'When You're Breeding Horses, This Is Where You Want To Be': Royal Ascot Delight for O'Leary and Hayes

They walked around the paddock one behind the other, like a little brother following his big brother around. The swaggering Gstaad led the more demure Bow Echo, looking as though at least a year separated them in age. 

But when the time came to tussle there was no brotherly love lost as the pair fought with each stride to the line, delivering the battle royal we had hoped to see but perhaps had not dared to dream would happen. Whichever way the photo went, a Guineas winner would be crowned in the St James's Palace Stakes and, after his less-than-perfect passage though the first furlong then having been all but clawed back by the rallying Gstaad on the rail, it was Bow Echo who would remain unbeaten. Just.

When he came back in after winning the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket the hero's welcome had felt extra raucous for the local boys done good – George Boughey and Billy Loughnane winning a Classic almost in their back yard. The roar this time was no less euphoric for a horse, his trainer and a young jockey who are on their way to becoming box office.

“A true superstar,” was Loughnane's emphatic description of Bow Echo after the gongs had been handed out, and certainly he has lit up the season to date, twice beating Gstaad, who would clearly be a standout colt in any other year. 

When it comes to standouts, Gstaad's trainer Aidan O'Brien had up to that point continued his merry romp up the charts of the Royal Ascot all-time greats by collecting the Coventry Stakes and – perhaps to his surprise as much as anyone else's – showing the Aussies how it's done in the day's top sprint, the King Charles III Stakes. King Charles was there himself to welcome John Magnier to the rostrum, actual royalty greeting bloodstock royalty with a warm grin and a chat before the trophy was handed over to swell the bewildering collection of silverware at Coolmore.

Darley's Night Of Thunder may have claimed two of the Group 1 contests of the day when Ten Bob Tony streaked to a 50-1 upset in the Queen Anne Stakes before Bow Echo's triumph, but Coolmore was at the double too, with a pair of Group wins for No Nay Never, himself a Royal Ascot winner in the Norfolk Stakes of 2013 and represented on the opening day by his sons Great Barrier Reef and Mission Central. 

“Now, I won't do the race planning for them,” said breeder Eddie O'Leary as he launched into a helpful suggestion for Aidan O'Brien as to where he should be campaigning Mission Central. “But he's a lovely little horse to go to The Everest.”

With Ka Ying Rising set to return to Sydney for the A$20 million contest, it may sound more like Mission Impossible but Tom Magnier, who runs Coolmore's Australian division, did not dismiss the idea of the three-year-old gelding taking up Coolmore's slot in the race come October. 

“He's definitely a horse we'd have a look at. It would be great fun to get Aidan and the team down there,” Magnier told Australia's Channel 7.

King Charles III with Coolmore's John Magnier | Emma Berry

That will have been music to the ears of O'Leary, who runs Gigginstown House Stud for his brother Michael alongside his own Lynn Lodge Stud operation. With Mags O'Toole he had shelled out a decent sum – 400,000gns to be precise – for Mission Central's dam Thar She Blows (Zoffany) in 2022. If that seems a lot to pay for an unraced filly, she was by that stage a full-sister Prosperous Voyage, who handily won the G1 Falmouth Stakes in the months prior to the Tattersalls December Mares Sale. There's also the matter of the influential mare Monroe back there as Thar She Blows' third dam, and anyway, it wasn't long before she started repaying the O'Learys in the sales ring when Mission Central, her first foal, sold for 625,000gns at Book 1.

“When you're breeding horses, this is where you want to be,” said Eddie O'Leary from the paddock at Ascot. 

“He's a beautiful horse. I'm glad the boys got him and I'm glad he's turned out to be a good horse. He was a fantastic yearling and he made plenty of money. I'm glad he's a racehorse because he's the mare's first foal, so it's great.”

Declaring that Thar She Blows will now be “married to No Nay Never for a while”, he added, “She has a Kingman yearling colt who is going to Book 1 and her foal is a full-sister to [Mission Central].”

'We'll Drink Plenty of Champagne!'

O'Leary was not the only Irish member of the Irish bloodstock fraternity celebrating a Group 1 victory on Tuesday. Ten Bob Tony may have raised a few eyebrows after striking in the Queen Anne just ten days after his muddy triumph in the G3 Tattenham Corner Stakes at Epsom, but for followers of the descendants of the great Kilfrush matriarch Mill Princess it would perhaps have been less of a surprise. Blood will out, after all.

Nobody is more familiar with that family than Brendan Hayes, the former manager of Kilfrush who bred Ten Bob Tony under his Knocktoran Stud banner. Knocktoran has subsequently changed hands but Hayes and his wife Anne-Marie are still very much in the game through their Cotton House Stud. 

“That's the third Group 1 winner that we have had out of that family,” Hayes told TDN's Brian Sheerin on Tuesday. “Last Tycoon was a long time ago – he won the King's Stand back in 1986 and then Immortal Verse won the Coronation Stakes in 2011. Now this fella has won the Queen Anne. It's brilliant – we'll drink plenty of champagne! It's thrilling.”

He added, “We get huge satisfaction out of this. More than ever, to be honest. Okay, he was 50-1 but his form is very good and Ed Walker told me from a very early stage that this was a very smart horse. He always seemed to be ground dependent – he needed it soft – but he really smashed that theory to pieces today.”

Recalling his introduction to the family, Hayes continued, “We bought Mill Princess, a daughter of Mill Reef, from Moyglare Stud back in 1977. She won for us in France and we bred from her. She was a very good broodmare and Coolmore got the better daughters out of her down through the years. Beauty Is Truth, who is the dam of Hydrangea, is out of Zelding, who is a granddaughter of Mill Princess and then they got Immortal Verse as well, who is out of the Sadler's Wells mare Side Of Paradise. So it has been a fantastic family and we have seen how well it has done for Coolmore. I have got the sweepings of the lodge and fortunately we have managed to turn it into something worthwhile.”

Ten Bob Tony's dam Hug (Dark Angel) is a granddaughter of Mill Princess and she is not in foal this year after being covered by St Mark's Basilica.

“She did have seven pregnancies in a row, which was very good,” said Hayes, who described the young Ten Bob Tony as “big and square and he'd a lovely mind”. With a foal by Little Big Bear foal and a Bayside Boy yearling, there is still plenty to look forward to when it comes to Hug's offspring, however.

“The Bayside Boy is quite smart. Ed Sackville bought that and he also has her Space Blues two-year-old. We kept the mare after we saw Ten Bob Tony. Hug is relatively young and we also have her daughter, So Close, who is by Oasis Dream. She showed a bit of form in France and she has a colt foal by Space Blues, so we repeated that mating. She's in foal to Maranoa Charlie. We went for him because he is by Woottton Bassett and, of course, Wootton Bassett has done very well with a branch of this family given Henri Matisse is out of Immortal Verse.”

He added, “We have a lot of the family and have three daughters out of Hug's mother, Tender Is Thenight (Barathea), one being Besotted (Dutch Art), who has got off to a very good start. She has a foal by Frankel this year and is happily in foal to Camille Pissarro. Then we also have a mare called Lights Out (Make Believe), who is a lesser mare, but is in foal to Kodi Bear. We have about a dozen mares all told but you do need numbers at this game.”