Meet the pony racing boy wonder who's making it big on the breeze-up scene

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Here, Martin Stevens chats to Darragh Lordan, fast becoming a force to reckon with on the breeze-up circuit. Subscribers can get more great insight every Monday to Friday.

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In 2005 the Irish Mirror anointed ‘little Darragh Lordan’ as a future star of the racecourse weighing room. 

“He’s Ireland's youngest jockey and at just nine years old he is already being hailed as the next Jamie Spencer,” enthused the newspaper. “Darragh, who weighs only 4st, has been setting the equestrian world alight since he started riding in Flat races last year.  

“His home in Innishannon, County Cork, is full of the trophies he has won against riders many years his senior. The latest glittering prize is an award from the Horse and Pony Riders Association in recognition of his numerous wins on Munster's Flat racing courses.” 

A not-so-little-any-more Lordan, now an emerging force on the breeze-up scene, reddens at the memory of the article. 

“I remember that, I think it’s in a scrapbook somewhere,” he says with a hint of a groan. “I started out on the pony circuit when I was seven and rode for a long time. I don’t know how many winners I had. A couple of hundred, I’d imagine. 

“I was unfortunate really as I got a bit heavy. I probably would’ve done quite well if I’d stayed light and gone down the Flat route. But as it was I got on okay. I rode around 30 winners in English point-to-points, was an amateur to Venetia Williams in Hereford and had some rides in bumpers in Ireland. 

“I gave up riding when I was 19, and went off to train to become an electrician, but I couldn’t pass the maths tests for it. After a couple of years I thought I’d get back into the horses.” 

A key benefit of pony racing, apart from honing horsemanship skills and tactics, is making contacts. Lordan rode alongside subsequent top jockeys Aidan Coleman, Martin Harley, Chris Hayes, Danny Mullins, Gavin Sheehan and Paul Townend, as well as bloodstock industry figures Micky Cleere and Eddie Linehan, and it was some of those old friends who gave him the idea of getting into breezers. 

“I’d seen Eddie buying and selling and he was doing quite well, so I looked into it myself,” says Lordan, nephew of multiple Group 1-winning rider Wayne Lordan. “I also knew Micky, and Johnny Collins and Thomond O’Mara, and they gave me a fair bit of advice for going out there and getting a few horses myself.” 

Lordan dipped his toe in the market for the first time in 2018, selling two cheaply bought fillies through O’Mara’s Knockanglass Stables. One in particular, a Dandy Man filly sourced as a yearling for a mere €1,800 and resold for €16,000, encouraged him to dive into breezing under his own name. 

“I did it on my own the next year, under the banner of Innishannon Valley Stud, named after the town that I’m from here in Cork,” says Lordan. “I made some more small profits on the two colts by Epaulette and Swiss Spirit I sold, and I’ve slowly built it up from there, with two, three or four lots each year. 

“I’m only just getting bigger now, and for the past two years I’ve been renting a top-of-the-range yard in Ballincollig from Michael O’Flynn, with a three and a half-furlong gallop, 30 stables, a walker and loads of turnout paddocks with good grass. 

“In the past two seasons I’ve sold 13 horses and six of them have won maiden or novice stakes at two, with two getting black type. One of them is Marshman, a Group 3-winning sprinter, and the other is Thekingofmyheart, who was second in a Listed race in Germany. 

Marshman: Group winner was bought and sold by Lordan's Innishannon Valley StudCredit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

“There are a couple of others who have finished placed and were beaten by tiny margins, and some other promising horses who haven’t run yet, so things have been going very well.” 

Marshman, a first-crop son of Harry Angel out of the winning Galileo mare White Rosa, is undoubtedly the horse who has put Lordan’s Innishannon Valley Stud on the map. Bought for just 5,000gns from Book 3 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, he was resold to Nick Bradley Racing and Karl Burke for £38,000 at the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale in Doncaster. 

He won his first two starts before finding only Noble Style too good in the Gimcrack Stakes and running a creditable fifth to Blackbeard in the Middle Park Stakes at two, and scored in the Prix Sigy and put in some highly creditable efforts in defeat in the Duke of York Stakes and King’s Stand Stakes last year at three. 

Asked how he managed to pick up the colt for such a pittance, Lordan says: “He looked racy but wasn’t furnished and was by a first-season sire who the jury was out on. I didn’t have a big budget, so he sort of fell into my lap. 

“He had a 5,000gns reserve on him, which I was happy with, and there was no one else for him – not a sinner. He was a little bit hot, too, but the minute he got home he was an absolute dream. 

“I knew quite early on that I had a nice horse. He had so much speed and a rare attitude. He was a great horse to get early in your career, as you can guide other horses off him. When you’ve had a good one, you know what they look and feel like.” 

But if Marshman showed so much at home before his appointment with the auctioneer at Doncaster, how come he didn’t make a little more when he got there? Lordan is philosophical about the price, suggesting it was his lack of heritage as a vendor that held it back. 

“The horse was the 27th fastest on the clock, and a load of people came round to see him,” he says. “Maybe if he’d been with a bigger man, he would’ve made more money, but I was just starting out, and agents need to trust who they’re buying from.  

“I told numerous agents to buy the horse, and afterwards a lot of them came up to me and said ‘fair play, you were right’. But I can understand where they were coming from. This game is all about building a relationship with agents. 

“Actually, the most frustrating thing with Marshman is that he hasn’t been able to show how good he really is yet. He was unfortunate not to win the Gimcrack, as he didn’t keep straight to the line, and he pulled too hard in the Middle Park, but wasn’t beaten that far. Then he had a few niggles last year. 

