (GB), a yearling Gleanagles (Ire) filly that sold for €460,000 to Michel Zerolo of Oceanic Bloodstock at Arqana this summer, as well as a another filly by American Pharaoh.

“To have four daughters working for her going forward is pretty awesome, but really the big appeal to her is that it's such an international family,” said Solis. “She comes from an amazing Juddmonte family anchored by Hasili (Ire) (Kahyasi), who threw five Group 1 winners herself and two other graded stakes horses including the very influential stallion Dansili (GB). Onshore is even a half to an international Group 3 winner Jet Away (GB) (Cape Cross), who went to Australia and proved himself there.”

“It's literally the who's who of the Thoroughbred breeding industry all combined into one package,” added Browning of Onshore's pedigree. “She's also in foal to Wootton Bassett, who produced a champion in his first crop. More importantly, he's a sire that Coolmore has made a significant commitment to. So you've got the Juddmonte pedigree with the Coolmore influence in the covering sire, and if that's not a good bet in the Thoroughbred industry, I can't think of a better set of circumstances.”

Bowden is looking forward to seizing the moment with Onshore while Onesto is in the limelight, but he said that the mare has forever made her mark on Diamond Creek's story.

Sara Gordon

“I think we're in the business to make money,” he explained when asked why Onshore is for sale. “The money we make from Onshore will be put right back in the market to try to do it again. She's really the first big-time horse for us to sell back to the market so there's a soft spot in my heart for her and part of me doesn't want to sell her, but the other part of me knows that it's the right financial decision and one that could provide us with more and more capital to go back to the market.”

This year has been a fruitful era for Diamond Creek with the likes of Bashford Manor S. winner and GI Hopeful S. runner-up Gulfport (Uncle Mo) and three-time Grade I-placed Family Way (Uncle Mo) both representing their breeder at the highest levels of the sport in the U.S. while Onesto carries the banner abroad.

“I don't know that we were originally planning on having Group 1 winners,” Bowden admitted. “I think we were looking for sales and racing success, and whatever grew out of that would be great. To have this kind of success this quickly was obviously not what we had planned, but we're very happy with it.”

As for Onshore, Browning said he believes the mare could wind up starting the next chapter of her story anywhere in the world.

“I think Onshore truly has international appeal,” he said. “She's a collector's pedigree. I don't know if the new buyer will reside in Europe or Japan or America, but I do know that the new buyer will have an opportunity to have a tremendously accomplished mare with a tremendous amount of potential in front of her.”

“This mare could go anywhere and be a standout,” added Solis. “It will be exciting to see who shows up.”

To take a look at more 'Spotlight on the Night of the Stars' features, click here.

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Arc Showcases A Diamond Among Mares

Few people, anywhere in the world, will watch Europe's premier championship race on Sunday more avidly than Adam Bowden. His Diamond Creek Farm bred one of the leading fancies for the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Onesto (Ire) (Frankel {GB}), and Bowden hopes to seize the moment by cashing in the dam at Fasig-Tipton this November. It's just one remarkable vindication of the way Bowden has adapted an unusually precocious advent in the world of Standardbreds to a different environment; of a restless, questing mind that has matched calculation with adventure.

When he first went to a horse sale, in 2005, Bowden was 24 years old and he had a plan. “I went in there thinking I was going to buy five mares, and just do everything myself, and learn,” he recalls. “And I left that sale with 20 mares and five weanlings. And I was like, 'Oh shoot, now what?'”

Well, here's what. He stuck to the plan.

“So the whole first season, I did everything myself,” he continues, shrugging. “No employees. Bred all the mares, foaled out all the mares.”

Seriously? Twenty mares, single-handed?

“There was, like, quite a few 72 hours with no sleep, the first year,” he says wryly. “And then I thought, okay, maybe I need an employee. But from there, it was 20 mares and then 40 and then 60. And in a short period of time, we had 80 mares. And I was off and running.”

But if this startling vignette suggests that everything has been extemporized, that he has got here more or less by the seat of his pants, think again.

“Sure, at that age you absolutely think you can conquer the world,” he says. “And knowing what I know now, I mean, what an idiot. But probably being a little naïve was good, as well. And I had done my work ahead of time.”

To be clear, this was not a case of some excited kid jotting a few numbers on the back of an envelope.

“Before I started, for four years, I'd kept immaculate data,” he says. “Anything that I could compile into formulas. I come from a biology/chemistry background, so math was second nature for me. And I just took as much information as possible, plugged and chugged different formulas to try to figure out if I could find trends, either in the sales ring or on the racetrack.

