A Grey area

Photos: courtesy of Tattersalls and Whitsbury Manor Stud

It has been some year for Whitsbury Manor Stud with the emergence of Havana Grey, Showcasing renewing his Group 1 class and top-level homebred winners.

In a frank discussion with Martin Stevens, Ed Harper talks about booking nominations, working with loyal clients, managing his team and the challenges that running a stud brings along

SAYING WHITSBURY MANOR STUD has just enjoyed a good season is like describing British politics as a bit dysfunctional, or energy prices as a little steep. It is, in other words, a massive understatement.

To recap the past year for the Hampshire operation, its freshman Havana Grey has become red-hot property by supplying a slew of winners, including 13 black-type horses and counting, while stud stalwart Showcasing has confirmed himself one of the best sires in Britain with his top two-yearolds Belbek, Dramatised and Swingalong.

The stud also happened to breed the Acomb, Champagne and Dewhurst Stakes hero Chaldean by sending its rags-to-riches Dutch Art mare Suelita – bought on a whim by the stud’s former helmsman Chris Harper for a mere 21,500gns – to unbeaten dual world champion Frankel.

Harper Snr handed over the wheel of the stud in the early 2010s to son Ed, who had been involved with the business from a young age and learned the ropes on the National Stud diploma course, but was returning home after a short stint as a surveyor with Savills.

It is therefore Harper Jnr who is reaping the rewards of this annus mirabilis (and a few associated high-class problems, more of which later), but he insists that much of the credit belongs to his father.

“It’s an overnight success that’s been 40 years in the making, since Dad bought the stud,” says Harper. “It’s difficult to explain just how long the building period of something like this takes; just getting the place together and making little improvements every year.

“He was always of the mind that even when he had no money, he had to try to improve something every season, whether that was personnel or infrastructure, and we’re still the same now: we’ll always try to single out something to do better next year.”

That doesn’t mean that Harper hasn’t put his own stamp on the stud, though.

“When I came home in 2010 we had a bit of a change of personnel in general,” he continues. “I inherited a team who was mostly close to retirement age, and they were starting to do a bit less, so they probably looked at me and thought that was their time to go!

Harper Snr inspecting the stud’s stock: his farm sense is something that his son has found invaluable

“I had to start from scratch with my own team, and that was hard in those early years, but it was a blessing in disguise as it meant we were building with a new team of people. So, instead of everybody trying to carry on doing things the way they’d always been done, saying ‘we don’t do it like that, the foals go over there, we don’t fill those boxes’ or whatever, we could do things a little differently.”

Phil Harper’s right-hand-man since he joined Whitsbury as stud manager from Barton Stud a decade ago, has also brought some fresh ideas to the operation.

“We’re a duo really, we brainstorm everything together,” explains Harper. “He’s particularly good with managing and developing the team. He helped bring in staff appraisals – which I know sound horrific, and everyone on the stud hated the idea at first.

“But they’re more about seeing how they feel we can make their roles more effective. We’re constantly talking to the staff to see how we can improve how the business is run.

“I get very agitated if we’re approaching the end of a year without having come up with at least one significant improvement of some kind.”

Harper Snr, who turned his attention to running the farm at Whitsbury after stepping aside from the stud, still plays an important role in finding ways to enhance the business.

“Dad’s been a massive help in bringing farming efficiencies into the stud business,” says Harper. “I might explain an issue we’re having in finding ways to grow, and he’ll help me come up with a plan to improve things.

“And yet we’ve gone from standing two or three stallions, who cover 35 mares each, and owning 25 broodmares, to standing four stallions, three of them covering 150 mares each, and owning 100 broodmares. All the old ways in which we did things have had to be ripped up and changed.”

So what efficiencies have been introduced? How can the same number of staff oversee a much enlarged stallion operation?

“A lot more mares are held on-site nowadays, and so we have more control over smoothing out the peaks and troughs of the stallions’ schedules and being more flexible in the timing of coverings – we have a close relationship with our vet that allows that,” says Harper.

This year’s superstar first-season sire Havana Grey has had a price increase to £18,500 for 2023

“The stallion side might not be the best example, as what goes on in the covering shed hasn’t changed much for 100 years or more, but we’ve found there are lots of general efficiencies that can be made when it comes to labour around the farm.”

The latest upgrade on the stud comes in the shape of Joe Callan, a graduate of the Irish National Stud diploma course and Godolphin Flying Start who spent three years as nominations manager at the National Stud, as head of bloodstock and sales.

He has recently been appointed to help manage a surge in business on the back of the Whitsbury stallions’ banner year, although Harper confesses that relinquishing control isn’t going to be easy.

