On a crisp, bright morning at Ballylinch Stud last week, there was just cause for enthusiasm from managing director John O'Connor, and not just for the tea and cake on the table in front of us.
Not much more than a hop, skip and a jump from the office, via a path right past the headstone of The Tetrarch, the stallion yard is about to crank into top gear as the mares start rolling in for the season. There may only be four stallions, but there will be plenty of visitors for them, right through from one of the established elite sires of Europe, Lope De Vega (Ire), to the young buck Waldgeist (GB).
In between these two are the up-and-comers, Make Believe (GB) and New Bay (GB), both in the early stages of forging their reputations, the former especially via the mighty Mishriff (Ire), the highest earner in Europe last year thanks largely to his exploits in the $20 million Saudi Cup, for which he is returning a week on Saturday. Let's not forget, however, that Mishriff was also a Classic winner in France, continuing some important first-crop baton-passing down his sireline from Dubai Millennium (GB) to Dubawi (Ire) to Makfi (GB) and Make Believe. Following his success in Riyadh, Mishriff then added the G1 Juddmonte International S. to his tally back on the grass last season. He's as versatile and likeable as they come, and will certainly have brought untold joy to his owner/breeder Prince Faisal, who also raced Make Believe, having bought him as a foal.
“Prince Faisal has been really successful with Make Believe,” says O'Connor. “And he doesn't have a very big broodmare band but whatever he is doing, he is doing really well. He hasn't just had Mishriff, he's also had [Listed winner] Tammani (GB), [Group 3 winner] Noticeable Grace (Ire), and a recent Group 2 winner in Saudi Arabia, Third Kingdom (GB). He is continuing to support him and it does show you that when good shareholders stay in a stallion it is a huge advantage for a young horse.”
We hear plenty about syndicates in racing, but less publicly syndication has long been key to establishing stallions, and there are few studs around the world better versed in the art of this side of the business than Ballylinch. The stud and its partners are not afraid to put their shoulder to the wheel, as it were, in launching a new recruit, and recent successes speak to the value of this collaborative approach. Lope De Vega's first Group 1 winner Belardo (Ire) was a Ballylinch homebred, while another of his recent recruits to the National Stud in England, Lope Y Fernandez (Ire), was bred by shareholder SF Bloodstock. Similarly, China Horse Club provided the first Group 1 winner for New Bay in the Jane Chapple-Hyam-trained filly Saffron Beach (Ire), who has the G1 Dubai Turf pencilled in for next month.
There's plenty of buzz about sons of Dubawi at stud at present–witness the clamour for nominations and breeding rights to Zarak (Fr) and Time Test (GB) following their first-crop runners in 2021–and New Bay is one of the most significant vessels caught on this rising tide. He was the first of the Ballylinch quartet to be full for 2022, even after a fee rise from €20,000 to €37,500, and there are plenty of his offspring to look forward to this season. These include Classic prospects Bayside Boy (Ire) and Sea Bay (Ger), the latter having been Germany's champion 2-year-old last season. Another of note is the typical Sir Michael Stoute improver Bay Bridge (GB), winner of all four of his starts last year, including the Listed James Seymour S., for owner/breeder James Wigan, who also owns Saffron Beach with Lucy and Ollie Sangster.
We will have a while to wait for Waldgeist's runners as his first crop are just yearlings, but perhaps the wait won't be too long once the 2023 season is upon us. A son of Galileo (Ire) and the celebrated Monsun (Ger) mare Waldlerche (GB), Waldgeist wasn't slow in making an impression as a juvenile. He won on debut at Chantilly in September before finishing third (behind the Ballylinch-bred winner Frankuus) in the G3 Prix de Conde and then being produced with perfect timing by the maestro Andre Fabre to win the G1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud, a race which, in hindsight, had both strength and depth. Behind Waldgeist that day in Paris were future winners of the Derby, St Leger and Melbourne Cup in Wings Of Eagles (Fr), Capri (Ire) and Rekindling (GB), as well as treble Group 1 winner Best Solution (Ire).
O'Connor says, “We're delighted with the response from the industry to Waldgeist. I think one of the things that maybe caught one or two people by surprise is the quality and consistency of his stock. They mostly have quite fluent movement to them, and some of them look quite precocious actually, which was a bit of a surprise. But they have beautiful attitudes. Even watching his foals at the sales, they will always walk straight back in the box–they have that willing attitude and I hope that will transfer to their racing days.”
