'We trotted him up and down the football pitch. That was Itchy Feet'

When Sean Tiernan sources horses for the likes of Kate and Andrew Brooks, he often looks beyond the conventional settings of point-to-points and the sales ring.

Instead he wends his way through the French countryside, searching for those who have not yet been found. He asks around, follows his nose, sometimes ends up in the most bizarre places. The Irishman’s route to discovering big-race winners including Saint Calvados, Rouge Vif and Itchy Feet would make a watchable travel journal.

He recalls one instance, saying: "We’d been looking at a horse on a farm one day and I said to [owner-breeder] Denis Grandin, 'Who else is around here Denis?’ He said, 'There’s a breeder across the way there, he’d have four or five horses, two or three mares'.

"He didn’t have anything much, except he was bringing a yearling out of the field and I asked what it was. He said, 'Oh, he’s by Cima De Triomphe, he’s not fashionable', but I asked to see him.

"This guy had nowhere to trot the horse so we had to take down the goalposts in the little field across from the stable, and we trotted him up and down the football pitch. That was [Scilly Isles Novices’ Chase winner] Itchy Feet."

It had been a similar story when Tiernan found one for the Costello family lurking in a stable when he was intending to look at another horse. He became Ben Pauling's National Hunt Chase winner Le Breuil.

"He was a small breeder who didn’t have anywhere to trot him either, he had a gallop but no hard surface," Tiernan remembers with amusement.

"He just said go and trot him on the main road and wait until the traffic lights go red. When they go green get back in the stable yard."

Sean Tiernan (centre left) is racing manager for Kate and Andrew BrooksCredit: Patrick McCann/Racing Post

Although the engaging agent has a wealth of other good stories of this nature, his life is not all about eccentric encounters and taking a punt. He works in tandem with vet Bernard Stoffel, his eyes and ears in France, in an activity that seems a little like metal detecting as they search high and low for treasures before others get their hands on them.

"It’s groundwork," he explains. "Going around on your feet and in your car, driving around the different farms, all the time.

"Solwhit [the multiple Grade 1 hurdle winner including the World Hurdle] was one of the first, the owner was a guy in Belgium, where Bernard lives. We went to the farm and saw him as a two-year-old. He had no pedigree but was a nice-looking type of horse. We didn’t buy him and he went and won in Enghien as a three-year-old. We’d known him for nearly two years when we bought him then.

"I’m not overly worried about a horse’s sire, I’m more particular about trying to buy a good individual. If you have a good pedigree to go with it on the dam’s side, brilliant, but that’s not always the case and we can’t always afford to buy a horse that’s expensive because of its pedigree. It’s all about risk assessment."

Tiernan has lived an eventful life, growing up in the middle of Dublin, where his father had a pig farm, and spending afternoons working at the fabled Leopardstown stables of Seamus McGrath.

Through the late Brian Grassick and BBA Ireland he ended up being involved with yearlings in Kentucky and trained under a New York licence before returning home to Wexford and setting up his Peak Racehorses business.

"Our Conor was the cheapest horse we ever bought who was a star, €4,500," he says of the white-faced gelding who took the 2013 Triumph Hurdle by a dazzling 15 lengths.

"He reminded me exactly of a horse I’d bought about 15 years earlier from Peter McCreery called Majestic Man, for the price of a ham sandwich. He won a load of races and ran in the Triumph, where he got injured. They looked the same, same step and big feet like satellite dishes under his legs holding him up."

The Tiernan-Stoffel axis has also had a hand in finding quite a few more Cheltenham winners over the years, from the popular Don Poli and County Hurdle hero Ch’tibello to Simply The Betts last year, who became a first winner at the meeting for the Brookses.

Stayers' Hurdle hero Solwhit is one who caught the eye of Sean TiernanCredit: Edward Whitaker

His involvement with the family has developed over the last four years and he became their racing manager as they bought into his ethos. Horses are generally purchased at two and developed by Tiernan’s old friend, the trainer Tom Cooper, and his jockey son Bryan in Kerry.

The approach has paid off lately with two bright young prospects and sons of Stoffel’s stallion Brave Mansonnien. Brave Seasca beat record public auction buy Interconnected at Huntingdon for his joint-owner Julian Taylor, the chairman of the course, while the very exciting Brave Kingdom landed a bumper at Fontwell last Sunday.

"Early into the process, I said instead of spending 300/400k on horses, which a lot of people do, I think you'll get a lot more benefit out of buying a young horse, being involved and watching them develop, right through from buying Saint Calvados together and going up to where we are today," he says.

"Kate and Andrew found that process much nicer; you’re much more attached to the horse, and they adore the animals.

"In line with this, my wife Viva and I always make an effort to find good homes for the horses when they retire from their racing career, this is also a part of my job, and it’s an important part. It's such a pleasure to follow them as riding horses, and they often go on to become very old while enjoying their otium."

A couple more of them appeared from another unusual setting.

"They have two with Oliver Sherwood with absolutely zero pedigree, a good jumper called Dominateur and his full-brother Grandeur D’Ame, who was second in a Listed bumper at Cheltenham," says Tiernan.

"They were owned by a goat farmer in the middle of nowhere, he didn’t even have a mobile phone. Bernard found it by hook or by crook, all we saw were heads of goats sticking out of stables, and no horses. This very nice man came out, Georges [Lacombe], and said, [in French accent] ’Come een, come een’.

"We went round the back and saw six of the most beautiful AQPS yearlings, two-year-olds. I asked, 'What do you feed them, goats milk?' He replied, 'Yes, they get everything, they live out here'. We bought four horses off him that day."

He adds: "It’s vitally important that they’re healthy, well and never hungry. It’s no use buying one from a farm where the fella wouldn’t feed himself, he wouldn’t fix the fence and wouldn’t feed the horses. By the time they’re four and they’ve got to put their head down and gallop, there’s nothing there."

Championship challenger

Sean Tiernan is particularly satisfied that Andrew Brooks was involved in the purchase of Saint Calvados, the horse earning his name from what was the tipple of choice the night before seeing the horse with his former owner Jean-Pierre Dubois.

"I knew he was by Saint Des Saints and he came trotting by us," recalls Tiernan. "Andrew said, 'That’s a beautiful-looking horse'. I said, 'Don’t be looking at him anymore, just buy him'. Andrew's not blind, he spotted him immediately."

Saint Calvados is likely to return to the meeting for one of the main eventsCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Since moving to Britain the gelding has become a dual Grade 3 winner for Harry Whittington and was touched off by Min in last year’s Ryanair. Although his two runs this season have not been hugely inspiring, Tiernan feels he should not be written off as they debate the option of the Gold Cup or another stab at the Ryanair.

"It’s been tricky for him this season," he says. "We’re adamant that he gets a trip and stays; whether he stays the Gold Cup trip, I don’t know.

"It was a super run in the King George [for fourth] because we were held up for two weeks with an infection. His run after that at Sandown was disappointing but Harry’s horses haven’t been right, he was lethargic, and they’re just coming back to themselves now.

"He looks well, he can run well and we feel we have legitimate reasons for believing that."

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