“I came up with different ways to score pedigrees and, actually, I still use them today. That's just how I see the world: black and white, zeroes and ones, however you want to say it. And that's how I got started. I waited for an opportunity and it was, like, 'All right, this is a perfect time and place to do it.' I felt like I was ready, even though I wasn't. But I jumped in the deep end.”

For those of us unfamiliar with the Standardbred industry, the depth of the foundations laid then can today be measured not just by that broodmare cavalry but also by 11 stallions in three states, a 30-strong racetrack stable, a major sales consignment division; and now—despite having so far branched out only on a modest scale, with no more than 11 mares—elite Thoroughbred colts either side of the ocean. Besides Onesto, winner of the G1 Grand Prix de Paris, Diamond Creek also bred one of the most conspicuous juvenile talents of the American summer in Gulfport (Uncle Mo).

So something worked first time round, plainly, and now things also seem to be functioning pretty well in the venture that has now brought him to our attention. Okay, so Bowden had actually sold the dam of Gulfport, Fame And Fortune (Unbridled's Song), for $320,000 at the Keeneland January Sale. But he also banked $600,000 with the joint-top mare of the same session, Susie's Baby (Giant's Causeway), a half-sister to Caravaggio whose daughter Family Way (Uncle Mo) has been Grade I-placed a couple of times this summer. And the fact is that Fame And Fortune, in her four-year transit through Diamond Creek's evolving Thoroughbred division, contributed yearling sales of $500,000, $275,000 (for Gulfport himself) and $650,000.

Bowden doesn't deny that Gulfport's 12-length win in the Bashford Manor S.—sufficient to prompt Coolmore to buy a stake in the colt, who subsequently ran second in the GI Hopeful S.—made him reflect wistfully on the dam's sale.

“But that was all part of our process,” he explains. “We bought a mare that we thought had upside, we did well, we made money with her. And then we traded her back in, and bought [back] a daughter that we'd sold, who's a broodmare of ours right now. So it's not like we're totally out of the family. And that's how you make money, right?”

It was a similar story with Susie's Baby: Diamond Creek had retained her daughter by Tapit for the broodmare band. And now the time has come for a similar calculation regarding Onshore (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), alertly picked up from Juddmonte for 320,000gns at the Tattersalls December Sale in 2016. She was unraced, but her dam was a sister to matriarch Hasili (Ire) (Kahyasi {Ire}). Her Frankel colt didn't meet his reserve in the same ring as a yearling, during the pandemic, but shipped to Ciaran Dunne of Wavertree before making $535,000 from Hubert Guy at OBS the following April. His deeds since for Fabrice Chappet—and a partnership headed up, aptly enough, by trotting champion Jean-Etienne Dubois—assisted a yearling half-sister by Gleneagles (Ire) to €460,000 at Arqana in August.

“The debate has been about trying to maximize capital,” Bowden explains of Onshore, who is still only nine. “That's always part of the process. We're blessed to have her. But they are worth what they are. And sometimes you have to take money off the table. At 41, I think I'm able to see that more than when I first started. Then I would have been, like, 'No way, I'm riding this thing out.' But potentially she allows us to go buy a handful more mares, and hopefully do it all over again. Because that's always your goal, to create something that the market wants. I mean, you test the market. If it's there, you take it. We're selling a sister to Family Way in October. If she doesn't bring enough, then we'll keep her—and I'm okay with that.”

Bowden has not arrived in the Thoroughbred game with any intention of reinventing the wheel. He's adamant about that. But he does, characteristically, want to figure things out for himself.

“If people say this is how you're supposed to do stuff, I will tend to do the opposite,” he admits. “So in the horse world in Kentucky it was like, 'You do it like this, because that's how we've done it for 50, 75 years.' And I just turned my back on that. I was like, 'I'm going to do it my way, whether it's good or bad.' And I've failed sometimes, been very successful other times. But don't tell me this is how I have to do something, because I've never been too good at hearing that. I mean, I was the one that was jumping out of the window in school, getting suspended and stuff, just because it was different. I have always been Mr. Risk Taker.”

As we've seen, however, it has always been a calculated risk. No less than when he went “all in” on those first Standardbreds, he did his due diligence on Thoroughbreds. He was first hooked, aptly enough given the emergence of Onesto, watching European grass racing in the farm office at dawn. Again he compiled the data, ran the software.

“We were looking for a niche where you feel like you know as much or more than everybody else that you're playing against,” he says. “And we identified an area of the sport I felt I could play in. I can't compete with people that own countries, people that have art collections and things like that. But we're very happy to stay in our lane.”

