'It's more about vindication for the mare' - Dena Merson's pride in Cheltenham Festival-bound Slade Steel

Two decades or so of breeding could result in the ultimate thrill for Dena Merson: a Cheltenham Festival winner.  

For so many within the sport, welcoming back a winner to the hallowed Prestbury Park winner's enclosure is something they can only dream about. But for Merson, who started her own executive coaching business after working in the City, as well as setting up the Simply Racing consultancy firm, it is a realistic goal. 

Having dreamt about owning and breeding racehorses from an early age, she has bred a plausible festival winner in the Henry de Bromhead-trained Slade Steel, a single-figure price for the Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle on Tuesday.

Merson says: "From my early 20s I wanted to own horses and after I bought my first horse I realised that to be able to get the quality I wanted I'd have to breed them. Even as a child I think I had wanted to breed them, I loved families, I used to read extensively about racing and breeding. 

"I was going to be a racing journalist, but then thought if I went racing every day would it kill my interest a bit, so I went into the City. I haven't traditionally bred for National Hunt, I always wanted to breed for the Flat, but I made that decision with Mariet, Slade Steel's dam, that if we got it right we might breed a proper stayer with enough speed for the jumps. And that's what Slade Steel is."

Dena Merson (right): "It all built that love of breeding and that knowledge of doing it properly"Credit: @WomenInRacing

A strapping son of Shade Oak Stud's Telescope, Slade Steel won the Grade 2 Navan Novice Hurdle in cosy fashion in December and beat all bar Willie Mullins' hotpot Ballyburn in the two-mile Grade 1 novice hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival last month. He is out of Merson's dual winning hurdler Mariet, a daughter of Dr Fong and her foundation mare Medway.

On how she came to buy Medway, she says: "I bought her with Mark Tompkins at Goffs. We were asked to go to the Derrinstown box and it turned out that the breeder of Medway, Major John de Burgh, wanted to buy back in. I thought why would I sell when I have a lovely filly very cheaply, but everybody I knew at Goffs said I'd be crazy not to, this is one of the great breeders in Ireland. We did sell half of her back to him eventually and her half-brother [Old Red] won the Cesarewitch. 

"The Major taught me so much about breeding, I loved my Sunday evening conversations with him and whenever I was in Ireland. He bred Fair Salinia, who won the Oaks; it all built that love of breeding and that knowledge of doing it properly. Medway won her maiden and then her form tailed off after that, John persuaded me to retire her then. 

"She went back to Oldtown, she turned out to be a half-sister to Indigenous, so we sold some of the colts to Hong Kong, and the fillies we invariably raced though we did sell a few. The best one of those was Missoula, who won the Ascot Stakes, so in a way Slade Steel isn't a fluke as it's a really good family and virtually everything she bred won. Medway produced solid, sound horses and the last one was Mariet."

One day, heartbreakingly, particularly stands out for Merson, who also developed the original Women in Racing mentoring programme. Losing two mares was a tough reminder of the perils of breeding racehorses and the ups and downs of the game. 

Missoula (red cap): Ascot Stakes winner is a half-sister to Slade Steel's dam MarietCredit: MARK CRANHAM

She says: "The day Mariet was born is etched in my brain as we had another good mare called Highbrook who we'd bought out of training from Mark Tompkins. That morning Mark rang up and said Highbrook had colicked and she was at Rossdales. She survived the colic but broke a leg getting up, so we had an orphan. 

"It was a shock at six or seven o'clock in the morning but then Fiona Marner rang with the news that Medway had produced a lovely Dr Fong filly. She then rang back about three or four hours later and said, 'I'm so sorry.' I said, 'What do you mean?' And she said she had gone to look and the foal was standing over the mare, who had haemorrhaged. We lost two of our best mares on the same day, the only godsend, as it now seems, is we were offered two foster mares for Highbrook."

After those tragedies Merson decided to keep Mariet, and although the foster mare did her job in providing the foal with milk, there was no particular attachment to the young orphan. 

"She went into training, she showed a lot of talent but after her first race she'd fret and she'd actually bite her tongue," she says. "We decided to send her to Suzy Smith and started jumping her, she wasn't very big but she loved it. Being in a small yard also helped and Suzy worked wonders with her. 

