Oh Boy! The Ballylinch Stallion Who's Been Quick Off The Mark

After months of longing for the turf season to get underway, it is now that time of year when you have to have your wits about you just to keep up with the results from around the world.

With many owners and trainers now beginning the countdown to Royal Ascot, an area that is quickly taking shape – and changing shape – is that of the first-season sires' table, and there is no better advertisement for a young sire than to have a first-crop winner at the royal meeting. When the betting was first chalked up for the championship early this year, it was no surprise to see Minzaal installed as favourite with Blackbeard and Persian Force the only two other stallions in single-figure odds. 

Persian Force, by Mehmas, the leading first-season sire of 2020, follows not just in his own father's footsteps as he bids to gain another freshman championship for Tally-Ho Stud, but also those of Cotai Glory and last year's leader Starman, who have all started their careers at the Mullingar farm. As might have been expected at this stage, Persian Force already has four winners to his credit as well as the Listed First Flier Stakes runner-up What A Girl Wants, who claimed some black type on the same Curragh card that included Persian Force's latest winner, Immortal Guard, owned by Ramiro Restrepo, Jacob West and Giselle de Aguiar. 

Coolmore's Blackbeard also has two winners to his credit so far, as does Kildangan Stud's Naval Crown. What might not have been so widely anticipated, however, was the fast start that has been made by Bayside Boy, who stands alongside his sire New Bay at Ballylinch Stud, where he was bred. With 85 foals in his first crop, he was 100/1 when the betting opened for the first-season sires' championship, though those odds will now have shortened.

From just six runners to date, Bayside Boy is now responsible for four winners, three of which won on debut, and two placed horses. Now, it is worth stating that these are early days, but considering that we might have been expecting to see Bayside Boy's runners come to the fore a little later in the season, it will be fascinating to see if this trend continues.

“It's pretty impressive and we're delighted,” Ballylinch Stud's John O'Connor told TDN on Tuesday in the aftermath of the stallion's latest winner, the Ballylinch-owned and Henri Devin-trained Belisa Bay, in Bordeaux. 

“I'm not completely surprised, I have to say, because he was a high-quality horse himself. And when he first ran himself, I think he had the highest debut Timeform rating of the year. So he was a horse with natural ability, he was a quick learner, and it looks like the stock are the same. 

“But I certainly couldn't have expected him to do what he's done. It's something that I don't think anyone could have expected, but he's done it anyhow. And from what I'm told by people that I respect their opinion, there are plenty more nice ones to come.”

The Ralph Beckett-trained Blessed Voyager became Bayside Boy's first winner at Newbury's Greenham meeting on April 17 and the colt has Ballylinch stamped all over him as he's out of a mare by Belardo, who was also a high-class colt bred at the stud who went on to win the G1 Dewhurst and G1 Lockinge Stakes. Blessed Voyager's dam Elysium first won at two in June and later that year won the G3 Weld Park Stakes, so it is perhaps no surprise that her mating with Bayside Boy – who also broke his maiden at Newbury on debut, albeit in July, before winning the G2 Champagne Stakes – would produce an early two-year-old runner. That, however, is not the profile followed by some of Bayside Boy's other winners to date. 

Blessed Voyager in the colours of Valmont | Racingfotos

“We did expect him to have some precocity because they looked athletic as yearlings,” O'Connor says. “But part of what is interesting is that the winners are not necessarily out of particularly precocious mares. The filly today [Belisa Bay] is out of a mare by Fascinating Rock, who won over a mile and a quarter. His winner on Sunday in Madrid is out of a mare that we raced ourselves, who was a middle-distance mare as well. And the one of Gavin Cromwell's that was second in the very good maiden race at Navan is out of a mare who won over a mile and a quarter and a mile and a half.

“That's the surprise in the sense that they're showing that level of precocity. I didn't expect that.”

The above-mentioned Gavin Cromwell-trained Barrow Bay was a half-length second to Tribeca (Blue Point) in Navan's six-furlong maiden on April 25. He is out of the Sea The Moon mare Illumined, and she has already provided a decent runner for the trainer in the 2023 Chesham Stakes winner Snellen (Expert Eye).

On Saturday, Arapaho Gold landed Thirsk's five-furlong maiden by two and a half lengths on debut for Michael Dods, and that was followed on Sunday by a similarly impressive five-furlong debut for the Guillermo Arizkorreta-trained Elcano at Madrid. Arapaho Gold's dam Call Of The Jungle (Bungle Inthejungle) was herself a winner over the minimum trip but Elcano is out of the 12-furlong winner La Joya (Lope De Vega).

Strategic partnerships, particularly when launching new stallions, have served Ballylinch Stud well over the years and this business practice has again been seen to good effect in the story of Bayside Boy, who was bred by the farm from the Listed-winning Anabaa mare Alava, and was raced in partnership with Teme Valley.

“In any aspect of the breeding and racing game, you need lots of luck,” O'Connor says. “Bayside Boy was a lovely yearling and Richard Ryan, who is a good judge in fairness, picked him out. Richard came to me at the sales and said, 'I really love your yearling but we might find it hard to buy him because I think there are plenty of other people trying to buy him.'

“So we retained 25% of him as a yearling. We then bought another 25% of him when he won the Group 2 Champagne Stakes as a two-year-old. And then when he won the Group 1 [Queen Elizabeth II Stakes], we syndicated him amongst breeders and ourselves. [Ballylinch Stud owner] John Malone is very comfortable with doing partnerships.

“We've had plenty of luck but we do try to give the young horses the best chance that we can. That helps a bit. But equally, the other people who support them are very important in their development as well.”

One stalwart supporter of Ballylinch Stud has been Eileen Farrelly, who was responsible for breeding one of Lope De Vega's earliest black-type winners in the G2 Cornwallis Stakes victrix Royal Razalma. Now 14, Royal Razalma looms large in some good results for both Bayside Boy and New Bay over the last few days. She is the dam of New Bay's nine-length Listed Polonia Stakes winner Royal Bay Cen, while another of her daughters, Belisa De Vega (Fascinating Rock), is in turn the dam of Bayside Boy's latest winner Belisa Bay, also bred by Farrelly.

“Sometimes you get an association with breeders, and breeders and farmers have great luck together. That's what it's all about, really,” O'Connor notes. 

Royal Bay Cen was one of two Listed winners for New Bay on Sunday along with the Pretty Polly Stakes winner Jennifer Jane.

He adds, “Both of them were very impressive three-year-olds, and we think that his three-year-old crop will be very impressive as the year goes on.”

Along with keeping tabs on the progeny of the Ballylinch stallions over the weekend, which included Graded victories in America for Lope De Vega's Mondego and No Show Sammy Jo as well a Listed Paradise Stakes win for Jonquil, O'Connor was pleased to cheer on Ballylinch graduate Jancis (Tamayuz), who was born and raised at the farm and put in a stellar performance when winning Sunday's G2 Dahlia Stakes at Newmarket. 

“She has a serious turn of foot when there's plenty of pace on in front of her,” he said. “And it's great for [owner-breeeder] Arturo Cousino, who's taken a view on that family and has followed that up through various adversities, and so he deserves every bit of success that he gets.”