For quite some time now, I have always had a massive fascination with breeding my own racehorses. There is always the dream of every breeder that their own will be the next superstar, but in reality, it works out at a 0.01% chance, especially when you have a limited budget.

The reality is, most of us do not have the millions stashed away in an offshore island to go to the likes of Frankel, Lope De Vega, No Ney Never or Walk In The Park. Most of us are like myself, with less than 5 mares and constantly watching the form of the offspring once the stallion directory is released each winter. Let’s face it, us Irish will take your hand off for a bargain if we can get it!

No matter how good the stallion, mare or potential foal will be, the most important thing is luck. Let me tell you, I’ve had a rotten bit of luck starting out. Cheerio Sweetie, my first mare died of colic when in foal to Dragon Pulse last year, but as well as colic, there are literally one million things that can potentially go wrong, and very few that can go right. It can often be an hour’s pain for a minute’s glory when dealing with horses. And it took this to bring me down to earth, because Cheerio Sweetie was an absolute dream to start off with. I thought there was absolutely nothing she could do wrong, and naively thought she was invincible. We all have been through it, and will have plenty more like it in our lifetime. But what we live for is that one big break of good luck and fortune!

Now, there’s another beautiful lady in our care by the name of Peace Summit. She is rising 15, but she has one of the best pages to go to war with. Having a Cape Cross x Embassy mare is something I thought I’d never be able to afford, but we got very lucky. To put it into context, Embassy was the highest rated 2yo in Europe in 1997, making her a European champion. She is out of an Irish champion 2yo as well, so let’s just say she has lots to like about her.

The theory states that the foal is ¾ dam influence compared to ¼ sire influence. So you ideally want a mare that has either done it on the track or in the “love shack”. Luckily for me, Peace Summit has an 80% success rate from runners to winners. And it is only a matter of time before she gets back to 100% as Gee Eight has only ran twice.

So, we have our mare. That’s half the battle won, but by all means, there’s a lot of winning still to do in this war! Next agenda is to find a stallion. This can be where things get tricky. To the untrained eye, it can get very overwhelming. When you think of the thousands of thoroughbred stallions worldwide, how do you nail down one that is not only in budget but suits your mare?

One tool I picked up from the brilliant Brendan Murphy is the five Cross pedigree available on Equiline that is completely free. It has been a revolutionary tool for me as to how to evaluate the potential foal.

Not only does this tool go through five generations of both the sire and dam lines, finding any cross breeding and how effective it is, but also it goes through the nicking statistics, the success of breeding this particular line, and what prize money and sales prices came from these particular crosses.

It takes a bit of time to get used to it, but I promise you it is the best thing you will learn from this if you didn’t know already. Foreign buyers are starting to rely heavily on statistics, and I am yet to find a site where statistics are given in as much detail as Equiline.

There is no point in breeding out of your budget. Of course, you can empty out your account and buy a mare that has won black type and send her to Frankel and sell the foal for in excess of €500,000. What if something goes wrong though? That mare that probably cost you at least €100,000 is gone and every cent along with it, and I don’t have the funds to afford Frankel, but I would imagine you wouldn’t get his full cover fee back. I honestly don’t know, I’m only surmising.

I know myself, my budget is €2,000. I want a stallion that has been proven to produce good, hardy foals that turn into very good winners. And the fact we have been to the National Stud before but lost the mare when pregnant, I am looking predominantly at their stallions.

Therefore, I have narrowed it down to Dragon Pulse and Equiano. The reason why I went to Dragon Pulse with Cheerio Sweetie last year is because she had never bred a winner. The cross with Cheerio Sweetie’s dam, Curve who was by Pivotal worked well with Dragon Pulses sire line, Kyllachy. He has a lifetime strike rate of 41% winners to runners, which is an incredible strike rate for any stallion. Most importantly, he is incredibly consistent. His foals are strongly built and you would spot them easily in a group of horses in a field. For €2,000 he is a dream stallion for breeders who want to get their mares proven on the breeding scale and evidently increase their value in the sales.

The only slight concern I have, now that it’s Peace Summit and not Cheerio Sweetie. She does not need proving. There is nothing to say that Dragon Pulse and Peace Summit wouldn’t throw out a nice foal, because thanks to my study of the families it would. But Dragon Pulse rarely produces anything of graded standard. He attracts a lot of mares that would not necessarily be of great quality because he is so consistent in turning “bad mares” into winning producers. It is not necessarily a bad thing, but the fact is I have a mare that has one of the best breeding in the country but we may only have a couple of seasons of breeding out of her. I want to get the best possible foals out of her in what could be a short space of time.

Equiano on the other hand has a long list of Group performers and most importantly winners. None more so than Gustavus Weston, a Group 2 and listed winner last year. He is currently the highest rated performer from Equiano and is currently rated 115 on the flat. This is the type of horse that can go to these big meetings like Royal Ascot and take on the best in the world with a very live chance.

What I love about this is that the dam of Gustavus Weston is by Cape Cross. Here is where things get interesting on my end. Peace Summit is also by Cape Cross. So if I go to Equiano, we will have a ¾ part brother or sister to one of the best sprinters this side of the Atlantic.

So I’ve done my research. I have looked into the dam line of Gustavus Weston. His dam, Chrissycross was a winner of three races from 36 runs and was rated 70 on the flat. Not overly bad by any means, but certainly not worth screaming and shouting about. The dam of Chrissycross, Penang was raced four times, unplaced, and was rated 55. I would class this mare as being poor in overall broodmare standards. And finally, the dam of Penang, Badawi raced 26 times, won on three occasions and was rated 49 on the flat and 84 over hurdles. You can see where I’m getting at. It is poor in all senses.

Peace Summit has never raced, but she has produced winners rated up to and including 93 in Bargain Buy

who was trained with William Haggas. She is out of a mare who was the best horse in Europe who was rated 115 and won over £100,000. That European Champion was out of an Irish champion 2yo, called Pass The Peace who I couldn’t find a rating for, but know she won £483,006 in her racing career. It does not take a genius to put two and two together to see who has the better bloodline.

In theory, we have a very exciting opportunity to potentially breed a superstar horse. Not only the fact we have the opportunity to breed a horse that is ¾ parts brother or sister to one of the best performers on the flat of 2021, but arguably with us having the better dam line we could breed something better. We need a hell of a lot of luck along the way, as everyone in this industry does. But the fact we can do it for less than €5,000 all together, people will be claiming I’m gone completely mad.

To answer the question above. Yes, of course, it is possible to breed a horse that has the potential to be a superstar. We saw it with Janet Vokes with Dream Alliance. It is possible, but by God, you need a lot of luck to fall your way.

To run an operation successfully, I have always said that you need equal amounts of cleverness, luck, education, and determination. I’d like to add in a lot of madness and being a cute heure for a bargain as well. You’re mad to think breeding horses is a “get rich

quick” scheme, but you have to be mad enough to dream of glory at the end of it all too. I don’t need to explain the last part, all of us Irish love a good bargain!

It’s a dream at the moment, but I would be confident in saying we have serious potential to turn that dream of breeding a champion racehorse into a reality. And being truthful it is all from pennies essentially given the price of mares and foals nowadays. She won’t break the bank and is sure to produce a nice horse given her record. Roll on February, I have everything crossed that this could be the fairytale story I’ve been working and dreaming towards.