European tours

Melissa Bauer-Herzog chats with US bloodstock agent Liz Crow, buyer of the Breeders’ Cup winner Aunt Pearl at the Tattersalls October Sale. The agent is looking forward to a return trip to Europe this autumn on the hunt for more stars

WHEN AUNT PEARL crossed the line first in the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1), it was a culmination of a plan that got its start decades earlier when bloodstock agent Liz Crow first sat on a horse.

Put into riding lessons by her mom at six years of age, Crow quickly caught the horse bug and a trip to the track a few years later with her grandparents led to young Liz falling in love with racing. After high school, she entered the Equine Business programme at the University of Louisville, which is when she found the perfect job.

Experiencing everything in the industry from foal watch to becoming an assistant trainer, it was time with bloodstock agent Peter Bradley that secured the idea of what she wanted to do in the industry.

“I worked for Pete for four years and to me the sales just stuck,” she said. “I found it the most interesting part of the business because I think it brings everything together into one.

I love the idea of trying to find the next great horse, and I decided I wanted to be a bloodstock agent during my time with Pete.”

After her time with Bradley, Crow started working at BSW/Crow Bloodstock in late 2015 and became a partner in the company a few years later. It was three years into her time there that her interest in buying yearlings overseas started to become a reality.

She’d always thought about going to a European sale to buy horses but it wasn’t until her BSW/Crow business partner Bradley Weisbord brought up the idea of going to Europe that it was set into motion.

The pair had been inspired by Mike Ryan and Chad Brown’s previous ventures to European sales leading to the purchase of horses such as the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ Turf winner Newspaperofrecord, and they quickly followed their footsteps.

“Barry came up with the idea of us putting together this Euro venture,” Crow said of the decision. “We credit Mike Ryan and Chad Brown for being the first to do that and show that it worked with Newspaperofrecord.

“We saw that and thought why not us? Why not go over to Europe and give it a try?

“Tattersalls seemed to have the best cumulative group of horses from pedigree to physical hence we landed there as our first stop.”

Buying thoroughbreds overseas wasn’t exactly a new adventure for BSW/Crow, who had found success purchasing proven horses abroad and privately for clients.

The bloodstock agency had privately purchased racehorses such as champion Uni, the graded stakes winner Thewayyouare from Europe through their racing careers, but Crow had to change her approach for European yearlings.

“When I’m looking at a yearling in Europe versus over here, I have to adjust my eye a little bit,” she explains. “European yearlings are typically smaller physicals than the American yearlings and they really focus on the walk over there; they like a big loose walk and they just look for different physical attributes than we look for a lot of time. It’s an adjustment of your eye for sure.”

With racehorses in North America training on the Dirt, Crow also realised she needs to find yearlings who could stand up to training on the surface.

WITH THAT IN MIND, she admits she tends to look for yearlings who have more bone, but, overall, she looks for the same thing in European yearlings as she does in America – a nice horse is a nice horse.

With European auctions operating a little differently than those in North America, Crow had to learn how the auction system in Europe works, but with Turf racing growing in the US it was worth the added research.

“I think the European Turf pedigrees are a lot deeper than American Turf pedigrees,” she said of a major reason they went to Europe. “I think American Turf racing is starting to expand and get stronger with our Turf Triple Crown both for fillies and colts.

“There’s plenty of money to be made on the Turf in America and I think that there’s more opportunities to buy a quality Turf pedigree in Europe.”

Crow’s trip to Tattersalls in 2019 proved to be successful with the Grade 1 winner Aunt Pearl among the nine yearlings purchased under the BSW Euro Venture name.

Seven of the other eight have made at least one start with each hitting the board.

From observing the careers of those horses, she has also learned what she has to adjust when she’s looking for to find horses who will be successful in the US. “The biggest lesson I learned is that speed is

really important in American Turf racing,” she reflected. “Getting out of the gate is important and the fact that we have tighter turns than they have in Europe. I will focus more on looking for speed this year than focusing on a long-distance Turf horse.

“Our biggest success was Aunt Pearl and she’s obviously a gate-to-wire type of runner.”

BSW/Crow has often shown that it isn’t afraid to try new things to help its clients find success. It has made an impact in North American racing through both its purchases, but also via its Elite Sales consignments at Horses of Racing Age Sales. The step into the European yearling market made perfect sense for Crow.

“It’s really interesting that two of the last three years Tattersalls purchases have won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.

“I think it’s proven that we’re probably having a higher likelihood of winning these Grade 1s and bigger races in America if we’re looking at every single sale and trying to spread the diversity of what we’re trying to purchase rather than just focus on one thing.

“We’re always trying to expand and thinking outside the box a little bit.”

The two-time Breeders’ Cup winner Monomoy Girl was bought by BSW Bloodstock and Liz Crow as a Keeneland September Yearling for $100,000 in 2016. She was resold by Elite at last autumn’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November Sale for $9,500,000, bought by Spendthrift. She has won over £3 million in prize-money earnings

The BSW/Crow team had to miss adding that diversity to its sale travels last year due to the pandemic, but is planning on returning to Tattersalls this year.

While recent news has her worried about how travelling will be in October, she noted that they’ve been working closely with the Tattersalls team to ensure they can go to the sale.

She conceded that its not something they can control, but says they will be there if at all possible.

“We’re definitely watching the news week-to-week, definitely a little concerned about getting over there, but I still have confidence that we can make it,” she said. “We’re working with Tattersalls and Jimmy George and his team just trying to make sure that we can get there but obviously we have no control over that.

“I’m getting more concerned by the week, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

BSW/Crow likely won’t be the only ones headed over to Tattersalls this year with the sale having been well-represented in the US in 2021.

Dual 2021 Grade 1 winner Domestic Spending, the Commonwealth Cup (G1) winner Campanelle, and the Grade 2 winner Public Sector are just a few of the US-based Tattersalls graduates who have visited graded stakes winner’s circles in recent months.

The Ben McElroy purchase Twilight Gleaming made the trip from the Goffs Orby to Wesley Ward’s yard and then back to Europe to finish second in Royal Ascot’s Queen Mary Stakes (G2) and win a 5f Listed race at Deauville.

The transatlantic journey for yearlings from Britain to the US is a successful one, and it looks as though another draft will be heading stateside this autumn.

Aunt Pearl as a sales yearling in 2019. She was bred by Ecurie Des Charmes and Ballylinch StudPhoto courtesy of Ballylinch Stud