Barronstown Stud's penchant for a proven producer pays off again

David and Diane Nagle were inducted into the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders' Association hall of fame at the association's awards this year, prompted by their Barronstown Stud producing Kew Gardens and Flag Of Honour, winners of the British and Irish St Legers on the same weekend last September.

In truth, the gesture was long overdue as breeding top-class horses such as that pair of Galileo colts has been meat and drink to the Nagles over the past four decades. They have bred two legitimate legends of the turf in Generous and Yeats as well as Group/Grade 1 winners including Hootenanny, Horatio Nelson, Imagine, Oratorio, Simple Verse and The Last Lion.

One hallmark of the Nagles' breeding programme has been a fondness for buying black type producers when culled by big operations, even when those mares are approaching middle age.

For example, Mahrah, the dam of Oratorio, was purchased as a 12-year-old for Ir100,000gns at Goffs after she had produced the useful performers Fahim and Hadeb for her previous owner Hamdan Al Maktoum; and Moyglare Stud Stakes winner Chelsea Rose, the dam of Kew Gardens, was added to the Barronstown broodmare band as a ten-year-old at a cost of €450,000 when she had a smattering of smart progeny to her name.

TANAGHUM FACTFILE

Pedigree 19yo bay mare Darshaan-Mehthaaf (Nureyev)

Breeder Shadwell Estate Company

Owner Barronstown Stud

Race record won one of five starts and second in Harvest S-LR

Progeny record dam of nine winners inc Bangkok (Classic Trial-G3), Matterhorn (Easter Classic), Tactic (Curragh Cup-G3) and Yaazy (Prix Joubert-LR); also granddam of dual champion Ribchester and Group 3 winner Convergence

Another mare who was not in the first flush of youth when bought by Barronstown Stud has been in fine form this month.

Tanaghum, a 19-year-old daughter of Darshaan and Irish 1,000 Guineas heroine Mehthaaf, was sourced for €250,000 just five years ago from a cull of Sheikh Hamdan's Shadwell broodmare band at the Goffs November Sale.

The mare's catalogue page that day showed she was a good if not yet great producer, with five winners to her credit including the Curragh Cup scorer Tactic and Listed-placed Zahoo, whose own son Convergence had struck at Listed level at two that year. She was also pregnant to Raven's Pass, a stallion who has not delivered top-class horses with consistency but was still commanding a fee of €25,000 in 2014.

In 2015, Tanaghum's first full year under Barronstown ownership, her record was enhanced further when her daughter by Teofilo – Yaazy, an unraced two-year-old in the catalogue – won the Listed Prix Joubert and finished placed in the Prix de Malleret and Prix Minerve.

Better was to come. The colt that Tanaghum was carrying at the time of her sale turned out to be Matterhorn, sold back into Maktoum ownership as a foal for 75,000gns and now the winner of seven of his ten starts for Mark Johnston and Sheikh Mohammed's son Sheikh Hamdan.

He cruised to a seven-length victory over the highly regarded Wissahickon in the Easter Classic at Lingfield on Good Friday and holds the odd distinction of being the best horse on Racing Post Ratings to have competed on the Flat in Britain and Ireland this year, yet without having collected black type. That anomaly will surely be put right soon.

Matterhorn: Tanaghum's son was a runaway winner on All-Weather Championships DayCredit: Edward Whitaker

Tanaghum's next mating, the first masterminded by Barronstown Stud, was with Australia in his first season at Coolmore – the Nagles, close friends of John Magnier and longstanding supporters of his breeding powerhouse, lending the stallion the sort of prolific producer often targeted at helping young, unproven names establish themselves.

The stratagem paid off. The three-year-old colt by Australia out of Tanaghum is Bangkok, sold as a yearling to King Power Racing for 500,000gns and unbeaten in two starts this term, most recently when a smooth winner of the Group 3 Classic Trial at Sandown on Friday.

Tanaghum later experienced less luck in the paddocks – not that she owes anyone, having already repaid the Nagles' investment in her and more – with her Galileo colt born in 2017 having died. She was not covered that season and so has no yearling, but she visited another new Coolmore sire in Churchill last year.

If Barronstown does come to sell further young stock out of Tanaghum, her catalogue page has also been embellished by the breeding exploits of her daughter Mujarah. Well-beaten in all five starts the Marju mare was, quite understandably, culled by Shadwell for just 18,000gns. But the first foal she produced for buyers Andrew Thompson and Mike O'Brien was the brilliant miler Ribchester.

Mujarah was sold privately to Godolphin and her debut foal for Sheikh Mohammed's organisation, the two-year-old Dubawi colt Electrical Storm, ran a promise-filled second in a competitive maiden at the Newmarket Craven meeting this month on his racecourse introduction.

Tanaghum's expanding dynasty has vindicated Barronstown sticking to tried and tested methods in some of its more recent broodmare purchases. The Wow Signal's dam Muravka was picked up at the age of nine for €950,000 in 2017 and Tapwrit's dam Appealing Zophie and So Perfect's dam Hopeoverexperience, then aged 14 and ten, were bought for $1.2 million and $1m at Fasig-Tipton last November.

The stud buys younger unproven mares too, though; a point emphasised by Technician, who caught the eye when flying home from an unpromising position to finish second to fellow Barronstown-bred Bangkok at Sandown on Friday.

The son of Mastercraftsman is out of the stakes-winning Sadler's Wells mare Arosa, who in turn is out of Sharata, an unraced Darshaan half-sister to Shahrastani bought by the Nagles as a five-year-old from the Aga Khan in 1993.

Barronstown bred from Sharata five stakes winners and the one-time European record-priced yearling filly, the ill-fated 2,100,000gns Tattersalls Houghton graduate Softlyisthenight, and is evidently still reaping the rewards from that younger acquisition.

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