Sam Imrie hoping to benefit from Normandy breeding boom with new venture

This article was first published in December 2019

In his own words, Sam Imrie has “been around” the bloodstock world a bit. Born in Newmarket to parents who worked in the racing industry, he graduated from the National Stud course and worked at a number of operations including Newsells Park, Brook and Tweenhills studs in Britain and at Arrowfield in Australia.

Imrie took his turn in the spotlight when he led up Born To Run, the filly the Racing Post followed from conception to retirement from racing, on behalf of Tweenhills at the Doncaster yearlings sales in 2011. The moment was immortalised when a picture of him showing the lot appeared on the cover of the revised edition of Miles Napier's Thoroughbred Pedigrees Simplified.

The accomplished horseman is now becoming a familiar face on the French breeding scene, as he has moved to Normandy and with wife Mathilde – who he married in June – has launched Aida Bloodstock at his in-laws' farm.

“We're a five-minute drive north of Rouen; the location is very good,” says Imrie. “We haven't got any stallion farms on our doorstep but neither are we far from any, we're between an hour and two hours from all the main Normandy studs. We're also halfway between Deauville and Paris, not that far from Chantilly, and only two hours from Calais, so it's a good spot. And Rouen is a lovely city.”

Aida Bloodstock is named after the opera, although it is not Imrie who is the classical music buff. Rather, Mathilde's father is a professional trumpeter who named his hobby breeding outfit in honour of Verdi's masterpiece, which features the Grand March and its famous fanfare.

“Mathilde's parents bought the farm 20 years ago,” Imrie explains. “It was a chicken egg farm and they turned it into a small, private stud with three mares and sold a few yearlings each year. They didn't become millionaires from it but they never lost money, just kept it ticking over and had some fun with it.

“We took it over last December and have put in a new walker, added more stables and some big foaling barns all rigged up with cameras. We've got a horsebox too. We've only been going a year, so it's all a work in progress, and we're doing all the construction ourselves.”

Services offered by Aida Bloodstock include mare boarding, both on a full-time and seasonal basis, spelling and sales preparation and consignment. In a soft launch during its first year of operation, it prepped a number of yearlings on behalf of La Motteraye Consignment and offered two yearlings at Arqana in October.

“We had plenty of positive comments on the way the yearlings were presented,” says Imrie. “That's the best advert for your business: how your lots look at the sales and how mares appear when they go to studs to be covered.”

The best mare boarding at the stud is the Imries' own Minted, a 12-year-old daughter of Mineshaft bought cheaply out of the ring from Coulonces Consignment at the Arqana December Breeding-Stock Sale in 2015.

Minted's then two-year-old Mastercraftsman filly Mint Julep became a six-length Listed winner for John Hammond at four and the Anodin filly foal she was carrying at the time of the auction was sold as a yearling to the Wertheimer brothers for €75,000. The dam has not produced another foal since 2016 due to various misfortunes, but is now safely pregnant again to Almanzor.

“We just need a few more mares in now,” says Imrie, and he shouldn't find business hard to come by as the French bloodstock industry is enjoying a boom with breeders enticed by an array of blue-chip stallions and a more lucrative prize-money structure.

“It's a good time to start a new stud in France, with premiums and the quality of stock always improving and consequently more people coming here,” he continues. “It says a lot that a horse like Shalaa was launched here first instead of starting out somewhere else and then transferring. The industry has really turned a corner here and it has meant the standard of mare has improved, too.

“I've got a lot of contacts in Britain and Ireland from my work on various studs, so I'm hoping we should attract some boarders. I think it will help that I'm a familiar face to them, as people like working with someone they know.”

For all that, Imrie is not expecting to oversee fields full of horses as the focus at Aida Bloodstock will always be very much on quality rather than quantity.

“The ambition is to be a very boutique operation, with maybe 15 to 20 mares, including our own and clients', and taking maybe ten to 15 yearlings to the Arqana August Sale each year,” he says.

“The main selling point is my expertise and experience and I'll be making sure everything is done correctly. That's why I'm happier with a smaller number of horses – I want to give them all individual treatment.”

Imrie's husbandry skills are complemented by Mathilde's marketing and administrative know-how. Fluent in English, having lived in Britain for three years, she formerly worked at La Motteraye and Arqana and is combining her full-time career with being in charge of back-room operations on the stud.

“Mathilde has the knowledge of horses and is a great people person,” says Imrie. “She's very good at managing money and coming up with marketing ideas, so we're a good team: there's no doubt that she's in charge in the office and I'm in charge of the stud.”

All that is left for Imrie is to learn the local language, and he is attempting to fix that with French lessons. Bonne chance, Sam.

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