Eclipse conquering the world for Indonesian breeder Iman Hartono

Irish racing is not short of international investors, attracting owners and breeders from as far afield as the United States, Japan and Australia to its lush pastures.

A little more surprisingly, that list also includes Indonesia and a man whose thoroughbred portfolio is exotic, to say the least.

When Iman Hartono, an industrialist with his own stud and stable in his homeland, decided with his racing manager Eoin Sullivan a few years ago to start having runners overseas it was the beginning of quite a journey, one in which the recent Naas maiden victory by the Fozzy Stack-trained Thunder Eclipse brought up a new milestone.

"He’s actually our 60th international winner outside of Indonesia," reveals Sullivan. "Mr Hartono has won the majority of the big races in Indonesia over the last few years. In 2015 we had our first winner in Singapore and now we’ve a number of fillies in Argentina and quite a large racing team in Malaysia, normally spread between there and Singapore. There’s quite a bit going on around the world."

It was Sullivan, an Irishman who briefly competed as an amateur in Britain before riding all across Asia and becoming a bloodstock agent, who sowed the seeds and bought a few broodmares that reside at a family farm in County Waterford.

"Mr Hartono is very knowledgeable about his pedigrees and a real sportsman, he loves a bit of a challenge," continues Sullivan. "A few years ago the remit was to find some mares and breed and it was a case of where do we want to do it?

"It could have been in France or the UK. I’m Irish, I said if he wanted a real challenge, the hardest place to win a race would be Ireland. He said, 'We’ll race them in Ireland'."

The project made the perfect start when Stack saddled the subsequently Listed-placed Eclipse Storm to strike first time out, also at Naas, in 2018.

Thunder Eclipse, by Holy Roman Emperor out of Dee Ex Bee’s unraced Pivotal sibling Emirate Jewel and bought back from Goffs Orby, became Hartono’s second juvenile scorer when scooting up by five lengths after a string of commendable efforts.

"He had four very good runs and then he got struck into the run before at Fairyhouse, we didn’t realise it until he came back in after the race," says Sullivan.

"It was a bit touch and go for a while, we were a bit worried about him, as he’s a very tough, genuine horse and we thought something must have gone amiss. He’d never been out of the first three before that and his form ties in with Quick Suzy and The Acropolis, there’s a fair bit of black type in there."

He adds: "I bought Emirate Jewel a while back, privately from Jake Warren. She’s been very lucky, she has a nice old deep pedigree, which is what I was after, and after I bought her Dee Ex Bee went out and finished second in the Derby.

"There’s a full-sister in training in France, a Churchill yearling that will be put into training, and she’s had a lovely Holy Roman Emperor colt foal. We went back to him again because every year they’re really nice-looking foals and the aim was always to breed racehorses more than meet a commercial market.

"Mr Hartono really enjoys seeing his colours, he’s very proud of them, and the job is to try to get them into the first three every time we have a runner."

While the almost impossible has now been achieved with winners in Ireland, the project is not expected to expand dramatically. Sullivan explains that his boss opts for a considered, strategic approach and that Thunder Eclipse, currently the only Irish horse in training, is likely to be joined by the odd new homebred, with some of the future colts perhaps offered at auction first.

"There’s always been a reason to what we’ve been doing," he says. "At the end of the day, he’s mad about horses. He’s called his stable Eclipse after the great racehorse, he’s fascinated by the history of it, he’s fascinated by the pedigrees.

"He’s just one of those old-style guys who’s really in it to get a good horse and find out how good his horse is."

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