"She was the last of the line and the one I most wanted to keep from a broodmare perspective. I always liked Dr Fong as a broodmare sire and physically she's got a lovely, rounded backend and is lovely looking. She'd have jumped a fence if we asked her to but she hurdled very well. I like to breed middle-distance horses and stayers, so Telescope was one I liked and thought would suit her physically. 

Telescope: sire of Slade SteelCredit: Ollie O'Donoghue

"We covered her and she raced in foal. Suddenly this nervous little mare became very confident and threw her jockey and went round Fontwell on her own three times. Our hearts were in our mouths and she was retired soon after. She went to Ireland and the foal was born dead in the field prematurely. We were offered a free return to Telescope; in the back of my mind the Shade Oak team had sent pictures of her being nuzzled by Telescope and she looked so happy! I preach never go back, so to do that was a big step."

Slade Steel was born and nurtured at Ballincurrig House Stud. He was a nice foal without having the X factor we now associate with the Robcour-owned bay, a winner of three of his five starts under rules.

"We called him Peri or Periscope and he was a nice foal but nothing spectacular," says his breeder. "What he did have was a wonderful temperament and walk, but you wouldn't have said he was a foal who'd be a Cheltenham horse, he was just a nice, honest foal. 

"Mariet has been an extraordinary broodmare, it's almost like everything she's lost herself she puts into her foals. We didn't sell him for fortunes as a foal, but to be fair that family's foals are never spectacular, they're much better yearlings."

Merson's association with Slade Steel's human connections adds to this heart-warming story. The tale came full circle ahead of an intended visit to De Bromhead's County Waterford yard.

She says: "I sent a horse from David Menuisier's to go jumping with Henry de Bromhead. I knew Henry because Sally Rowley-Williams is a friend and very kindly involved me in the Special Tiara story. Sally had owned the other orphan foal who she then decided to sell; she wondered if we minded and we didn't. She'd been shown a lovely horse from Henry's, so she sold the foal, who also won, and bought Special Tiara. 

Henry de Bromhead: "He rang me a couple of weeks later and said he loved the horse"Credit: Edward Whitaker

"I was due to go over to Henry's and was told Slade Steel would be having his first race at a point-to-point in Cork. I flew there that day as Henry had had to cancel and I was seeing him the next day. Slade Steel came into the parade ring, I recognised him immediately as he had something of the family about him,  and he had that wow factor. 

"I was chatting to the chap next to me and he asked me what I was doing there, I said I bred a horse in the race, and I told him it was Slade Steel. He told me he owned him and it turned out it was the Power family who all had a leg in him. He told me the horse had been supposed to go to Doncaster to be sold but was ill after going over and had to be brought back. I'd have been happy to watch him go around but he won and suddenly I'm shaking hands and hugging all the Power family!"

The delayed visit to De Bromhead's yard was equally fateful as Merson was meeting the future trainer of her pride and joy. 

She says: "The next day I headed to Henry's and he asked what I'd done the day before. I said I went to a point-to-point and bred my first point winner. He asked if it was out of a Dr Fong mare and I looked at him and said yes. Henry said, 'You won't believe it, but I just got off the phone and somebody has put him up for me.' 

"Henry said he felt it was fate and he had to go and see him. He rang me a couple of weeks later and said he loved the horse."

With the festival now in full view, it must be a nerve-racking but exciting time for Merson, who will be in attendance to cheer the six-year-old on.

Slade Steel in relaxed mode at Prestbury ParkCredit: Patrick McCann

"There's no way I'd miss it for the world," she says. "Unbelievably, last year I booked the hotel as there was just something about the way he won at Dawstown and his bumper.

"I haven't really let the whole thing sink in until probably last week, when people asked if I was going. Like any breeder you just want them home safe, he's won a Grade 2 and whatever he does over hurdles, he's going to be a better chaser. He's scopey and has that wonderful speed for a chaser and Henry is so good with chasers."

Despite the excitement and anticipation, Merson is thrilled for her beloved Mariet and the family she has nurtured and raised for so many years. A winner on Tuesday would merely be the cherry on top of the icing. 

"I'm excited but I'm not going to get carried away," she says. "I've bred a Royal Ascot winner and to breed a Cheltenham winner would be the pinnacle. But my overriding feeling is vindication as so many people said get rid of the mare when she'd lost her first foal. 

"I always thought she'd have been a really good racehorse had she not been an orphan, so I hoped she might breed that into a horse. I suppose it's more about vindication for the mare and the family."

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