Waldgeist himself made 14 racecourse appearances, nine of them ending in victory, including his last triumphant hurrah in the Arc. But he was also highly effective over the shorter 2,100-metre trip of the G1 Prix Ganay, a performance which remains vivid in O'Connor's memory for the turn of foot he displayed in dispensing with Study Of Man (Ire) and Ghaiyyath (Ire) to win by more than four lengths.
“It's probably fair to say that Andre Fabre tends not to run horses in Group 1 races as 2-year-olds unless he feels they are up to it and he was proved right in this particular case,” O'Connor says. “I think this horse could surprise people in several ways. If we only think of him as an Arc winner then we can forget that he was a talented racehorse right from the start.”
He adds of the current preoccupation for standing precocious sprint-orientated stallions, “It's a phase that we are going through in terms of what's fashionable and it's probably related to people wanting to have a shorter time span in having to wait for a horse to reach his peak. But one of the things that we shouldn't forget with this particular horse is that he is a Group 1-winning 2-year-old.”
Waldgeist is another to benefit potentially from some notable backers, not least from those studs involved in his breeding, Newsells Park Stud, Gestut Ammerland and Gestut Fahrhof.
“He has a very strong syndicate and it's one that has a bit of history of doing well with launching a stallion so that is an advantage,” O'Connor notes. “Ammerland have been outstanding breeders for a number of decades. They certainly helped us to launch Lope De Vega, and now Newsells Park are involved, who are also outstanding breeders, combined with our usual shareholders, many of whom have been here since I started. I think that is influential in getting a young horse going.”
Now 15, Lope De Vega is all swagger in the Kilkenny sunshine, an attribute he has passed on to some of his sons at stud. There are four now in Ireland and Britain: Belardo, Phoenix Of Spain (Ire), and the latest additions Lucky Vega (Ire) and Lope Y Fernandez. With 11 full covering seasons under his belt, Lope De Vega's fee has increased from his opening €15,000, with a dip to €12,500 in years three and four, before his runners steadily emboldened the team to increase his price year by year to his current high of €125,000.
“Hopefully his sons will do well,” says O'Connor. “They were generated from his initial crops when he was €15,000 or a little margin above or below that. Obviously he's now a proven sire at the top level he's covering some really high-quality mares so it will be exciting to see the next generation of sons that come through from some of the top mares. It could give Lope De Vega a real opportunity to create a dynasty.”
Certainly, his recent books have had a stellar feel to them, with this year's foal crop alone set to include the offspring of Group 1 winners Arabian Queen (GB), Cursory Glance (GB), Dank (GB), Dar Re Mi (GB), Ervedya (Fr), Fallen For You (GB), Miss France (Ire), Moonlight Cloud (GB), Qualify (Ire), Taghrooda (GB), and Zarkava (Fr), as well as siblings to Pinatubo (Ire), Earthlight (Ire), Newspaperofrecord (Ire), Alcohol Free (Ire), and Legatissimo (Ire) among others.
He continues, “All the stallions will cover good books this year and the horse who was first to be full this time was New Bay, who was full from the end of last year really. We put his price up by a significant amount but he could have gone up more and it would have made no difference. Our policy is to go step by step to try to let the horses respond to how they are doing on the racetrack and in the sales ring. We did that with Lope De Vega and we try to do it with any of the younger horses that are succeeding. I try to think about how I would feel about it if I was on the other side of the fence, and we factor that into our plans.”
The Ballylinch quartet may be standing deep in famed Irish breeding territory at the former home of The Tetrarch but all four have a notably strong link to Chantilly, having graduated from the stable of one celebrated trainer, Andre Fabre. O'Connor has long had a fondness for France and admits to keeping a very close eye on the racing scene there, outlining his belief that the French form can be a little under-rated.
“Obviously we have had a lot of success with horses that have been trained by Andre,” he says. “He is a wonderful trainer and I think, certainly in our view, he trains horses in a way that it is very simple to understand how good the horse was.
He is fascinating to listen to in terms of his insight into a particular horse and we are delighted that he is happy to recommend us as a home for some of his top horses.”
O'Connor adds, “The first horse that we stood that he trained was Soviet Star, through he didn't come directly to us. But we have had a number of stallions that he has trained and a lot of them have done well, so if it ain't broke…”
Some sentences do not require an ending, for it is plain to see that the French connection has served this corner of Ireland very well indeed.
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