“It’s a huge change for me, and one that’s been a long time coming, but I’d just never met the right person who gave me the confidence to let go a little,” says Harper.

“I very much like to feel in control of all business aspects, and it’s an odd feeling for me to loosen that grip, so it had to be the right person and I think that’s Joe.

“I used to deal with him at the National Stud, with our interaction ramping up when we purchased Lope Y Fernandez last year in partnership with Coolmore and Nick Bradley, and I was really impressed by his attitude and attention to detail.

“I thought ‘Crikey, this might finally be someone I can work with in the future!’

“I didn’t think the opportunity would come around so quickly, so I’m very excited about him joining the team.”

At the time of writing, Callan hasn’t joined the stud but is due to do so imminently. Harper is counting down the days until his arrival, as his assistance is much needed, with breeders bombarding the stud with applications for stallion of the moment Havana Grey.

“I’ve nearly been throwing the mobile phone under the sofa in the last few weeks,” says Harper. “It’s a bit embarrassing as I should be able to deal with the situation better than this, but the levels of demand we’re receiving are slightly unprecedented.

“But then it seems to be the nature of the business now: hot things have never been hotter and cold things have never been colder. The stallion market has never been so polarised.

“I think the situation is exacerbated by the fact that sometimes there are two or three affordable stallions who pop their heads above the parapet each season, and we saw that last year with Ardad and Time Test, so they shared the load between them, but Havana Grey is on his own in Britain this time.

“Don’t get me wrong, I know there are lots of other good stallions in the country, but they’re at different price points. Among the stallions at an affordable level, he’s standing out from the crowd. That’s fantastic, and we’re very grateful, but we’re now having to find ways to soak up all the demand.”

HARPER REFUSED to draw up a holding list of mares for Havana Grey throughout the Tattersalls October Yearling Sales despite being hounded by breeders, as he didn’t want to make promises he couldn’t fulfil.

But when we speak a few weeks later he has just started to put some names down for nominations.

Most stud owners would kill to have such an oversubscribed sire, but the situation does bring some unenviable consequences: first and foremost, inevitably having to disappoint some loyal customers who helped build the horse into a success.

“I’m drawing up the list now, and some names are very obvious as they’re our good, regular clients who kindly do business with us every year,” says Harper. “But the thing is, we’re a growing business; our stallions covered well over 500 mares this season and we sell 100 horses a year as foals or yearlings, so there are rather a lot of good, regular clients.

Sergei Prokofiev: the son of Scat Daddy was popular in his first season and covered 150 mares

“It’s not like there’s a list of five people who make up the regulars, and it sometimes seems as though everyone has a watertight case for me looking after them. That’s great in one way, of course, as it shows we’ve got a lot of people who see themselves as good Whitsbury clients; we’ve been working for 40 years to make that happen. But it does just make those conversations when you can’t provide them with everything they want that little bit harder.”

I’ve nearly been throwing the mobile phone under the sofa in the last few weeks. It’s a bit embarrassing as I should be able to deal with the situation better

Harper’s rivals in the stallion business might be reaching for the world’s tiniest violin to accompany this sob story of owning a sold-out star in the making, but the man himself is actually endearingly honest about what he feels are his own shortcomings in dealing with the issue, and why the assistance of Callan is so crucial.

“Joe has a way of wording difficult conversations better than I do; I don’t know if I’m missing a certain part of my brain, but I think I can rub people up the wrong way without meaning to,” he says with a rueful smile. “I’m trying to get better at it, but I’ve got a long way to go. Joe just has a softer way of doing things, so I think I’ll learn a lot from him, too, and we’ll work really well together.”

Harper is also keen to stress that although Havana Grey has made launching a young stallion into the stratosphere look easy, it really isn’t, and if he had come crashing down to earth soon after take-off it could have been the end of Whitsbury as we know it.

“I know I bore people to death saying this, but we put so much into our stallions,” says Harper.

We might have managed to grow the business but we still have to go to the bank to be able to buy these horses, just as we did ten or 20 years ago.

“We have to put a lot of resources and faith into them, and so when they fail it’s a massive kick in the teeth. We’re still feeling the pain of Sakhee’s Secret. Honestly, an unsuccessful stallion rips the guts out of your business. It affects the broodmare band and leaves you with unsaleable crops of foals and yearlings.

“But you know what the worst thing is? It means your clients have that little bit less faith in you. They listen to you just that little bit less in future.

