Liberty Not For The Taking

As the yearling sales season gets underway there will doubtless be breeders who end up taking yearlings home with them, but they may take some comfort from one of this season's feel-good stories.

If things had gone to plan last September, the G3 Markel Insurance Molecomb S. winner Liberty Beach (GB) would have been racing in colours other than those of her breeder, Philip Wilkins. Plan A for this first-crop daughter of Cable Bay (Ire) was her first public outing at the Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale. But when no bidder came forward at a suitable level, Wilkins bought her in at £16,000 and sent her back to Mickley Stud where she had been born. Plan B has been highly successful.

Since being put into training by Wilkins with John Quinn, and in only three short months since she made her debut, Liberty Beach is now a four-time winner with two stakes victories to her name. She heads next to the G2 Sky Bet Lowther S. at York's Ebor meeting.

“I hadn't expected this at all,” says Wilkins, who bought Liberty Beach's dam, the Southwell maiden winner Flirtinaskirt (GB) (Avonbridge {GB}), as a yearling with trainer Ed McMahon eight years ago for £11,000. “I didn't start breeding until Flirtinaskirt was retired. I was just hoping to be able to get back into racing. We know there's some talent in the pedigree but I never dreamed she would be as successful as this, certainly not straightaway.”

He continues. “I've been involved in racing horses since about 2004 but I'd never really had a great deal of success with horses racing beyond the age of four. I just seemed to have injury problems with every single horse and then I lost a horse who had cost a lot of money in my eyes.

“Ed McMahon's wife Rachel felt that Flirtinaskirt would make a good mother and I thought, 'well why not?' I'd met Richard Kent in Newmarket when I'd been at the sales and decided to send her to Mickley Stud, where she was covered by Heeraat (Ire).”

Flirtinaskirt's first foal by the Mickley Stud stallion was born prematurely and, according to her breeder, lacked strength. Named Tease Maid (GB), she too is in training with Quinn and has been placed once but has had to play second fiddle to her year-younger sister.

“Alastair Nicholson gave us some mating advice for the mare,” Wilkins explains. “The first three stallions he suggested for her were well beyond the budget and the fourth on the list was Cable Bay, so he was within budget and we sent her off to him. The rest is history.”

In a family which boasts plenty of fillies, there is another to follow from Flirtinaskirt, a first-crop daughter of Mehmas (Ire). She lost her foal this year and is now in foal to Mickley Stud's new stallion Massaat (Ire).

“Her Mehmas half-sister is a cracker to look at and they're chalk and cheese really, but Liberty Beach has a real engine,” says the breeder. “I could have another one on my hands with her but then I might not, but that doesn't matter, I'm just going to enjoy it. The whole family is really enjoying this, we're in another world.”

And Wilkins is not about to allow the fun to stop any time soon. Predictably, a number of agents have signalled their interest, not just in Liberty Beach but in her dam, too. But each has been rebuffed with the simple message, 'not for sale'. Similarly, the Mehmas filly will not be sent to a yearling sale.

He says, “We had quite an unbelievable offer for Liberty Beach and after that was turned down Richard has fended everyone else off.  We had our own business which has now been handed down to the children, but I was able to take a sum of money out of the business and with that we're comfortable. We would rather have the excitement in our retirement of going racing and having a racehorse who is successful. You can go to try to buy them at the sales, but as we've already experienced, it doesn't always work out.”

With their son Scott now at the helm of the family company Hexis UK, Wilkins and his wife Barbara, who live in Lichfield, Staffordshire, have more time to visit their fledgling breeding operation at Mickley Stud. They keep two mares with Richard Kent, whom the Wilkins credits with much of the success.

“Richard is such a nice guy and has done so much to help me,” he says. “I can't think of anyone who knows more about horses than he does. When Flirtinaskirt lost her foal this year, Richard and Claire were out having a meal for Claire's birthday. He got a phone call and dropped everything in the middle of his meal to rush back and look after the mare. He just left the table and I love that sort of attitude. I've employed many people in the past and you don't often find people with that level of dedication.”

He adds, “The mare has gone back in foal and we are keeping our fingers crossed that she carries this one without any problems, and then we'll probably put her to something a little bit more serious. If she has problems foaling this year I won't cover her again. I have Tease Maid and we might even send her to Cable Bay. That's the thing about breeding—it's a complete unknown quantity and you don't know what you're going to get, but at the moment I feel like I've won the lottery.”

Three generations of the Wilkins family will be at York on Aug. 22, including Philip and Barbara's four-year-old grand-daughter, who will be making her first trip to the races to cheer on Liberty Beach as she takes her next step up the ladder.

“She has that real burst of speed and it will take a good horse to beat her,” Wilkins says. “It was her Sandown run that made me realise I really had a racehorse. Up until then I'd been pinching myself and I kept thinking that the bubble was going to burst any time, that something was bound to go wrong. I'd never had a first-time out winner, which she was, and then she won the Hillary Needler on her second start and that has been a listed race in the past.  She went so well at Royal Ascot [when fourth in the Queen Mary] and if we had had the luck of the draw, maybe we could nearly have got there, there's no way to tell of course. She wants to run and that's what's so wonderful about her, she doesn't need any persuading.”

Looking ahead, Wilkins has one more race in mind for his star filly before the end of the season, with the G1 Cheveley Park S. a potential target if all goes well in the Lowther.

“It would be a bit like having a bronze, silver and gold medal if she could do that. Then she would have a holiday,” he says.

The only problem Liberty Beach has provided her breeder with to date is finding the space to display her trophy haul, especially once he had made his firm decision to continue to ignore all offers to lure her away.

“I'm getting so much enjoyment out of it I just don't want to sell,” he says emphatically. “The day will come when I will have to sell some of the family but at least we're improving the pedigree and she has some nice black type there now. I don't really like the way people come in and try to buy their way into other people's success. I've been fortunate: it's not a business for me, so I don't have to rely on selling. I don't want a helicopter, I don't want a plane, I don't want a boat. We're quite happy where we are, doing what we're doing. My wife doesn't want to leave our home to live in a mansion, so what's the point of putting lots of money in the bank? We will keep racing the filly.”

With such an admirable approach to a sport in which the sheer fun of it can sometimes be overtaken by more pecuniary matters, it's hard not to hope that Wilkins continues to enjoy a joyful summer on Liberty Beach.