jim mccartan returned to horses and worked at Anne and Tony O’Callaghan’s Tally-Ho Stud, where his involvement with the preparation of breezeup horses finally led to his chosen career path. “I just found that I liked it,” McCartan says, to the extent that he set up his own business at Gaybrook Lodge Stud in Mullingar. “I just like everything to do with the breeze-ups, I love buying them and preparing them and watching them race. “When they run, we try and follow their progress and we keep in touch with everyone involved. It sounds a bit contradictory, but in a way I can’t wait for the sales circuit to finish so that I can start planning for when it all starts again!” The planning begins a long time ahead. “I spend a lot of time on catalogues,” reveals McCartan, “researching the catalogues is very important. I start as soon as they appear online, then we move on to the hard copies when they arrive in the post. “At the sales we work a system and have up to three people going round spotting. Then,
finally, we’ve got the catalogue whittled down to a shortlist. Sometimes you can be very lucky and get 50 per cent of the list, other times maybe just five per cent, sometimes you draw a blank. You have to be very careful with what you’re spending, but you always hope you can go back the next year with more money to spend.” McCartan tends to buy 25-30 yearlings specifically for the breeze-up sales and the selection process begins at Deauville. “Arqana is the first sale, and I work right through, the DBS Premier Sale, Keeneland’s September Sale, Tattersalls, then back to France in October, plus taking in all the smaller sales in between,” McCartan says. “Buying in the US was better two years ago when the currency was in our favour and there are pluses and minuses when it comes to the US sales. There’s a very big selection and huge numbers of horses, but very few actually have pedigrees suitable to bring back, and they seem to be getting less and less, definitely so this year.
“I try to buy horses to suit all the different sales,” he continues. “Everyone is trying to buy a nice horse, there’s a lot of competition, but I am always trying to think ahead and think of the people I’m buying for. I’m prepared to forgive a horse by a sire who is temporarily out of fashion if it is a nice individual – a nice horse will always sell.” His policy is to try to sell everything, “win, lose or draw.” He is philosophical about any losses. “Maybe a horse gets sold for less than it cost, but it may turn out to be a very good horse,” he reasons. “We also sell privately at home and promote all the horses through the website of Gaybrook Lodge, www.breezeup. com, where the horses can be viewed throughout the season.” McCartan has naturally seen some major changes in attitude during his time specialising as a vendor. “Back when I started in 1986 the breeze-up horses were often cheaply bought and they were perceived only as being little sprinters,
The hands-on approach: McCartan spent time at Tally Ho Stud where he found that he particularly enjoyed working with the breeze-up horses
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