Keogh: A Keen Eye and a Wide Reach

Like a green twill through one of those immaculate tweed jackets of his, the horsemanship of James B. Keogh is woven deeper into the Bluegrass than might be superficially apparent. The dapper Irishman operates under the banner of Grovendale, but that Versailles farm, comprising 20 acres and ten boxes, is just his state capital: an administrative base, a symbol, a centre of gravity.

Keogh keeps a handful of his own mares there, but the spread of his business is instructive not only of its true scale but also of his professional standing. He has partners here, clients there; mares boarding all over. He'll be driving from Chip Muth's Glendalough Farm over to Sally Lockhart at Ballyrankin; and then on to one of the biggest farms of all, Ashford. The result, taking the last November Sale at Keeneland as a sample, might be 50 lots sold for an aggregate $6,086,200: eighth in a consignors' table behind only marquee names: Taylor Made, Lane's End, Denali, Hill 'N' Dale, Gainesway, Paramount, Eaton.

The thread holding his consignment together will necessarily be stretched by keep costs. Yes, the system brings benefits, too: many of these host farms, after years observing his craft, end up selling other stock through his hands. But the ultimate dividend of paying keep runs deeper yet. “It keeps you very honest,” Keogh declares, the wry emphasis of his County Clare tones entirely undiluted by 36 years in Kentucky.

It is no throwaway remark. “Everyone says this as a horse business,” he said. “But really it's a people business, very much so. It's about how you treat people–on both sides, your clients and your customers. There's an awful lot of talk nowadays about honesty, but I feel very fortunate in the people who have recognized, over many years, that I've always approached the industry in a very personal, very honest way.

“Some of those I've been selling for, the likes of Sun Valley Farm, I've worked with for close on 25 years. And it takes a lot of the stress out of the sales if people know what to expect. We'll be having very frank conversations about these horses in June, July, August. Without being arrogant, there aren't a lot of surprises.”

Keogh likes nothing more than a rarefied form of pinhook, salvaging fillies from the racetrack when others have failed in their feed or care regime. Turning them back round will be a year's work, the chamois leather of experience working to and fro, day by day. But a more typical project would be around three months, a mare entrusted to Keogh for that critical burnishing before November.

“With all of them, it's a very hands-on approach,” he stressed. “I'm very involved with the horses I sell, spending time with those mares and their babies on a daily basis. I love to see how that soundness comes through. You see these tremendous racemares, they all have that hardiness, the way they walk out over pebbles and stones and just crush them. Whereas those well-bred ones that never raced, they walk out there on tiptoes.

“I love just getting into the intricacies of it, understanding the pedigrees and the issues; knowing your horse, knowing the minutiae. Some people are comfortable with a large volume, but volume has never been my thing.”

But it is not just the equine nuances Keogh is paid to understand.

“We know all our customers, their likes and their dislikes,” he explained. “Someone comes round the consignment and you know that man will not buy a small horse. And he asks to look at one. Over a period, as you build these relationships and people's trust, you will get to the point where you won't waste his time. There's a horse out there for everybody. But you'll respectfully say: 'That's not one for you. But I have this filly over here I'd say is exactly what you're looking for.' It's about fitting the person to the horse.”

If Keogh might appear to be in his element in the sale of a mare like Al's Gal (English Channel), a Grade I winner sold for $950,000 at Keeneland last November, he should not be pigeonholed. He will often be no less integral to the other end of the cycle, acting as adviser on the mating of some 50 to 60 mares.

“Really it all begins the day the ink goes on that paper,” he says. “Because if you're not mating your mare to the right stallion, everything else is fated. A lot of feed, a lot of time, a lot of energy will be going into something that's doomed from the start.”

His own priority is to find the right physical match, but he accepts the need for commercial pragmatism-something that causes vexation in many a purist, but not in this one.

“The pool is so big, you can constantly tweak,” Keogh reasoned. “You will be looking for pedigree plays, but always remembering that you need a horse to be accepted when it goes into the ring. People have expectations that need to be met.

“What does frustrate me is the number of people who buy nominations without inspection. There's a huge sheep factor, and it's one of the silliest trends out there: people following a fashion without taking into account that they're breeding a 17-hand mare to a 15.3 sire, and will probably end up getting neither of neither.”

This kind of judgement has the deepest grounding. When the 21-year-old Keogh was offered a job in his homeland, at Airlie Stud, its owner Tim Rogers told him first to broaden his horizons in the United States. Keogh wrote to John Gaines, and was invited to Gainesway for six months. Captain Rogers came out for the November Sales and called on his protégé. He diagnosed the infatuation at once. “You're not coming home, are you?” he asked. “No sir,” replied Keogh.

