Barouche Taps Into Top U.S. Families

In 2002, Barbara Facchino’s blossoming Barouche Stud crossed the Atlantic to shell out $900,000 on the 6-year-old mare Tap Your Heels at Keeneland November. At that time, the stakes-winning mare had a yearling colt and a weanling filly by Pulpit, and was sold in foal to Forestry. While the foal she was carrying at the time of sale died, the rest of the story could hardly have worked out better: Tap Your Heels’s Pulpit colt, Tapit, went on to win the GI Wood Memorial and continues to re-write the history books as a multiple champion sire and the most expensive stallion to stand in the U.S. since his paternal grandsire A.P. Indy.

“It just makes it all worthwhile,” said Facchino last week, reflecting on Tapit’s success. “He’s very exciting.”

Barouche Stud could see more excitement in the very near future courtesy of Tap Your Heels’s family when it offers a Teofilo (Ire) daughter of Tapit’s full-sister Caressor as lot 80 at Goffs’ Orby sale Sept. 29. The dark bay is the second foal out of the unraced 6-year-old Caressor, and the fact that she will be presented at Orby is no mistake; it is the product of a well-planned strategy by Facchino to bring top American bloodlines to Europe.

Facchino began racing Thoroughbreds in Europe in the late 1980s with her late husband, Tony. She explained that at a time they had a large enough stable to be among the leading owners in Britain in 1990 and 1991, and also dabbled in some foal-to-yearling pinhooking, but did not breed. Upon her husband’s death in 1992, it was time to re-write the business plan.

“After Tony died, Barbara asked me what way we wanted to go, and I just felt at the time we needed to get into the breeding side,” said stud manager Rory Mathews, who joined the operation in 1990. “So we started buying our mares probably in 1995, and at the same time Barbara was looking for a new farm, because we were based on the Isle of Man. It did the job, but it wasn’t really suitable for breeding racehorses.”

Facchino discovered her current property in 1998. Construction began two years later and the farm’s first crop of foals was born in 2001. At the same time, Mathews explained, “we started coming across to the States. We met up with [Dromoland Farm’s] Gerry Dilger through Peter Doyle, and we started buying one or two mares in the U.S., purely to take back to Europe. Then we stumbled across Tap Your Heels in 2002, and it’s snowballed from there.”

Mathews explained that the initial purpose of buying American mares was to raise some commercial stock in the U.S., and while the operation still keeps around a dozen horses at Dromoland, four years ago they developed a new plan for the best of their American purchases.

“We decided to bring the best horses we could get our hands on over here over to Ireland, breed those mares to the best blood we could get at home, and see where we could go with that,” Mathews said. “At this stage they’re only 2-year-olds, so we’re only starting to find out what’s going to happen with that whole mix.”

One of those mares was Caressor, whose first foal, a Galileo (Ire) colt, was hammered down for 400,000gns at Tattersalls October Book 1 last year and is now in training in France with Rodolphe Collet. Caressor produced a filly by Frankel (GB) this year and is in foal to another of Galileo’s Classic-winning sons, Australia (GB).

As for Caressor’s Teofilo filly slated to sell at Orby, Mathews said, “She’s a very well-balanced filly, a really good walker. She’s very typical of the Teofilos we’ve seen, especially the good ones. You’re looking probably at a filly that’s going to be running as a 2-year-old and will hopefully progress from that.”

While the filly already has the page to back up her physical attributes, it is possible that there is plenty still to come from the family. Tap Your Heels’s first two daughters have both produced stakes winners: Home From Oz (Pulpit) is the dam of this year’s G2 Peter Pan S. and G2 West Virginia Derby winner Madefromlucky (Lookin At Lucky), while Overandabeauty (Grand Slam) is responsible for last year’s Cicada S. winner Noble And A Beauty (Noble Causeway). Tap Your Heels also has young daughters in Japan and Europe, so there is every reason to believe the page could continue to grow internationally.

Tap Your Heels has produced nine named fillies and just one named male since Tapit.

