Showroom A Gold Medal Find For Highclere

When Showroom (Fr) (Motivator {GB}) kicked clear to win by five lengths on debut at Goodwood on Tuesday in a 'TDN Rising Star' performance (video), it is likely that he set his connections at Highclere Thoroughbred Racing dreaming about bigger days ahead. It won't be lost on Highclere principals and members alike that the Mark Johnston-trained 2-year-old is a son of the syndicates' 2005 G1 Epsom Derby winner Motivator, but an even more remarkable chapter in Showroom's newly started story is that his addition to the Highclere roster was something of an afterthought.

When Harry Herbert and his team at Highclere set out preparing for their 2017 syndicates last year they decided, in the spirit of the Rio Olympics, to name each syndicate after a famed British Olympian. The initial group included Dame Kelly Holmes, David Weir, Denise Lewis, Edward Bevan and Edward Moses, but after the horses for each of those syndicates was sold out Herbert determined that Highclere was missing a significant presence in the North of England. As such, the Highclere Thoroughbred Racing – Nick Skelton syndicate was born, named for the Olympic gold medal equestrian, and Herbert and his team went on a hunt for yearlings based with trainers in the North.

“I was thinking it was unsatisfactory that Highclere didn't have more horses up north-we only had one or two-and I thought we had to make an approach to see if we could create a syndicate or a couple of syndicates in the North of England,” said Herbert. “I called up Mark Johnston, Kevin Ryan and Richard Fahey and asked them if they had any yearlings they hadn't sold. This was three-quarters of the way through October last year, and each one said 'yes, we have a few.' I went up with [Highclere director] Alison Begley to have a look.”

At Mark Johnston's, Herbert and Begley were shown a Motivator colt out of Lemon Twist (Ire) (Marju {Ire}), a half-brother to Al Wathna (GB) (Nayef), who had won the G2 Prix de Malleret last year for Al Shaqab Racing, to whom Herbert is also racing advisor. Showroom had been bought by Johnston for €30,000 at Arqana August, and his Tuesday exploits no doubt helped the price of his yearling brother by Wootton Bassett who topped Wednesday's opening session of the Osarus September yearling sale.

“This horse just slapped me in the face,” Herbert said. “I thought he was the most lovely looking horse, had a great physique, was very athletic, and I knew the pedigree well because Al Shaqab had the half-sister who won a group race and was a really tough, honest staying filly. It's a nice family and he was very inexpensive; he was slightly offset in his off fore knee or something, nothing significant. So we thought, 'we'll give him a go,' and he was only €30,000. We bought him and then we bought two more that ended up with Kevin Ryan.”

Herbert said Showroom's early work in the spring was impressive for what he described as a “backwards horse.”

“We saw Showroom early in the spring when he quickened up in a piece of work in real eye-catching fashion, and then we saw the same thing again in the early summer,” he said. “Mark Johnston had said, 'I'm really pleased with the horse but I don't want to rush him because he's going to need time, he's a next year horse, but he's showing us plenty.”

Then, last month, Showroom gave connections a few anxious days when failing to sparkle for the first time in a piece of work.

“Just before York I was talking to [Johnston] and he said he's done his first piece of work where he just wasn't as impressive,” Herbert said. “He said he'd won all his pieces of work and this time another horse worked past him, so he might be going through a growth phase. [Johnston said] the horse he worked with was a nice horse and was going to run in the Convivial Maiden at York.”

That workmate turned out to be Dream Today (Ire) (Dream Ahead), who won the Convivial Maiden and was also named a 'TDN Rising Star'.

“Then the pieces of the puzzle went to thinking we did have a nice horse, and made Mark decide to run him at Goodwood because it was a restricted sires' race and a £25,000 race,” Herbert said. “We opted ironically to go to the southernmost part of the country instead of running him up North where most of his owners were, but they didn't mind that when he stormed to victory yesterday.”

Herbert said Showroom could step out next in a listed race at Doncaster next week, or in the G2 Royal Lodge S. at Newmarket on Sept. 30.

“He'll go somewhere smart, he'll move to black-type and we'll see where we are and go from there,” Herbert said. “We're very excited by him. Who knows how good he is but he's obviously well above average we think.”

Another member of the Nick Skelton syndicate makes his debut at Haydock on Thursday-Knighted (Ire) (Sir Prancealot {Ire}), for Kevin Ryan.

“He's a Sir Prancealot colt out of a Galileo mare and was again a fairly inexpensive horse, a £40,000 horse,” Herbert said. “We like him very much too; Kevin likes him and has made some nice comments about him.”

Herbert said that while Skelton–who competed in seven Olympics and won team and individual golds before retiring this past April at age 59, is not financially involved in the syndicates that bear his name, he has taken a keen interest. Skelton's son Dan is a National Hunt trainer, and son Harry is a rider over jumps.

“He was thrilled yesterday, he called me up and was over the moon,” Herbert said. “He's very keen. He's not involved financially in the syndicates but he's certainly involved in the sense that he's getting a lot of pleasure out of looking at them and it's his name on the race card every time they run-Highclere Thoroughbred Racing – Nick Skelton. We're thrilled; he's a gold medal-winning athlete, and his amazing ability and durability should be part of the team.”

Motivator is a major flagbearer for Highclere, and while the club campaigned his G2 May Hill S.-winning daughter Pollenator (Ire), Herbert said having a high-class son of their Derby winner is special.

“Motivator has moved to France and has had smaller crops and we haven't had a Motivator for a while,” he said. “We had Pollenator for the Royal Ascot Racing Club who won the May Hill. We've had some nice Motivators over the years but in recent years we've had a dearth of them so it's particularly exciting to have one by him who might be smart, and a colt. His fillies seem to be historically a bit better than his colts so this might make up for that.”

“Ironically he was the least expensive yearling we bought last year and of course he ends up being the best but that's the game as we know,” Herbert added. “One day it's a Harbinger who cost 180,000gns, or a Telescope who cost 170,000gns, and then you get a horse like this who cost £30,000. I'm not putting him in the brackets of those other two, but hope for the best.”