Ryan Yearlings Ready to Take the Torch

With some 34 yearlings bought under his own name and those of Klaravich Stables and White Birch Farm in association with trainer Chad Brown, Mike Ryan had an undeniable impact on the bottom line of Book 1 at Tattersalls October this year, his and his associates' total spend hitting 7,865,000gns-or 7.6% of the Book 1 aggregate of 102,429,000gns. Those numbers make for pretty impressive reading considering that the Irish-born, Kentucky-based agent isn't backed by Middle Eastern money or members of Royal families; his patrons are U.S.-based businessmen and his average spend was about 260,000gns. While the official records show Mike Ryan Agent as ninth-leading buyer of Book 1, consolidating all his entities would vault him over Shadwell into second by total spend at the sale-trailing only the runaway leader, Godolphin, who spent a total of 17,575,000gns.

Ryan began buying at Tattersalls Book 1 in his current guise as agent to the likes of Seth Klarman's Klaravich Stables and Peter Brant's White Birch Farm two years ago. In 2017 he spent 3,180,000gns on 12 yearlings, and last year it was 3,200,000gns for 13. It should have come as no surprise that those figures jumped so significantly this year: Ryan's first Tattersalls haul included the brilliant GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Newspaperofrecord (Ire) (Lope de Vega {Ire}); GII American Turf S. winner Digital Age (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}); Demarchelier (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}), who won the GIII Pennine Ridge S. and next year becomes the first son of Dubawi to enter stud in America; this year's GIII Saranac S. second Good Governance (GB) (Kingman {GB}); and 'TDN Rising Star' Value Proposition (GB) (Dansili {GB}). Just two members of the current 2-year-old crop has hit the racetrack and both were debut winners: Peter Brant's filly Sketches Of Spain (Ire) (Lope de Vega {Ire}) at Saratoga in August, and Klaravich Stables's filly The Path Not Taken (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) at Keeneland in October. What Mike Ryan starts so skillfully, Chad Brown is finishing with aplomb.

Ryan noted that the 34 yearlings purchased in October have all settled in Stateside, and they're “pretty much all” at Stonestreet's Ocala training centre to be broken in and pre-trained.

“They're all here in the U.S. now,” Ryan said. “They arrived in late October. They'll all be broken in and all of them will ship to Chad Brown when they're ready. Again, he'll have a loaded barn and as they're ready they'll ship out to him; May, June, July, August. Hopefully we'll have a few that will be Breeders' Cup class.”

Ryan said a few of the later developing members of the 2018 class have just recently joined Brown. Considering the progress of one of his previous auction buys for Klaravich, an undefeated Breeders' Cup winner in 2019 and Horse of the Year candidate, Ryan exuded confidence that the later start wouldn't hinder those individuals.

“There are a couple that have just shipped recently from Stonestreet to Chad, later developing horses,” he said. “Bricks and Mortar didn't leave the farm until almost December of his 2-year-old year. We've sent some Kingmans down to him recently and we think some nice horses will show up next summer.”

Reflecting on this year's purchases, Ryan pointed out a few standouts.

“The Dubawi colt out of Yummy Mummy [bought for 500,000gns] was a lovely horse, he reminded us a lot of Demarchelier,” Ryan said. “The Lope de Vega/Boastful was a lovely filly [400,000gns] and the Shamardal out of Cape Magic [205,000gns] was very, very nice. The Shalaa [filly out of Encore L'Amour for 170,000gns] was very nice.

“The Galileo filly out of Wannabe Better [500,000gns] was very nice, a typical Galileo: a very clean, smooth-moving filly. The Dubawi filly out of Florentina [475,000gns] was an exceptional filly; she was off-the-charts good. She's from an Australian family and she was very impressive. The Dubawi out of Glorious Sight [450,000gns] was lovely, and so was the Invincible Spirit [colt out of Princess Lou Lou {Ire}, 450,000gns].”

Six of Ryan's purchases, a Cable Bay filly out of Tebee (GB) (Selkirk) for 320,000gns and an Iffraaj (GB) filly out of Hana Lina (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}) for 150,000gns, were bought for American owner Bob Edwards of e5 Racing with hopes of winning at Royal Ascot. Edwards has only been in racing about three years but has already campaigned three Breeders' Cup winners and an Eclipse award champion: New Money Honey (Medaglia d'Oro), Rushing Fall (More Than Ready) and Good Magic (Curlin). Edwards has already had success in Europe as well with his first horse purchased in Ireland: Landshark (GB) (Bated Breath {GB}), bought by Eamonn Reilly for €210,000 at Goresbridge, was a debut winner for Jessica Harrington and was second to U S Navy Flag (War Front) in the G3 Round Tower S.

Edwards isn't the only American inspired to step up his spend on European yearlings: champion trainer Todd Pletcher, visiting Tattersalls for the first time, signed for two yearlings as part of his new association with Australian-based Aquis Farm; Liz Crow of BSW Bloodstock signed for five in Book 1 and four in Book 2 during her first visit to Tattersalls, and WinStar Farm's Maverick Racing teamed up with China Horse Club to buy two colts in Book 1. About 50 yearlings from the sale were expected to be exported to the U.S., with American spend accounting for almost 10% of the Book 1 aggregate-almost all of that in the middle market and providing an undeniable boost to that sector.

“They [Tattersalls] were very happy to see us coming,” Ryan laughed. “The top 10% of the market is the really, really elite horses that Godolphin and Coolmore will buy, but below that, the next percentile has a lot of nice horses. We've been lucky shopping in that range; Newspaperofrecord cost 200,000gns, Demarchelier was 425,000gns and Good Governance was 120,000gns.

“The best-bred grass horses in the world, in my mind, are based in England and Ireland so it's a huge pool to choose from. It's 500 head. It's a lot of work to get around them all, but I think if you're thorough and you look at a lot and you avoid Shadwell, Sheikh Mohammed and Coolmore, you can do alright. The first crop have run very well. Not too many have run from the second crop, but we're hopeful we can come up with some more good horses.”

While European-bred yearlings trained by Chad Brown would naturally be expected to target-and excel on-the turf, Ryan said its not outside the realm of possibility that horses by Europe's elite sires could perform on the dirt, too.

“Dubawi had that Mubtaahij that Mike de Kock trained that was a very good dirt horse,” he said. “The Kingmans are very good movers; it wouldn't shock me at all if a Dubawi, Kingman or a Galileo showed up on the dirt. Especially in the case of Dubawi, he's a grandson of Seeking the Gold and he's by Dubai Millennium. It's interesting because you'll see Ballydoyle come over and run grass-bred 2-year-olds in the Breeders' Cup on the dirt, and they've done well with it.”

Crossing the pond and thinking outside the box has tended to result in big rewards for the intrepid in the horse racing game, and it will be fascinating to see how the results continue to play out for Ryan and his American counterparts over the coming seasons.