“They’re nearly all fillies, and unfortunately of the colts she had, two of them we lost as foals, one through accident and one that was sick,” Facchino explained. “So she’s never had many colts. But there are a few fillies whose stock are only just about to come to the racetrack, so that’ll be very exciting, because there are two fillies that have already produced black-type winners, which is lovely.”

Mathews added, “It’s exciting times. The reason we bought into [the pedigree] at the time was we loved the mare, but it’s an older family with a pedigree that has speed and stamina in it. That was the real attraction to it at the time, one of those real old, proper pedigrees.”

He continued, “One of the things Barbara is pretty staunch on when buying mares is that there has to be stallions in the pedigree. It’s a huge help when it comes to selling them commercially as well.”

Tap Your Heels has a 2-year-old Medaglia d’Oro filly named Rubies Are Red–named in a TDN contest–who was purchased by SF Bloodstock for $400,000 at Keeneland September last year. Her latest produce is a yearling filly by Elusive Quality, which, contrary to Facchino’s U.S. business plan that sees everything sold, will be retained to race and later join Facchino’s broodmare band, giving her a daughter of Tap Your Heels on both sides of the Atlantic.

“Tap Your Heels is 19 years old now, so I’m sure isn’t going to go on producing forever,” Facchino explained. “So we’ll have her blood this side and then Ireland as well. She’s in foal to Super Saver–she was empty last year [after being covered by Super Saver], but she was allowed–she’s been a really, really fertile mare.”

While Caressor’s Teofilo filly is sure to be a standout of the catalogue, she is far from the only potential star in the Barouche draft. Mathews pointed out lot 284, a Dark Angel (Ire) filly, as another by a fashionable sire from a deep American family. The January foal is the first produce of Mia Madonna (GB) (Motivator {GB}), a winning great-granddaughter of Lingerie (GB) (Shirley Heights {GB}), the dam of G1 Epsom Oaks winner Light Shift (Kingmambo) and champion Shiva (Jpn) (Hector Protector). It is also the family of Eclipse champion Main Sequence (Aldebaran).

“We have a very nice Dark Angel filly who is a bit light on pedigree for Goffs, but she’s a beautiful specimen, and she goes back to the great Niarchos family of Light Shift and Main Sequence,” Mathews noted. “Those sorts of things, buying on a lesser level with the pedigrees that are deep down to try to bring them back to fruition again, is something we also like to do, as well as spending at a higher level.”

That strategy also applies to lot 333, a Poet’s Voice (GB) colt who is the first foal out of a winning granddaughter of Charming Lassie (Seattle Slew), the dam of Lemon Drop Kid (Kingmambo) and a half-sister to the great producer Weekend Surprise (Secretariat).

Barouche will also offer lot 33, a colt from the first crop of G1 Irish 2000 Guineas winner Power (GB) out of a daughter of one of its foundation mares, Nishan (GB) (Nashwan), who produced the dam of G3 Jersey S. winner Rainfall (Ire); lot 337, a Lawman (Fr) colt out of a half-sister to multiple group winner Lord Admiral (El Prado {Ire}), with U.S.-breds Cannock Chase (Lemon Drop Kid) and Action This Day (Kris S.) further down the page; and lot 469, a Mastercraftsman (Ire) half-sister to GIII Beverly Hills H. winner Turning Top (Ire) (Pivotal {GB}), who has this year’s G1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S. winner Postponed (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) under the third dam.

Mathews said recent strong renewals of the Orby sale has increased his confidence in entrusting the operation’s top yearlings with the Goffs team.

“I find with Goffs, the international market has improved immensely over the past three or four years,” he said. “We’ve gained a lot of confidence now in selling some of our best stock there. There was a time when everything that was top-class would go to [Tattersalls October] Book 1, but now we’re quite happy to send them to Goffs.”

“The currency makes a huge difference at the moment, with the dollar and sterling the way it is,” he added. “We’re hoping the American buyers will come across to Goffs and we certainly encourage them to do so. I think there will be great value at that sale for everybody, and Goffs seems to get the group winners as much as anyone else.”