“I only try to give advice I think is right and I know I’m not going to be right all the time. No one is as that’s the nature of the game, but when I have pointed people in the right direction with Showcasing or Havana Grey, and hopefully Sergei Prokofiev now – that’s the best thing.”

Harper tries to make a significant improvement to the farm each year

SO WHEN DID Harper first realise he’d pointed people in the right direction with Havana Grey, whose roll of honour is headed by stakes winners Cuban Mistress, Eddie’s Boy, Lady Hollywood, Rumstar and Shouldvebeenaring, many of whom were bred from unpromising mares, and whose second crop of yearlings, conceived at a fee of £6,500, have sold for an average of nearly 60,000gns this autumn?

He recalls: “Trainer Rod Millman, who’s a good friend, rang in February – which is far too early! – about the two Havana Grey fillies that we’d bred and he had in his stables, telling me that he thought one was good and the other one was very good.

“I try not to take stuff like that too seriously, and I was proved right not to when the one he thought was very good, Cuban Mistress, bombed out on her first run at Salisbury. She was stuffed by another Havana Grey filly in Katey Kontent, and Rod had a face like thunder afterwards!

“But next time out at Sandown she just showed this unreal attitude, pinging out the stalls and beating some really well-fancied horses.

I’ll be honest, her dam wasn’t at the top of our ‘proud’ broodmare list, she was sort of skimming round the bottom of it, and so when I saw that I thought ‘we might have something here’.

Havana Grey’s runners have been noted for being straightforward souls who are tough and genuine. That is one of the chief reasons why Harper is confident that the sire’s freshman exploits will be no flash in the pan and that he will go on to have enduring success and popularity like Showcasing, who sired another sea of stakes horses in 2022. He also hinted that he will be an effective sire of sires with son Tasleet’s modestly bred first-crop yielding Coventry Stakes (G2) hero Bradsell.

“Havana Grey’s own best performances were as a three-year-old, and he saved his best effort for the end of that season when he won the Flying Five,” Harper reasons about the son of Havana Gold, who himself is by Galileo’s champion son Teofilo.

“He’s also from a sire-line that only gets better with age, and the main trait that his stock have been showing is a fantastic attitude, and that’s the biggest factor in training on. I’ve absolutely no worries whatsoever in this department.”

What does give Harper pause for thought, though, is that owners of Havana Grey’s inexpensively sourced two-year-olds are, quite understandably, accepting big offers from overseas owners, which will deplete his ammunition.

“With sires who start off at his sort of fee, the stock are owned by real people who have to take the big money when they’re offered it.

Harper adds: “That puts them at a disadvantage against the uber stallions whose progeny are owned by uber people, who don’t have to take the money, and the sire’s don’t suffer the same drain of talent.

“Look at Eddie’s Boy, who was a massive success for Middleham Park Racing and got sold for 320,000gns to race in Saudi Arabia, or Havana Angel, a good filly in France early doors for Amy Murphy, who was sold for €320,000 mid-season to race in the US.

The Whitsbury crew at Salisbury racecourse, it was important to Harper that he created his own team with its own ethos and way of working

“Our breeding clients aren’t thumbing through the reports to look at who’s won in Saudi Arabia or America, I can promise you that. Those horses might go on to win more races but, rightly or wrongly, that won’t register with our customers.”

Havana Grey’s stallion career is future proofed to a degree by the fact that Harper has placed all his chips on him, having learned the hard way that a cautious approach can have serious ramifications.

His Whitsbury studmate Due Diligence got off to a similarly bright start with his first two-year-olds in 2019, supplying three black-type winners in Good Vibes, Sir Boris and Streamline. However, he has suffered something of a lull more recently.

“He’s the classic roller-coaster stallion,” observes Harper of the son of War Front.

“He got off to a fantastic start, right up there chasing the tail of Havana Grey in fact, which a lot of people will have forgotten.

“But then, unlike with Havana Grey, we had very, very few mares in his second, third and fourth seasons, so he’s been quiet and had limited runners on the track. There were various reasons, and I don’t think Air Force Blue, also by War Front, helped us by being so good at two and not doing it at three.

“Anyway, the bigger crop bred on the back of his good first season are two-year-olds next year and they sold well as yearlings, with an average of just under 22,000gns for quite a lot sold, with a few selling in the 70,000gns-plus bracket. He’ll be back on people’s radars in 2023, and in terms of a proven value option for next season he should be at the front of people’s thoughts.”

IT WAS THAT slump in demand for Due Diligence’s services early in his career that galvanised Harper into ensuring Havana Grey wouldn’t suffer the same fate.

“The situation with Due Diligence, showing that he’s a more than capable stallion but being completely forgotten, made me very angry. It lit a fire under me to say that’s not happening again: we’re not getting a stallion right and not being rewarded for it.

