Robert Sangster
Fifty years ago this spring John Magnier moved into Coolmore Stud ahead of the now infamous and audacious annual raids on the Kentucky yearling market. At the Keeneland July Select Sale of 1975, Magnier, along with the esteemed trainer Vincent O'Brien and key ally Robert Sangster, started their recruitment drive of what O'Brien described as "baby stallions". In his biography, O'Brien stated, "We would try and turn the tide: we would organise a syndicate to buy yearlings which I would train, and from which we could make our own stallions."...
When he came to Europe, and rode them all to sleep, everyone said that Steve Cauthen had a clock in his head. If a Swiss watchmaker wanted to check his work, he could just ask Cauthen to go five-eighths in a minute flat. But all that precision seemingly ran askew when it came to counting his years, each of which might have compressed a decade. As Laz Barrera said, when the press asked him about keeping "The Kid" on his Derby horse: "Stevie Cauthen doesn't come from this planet. He's...
The iconic Horsetrader, the 324-page tale of Robert Sangster and the genesis of the Coolmore Throughbred breeding empire, is now available as an audiobook, the Sangster family announced. Horsetrader covers the pivotal shift in the racing industry between 1974 and 1990 when bloodstock prices skyrocketed from $135,000 to over $13 million. This era reshaped the history of bloodstock breeding, prompting even governmental attention, and adjustments in US tax rates during President Reagan's administration to accommodate the sport's transformation. Swettenham Stud's Adam Sangster, Robert's son, commissioned English recording artist Christopher Tester...
Typically, the names Sangster, Manton, Tattersalls, and British-bred runner at Windsor don't scream `American connections,' but in the case of Inquisitively (GB) (Ten Sovereigns {Ire}), peel back the onion a bit and you'll find more than a few stars and stripes among the connections. Inquisitively, a barely-beaten second at Windsor in his May 29 debut, is entered in Wednesday's Windsor Castle at Royal Ascot, and will carry his owners' hopes as well as a bit of history on his back. Inquisitively sold for 40,000gns euros at the 2022 Tattersalls October...
The name Sangster has often been seen among the ranks of owners and breeders, and from later this year it will also feature on a training licence, with Ollie Sangster set to train from his family's historic estate of Manton. The 25-year-old of course has a background steeped in racing: his grandfather was the legendary Robert Sangster, known with his friends and associates MV O'Brien and John Magnier as 'The Brethren', while his father Ben is also a breeder of note, with Luxembourg (Ire) and Changingoftheguard (Ire) being among his...