Small Batch Success From Woodcote Stud

Most of racing's bloodstock powerhouses will be well aware of the fertility of Barry and Fiona Reilly's Woodcote Stud. It might come as more of a surprise to the casual observer that an operation set on 70 acres just a mile and a half from Epsom town centre would be capable of producing six top-level winners, with the genuine prospect of a seventh to come this year.

The couple have turned Woodcote into a bespoke British breeding business over the last 29 years, producing small batches of foals along traditional Classic lines whilst remaining profitable. Its biggest name so far is Kingston Hill (GB) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}), who finished second in the Derby just up the road and won the G1 St Leger S in 2014.

With Kingston Hill at Coolmore and his dam no longer with us, chief hopes now rest upon Poet's Word (Ire) (Poet's Voice {GB}), runner-up in the G1 Qipco British S. and G1 Qipco Irish Champion S. and a potential improver at five for Sir Michael Stoute, who has entered him for the Dubai Sheema Classic.

Poet's Word, who was known as 'Parker' – “it's a nosy family,” Barry Reilly explained – is out of Nashwan mare Whirly Bird (GB). She was also bred by Woodcote out of Inchyre (GB) (Shirley Heights {GB}), part of a fine Oppenheimer family that Reilly had bought into.

“Whirly Bird was born very late and we found at the end of her 2-year-old career she had little greenstick fractures in the bottom of her fetlocks,” Reilly said. “She ended up going to Amanda Perrett, who managed her really well and she won five on the bounce. She's not a big mare, and there probably aren't many Nashwan mares around, but Parker was very different.”

“He was just beautiful, such a strong colt,” he added. “From a sales point of view, we were going to Tattersalls in a good position as his half-sister Malabar (GB) (Raven's Pass) had just won a Group 3. I did say to Fiona that I might end up bringing him home but the market for Poet's Voice was incredible. Charlie Gordon-Watson gave 300,000gns for him and I think another at the sale reached 525,000 and hasn't done much on the track. Sir Michael obviously rates him and it would be great if he could get that Group 1.”

Since Poet's Word there has been a Kingman (GB) filly, who reached 200,000gns at Tattersalls Book 1. Whirly Bird is in foal to Banstead Manor's stallion again.

“I just think Kingman offers some value,” he said. “If there's another stallion that has got the chance to be another Frankel, it's him. The filly was lovely, she's called Incharge and has gone to Charlie Hills. She just could be the next star.”

Reilly, 61 this year, bounds around the stud with much the same vigour as one imagines he did when he took it over from airline tycoon Freddie Laker. In the days before pedigree updates and results at the laptop user's fingertips, he would act as something of an equine bounty hunter, flying to Boston for the day to secure a horse for a client or brokering a deal with travellers in a field.

On another occasion, having located a well-bred mare who had resurfaced in Tel Aviv, his charge went missing in transit.

“We ended up going somewhere just a few miles away from the West Bank,” he recalled. “The guy knows what we've come for and says he wants 25,000 for her. We said 'we don't want to offend you but our valuation and yours are a long way apart'. All of a sudden, he takes a gun out and puts it on the desk. I don't know if it was real or loaded but we had to be confident and walk away.”

Reilly has worked privately for John Magnier and had a productive spell in the stud fencing business but was most influenced by his first job for Charles Powell of Shanbally House Stud in County Tipperary.

“Basically I've tried to base the farm on that; they had more acreage but about 15 mares, a few yearlings and lots of good ones. He outperformed, he was self-taught dealer-cum-farmer and he taught me every single thing I know, I suppose.”

Reilly's office is festooned with photographs of all his success stories. They include G1 Queen Elizabeth II S. winner Where Or When (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}), whom he pinhooked, and My Best Valentine (GB) (Try My Best), who landed the G1 Prix de l'Abbaye.

Woodcote has kept many fillies to race and ultimately breed from, through an enduring partnership with trainer Elie Lellouche which began by chance.

“We bred Danseuse Du Soir (Ire) (Thatching {GB}), who was sold to the Wildensteins,” he explained. “She was originally bought by a French agent and was sent to Andre Fabre. He claimed he didn't want her but to send him to the man down the road, as his horses were always looking well.”

That man down the road, Lellouche, won the 1991 G1 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches and Prix de la Foret with her.

“The year after, I couldn't sell the sister, Danseuse Du Nord (Ire) Kahyasi {Ire}), so I sent her to Elie. I think I had 17 winners with him, and six or seven got black-type of some description.

“My French isn't very good and neither is his English but we somehow get along with sign language,” Reilly explained of the decorated trainer who announced his retirement this month. “I think it must have been difficult for him after the Wildenstein family stopped and you're suddenly looking at all those empty boxes.”

He returned to the family, buying Danseuse Du Soir back, and she has produced the classy Scintillo (GB) (Fantastic Light) and Jumbajukiba (GB) (Barathea (Ire).

Woodcote has also used its yellow and black silks in Britain regularly and can be optimistic about several homebred fillies. Thresholdofadream (Ire) (Camelot {GB}) is expected to be much-improved for her debut in a back-end Newbury maiden while Lubinka (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) could aim to end what has been a frustrating relationship with their local Epsom course.

Most are sure that Inchila (GB) (Dylan Thomas {Ire}), who died after complications from an injury in the G2 Ribblesale S., would have been second rather than fourth to Taghrooda (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) in the 2014 Oaks.

Inchberry (GB) (Barathea {Ire}), another stoutly-bred Woodcote product and the dam of multiple group-placed Measuring Time (GB) (Dubai Destination) filled the same spot behind Casual Look (Red Ransom) in 2003.

Lubinka is in the care of Peter Chapple-Hyam. A daughter of the Lellouche-trained Petite Nymphe (GB) (Golan {Ire}, she came from well off the pace to be sixth in the G1 Fillies' Mile S.

“Peter thinks she's pretty good,” Reilly said. “He trained Inchila before and he knew how good she was, and there's no milage for him duping us and saying this or that. She's still a maiden, so hopefully she can win a race and then go for the Musidora at York.”

Set off a quiet road next to the Royal Automobile Club's country headquarters, Woodcote's neat paddocks are, unusually, on clay in an area assumed to be all chalk. Reilly believes his secret, though, is not in agronomy.

“I think it's the people around you, to be honest. We've had a number of staff here but we've had mainstays of two or three people. Jody Middleton has been with us 20 years and we just have a couple of others who help at the weekend.

“We've always had a home base. My old boss always had a thing that if you foaled them, they'd come back home. Wherever they'd been, they were home more than they were away. Danseuse Du Soir was in New Orleans, she'd been back and forwards, but when we got her, she bred those good horses.”

“You have to have a good amount of luck, but it helps if you have good farriers, nutritionists, and the best people you can afford or with the same kind of ideology as yourself,” he added. “Farm-wise you've got to be commercial but we've had the luxury of being able to bring back some fillies that we believed in and raced them, and our broodmare band has been self-supported by the families.”

Although the Reillys have grandchildren now and there is talk of a change of pace, there seems no prospect of retirement any time soon.

“I suppose it's more like instead of having 10 or 12 yearlings, we're probably going to have more like four or five,” he said.

“I'm going to say now that hopefully both those two fillies of ours will come back to the farm and that's another generation again. We always seem to find one.”