That was 1982, and the six-month stint at Gainesway eventually extended until 1999.

“I just thought it the most exciting place I'd ever been,” Keogh recalled. “In my first six months I was able to make noted on 176 stallions on 30 different farms. In those days, there were 56 standing at Gainesway alone. Yes, they had smaller books then–but every day we were breeding 100 mares. My very first morning we bred 50 straight up. I hadn't seen 50 mares bred in my life.

“And you're talking about legends: Vaguely Noble, Blushing River, Riverman, Irish River, Green Dancer. One that passed away that year was Bold Bidder, sire of Spectacular Bid and Cannonade. We had four of the top ten stallions in the world. But there were horses standing for everything from $300,000 down to $3,000. It was like doing an MBA in stud management. Marion Gross [stallion manager] and Joe Taylor [stud manager] were an amazing influence. Not alone was Joe a superb horseman, he was also a phenomenal teacher.”

The mares, too, were of the most exalted calibre. Every day young Keogh found himself at the sprouting of a new branch in some of the modern breed's elite families: for Alec Head and Count Roland de Chambure, for Nelson Bunker Hunt, for the Aga Khan, for Elmendorf Farm, for Darby Dan. The yearling market had not quite entered its ultimate delirium, at the time, and most customers were still strictly breeding-to-race.

Keogh has seen many a giddy cycle in the ring since.

“There is clearly an appetite out there for the best 12 to 15 yearlings by any sire,” he said. “But once that is tapped, you can get to be in a very tricky situation. Be it by any of these elite sires–a Tapit or a War Front or a Bernardini–it's no longer like the old days, when a total of 12 or 15 yearlings by the top sires would be offered every year at public auction. It was rare for any stallion to have as many as 25 sold. So if you had an order for a Lyphard, and the elite buyers had picked out six or seven, then you either you took home that one that was a little bit crooked-or you went without.

“Another thing that's changed is that you see very few trainers attending the sales these days. At one time all those New York trainers were at all there, they had their clients and they were a real force: Mack Miller, LeRoy Jolley, John Nerud, P.G. Johnson. They had relationships with the consignors, they'd go back to them every year. And they'd say: 'Yep, he's not correct-but he looks like his sister, and she could run.'

“They knew what blemishes they could live with. Now you have these agents trying to buy the perfect horse. Nobody has in mind any more to expect this family to be back at the knee, or that one to be a little club-footed. And yet in many cases the perfect horses aren't the ones finishing up in the winner's circle.”

Not that he is disenchanted with the modern environment. After all, whenever the market deceives itself that things are ever black and white, a correction looms. After a period of insularity on either side of the Atlantic, for instance, Keogh anticipates healthier transfusions to be renewed between turf and dirt influences.

“The only thing that's constant in our industry is change,” he said. “Yes, in this country everything's about the first Saturday in May. But people with larger strings are taking a look at the excellent turf horses available here, like Kitten's Joy; they're looking at the purse structure; and I think they're beginning to shift. They'll look at horses like Air Force Blue coming over here, and change their thinking. A good horse is a good horse is a good horse.

“People took a great dislike to Dynaformer. They weren't in the mould of what people perceived a racehorse should look like. But after a while they got tired of being beaten by Dynaformer, they had enough of being beaten by Broad Brush, and realised they'd better quit what they looked like. What is fashion, anyway? Is it in the sale ring–or at the winning post?”

Above all, he retains his faith in the abiding value of horsemanship. One of the first horses he was around, to help prepare for a yearling sale, was a colt by Lyphard out of Navajo Princess.

“Dancing Brave,” he said with a sigh. “Such a pleasant horse to be around, and he'd overcome a tough start in life. He wasn't totally perfect, of course, in his conformation. But he was a real athlete. And he was bought by a real judge. Just shows you.”

With all these horsemen, a James Delahooke or a James Keogh, it's about that eye: seeing the outlines before they are filled out. That can apply across the board. Every year, for instance, he converts three or four discarded Flat horses to the hunting field–no doubt cutting a rare old dash in a scarlet coat. He's riding one this season that used to be trained by Chad Brown, and reports that his mount has let down to be a smashing hunter.

“With horses, at day's end, it's all about the quiet time you spend around them,” he concluded. “I love seeing that character develop. It's that attention to detail that's so important. But there's such a high standard round here, you always need to be looking for that edge. If you ever become complacent, the whole thing will pass you by.”