What a year!

Ringfort Stud's graduates have enjoyed another brilliant year on the track. With Aisling Crowe, Derek Veitch reviews this autumn's yearling sales and looks ahead to selling foals

AS THE WINTER DRAWS IN, and the world shrinks around us, it’s hard not to think back to those summer days that take on a warmer, honeyed hue as we are enveloped in the cold bleakness of a locked-down November. For Derek Veitch (opposite) the memories of those golden days of summer are not exaggerated by the mind, they really were glorious as his and wife Gay’s Ringfort Farm earned plaudits and prominence as the breeding ground and nursery for three juveniles with the world at their hooves.

The couple’s early autumn success was the victory of Ubettabelieveit for Nigel Tinkler and Martin Webb in the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes at Doncaster, the second year in a row that a Ringfort-bred colt has won a flagship juvenile race at Doncaster’s St Leger Festival.

The son of Kodiac is one of four stakes winners out of winning Mujadil mare Ladylishandra, the others being the Group 3 winners Tropical Paradise and Harlem Shake and the Listed winner Shenanigans.

“We are all elated here, the success of these horses justifies all the mating decisions, the management of the farm, hard work of the staff, the late nights foaling and all the investments made trying to expand and improve the farm,” said Veitch, on his return from the UK where he sold 2020’s yearlings, including a Galileo Gold half-sister to Ubettabelieveit.

As well as that developing sprint star, Ringfort also bred Minzaal who followed in Threat’s hoofprints by winning the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes at York last month for Sheikh Hamdan and Owen Burrows.

The son of leading first-season sire Mehmas was sold at the Tattersalls December Foal Sale to Peter and Ross Doyle, and has won two of his three starts this season, but it is the story of the Sir Prancealot filly Miss Amulet that has captured the attention of so many this summer.

“Miss Amulet is a real rags to riches story, to go from being a €1,000 foal to winning the Lowther Stakes, and then her sale to Michael and Doreen Tabor and her Group 1 placing,” he remarked.

“She has made money for everyone involved with her along the way, and for us too, because the pedigree update was a huge help for her El Kabeir half-sister who we sold at the Tattersalls Ascot Sale.”

THE PRIDE and satisfaction felt in breeding a trio of classy horses is a tremendous reward, while the financial benefits to the business and farm, as illustrated by the sale of Miss Amulet’s yearling half-sister, are not inconsequential, but they are not the most important element of the success.

“Financially it is good for the farm as it definitely highlights the progression we made going into the sale season,” he agreed.

“Hopefully, that reflects in the sales, but it is very important to realise there is more to the business than financial return, there is the justification of our work.

“All the spin-offs, the congratulations and comments from our peers in the industry is very fulfilling, to know that you are liked and thought to be good at what you do, on a personal level is very satisfying.”

“Overall we had a good clearance rate and we were happy; some of the sales were very good and some were poor, but all in all it was a good enough year’s trading for us with the yearlings

Those successes were the products of a process that began in the glow of Christmas lights in December 2016 when, at the end of another sales season, the matings for the Ringfort foals of 2018 began to take shape.

Like most breeders Veitch is constantly updating his knowledge of crosses and pedigrees that work throughout the year, making notes of nicks that achieve consistent success, of what works, and perhaps more importantly what doesn’t.

“You are learning every day and trying to use that to the benefit of the farm. We tend to undercover our mares, too,” he reveals.

“I think it is always better for a mare to be in the top percentage of a stallion’s book than in the bottom when it comes to selling.”

That particular job has become more difficult as the world grapples with a pandemic that has forced enormous and sometimes painful changes in our lives, and created an economic downturn from which there is no immunity. The bloodstock industry is no different. Selling yearlings this autumn under the looming spectre of the coronavirus was an extra challenge but one that Veitch met head on.

Ubettabelieveit: is out of the mare Ladylishandra, bought by Ringfort for just 10,000gns in 2009

“I think everybody went into the yearling sales with a little bit of hesitancy and they were a little bit apprehensive about how it would turn out.

“Overall, we had a good clearance rate and we were happy; some of the sales were very good and some were poor but all in all it was a good enough year’s trading for us with the yearlings.”

Some sales suffered more than others in the unusual and uncertain prevailing climate. Ringfort consigned at all the major Irish and UK yearling sales so Veitch is well placed to reflect on the trends from an unprecedented autumn.

“By and large it was workmanlike at the early sales, there weren’t a lot of speculative orders and people weren’t prepared to speculate.

“At Goffs UK they were only buying to order and there was a lot of sensible bidding and sensible buying for me in the early sales.

“There were plenty of people to travel and take all the conditions of the sales into account.

“I was pleasantly surprised that Ascot moved to Newmarket and it was a great success in my opinion. Fairyhouse worked, even though it moved country. I thought it was a very successful sale for most people, maybe not for profit level but then that’s always the way it has been a little bit at that sale,” he remarks.

“The people who turned up at Newmarket made that sale a success, but the horses that the vendors provided to the sale made it a success as well.

Miss Amulet (right) under Ryan Moore picking up her Group 1 black-type in the Cheveley Park Stakes

“Book 2 was fantastic. it was a lively, vibrant sale all the way through and it rolled over into Book 3 as well. I thought it was a great week’s sale and it made the whole year for some people.