“If we fail because we get things wrong, then fair dos, but if we fail even after we get things right, I’m sorry but that makes me furious, and that isn’t going to be an option in future.

“So I said if we’re going to stand Havana Grey we’re going to have so much faith in him we’ll go down in flames if we’re wrong.

“So we sent him a large number of our own mares after his first season to make sure he always had the runners.

“It’s a scary thing to do, especially when you’ve had Sakhee’s Secret and you’ve really copped it, probably only Dad and I know just what we put on the line in this business.

Right-hand man, stud manager Phil Haworth

“I wouldn’t really recommend that approach for anyone who wants to live past 45 years old, and I don’t know how Dad did it all those years.

“It’s scary, and I can honestly say that if Havana Grey had done an Araafa then I’d have been looking to regain my surveying licence and go back to work for Savills.”

Harper is looking forward to working with Joe Callan (left) who possibly offers a “softer” approach

Sergei Prokofiev, the newest addition to the Whitsbury stallion roster, is also benefiting from home support, although Harper insists that it has been less necessary in the Group 3-winning son of Scat Daddy’s case as outside breeders have stuck with him since his first covering season in 2021

“I couldn’t be happier with the start that Sergei has had,” he says. “He seems to be building momentum when, usually going into the third season, you’d be losing it.

“When I chat with breeders on the racecourse or on the phone, they normally give me less airtime with second and thirdseason sires but I’m finding conversations about him are actually growing in length.

“That’s thanks to the way the Scat Daddy sire-line is developing, especially with No Nay Never, and because word is getting around about his foals. Scat Daddy was a freak, so every chunk of his legacy is precious, and this is a very good-looking chunk. It doesn’t hurt having Tapit on the other side of his pedigree, either.

“Probably the main growth area in demand for European yearlings has been from America and our clients are beginning to tune into that, so it makes sense for them to have a gorgeous colt by a son of Scat Daddy out of a Tapit mare to put in front of those US buyers. I think his book will be full by Christmas.”

Sergei Prokofiev will also benefit from being the last new face at Whitsbury for at least three years, when he himself arrived only two seasons after Havana Grey.

Allowing him a longer turn in the limelight was part of the reason for Harper investing in Lope Y Fernandez, a Group 3-winning and Group 1-placed son of Lope De Vega, but allowing him to stand at the National Stud.

“Last year British breeders were lacking access to a new commercially priced stallion, and that prompted me to get involved in Lope Y Fernandez with the other partners, who all really complement each other,” he says.

“I didn’t want a new horse at Whitsbury as I didn’t want him to step on Sergei’s toes, but he’s an important horse to bring to market because if British breeders – the ones our business model depends on for its survival – don’t have an affordable option, they’ll take a step back from the industry.”

The need to maintain that symbiotic relationship between stallion master and mare owner, each party needing the other to succeed in order to survive, keeps Harper’s feet on the ground in spite of all the success with Havana Grey, Showcasing and Chaldean this year.

“I spend most of my waking hours thinking about how our stallions can be a life raft that helps our clients survive another three or four years,” says Harper. “I’ve seen the ageing demographic of our British breeders, and it’s incredibly concerning.

A lot of our clients are in their 70s or 80s now, and when you’re elderly and don’t have commercial breeding options, it makes the decision to retire easy. I’m genuinely scared about running out of clients – I go to too many funerals of breeders. I wish I could go to a few less.

It is for that reason that Havana Grey’s covering fee for 2023 has been increased to a level that shows some restraint, when many forecast that it might have gone higher in comparison with other stallions’ achievements and pay rises in recent years.

In the short term it will cause even more difficult conversations turning down applications, and a loss of optimum income for the stud’s coffers, but in the long term it is hoped that decisions such as this will help keep breeders – and Whitsbury – solvent.

“It’s the biggest thing I’ve learned,” says Harper. “I didn’t know how business worked as I’d been a surveyor, and I thought it was all about making every pound to keep the stud afloat – which is incredibly important, don’t get me wrong.

“But I know now that you can’t squeeze the lemon for every drop when you make a deal, you’ve got to give the client a fair crack so that they can continue in their business, too.

“British breeding is a small world and we need to help each other along. Always at the back of my mind I’m thinking who will I be selling nominations to in ten years time?”

Family photo: at Newmarket with the Whitsbury-bred, Juddmonte-owned Chaldean, the son of Frankel winner of the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes. The colt is out of the Dutch Art mare Suelita, bought by Harper Snr for just 21,500gns