The Tuesday Take: How to buy your first mare

I’d like to buy a mare.

A fleeting thought for many perhaps. Maybe you get as far as flicking through a breeding stock catalogue. Very few have the bravery to follow through. Gavin Boyle contacted Kevin Blake and myself this week and asked for help as he told us he’d like to buy his first mare. However,  it wasn’t a fleeting thought for Gavin. He traveled down from Lavey, Derry and returned with his first thoroughbred mare in his horse box. I thought it would be useful to tell the story of how we approached it and perhaps show that it’s possible for you too.

Gavin and I had never met and I was thankful I had listened to a podcast on south Derry GAA recently when we caught up at the Goffs February Sale. Gavin is club chairman of Lavey so I was put through my paces - name dropping Joe Brolly wouldn’t suffice here. Gavin had a budget of €4k, max €5k to spend. Ideally he wanted a mare in foal so he could enjoy having that foal this year and then cover her again this year. Kevin was out of action so it was up to me to deliver for Gavin. €5k isn’t an easy budget - you’re going to have to give something up in order to find something that works. Generally, when our family farm Tinnakill House is buying a mare we have a few rules:

1. Value is everything.
2. Make sure there is black type in the first dam.
3. It’s good to buy off rich people.
4. If we’re to pick from pedigree, physical or performance - we’ll pick pedigree first.

First up was a mare not on the original shortlist - Euphrasia. Sometimes a bit of information changes your gameplan and Bill Dwan of Castlebridge Consignment (her vendor) informed us she got lovely foals and had a reserve of €5k, bang on our budget. This creates an interesting dynamic to be honest - you know the reserve is €5k but you know you’re bust if anyone else bids on her. What should you do tactically when bidding? Bid the €5k reserve right away and hope that distracts anyone else from bidding or just bid to auctioneer up to the reserve from €1k and hope for best. We went for the latter and I was certain we had her bang on the reserve. A Group winner in foal to a £6,500 sire for Gavin - brilliant. However, sitting in the seats was her former trainer Joe Murphy. A great man for a bargain - Joe bids €5,500. In a desperate attempt to nab her for Gavin I say I’ll take a share and bid €6k but alas Joe goes again and gets her back for €6,500. I meet Joe afterwards and he tells me he had no intention of buying her but he saw her making just €5k and just thought she was too good value. Maybe I should have bid €5k right away and hoped for a quick knock!

The next mare we landed a blow on was Florida Times.  She hasn’t had a winner yet and her Sands of Mali yearling only made €5k but she is a stakes placed daughter of Elzaam and we’d heard reports the Soldier’s Call filly, albeit unnamed, might land a blow this season and perhaps give Gavin an update. Space Traveller was a popular first season sire so again, a foal by him might give Gavin a chance at a few quid when selling that foal at the end of the year. It felt like she was going to come our way when the bidding started but alas she drifted out of our grasp and went on to make €7k - back to the drawing board.

Finally (we thought) came my pre-sale favourite, Percolator. Regular readers of the Tuesday Take at this point may throw their eyes to heaven - for heaven’s sake Jack, she’s 18! Yes, dear friend, I know but look at the record. Percolator was a bullet two year old - she won 4 times including the two fastest two year old races in France, the Prix du Bois and Prix La Fléche. She was so quick, she was deemed good enough to finish her two year old season in the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes. She has passed on that precocity to her foals too, she has bred five individual two year old winners - that’s proper impressive. However, given she’s now more Zimmer frame then five furlong zip perhaps we’d have a chance with our €5k budget. Yes is the answer but we unfortunately like her we didn’t get a long trip. We lasted five furlongs, but when the bidding got to €6,000 we cried enough - onwards.

We were running out of time. We needed to look beyond the shortlist. Lady Correspondent was a first time two year old winner for Juddmonte in a Newmarket maiden. Her first foal, Gellhorn, reached a peak  Racing post rating of 92 for Stuart Williams. Since then, she’d been a bit unlucky with dead foals and a few no returns - however she had already shown she could do it. What’s more she was in foal to Dandy Man, a hard knocking €10,000 sire for Irish breeders for the last decade and carrying a foal of his last crop. We’d have to break our rule on blacktype in the first dam but we knew he’d have to compromise to get the job done.  We got stuck in early with the opening bid of €1,000 and do you know what - we landed her for €3,500 - mission accomplished, the War Front mare was off to south Derry.

I was struck afterwards by how much I enjoyed helping Gavin buy his first mare. While I might bid higher amounts on other occasions, the importance of getting it right for Gavin wasn’t lost on me - I really wanted to set him on his way and helpfully after a positive experience he might roll the dice again. With a bounce of the ball Lady Correspondent will reward Gavin with a nice Dandy Man foal and she’ll hopefully go in foal to Bouttemont later in the season.  But more than that I hope Gavin experiences the unique kick of thinking what he might breed from her that makes owning mares so special. The two year old is with Richard Hughes don’t you know, let the dreaming begin in Derry.

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