Coolmore's Place in World Sport

As Galileo is brushed by his devoted groom, a small but select group of people is waiting. Waiting is not something the head of this particular party is used to, but sometimes even royalty must do it. It's 2011 and HRH Queen Elizabeth II is at the 'Home of Champions' waiting for the king of the stallion world, Galileo. Here, it is Galileo who is treated like royalty. It is a measure of the esteem in which Coolmore Stud is held that when Queen Elizabeth arrived in Ireland for her historic visit in 2011, one of the places on her wish list was the stud farm owned by John Magnier, which has been developed into the finest example of equine entrepreneurship and excellence Ireland has ever seen.

The queen's trip healed many wounds from the past, both from an Irish and English perspective, but it was her trip to County Tipperary to see the likes of Galileo at stud that showed the standing of Coolmore outside the sporting world. The fact that the queen wanted her trip to be a private affair emphasises the point further.

Throughout the world, the name Coolmore is synonymous with excellence. It is an Irish success story, one of the greatest to come out of Ireland since the foundation of the State. Its impact has been immense. From the farm to the winner's enclosure, excellence is not just a word but a lifestyle that runs through Coolmore, from the people mucking out the stalls to the men and women purchasing multi-million-euro foals and yearlings with the dream that they will retire to Coolmore and become the next generation of super stallions or blue-hen broodmares.1

Excellence is evident from the moment you pass the statue of Be My Guest at Coolmore's head office in County Tipperary. When you walk past the bridles of champion sires such as Danehill, Sadler's Wells and Galileo, and step into the reception area, where you are greeted by a friendly face behind the horseshoe desk, you immediately feel surrounded by greatness. The old cliché that it's something that money cannot buy certainly rings true here.

Before 1975, in the period of Irish horse racing known as bc (before Coolmore), Irish racing and Ireland as a nation were searching for an identity, searching for who we were both as a people and as a country. The fuel crisis of 1973, along with conflict in Northern Ireland, left Ireland wandering around in the dark looking for a door that would let in some light and allow us to believe that there could be a brighter future.

In horse racing, people were also looking for that ray of light. As Ireland stumbled from one crisis to the next, the best horses of the 1950s and 1960s were all exported to England and further afield, so the chances of finding another Arkle, widely considered the greatest National Hunt horse in racing history, were slim.

Irish racing itself had been plodding along for many years at the same pace until 1962, when the Irish Derby was turned into a sweepstake by Joe McGrath. A stroke of a pen turned the 1 mile 4 furlong Group 1 into the richest race in Europe. It was a masterstroke and led to the Irish Derby becoming one of the most hotly contested races anywhere in the world, with a prize fund of £60,000. In the 1962 race, twenty-four horses and riders went to post, led by Epsom hero Larkspur, who was looking to become the first horse since 1907 to complete the English/Irish Derby double. The crowd, which some say was between 40,000 and 70,000 strong, witnessed a thrilling race that was won by Tambourine and Etienne Pollet, trainer of the immortal Sea-Bird.

This new-look Irish Derby was a big step in the right direction for Irish racing, but it wasn't until Vincent O'Brien began to source Northern Dancer-bred horses from the big sales in America that the tide really began to turn. Not only did Vincent and his partners bring back to Ireland some world-class talent, including the great Nijinsky, they also brought their wealthy owners and encouraged them to spend time and money in Ireland while their horses were winning on the racetrack.

After the success of Nijinsky, who in 1970 won the Epsom and Irish Derbies, the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket and the St Leger, the trickle soon turned into a flood, and suddenly the best horses in the world and some of the most powerful owners in the world were setting up operations in Ireland. The Syndicate of Vincent O'Brien, John Magnier and Robert Sangster turned Irish racing from a cottage industry into the number-one source of equine and human talent in the racing world.

With the likes of The Minstrel winning the Epsom and Irish Derbies, along with the King George at Ascot, Irish racing's reputation began to grow, and suddenly people were looking to Ireland, rather than America or England, as a place where they could develop their racing interests. Although The Minstrel was sold to America as a stallion, every champion that Coolmore subsequently had was retired to stud at its base in Tipperary, and soon the farm grew into the powerhouse it is today.

The decisions made by a small group of people had a profound and lasting effect on Irish racing and on Ireland as a country. The success that Coolmore enjoyed not only brought financial rewards but also boosted Ireland's confidence that it could not only compete on the world stage but also win. The names Vincent O'Brien and Coolmore were suddenly in bright lights. The sight of the Irish flag being hoisted high at Epsom, Longchamp, Washington or Melbourne became familiar, as Irish horses and trainers targeted foreign prizes that were previously a distant dream.

As Coolmore grew and developed, so too did the class of horse bred there. Thanks to leading sires Sadler's Wells and Danehill, some of the most renowned horses in racing were gifted to the world. Think In The Wings, High Chaparral, Montjeu and Galileo, who were all sired by Sadler's Wells, and Rock Of Gibraltar, Danehill Dancer, Duke Of Marmalade and Dylan Thomas, who all had Danehill as their sire. All these horses touched the lives not just of the people at Coolmore, but also of the wider racing public, many of whom developed a love of horses thanks to the stud.

Many people would argue with the assertion that Coolmore is the dominant force in the bloodstock industry when it is compared it to the juggernaut that is the Godolphin/Darley operation, spearheaded by Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai. Since the 1980s the distinctive red and white colours of Sheikh Mohammed and, in more recent times, the royal-blue silks of his Godolphin operation have been immensely successful, winning many Group/Grade 1s throughout the world. It raised the standard of horses in Europe to such an extent that there was a time when people worried what the horse-racing industry would do if the Arab money dried up, such was the impact it had on British racing.

However, while Godolphin/Darley has enjoyed tremendous success and is, quite rightly, lauded as a wonderful ambassador for its region, Coolmore has built its success over the last fifty years without the enormous financial muscle that Sheikh Mohammed and his associates have had at their disposal. If the Dubai operation wanted a particular horse, it could simply wave its chequebook and that horse would soon be running in its livery. While there is nothing wrong with that, Coolmore simply didn't have the financial clout to operate that way in the 1980s. Instead it had to develop its own stars through the likes of Sadler's Wells and Danehill. An indication of Coolmore's success in its approach is that in the last few years Godolphin/Darley has changed its modus operandi to echo that of Coolmore and has started to successfully develop its own stallions, headed by the hugely successful Dubawi. He finished runner-up to Galileo in the 2015 sires' championship.

An example of the stranglehold that Coolmore has enjoyed over the breeding industry came in 2005, when Darley Stud boycotted the purchase of any Coolmore-sired stock auctioned at public sales. It was an extraordinary move and one that many racing insiders couldn't fathom. With Sadler's Wells still siring Group 1 horses, and with his three sons Galileo, High Chaparral and Montjeu in the early stages of their stallion careers, it appeared to make little sense for Sheikh Mohammed and his team to pass up the opportunity to own the next great potential champion racehorse. One could almost understand where the Dubai operation was coming from, as Coolmore tended to purchase stock sired by their own stallions and, in the main, didn't purchase non-Coolmore-sired stock. However, when the best young stock is sired by Coolmore stallions, could anyone really blame John Magnier and his associates for continuing to purchase stock by Sadler's Wells, Galileo and others at the bloodstock sales?

Coolmore also played its part in the fall-out with Darley, as for six years it didn't send any Ballydoyle horses to Dubai's signature event, the Dubai World Cup, now held in March at the futuristic Meydan Racecourse. This was a big blow, because without any Coolmore horses there was a certain lustre missing from a meeting that prides itself on its international flavour, as was witnessed when the Irish-trained...