Prix de l'Abbaye-bound Tees Spirit a fine advert for Ingleby Bloodstock

When the hugely progressive Tees Spirit lines up to take on Europe's best sprinters in the Prix de l'Abbaye on Arc day next month, owner-breeder Peter Baker can look back and say it has been a job well done.

Tees Spirit, a son of Swiss Spirit, has gone from strength to strength this season for the Adrian Nicholls yard, improving from an official rating of 71 after winning a Class 5 handicap at Beverley in late April to 104 after a narrow win in the Listed Abergwaun Stakes at Tipperary last month.

Three further wins including the Epsom Dash were squeezed in for Tees Spirit, accounting for a very busy and productive season for all concerned.

A tilt at the French showpiece sprint is next for the six-time winner, whose proud owner-breeder says: "We'll go straight to the Abbaye. He just won by a nose in Ireland and it was a really good run. We think he would have won more easily if we'd given him another week but we went there as we thought it was a suitable race for him."

Tees Spirit's first black-type success was a fitting tribute to his dam Mistress Twister, the foundation mare for Baker's Ingleby Bloodstock operation and a four-time winner for David Barron.

Peter Baker (centre) after Tees Spirit's Abergwaun Stakes winCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Baker recounts how he got into the business of breeding: "It goes back 20 years when my friend Dave Scott had Mistress Twister, a daughter of Pivotal who did well on the Flat. When she got to five we had a discussion and decided we'd start breeding from her."

It is perhaps unsurprising that Mistress Twister has become a fine producer for Ingleby Bloodstock, being a daughter of Cheveley Park’s multiple champion broodmare sire, but her son's latest exploits have added an extra shine to her name as the dam of six winners. They have included Ingleby Angel, Ingleby Hollow and Thornaby Nash, who have been prolific in handicap company at a variety of distances.

This gelding's name also holds extra importance for Teesside-based Baker.

He explains: "I'm retired but I run Ingleby Bloodstock, which is a breeding operation and racing enterprise. We live and operate in Teesside and the specific area is around the Tees. Ingleby is a housing estate here and we use Tees to reflect on that as well.

"Ingleby Bloodstock owns 50 per cent of the horse and another 50 per cent is owned by a syndicate I run called The Ivy League."

Tees Spirit's success in Ireland was a poignant one too, as his dam died this year at 21. While there are no immediate plans to keep breeding, Baker has been stocking up on fillies at the sales to race first and then potentially turn into broodmares.

"Some of the mares we had in the breeding operation over the years weren't very successful, barring Mistress Twister, who has produced ten foals and six winners," he says.

"We have bought some fillies at the sales, so we're thinking as we go down the line we could breed from them. One of them is a Dark Angel filly and we hope she can do well on the track first."

The decision to keep hold of Tees Spirit after consigning him at the Goffs UK September Yearling Sale in 2019 looks a good one to say the least.

Baker explains: "We were trying to make some money through breeding but when he didn't make the price we were hoping for we decided to keep him and race him."

Now the focus for Baker is his star's date with destiny at Longchamp, an attempt he hopes will be made on a quicker than usual surface on the first weekend of October.

"The only potential problem with the Abbaye is the ground. He's done very fast times on fast ground but when you get to Arc weekend the ground is usually soft or heavy," he says.

"We've got to take our chance, though, and there are suspicions this drier spell could go through to November. If that's the case October will be fine for him."

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