Fortunately that lane diverted through Coolmore, home to seven of the mares and source, too, of priceless counsel from Eddie Fitzpatrick. Bowden focused on mares of a specific type and price range, and then rolled the dice on elite stallion power.

“Like I said, don't reinvent the wheel,” he says. “It's more, figure out what works. In the Standardbred world, we do everything. But it's taken us 15, 16 years to get to that point. Here, we bought the horses and then partnered with people who know their stuff: Coolmore, and sales companies like Gainesway and Eaton. Just recently, we've been raising the yearlings after they get weaned. And the first group included Gulfport, so that's kind of fun.

“I mean a horse is a horse, right? Conformation flaws exist in both breeds. Athletes exist in both. Failures and successes. It's all the same. If you can withstand the harness world, you can withstand this world as well. As long as you stay in your lane, try not to do too much.”

One way or another, it has been quite a journey since the epiphany at a county fair in Windsor, Maine, when a bulb suddenly lit with a college kid. Bowden's grandfather had given him some exposure to cheap racehorses in his boyhood, cleaning stalls and grooming on Saturdays, and was seated next to him in the stands that day.

Bowden announced: “There isn't anything else I want to do.”

“Well,” his grandfather replied. “Then you better get a plan together.”

So he did internships on Standardbred farms in Pennsylvania during college, and then moved to Kentucky to learn the ropes in farriery and farm management. Bowden's father, a real estate entrepreneur, bought into the project with enthusiasm.

“I was the oldest of four kids and an athlete,” Bowden says. “So, my whole life, I'm a 'type A' personality: OCD, one-track mind. So for me to do this, it's just part of who I am. I am red-headed! I can be a fiery personality. But I think I know what I have. I know my knowledge base, and surround myself with good people. But it's always, like, what's next? We're always planning the next chapter.”

Which invites an obvious question.

“Well, we started with mares and foals in the Standardbred world, and then we added stallions, and then a race stable, and then a sales consignment business,” he says. “So who knows? The Thoroughbred stallion game, I don't know if I want to be in the business of standing them myself. But being involved in their ownership would be interesting. I'm always open-minded to anything where I feel like I have an edge. I like the 'boutiqueness' we have with Thoroughbreds: it allows the play at a level that we feel there's a niche for us. But if we talked in another five or 10 years, I suspect that this thing would look totally different than it does now. In a good way.”

So even if Onesto puts his dam right in the center of the shop window on Sunday, you feel that this is still only a beginning. On Thursday Bowden was flying back from Goffs where he had sold a Calyx (GB) filly for €145,000, the second highest price achieved by that young sire in the Orby Sale, preparing to tack back immediately to his consignment for a big Standardbred auction next week. Sometimes Lindsay, mother of their three children, will still venture the question: “When is enough enough?” By this stage, however, his wife knows the answer.

“Never!” Bowden says with a chuckle. “No, I don't know—but it's not now.”

This, after all, is a man who derives fulfilment from the ultimate in masochistic sport, the Iron Man marathon. Maybe that's what drew him to Thoroughbreds, a relish for adversity?

“Yeah, it's the punishment!” he jokes. “That's what gets me up, four o'clock every morning. We all go to Keeneland and sees horses bring a million. But you don't see the ones that don't get in foal, or X-ray bad right before the sale, or even that die during foaling. There's so many more of those downs than ups that you better enjoy it when it's good. But even in the darkest moments, it's always been like, 'There's better stuff coming. I just have to be patient.' I always felt like this was what I was supposed to be doing.

“People in the Thoroughbred world are no different from the way they are with Standardbreds. We're all crazy, right? Everybody knows that you're not going to make a ton of money. You might get lucky every once in a while, but at the end of the day, you do it because you love horses. That's why we're here.”

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Equine Worlds Collide In Team Behind Classic Hope Onesto

“Ca va, ca va, ca va,” says one rider after another as they report back to trainer Fabrice Chappet on their respective mounts during a routine Monday morning exercise in Chantilly.

Then comes Gregory Defrel, the Martinique-born rider of G2 Prix Greffulhe winner Onesto (Ire) (Frankel {GB}).

“Tres, tres bien,” he says, before gesticulating with the internationally recognised hand signal for 'ok'.

That's good enough for the trainer, who remains outwardly impassive as he watches his second lot circle under the trees in the Rond Allez France. Chappet is not prone to issuing wild statements of excitement about his runners, either pre- or post-race, but he does concede that he is very happy to have Onesto in his immaculate Chantilly stable. One wouldn't have Chappet pegged as overly superstitious, but he notes with the merest hint of a smile that the horse arrived in his yard from America last year on Prix du Jockey Club day. An omen, perhaps?