“Everyone was reasonably happy, if not very happy, the clearance rate was still very good and the home-breds washed their face and left a little bit of keep money. The pinhooks by and large were okay too. Some of them were very successful and others less so, but that happens every year regardless of the economic circumstances.”

The virus remains with us and much of life is more uncertain than usual, dates that were once circled in red on the calendar now scribbled out and hastily pencilled in for new days, everyone attempting to recalibrate despite the equations containing so many unknowns.

The Tattersalls December Foal Sale remains on course for its scheduled run at the end of the month, and with it the hope of bright summer days at the racetrack, of friends and neighbours celebrating success and enjoying the thrill of just being there and watching magnificent horses competing.

RINGFORT has enjoyed tremendous success with its graduates from the sale; Minzaal was sold in the Newmarket sales ring two years’ ago and his Belardo half-brother heads a draft that is rich with promise.

“The foal is a very nice physical specimen and Belardo has done very well,” Veitch says of Lot 919. “He’s a bit under the radar in terms of the commercial market still and I don’t know why that is.

“The general quality of the Belardos was not the best at the sales last year and I think that is part of the reason.

“If there are not nice foals out there then the big pinhookers don’t buy them and they don’t get a commercial push at the other end then, and I think that was a negative for Belardo.

“Hopefully, this foal will be attractive to buyers, the page should encourage them and they won’t be disappointed when they look at him.

Ringfort’s top-priced yearling of 2020 was this son of Fastnet Rock sold for 240,000gns to The Hong Kong Jockey Club. The farm has 14 foals catalogued in the Tattersalls Foal Sale (November 25-28) and 23 foals due to sell in the Goffs Foal Sale (December 18-20)

“He is a very nice foal. I think with Belardo you have every chance of getting a good racehorse; those were cheap horses winning Group races this year and I think he is a very practical horse for breeders to use based on what he has achieved. I hope breeders wake up to that.”

The colt is the final foal of 14 offered by theOffaly farm over three days at the sale by proven sires including Australia, Bated Breath, Camacho, Exceed And Excel and Invincible Spirit, as well as by young guns such as Churchill, Cracksman, Expert Eye and Ulysses.

Their breeder is particularly pleased with a colt by the Group 1 winner and sire Australia that sells as Lot 789 on the Friday.

“The Australia colt out of Rocanais a really good-looking foal. Her first foal [Youth Spirit by Camelot] did very well this year; he’s a Newmarket maiden winner who was placed in the Vintage Stakes and has a high rating for a first foal.

“Her second foal was the most expensive Tamayuz in Europe last year when we sold him to Shadwell at the Goffs November Sale and he has done very well, he is a very nice horse they tell me at Shadwell.

“This colt is a very nice horse, a really good-looking colt and I like him a lot. He is a late foal, but he has a lovely mind, he is lovely and correct and a great walker.

“Australia has done pretty well and plenty of the pinhooks did very well and there are lots out there to run, and I think this colt is one to look forward to,” he says.

Lot 917 is sure to draw attention at Park Paddocks as the filly is from the first crop of world champion Cracksman and viewers will not be disappointed.

“The Cracksman filly is the best filly I have going to the sales; she’s strong with a good walk and correct. She has a great mind and I think she’ll be popular with anyone who wants an Orby or Book 1 or 2 filly.

“You couldn’t fault her and I don’t know of anything wrong with her, you couldn’t draw her any better.

“The mare is in-foal to Profitable and her Havana Gold yearling went to James Bethell. We sold him to Culworth Grounds as a foal and I saw him at the yearling sales and he is a real two-year-old and is a fastlooking horse,” Veitch adds.

Another Ringfort filly who stands out is Lot 918, by the top-class stallion Invincible Spirit and out of a mare who has a perfect record with her five runners so far.

“The Invincible Spirit out of African Moonlight is a nice filly with plenty on her page and by a big sire who has got proper Group 1 horses again this year.

“His fillies are great racehorses and she has a lot of residual value with her page,” he comments, adding: “She is a correct, great walking, practical, pinhooking filly. The Awtaad made 140,000gns as a foal and is with Shadwell, he never looked like he would run at two and is there next year for her.

“We retained an interest in the Dark Angel and he is going breezing next spring, he is broken and riding already.”

Of course, Threat was another Ringfort graduate from this sale and the classy two-year-old will begin his stallion career at Haras de Mont Goubert who, along with Coolmore and Haras d’Etreham bought the son of Footstepsinthesand from racing owners Cheveley Park Stud.

It is a development that Threat’s breeder, who sold his dam privately, is naturally excited about.

“I am delighted that he is getting the chance to be a stallion. He was a very good two-year-old, things didn’t work out for him at three for one reason or another but he is going to get a chance now.

“I hope that he is supported with mares, it is a good farm so they will support him, and if he gets 50 or 60 foals in his first crop he hopefully will become more popular with time. If he was a bit closer I would send him a mare, but maybe I’ll get to buy a filly in France to send to him.”

In the depths of a winter unlike any most of us have known, there are bright glimmers of hope for better days, embodied by the foals who will take their steps underneath the Tattersalls lights this month.