“I saw a picture of him the other day and he’s come on unbelievably well. He’s after getting a lot stronger and hopefully he’s grown up a bit in the stalls. He wasn’t fully mature when he ran so well in all those big races last year, and I think sprinters tend to get better with age anyway. He’s a real genuine horse and hopefully he’ll win a Group 1 this year. I’d love to get that under my belt.” 

Nick Bradley Racing returned to the source last year, buying two more breezers from Lordan, and the syndicate was rewarded with Indication Spirit, a Magna Grecia filly who won three on the trot for Burke, and Buttercross Flyer, a daughter of Inns Of Court who took a valuable Racing League nursery for Craig Lidster.

The Innishannon Valley Stud breeze-up draft of 2023 was in more demand generally, in fact, and included a Sioux Nation colt who became by far and away the most expensive lot sold by the operation in its short existence when being knocked down to Global Equine Group for €230,000 at Fairyhouse. 

“He was another who nobody really wanted at the yearling sales,” recalls Lordan. “He went through the ring unsold at €25,000, so I went down to see the vendor with Micky Cleere and Johnny Collins for a second opinion, and offered €20,000 for him. The vendor wouldn’t take anything less than €25,000, though. I bought him, but as it was a fair amount for me at the time, Micky came in with me. 

“I’m great friends with Micky and we bought two horses together that year. The other was Ballymount Boy, who sold at Fairyhouse for €110,000 and became a high-class two-year-old for Adrian Keatley. It was a great day when the two of them made what they did.  

“The Sioux Nation colt was one of those horses I knew had loads of potential from a very early stage. He was always a good moving horse with a great attitude, and just did so well all the way through his prep.  

Darragh Lordan: "On the whole they’re a very good bunch"Credit: Tattersalls Ireland

“I can’t wait for him to run. He’s a big horse, so this was always going to be his year; he was never going to make a two-year-old. He’s been named Yes Sir and Kevin Philippart de Foy has him. All roads lead to the start of the Flat season.” 

Sioux Nation yearlings were naturally high on Lordan’s shopping list when he came to restock last year, but plans to buy more of them were banjaxed by the sire suddenly becoming very trendy, and yet having his smallest crop of foals come onto the market.  

Consequently, the average price of a Sioux Nation yearling in Britain and Ireland soared to 62,850gns last year: a little out of Lordan’s price range. 

“I managed to get one, though,” exclaims the pinhooker triumphantly. “He’s a really lovely horse and I’m very happy to have him. He’ll be going to Fairyhouse again, so it’s the same dream. He needed a bit of time, he’s maybe not as robust as last year’s, but is a more athletic type. He could have a very bright future. 

“He cost 35,000gns and is my most expensive purchase to date, but I’m not too worried about what he cost at the moment. He’s well worth what I paid for him at this stage.” 

That Sioux Nation colt, a half-brother to two winners out of a half-sister to Group 1-placed sprinter Hitchens, might have caused Lordan to stretch his budget but generally he was careful not to waste his windfall from Fairyhouse. 

“I reinvested some of the money into last year’s pinhooks, but I didn’t go mad,” he says. “It’s a game that can flip over on you fairly quick, so I tried to save a few pound in case things don’t go amazing all the time.  

“I’m lucky that I don’t need to spend any money upgrading facilities, as the yard I’m renting has everything you’d want. Instead, the dream is to buy a bit of land over by my grandparents’ place in Crossbarry. My first yard was there and I’d love to go back, and buy some land around it. That’s the aim in ten years’ time.” 

Innishannon Valley Stud’s first breezers to be offered to market this year will be a Calyx colt out of the winning and well related Nathaniel mare Norway and a Camacho half-brother to two winners heading for the Goffs Doncaster Breeze-Up Sale next month. 

“The Calyx could be my next Marshman,” says Lordan. “He’s going to be very, very good. But the Camacho is nice too, and some of the later horses are going well. They’re only just swinging away there now, but they’re doing everything I want and doing it easily. 

“On the whole they’re a very good bunch. All of them seem to be going well at this stage. I’d be fierce bullish about the stock this year. I can see a lot of two-year-old winners coming out of them.” 

Lordan rides all the two-year-olds himself at home, with Micky Cleere and Pierce Gallagher partnering them for their breezes. Uncle Wayne isn’t involved in the horses from a financial standpoint, but he and Seamie Heffernan often sit on them when they head to Willie Browne’s in County Tipperary for work.  

“It’s been a tough year, looking after and riding ten horses on my own,” admits Lordan. “I’d be busy enough now. If I got any busier I’d probably have to get someone in to help but it’s hard, because down this way no one wants to be working with horses.  

“I really rely on Micky and Pierce’s expertise in the breezes, and they or Wayne and Seamie will ride them upsides each other when they go to Willie’s in order to see somewhere new. You’d get a good idea about them when they get off them and tell you what they thought.” 

Another person who has been instrumental in Innishannon Valley Stud’s early success is Lordan’s fiancée Lauren, even though she isn’t hands-on with the horses. 

“She’s been a great help minding the family at home,” says Lordan. “That’s not easy when I’m gone the whole time, and I’m grateful for her understanding.” 

Lauren might have to summon all her understanding later in the spring, as she is expecting twins with a due date in June – with the Tattersalls Ireland Breeze-Up Sale taking place on May 23 and 24.  

“It’s going to be a tight call,” says Lordan with a nervous laugh. “Hopefully it all goes well but there’ll be a bit of pressure, it’s going to be close. If need be I’ll have to jump in the car from Fairyhouse after the horses have breezed. I have to earn the money to feed and clothe the kids!" 

It promises to be an eventful breeze-up season for Lordan, who might not have emulated Jamie Spencer but is turning into the next Jim McCartan or John Cullinan instead.

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