Onesto has certainly taken a fairly unusual route towards this year's 'French Derby'. Bred in Ireland at Coolmore by American breeder Adam Bowden of Diamond Creek Farm, he made his first public appearance in England at the October Yearling Sale at Tattersalls, where he was unsold at 185,000gns. With the pandemic showing no sign of abating and 2-year-old sales potentially being halted or delayed again, the colt was shipped to the States and was eventually consigned to the Ocala Spring Sale in Florida, where he first caught the eye of bloodstock agent Hubert Guy.

“He went to Ciaran Dunne, who is one of the great consignors at Ocala,” Guy recalls. “This horse worked and I was shocked. He had an unbelievable stride and did a fantastic time (breeze-up video). Then I saw that he was by Frankel out of a Sea The Stars mare, so it looked  on pedigree like he was a mile-and-a-quarter, mile-and-a-half horse, and his grandmother was by Kahyasi, and you go back to the dam of Hasili, from the best family of Juddmonte. I called Jean-Etienne Dubois and I said 'we have to buy this horse'.”

Therein two worlds collided, in more ways than one. Adam Bowden has only relatively recently added Thoroughbred breeding to his repertoire, having majored in Standardbreds. His Diamond Creek Farm, with wings in Kentucky and Pennsylvania, stands 11 stallions. On the other side of the Atlantic, Jean-Etienne Dubois is a name etched in the annals of the French trotting scene, as a former champion trainer, driver and breeder. Dubois, who is now based in Australia, owns a third of Onesto, in partnership with his father Jean-Pierre-Joseph Dubois, as well as Ecurie Hunter Valley, Ecurie Billon, Haras d'Etreham, Hubert Guy and Fabrice Chappet. Quite a vote of confidence from agent and trainer, as well as a potentially shrewd investment from the renowned stallion-makers at Etreham.

“He has a super turn of foot. Unfortunately it doesn't happen all the time that you are able to buy the horse that you really like, and then for that horse to repeat it on the racetrack. But he had a perfect vetting, everything was right,” says Guy, who rallied the troops to buy him at $535,000.

“When I watched the work, I rushed to the barn to see him. When I arrived, I saw a little chestnut pony, but he walked really well and had a fantastic attitude. Nothing fazed him.”

An agent glimpsing a catalogue page with Frankel and Sea The Stars in the first two generations may reasonably assume that the horse in question could be on the large side. Perhaps Onesto's neatness comes from his dam's side of the family. As Guy has referenced, this is one of Juddmonte's best. His great-grand-dam Kerali (GB) (High Line {GB}) produced the petite Hasili (GB) (Kahyasi {Ire}), the legendary dam of five Group/Grade 1 winners. It is Hasili's unraced sister Kalima (GB) who features as Onesto's grand-dam.

His pedigree is lent some nice historical symmetry by the fact that his fourth dam Sookera (Roberto) was the joint-top-rated filly in the Irish Free Handicap of 1977 with Fairy Bridge (Bold Reason), who also appears in Onesto's fourth generation in the top line as the dam of Sadler's Wells. Furthermore, with Galileo (Ire) and his half-brother Sea The Stars as his grandfathers, Onesto is inbred 3×3 to Urban Sea (Miswaki).

“He has always been a nice horse,” says Chappet of Onesto, who lives only a hop, skip and jump from his front door. The trainer celebrated his first Classic success five years ago with Precieuse (Ire) (Tamayuz {GB}) in the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches, and he has come agonisingly close in the intervening years with Dice Roll (Fr) (Showcasing {GB}) finishing third in the colts' equivalent, the same season that Intellogent (Fr) (Intello {Ger}) won the G1 Prix Jean Prat after finishing a length off the winner when fourth in the Prix du Jockey Club. During the delayed Classic season of 2020, Speak Of The Devil (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}) was beaten a nose in the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches and was followed home in third by her stable-mate and paternal half-sister Mageva (Fr).

He adds, “Everybody saw that when we bought him at the breeze-up. He went very fast, and he's not born for that.”

Onesto, whose name translates from Italian to mean 'honest', certainly has the look of a horse deserving of such a moniker. As he wanders through the Chantilly forest, he keeps his head low, focused on his job, never putting a foot wrong as one or two of his stable-mates exhibit a touch of Monday morning high jinks. His lack of stature is compensated for by powerful quarters and a long, loose walk.

