By James Wilson
In February 2006, at Calder in Florida, Irish vet Demi O'Byrne, bidding for a syndicate from Coolmore Stud, paid $16.1 million for a two-year-old colt by Forestry, shattering the record price for a thoroughbred set more than 20 years earlier. The colt, who was never to win a race, was named The Green Monkey and, as with Seattle Dancer, who set the previous benchmark of $13.1 million, the Maktoum family of Dubai were underbidders to John Magnier's team. Not much had changed, it seemed, during the intervening period.
Coolmores worldwide operations had continued to grow in scale, though it now has a rival bidding to develop a global stallion operation in the shape of Sheikh Mohammed's Darley.
And while John Magnier remains the hands-on head of Coolmore, now being the proprietor of the vast stud operation as well as the Ballydoyle training stables, most of the other one-time key players have either taken a back seat or passed away. Robert Sangster died after a long battle with cancer, while Vincent O'Brien spends much of his time in Australia. Another, unrelated O'Brien, Aidan - a native of Wexford who had shown exceptional skill initially training jumpers - was installed by Magnier at Ballydoyle following his namesake's retirement in 1994.
In the 1980s the Coolmore influence in the sale ring declined. Sangster was racing mainly home-breds and his interests at Coolmore were much reduced by the time of his death. New stallions came from other sources. Danehill was bought from his breeder Prince Khalid Abdullah for a mere 4 million in 1989, while others were bought from owners such as Lord Howard de Walden, one-time Coolmore partner Stavros Niarchos, Daniel Wildenstein and Lord Weinstock.
A new chapter was added to the Coolmore story in 1995. London-born, Monaco-based Michael Tabor, a well-known rails bookmaker who had some spare capital after selling his Arthur Prince betting-shop chain, was holidaying in Barbados and met Magnier and former Coolmore vet Demi O'Byrne, the man who had travelled with Nijinsky when he won the 1970 Triple Crown. O'Byrne, a native of Co Waterford from another famous family of horsemen, bought American Classic contender Thunder Gulch privately for Tabor in 1995 and the colt went on to win both the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes.
With Tabor on board, Magnier again became a major player at the top yearling sales. In 1995, they bought three of the top four lots at Keenelands boutique July Sale and a Sadler's Wells colt who jointly topped Tattersalls' Houghton Sale at 600,000gns. The latter colt was named Entrepreneur and marked the arrival of Magnier in a role he had previously not publicised - as a major racehorse owner - when winning the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket in 1997.
In the same year, Aidan O'Brien had his first Classic successes in Ireland's 2000 Guineas and Derby with Desert King, also owned by the Tabor/Magnier partnership. Those victories opened the floodgates to a string of other successes sporting either Tabor's blue and orange silks or the plain dark blue colours of Magnier's wife Sue. Epsom Derby heroes Galileo and High Chaparral, champions and Classic winners such as Giant's Causeway, Montjeu, Rock Of Gibraltar, Hurricane Run, Stravinsky, Fasliyev, Hawk Wing, Johannesburg, Milan, Brian Boru and Footstepsinthesand mean that Coolmore is once again producing its own stallions, while talented fillies such as Imagine, Shahtoush and Virginia Waters have enhanced an already blue-blooded broodmare band.
Former Ladbrokes bookmaker Derrick Smith has latterly joined forces with Magnier and Tabor, both at the yearling sales in the $16.1 million breeze-up colt. Smith is now based in Barbados where he, along with his two partners, has amassed a fortune from currency trading. Indeed Coolmore is now just one of many business enterprises for Magnier. With partners such as top jumps owner JP McManus, Smith, Dublin financier Dermot Desmond and Horseracing Ireland chairman Denis Brosnan, he has a myriad other interests.
He famously, with McManus, owned a 28.7 per cent stake in Manchester United football club, which was sold to American tycoon Malcolm Glazer. The pair have also invested in the Barchester chain of nursing homes, a property company that owns Unilever House in London, leisure clubs, including the Chelsea Harbour Club, and the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados.
Coolmore itself is now far more than the small farm taken over by Magnier in 1975. Neighbouring in Co Tipperary and Co Cork have been absorbed by the stud to bring the acreage into thousands, including also Ballydoyle and the Longfield Stud training establishment occupied by Magnier's son-in-law David Wachman.
Magnier was a bloodstock innovator. He pioneered the covering of huge books of mares and shuttling stallions to the southern hemisphere often to double their annual earning potential. As well as Ashford Stud in Kentucky, one of America's most-profitable stallion stations, Coolmore also runs one of the southern hemisphere's most prestigious farms in Australia's Hunter Valley.
As well as its own flagship stallions, including Sadler's Wells, Giant's Causeway and Montjeu, Coolmore has breeding rights and shares in many other top sires, including Storm Cat and Kingmambo. Since Caerleon lifted the British and Irish sires' championship in 1988, the title has only once failed to go to Coolmore. Caerleon scored again in 1991, Sadler's Wells took 14 titles, while Danehill posthumously scored in 2005.
The key personnel at Coolmore have changed. Gay O'Callaghan, whose brother Tony is married to John Magnier's sister, left to become one of the most successful modern-day pinhookers, as well as the proprietor of the Morristown Lattin stallion stud. The staff line-up, built up over two decades, however, remains the envy of all its rivals.
General manager Christy Grassick is a supreme diplomat from a famous racing family, while Magnier's right-hand man is Paul Shanahan, a man who worked his way up through the ranks. John Halley, who runs a veterinary practice with O'Byrne, is on hand at the racecourse with all the major Ballydoyle runners, and the stud employs two first-class financial brains in Eddie Irwin and Clem Murphy. The crucial marketing aspect is handled by the Fethard-based Primus Advertising agency run by Richard Henry.
Other advisers to Coolmore include famed horseman Timmy Hyde, a successful pinhooker in partnership with Shanahan, while a large number of Magnier's mares are owned in partnership with his old school friend David Nagle at his Barronstown Stud in Co Wicklow. There will surely be many more chapters in the Coolmore, and some will undoubtedly bring about a feeling of deja vu. But Magnier can look back with satisfaction that his vision of producing future stallions has been more successful than perhaps he could ever have hoped.
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