Roger O'Callaghan

Out from the cloudy backdrop on a morning borrowed from winter comes a sight so good that it serves to remind that spring has in fact sprung and the Flat season is not as far away as it seems.  There is Group 1 winner Bucanero Fuerte (GB) (Wootton Bassett {GB}) leading Derby entrants Mr Hampstead (Galileo {Ire}) and Padesha (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}). And who's that lobbing along in behind? Potential Dubai World Cup runner Elegant Man (Arrogate) and Qipco Champion S. hero King Of Steel (Wootton Bassett {GB}) add...

When Michelangelo sculpted David, you'd imagine he took the time to stand back, blow the dust off of his brow and marvel at his masterpiece, wouldn't you? Like David, Tally-Ho Stud has taken years of hard chiseling but you must be living in Lalaland if you think Tony O'Callaghan is a man for slowing down and taking in all that has been achieved.  If there's one thing O'Callaghan hates more than arrogance it's idleness. With 200 mares on the farm, considerably more yearlings and foals coming through the system, a...

It has been a big year for Whitsbury Manor Stud. From a landmark result with homebred Chaldean going on to win the 2,000 Guineas for Juddmonte, his half-sister Get Ahead selling for 2.5m gns at public auction and the continued rise of superstar stallion Havana Grey, 2023 has been the gift that keeps on giving for Ed Harper and his team. There is plenty, still, to look forward to next year, with fellow Whitsbury-based stallion Sergei Prokofiev set to be represented by his first crop of runners and Dragon Symbol...

Widely considered one of the shrewdest judges of equine talent on an international scale, Robson Aguiar has described Bucanero Fuerte (GB) (Wootton Bassett {GB) as the best horse he has ever ridden and predicted the colt would be very hard to beat in Saturday's G1 Phoenix S. at the Curragh. It was Aguiar who first spotted the potential in the Adrian Murray-trained Bucanero Fuerte as a yearling last year and went to €165,000 to secure the colt from Etreham at the August Sale at Arqana.  Victory in the first juvenile...

Tally-Ho Stud's Roger O'Callaghan has paid tribute to the record-breaking Harry Angel colt who sold for £500,000 at the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale on Tuesday but died less than two days later in a transport accident. The Harry Angel colt was sold to trainer Michael O'Callaghan, who held off the persistent challenge of Amo Racing's Kia Joorabchian as underbidder. Roger O'Callaghan told TDN Europe on Saturday morning, "It's a crying shame but accidents happen. We'll never know how good he really was." The horse was pinhooked by Tally-Ho Stud for...

It is not exactly a state secret that the team at Tally-Ho Stud, to use that old phrase, prefer their horses to do the talking. This could be misconstrued as a lack of friendliness but if you talk to other members of the bloodstock community about Tony and Anne O'Callaghan and their sons Roger and Henry, you will almost certainly hear variations of the phrase "lovely people". Indeed, within the family kitchen at the stone farmhouse just a short stretch up from the stallion yard a warm welcome is issued...

The spotlight was cast on the burgeoning breeze-up operation of jockeys Gary Halpin and Sean Davis, best known for riding winners rather than producing them, when their graduate Song For Whoever (Ire) (Galileo Gold {GB}) ran out an impressive winner of the opening six-furlong maiden at Dundalk on Friday evening.  Song For Whoever, who Halpin and Davis bought for €28,000 at the Goffs Sportsman's Sale last year before selling to Howson & Holdsworth Bloodstock for £42,000 at the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale, was getting off the mark at the third...

Less than a week after his owner Kia Joorabchian announced that leading juvenile Persian Force (Ire) would be retired to stud, Roger O'Callaghan confirmed that the Group 2-winning speedster would be heading back home to Tally-Ho Stud, where he will stand alongside his father Mehmas (Ire) in 2023.  Tally-Ho snapped up Persian Force at the November Foal Sales at Goffs in 2020 for €75,000 from Ringfort Stud before selling the colt the following year at the Orby Sale to Peter and Ross Doyle for €225,000. Last seen finishing a gallant...

The first major yearling sale of the autumn in Britain or Ireland, the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale provided entertainment from the beginning to the end, but most importantly, boasted impressive figures. Brian Sheerin was in attendance and discusses the major talking points from the sale. Figures on the up The team at Goffs UK could hardly have wished for a better start to the Premier Yearling Sale. The day one figures were off the charts. Of the 218 lots offered on Tuesday, 199 were sold, representing a clearance rate...

With another 60 yearlings standing out in the field at home in Westmeath, it was important for the team at Tally-Ho to begin the domestic sales season with a bang, and that's exactly what they did in sending out the top lot at the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale--the Blandford Bloodstock-bought lot 278, a filly by Night Of Thunder (Ire).  Mark McStay went to £230,000 to secure a colt by the stallion [170] on Tuesday but it was Tally-Ho's first foal out of the five-time winner and listed-placed Thiswaycadeaux (Ire)...

A year after War Of Will (War Front) won the GII Risen Star S., another Arqana Breeze-up Sale graduate, Mr Monomoy (Palace Malice), landed the same race (which was divided this year) and is also on course for the American Classics. The Brad H Cox-trained colt currently heads the leaderboard on the road to the Kentucky Derby with 52 points and he is not the only graduate of the 2019 sale in Deauville to have an eye on the Run for the Roses. Ete Indien (Summer Front) was runner-up to...