Newmarket’s National Treasure

By Emma Berry
 For anyone who has seen the wonderful film ‘Something To Brighten The Morning’, it’s impossible to stand in the stallion yard at the National Stud and not imagine, lump in throat, Mill Reef’s lad walking away as he leaves his charge to embark on his secondary career. 
More than four decades have passed since Paul Mellon’s outstanding homebred took up stud duties in Newmarket and subsequently became champion sire in Britain and Ireland in 1978 and, posthumously, in 1987. During that time his former home, alongside Newmarket’s July Course at the gateway to flat racing’s British headquarters, has seen good times and bad. Today, happily, under the ownership of the Jockey Club and the management of Brian O’Rourke since 2008, the National Stud is enjoying something of a renaissance. 
In its current incarnation it has been a bastion of Newmarket since 1963, having initially been set up in Ireland in 1916 after Colonel William Hall Walker (later Lord Wavertree) donated his land and stock to the British government to breed cavalry horses. It later transferred to bases in Dorset and West Sussex from 1943, having switched its attention to Thoroughbred breeding. In such an establishment it’s hard not to focus on the historical aspect, and the graves of Never Say Die, Royal Palace, Tudor Melody and Blakeney, along with yards named after some of the founding fathers of the turf, such as Admiral Rous and Lords Bentinck and Rosebery, do more than nod in this direction. But if there’s one direction in which Brian O’Rourke’s mind is focused it is very much towards the future. 
“It’s becoming more and more evident that it’s important to have something like the National Stud in the heart of Newmarket,” says the Irishman, who spent 16 years working in the breeding business in Kentucky. 
“When it was government-owned and losing money, people saw it as an expense to the tax-payer. Now, they see it as an asset. It should always have been seen as an asset. We’re running the stud as a business, it’s washing its face and hopefully we will get back to the heyday of Mill Reef. We’ll just have to keep working hard at it.” 
Being on the doorstep of a number of high-profile stallion studs, as well as Tattersalls, has its benefits for the 500-acre farm, which is home to up to 200 boarding mares in the height of the breeding season. As the covering season is about to swing into action, the level of activity at the National Stud naturally cranks up several notches, too. 
“We’ll probably have 30 mares coming in this week so it’s all hands on deck. We had four foals last night and we’ll be full-on until the end of May,” says O’Rourke as he arrives at the foaling yard to examine the new arrivals with assistant manager Rob Stapleton and vet Huw Neal, a fertility expert from Newmarket Equine Hospital just next door. 
“We’ve been very fortunate in that the stud’s done very well in the last few years and the confidence has grown every single year. We’ve had good consignments at the December Sales and people are getting behind us, which is great to see. It also means we’re getting a better caliber of mare here.” 
He continued: “There are some fantastic stallions standing here in Newmarket now–10 years ago it wasn’t as strong. You’ve got Juddmonte, Darley, Cheveley Park, Lanwades, Shadwell, and 90% of the mares we board here through the season are not going to our stallions, but they’re here because most of those studs don’t take boarders.” 
While the established Newmarket elite such as Dansili (GB), Oasis Dream (GB), Dubawi (Ire) and Pivotal (GB) can hold their own against any sire in the world, the unproven young pretender Frankel (GB) remains the most talked-about stallion, and the National Stud played its part in his continuing story when his first filly, a daughter of the Sadler’s Wells mare Song (Ire), was born at the farm on January 19. Such is the clamor still for tales of Frankel that the bold bay filly appeared on the national TV news and the front page of The Times. 
There’s no doubt that O’Rourke would love to increase the stud’s own stallion ranks, but in the meantime the dependable Bahamian Bounty (GB) remains a stalwart alongside his son Pastoral Pursuits (GB), while Dick Turpin (Ire) has an exciting year ahead with his first crop of yearlings set to go under the hammer from this summer. 
“We’d love to get another stallion or two–a different type of stallion in the £15,000 to £20,000 range,” he says. “There’s a void in this country for stallions standing between £15,000 and £30,000–there’s an abundance in Ireland, but here there’s a huge void and therefore when you see stallions in that price range they are oversubscribed here. There’s an opportunity at that level if we can identify the right horse.” 
Stallions and mares form the backbone of any breeding establishment, but the National Stud is unique in Britain in more ways than one. Firstly, once a year, runners in the world’s oldest horse race, the Newmarket Town Plate, gallop through its grounds as part of the three and three-quarter mile challenge. It’s also the only stud in the country that is open to the public, with around 25,000 annual visitors between early March and the end of October. Finally, and arguably most importantly to the breeding world, the stud runs an annual diploma course for 24 students. 
“Horsemanship is the basis of it all. You could be the greatest academic in the world but being hands-on is what’s most important,” says O’Rourke. “We had a new intake of students start last week and they are with us until July. Throughout the breeding season they’ll get to do everything to give them a very broad foundation.” 
Along with assisting with foalings and the stallions, the students also handle an increasing number of horses in training, who enjoy short breaks at the stud, predominantly during the summer and autumn, as O’Rourke explains. 
“Part of the farm had been laid out for yearlings, about 21 individual paddocks and lunging rings, and we weren’t really selling many yearlings so it was just sort of redundant. At the time the place was losing money so we focused on spelling horses. We’re fortunate that big trainers have started using us and not just locals– even trainers like Kevin Ryan, who is based up in Yorkshire.” 
Recent National Stud graduates now employed in Kentucky include Stone Farm’s broodmare manager Troy West and Joe Reeves, the assistant manager at Dixiana Farm, but the course’s reach is wide. 
O’Rourke adds: “We’ve had students from everywhere–Kentucky, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand–and once they’re finished it then opens a door for them anywhere in the breeding world. We’d have about 40 people looking each year to take on a graduate. Training students is very important to the Jockey Club’s involvement–we’re feeding the industry– and that means they’re part of the full circle, along with running the racecourses and training grounds.” 
While O’Rourke is at the forefront of the day-to-day running of the stud, he is backed by a pro-active board which includes Gary Middlebrook, Lady Halifax, Julian Richmond-Watson, Tom Goff, Christopher Foster and Ben Sangster as chairman. 
“It’s a really good mix as there are lots of different opinions, but we all pull together,” says O’Rourke. “We were also very lucky in the previous chairman, Christopher Spence. It was his vision and he and Julian Richmond-Watson saw that the National Stud needed to be rescued. It was under his guidance that we got back on an even keel.” 
It may not have always been plain sailing for Newmarket’s flagship farm, but the return to calmer waters has been both hard-earned and well deserved.