Memorable Week For Kilbrew Breezers

Exactly a month before Steel Bull (Ire) (Clodovil {Ire}) won the G3 Molecomb S. he was parading around the sales ring as one half of the Kilbrew Stables draft at the Goffs UK Breeze-up Sale, which had been delayed from its traditional late April slot.

Andrew and Riona Lynch of Kilbrew Stables took just two horses to Doncaster and in fact it was the other one, a colt by Mehmas (Ire), who was initially the star package as he vastly exceeded his yearling price when selling for £165,000 to King Power Racing. Steel Bull, fetched the more modest sum of £28,000 from his trainer Michael O'Callaghan, though that was still an improvement on the £15,000 he cost at Tattersalls Ascot as a yearling.

Together, the pair has now provided a week to remember for the Lynch family. First out was Steel Bull to win a Naas maiden on July 22. Five days later the Mehmas colt, now known as Mystery Smiles (Ire) and trained by Andrew Balding, won convincingly on debut at Windsor before Steel Bull regained the upper hand during O'Callaghan's bold raid on Glorious Goodwood.

Andrew Lynch is better known as a jump jockey, his career highlights including winning both the G1 Arkle Trophy and G1 Queen Mother Champion Chase on Sizing Europe (Ire) at the Cheltenham Festival. But he is quickly making his name in the breeze-up world and operates in tandem with his wife Riona from their farm in Co Meath.

“It's been unbelievable,” said Andrew on Wednesday. “To be honest we were a bit disappointed with the price of the Clodovil colt because we thought quite a lot of him and there was a good bit of interest in him. Three or four people said they were going to follow him in and they actually never did. So we were disappointed with that but they must be sick over it as well. I've been raving about him since February, I felt he was a good horse.”

Reflecting on a trying season as sales were delayed and then relocated, he added, “At the beginning of the year when the pandemic arose we were worried and we didn't know what way the market was going to be. But we were lucky enough to have a few good horses and good results, so we were probably the luckier ones, I suppose.”

Kilbrew Stables also brought four horses to Newmarket for last week's Tattersalls Ireland Goresbridge Sale, an auction which should have taken place only a few miles from their home in Ashbourne.

“You don't mind going anywhere if you have a chance to sell a horse and, to be honest, we were glad that the sales moved to England and that we were lucky enough that they were able to get clients there,” Lynch commented. “We've only been doing this in a small way for the last three or four years and we've gradually been having a few extra horses each year. We had seven altogether and six went to the sales. We also have a Zoffany (Ire) filly who just scraped her knee on the Wednesday before she was due to travel to Newmarket so she was withdrawn, but we think a lot of her, she was up there with the two boys.”

Like many jump jockeys, Lynch has been dealt his share of bad luck with injuries and he has been sidelined from race riding since February 2019 with a bad shoulder dislocation, though he has been able to ride out the breezers on his home gallop.

“I'm waiting to see the specialist in the next week or so but at least I have had something to keep me busy by doing this,” he said.

While the delays to the sales have been frustrating for the consignors, the Lynch team has clearly done an excellent job in keeping the youngsters under their care in good shape mentally and physically and in having them ready to run so soon after their turn in the ring.

Lynch continued, “In general terms a breeze-up sale is meant to be for that purpose, the horses should be ready to go and run a couple of weeks later, and they should be able to run well and, if they're lucky enough, win. You hope that the horses should be able to take the work and be forward enough to run even in the back end [of the season] if that's what the owners and trainers want them to do.”

He added, “Obviously we had them for a few months longer than normal but they progressed the whole time and Michael [O'Callaghan] has done a good job with Steel Bull, both in bringing him along and placing him in the right races. We were thrilled to bits by him even winning his maiden but to go on and win a group race at Goodwood a week after is just incredible.”