The chestnut colt made his racecourse debut on his home track last September when rounding the field to break his maiden with ease, beating Juddmonte's Badge (GB), a close relative to his own sire Frankel. He was awarded a 'TDN Rising Star' for his efforts.

“He had a small break when he first came here, but he has always done what we've asked him to do,” Chappet says. “He was very impressive first time out. Next time we wanted to give him a good lesson and he was beaten by Welwal (Fr) but he was dropping back to 1,500m. And then first time out this year, since he was a winner and because he has showed such a good turn of foot, we thought maybe he could go for the Guineas. So we sent him to the Fontainebleau, and he ran well–as a matter of fact, if you look at the clock–but he just showed that the mile is definitely a bit short for him now to show his best.”

Onesto bounced back from his eighth place in the G3 Prix Fontainebleau when stepping up to the Jockey Club trip of 2,100m in the G2 Prix Greffulhe. Once again his turn of foot was deployed to full effect as he accelerated past odds-on favourite Agave (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) to win eased down.

“Then last time he was impressive and that was what we wanted to see before we decided to go for the Jockey Club,” Chappet adds. “And he has come out of that race perfectly well. I'm quite happy with him at this stage.”

Golden Start For Diamond Creek…

For breeder Adam Bowden, an avowed fan of European turf racing, it has not only been Onesto who has made his early-morning race viewing even more exciting this year, as his Diamond Creek Farm is also the breeder of 'TDN Rising Star' and Royal Ascot-bound Queen Olly (Ire) (No Nay Never). The farm will also be doubly represented in the GII Black-Eyed Susan S. by graduates Missy Greer (Nyquist) and Favor (Pioneerof The Nile).

“Two of the fillies that we've bred are in the Black-Eyed Susan at Pimlico on Friday, so it seems like there's too much good luck all at one time,” says Bowden with a chuckle. “I'm just very thankful and I'm enjoying it because I know it's extremely difficult, so when it happens you'd better enjoy it.”

Of his foray into the Thoroughbred world he adds, “I was a huge fan of Galileo and Frankel. I spent all my mornings in the office watching all the English and Irish tracks and just got hooked on it years ago.

“My wife and I had gone over to Ireland as we sponsored the Vincent Delaney Memorial Standardbred race, and one of the days we had free, we had a tour of Coolmore. While we were there they told us they had some mares for sale. Eddie Fitzpatrick was fantastic and is my contact there, and we ended up buying a couple of mares from them.”

If breeders want to make a splash in European racing they could do worse than buy from the best, and in addition to the mares acquired from Coolmore, Bowden later bought Onesto's dam Onshore (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), as an unraced 3-year-old from the Juddmonte draft at the 2016 Tattersalls December Mare Sale.

“Her pedigree was the huge draw for me,” he says of the relation to stallions Dansili (GB), Champs Elysees (GB), Cacique (GB) and Leroidesanimaux (Brz), not to mention star racemares Banks Hill (GB), Intercontinental (GB) and Heat Haze (GB). “We had circled the mare and my agent Mike Akers went to see her and said, 'well if you're willing to spend what it takes to buy her, then I think she is the type of filly that we want.' And it worked out.”

It also appears to be working out with Queen Olly's dam Surprisingly (GB) (Galileo {GB}). The mare's elder offspring, the dual winner Schooner Ridge (Ire) (Siyouni {Fr}), is one of two fillies Bowden has in training in Chantilly with Nicolas Clement, while Queen Olly was herself bought at the Orby Yearling Sale for €300,000 by Amo Racing.

“It's crazy that all of this is happening at the same time and she looks pretty special too,” Bowden notes. “It's more than I could have hoped for in a short period of time. We really only got into the Thoroughbred side six or seven years ago. We've had decent success at the sales and now it has rotated to the track.”

Four Diamond Creek mares have recently returned to Coolmore after a spell in America.

“We've cut to 10 mares and have split them relatively evenly between Europe and the U.S.,” the breeder explains. “All of our mares shipped over to Kentucky in the fall of 2020. I couldn't travel because of the pandemic and we just wanted a better feel for them, and to see what the foals looked like. I wasn't sure how long the pandemic was going to last so they ended up staying here a while and have recently gone back with the yearlings.”

And the small world that is the horse world recently brought Bowden together with Onesto's part-owner Jean-Etienne Dubois, who has also enjoyed success in Britain as part of the syndicate that owned Group 1-placed Flotus (Ire) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}).

“He happened to be over here in Kentucky doing some Standardbred stuff a couple of weeks ago and we ran into him,” says Bowden. “We were there looking at one of their Standardbreds to stand as a stallion and we ended up talking about Onesto the whole time.”

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