Norman Court Stud proving its point with slew of smart juvenile winners - and Wathnan Racing has swooped

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Here he talks to Simon Taplin about Norman Court Stud's fine run of form, plus a valuable transaction - subscribers can get more great insight from Martin every Monday to Friday.

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Fans of my work – I’ve heard they hold their meetings in a telephone box – will remember that back in February I visited Norman Court Stud and found that Peter and Simon Taplin, the father and son cattle farmers who have owned the farm since 2019, were keen to let the world know that the operation is no longer a private enterprise run by their good friend Mick Channon, and that they were putting the business on a more commercial footing.

As part of that endeavour, they had gone to market in the preceding autumn to purchase six yearling fillies who would be added to the homebreds and spread around a new team of trainers. The long-term goal was that they would earn black type before joining the broodmare band, and the short-term aim was spreading the word about the stud.

“It was our first time buying our own horses, but as a cattle dealer I’m used to bidding,” said Simon at the time. “I threw in the odd 2,000gns bid when the prices went higher, and I’m not sure the auctioneer liked it, but it wasn’t being rude, it’s just what I’m used to.

“Our valuations weren’t far off, there was just one that we were hoping to get that made £500,000, but you never know, you’ve got to be in it to win it. It was all good fun, and I’m happy knowing that if it doesn’t work out it was our own mistakes.”  

Well, seven months since my trip to Wiltshire, it appears that the good fun was also good business, and that the buying mission is working out very nicely thank you. There might have been some mistakes – only time will tell – but they have been preemptively mitigated by the success of some of the earliest runners.

Juniper Berries has undoubtedly been the highlight. The Eve Johnson Houghton-trained daughter of Expert Eye, signed for at 28,000gns at the Tattersalls December Yearling Sale, has put up one respectable run after another in top two-year-old races this season and she gained a deserved black-type success when lunging late to deny Dorothy Lawrence in the Dick Poole Fillies’ Stakes at the Taplins’ local track of Salisbury last Thursday.

Miss Information: last Friday's Ascot winner is another to sport the new colours of Norman Court StudCredit: Alan Crowhurst

A day later Miss Information, a Blue Point filly bought for 90,000gns from Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale and also carrying the new Norman Court Stud colours of yellow with black sash and cap, was sent out by Andrew Balding to win a competitive Ascot novice stakes by a length.

Half of the 2022 yearling acquisitions have already graced a winner’s enclosure by now, as Miss Show Off, a daughter of Showcasing sourced from the Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale for 65,000gns, took a Newbury novice stakes for Clive Cox in July.  

On top of all that, Norman Court Stud’s homegrown produce came good in no uncertain terms when Mister Sketch – a two-year-old colt by Territories who is the first foal out of Drawing, an unraced Dark Angel half-sister to Cheveley Park Stakes second Rimth bought for 40,000gns – hosed up by nearly ten lengths in a Salisbury novice stakes on his second start for Johnson Houghton last month.

“We’ve done all right, haven’t we?” said Simon Taplin with a laugh when I asked him over the weekend for a progress report since the interview was published.

What has made the initial success of the Taplins’ buying mission all the more impressive is that they dispensed with the services of bloodstock agents or trainers and called upon the talents on the stud for selecting stock instead.

So, stud managers Keith and Janet Evans’ son Michael, nicknamed ‘The Oracle’ on account of his deep knowledge of pedigrees, scoured catalogues to draw up a shortlist of fillies with attractive pages, and Simon, Keith and Simon’s farming friend Simon Trotter inspected and bid on the horses themselves.  

“We wanted to keep it in-house as we have faith in the team at the stud,” says Simon. “Keith, Janet and young Michael are like our own personal bloodstock agents anyway. It’s all a team effort, though; we take votes and everyone contributes to decisions.

Peter and Simon Taplin of Norman Court Stud

“It’s just more fun, seeing it through ourselves from start to finish. If it didn’t work out, we’d have no one to blame but ourselves, but if it did work out, we could take the glory. And, touch wood, the system seems to be working for us at the moment."

The Norman Court Stud team weren’t going into the sales ring without any outside input, as stud vet Luke Hepburn okayed the final choices before any bids were made, but otherwise it was all their own ideas. Simon isn’t making any bold claims to have cracked the yearling market, though.

He says: “Luck has played a big part and I’ll be honest with you, there were a couple of the yearlings we bought last year who we thought would be really early, and we turned out to be completely wrong, they have taken the longest, and there were others we thought would come to hand later who have been earlier. It’s all a bit pie in the sky, really.”

I would hazard a guess that the Norman Court Stud team expected Juniper Berries, off the mark on debut in April and fourth in the Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot, to ripen a little later. Her dam Tricksy Spirit won at two but was better at three, when she finished second in the Scurry Stakes, and she came from the Tattersalls December Yearling Sale, after all.  

I also wondered how Michael Evans managed to pick her out on pedigree, as for all that she is out of a black-type mare, her page didn’t leap out of the catalogue. But it turns out that her sales history is not all that it seems.

“Aha, there’s a story there!” says Simon. “Juniper Berries was bred by Jon Mitchell, one of our clients who boards his mares at Norman Court Stud, including Tricksy Spirit. So Keith had seen a lot of her, and he’d always said she was the best filly on the farm that year.

“She was being consigned by Barton Stud to Tattersalls last November, on a freezing cold day I remember, and purely by chance Jon, Keith and I went in for a cup of tea before she went into the ring.

“Keith asked Jon whether he thought the filly would make the money he wanted for her, and Jon replied that he wasn’t sure, so I suggested that I might buy her and then we’d go halves, and that’s how we ended up getting her.

“So really she’s a homebred: she was born on the stud and reared here, we just brought her back into the fold. Jon’s very much a part of the team now! We’ve been on some lovely adventures this year.”  

Simon did put on record in the feature I wrote earlier this year that his dream was to get a Group-winning filly from his yearling purchases and send her to Norman Court Stud’s long-serving and often underrated stallion Sixties Icon.

So has he told his co-owner in Juniper Berries that he already has mating plans for the filly sorted?

“Erm no, I haven’t,” he says with a sheepish chuckle. “You can do that! No, in all seriousness, Jon will tell us what he wants to do when the time comes and we’ll come to a joint agreement. I hope we can breed from her, at least.”

Simon should have the funds for a few blue-chip matings in future, be they for Juniper Berries or other mares, as he reveals that the exciting Mister Sketch has been sold privately to the rising force of Wathnan Racing, whose other high-profile acquisitions this year include Ballymount Boy, Courage Mon Ami, Gregory, Isaac Shelby, Per Contra and Remarquee.

“We get on very well with Richard Brown of Blandford Bloodstock, who did the deal, and he said the colt might now go for the Mill Reef Stakes with the longer-term hope of getting a Group 1 with him,” he says.  

“Mister Sketch is the first foal out of the first mare we bought ourselves, so he's very special to us, and the money he’s made will go back into the stud. Hopefully he’ll make Drawing, and she’ll become our foundation mare. She’s in foal to Showcasing at the moment.”

Mister Sketch: impressive winner at Salisbury has sold privately to Wathnan Racing Credit: Edward Whitaker

As for the other Norman Court Stud two-year-olds in the new era of Taplin family ownership, Miss Stormy Night, a Night Of Thunder full-sister to Group 3 scorer Under The Stars bought for 80,000gns, is “coming along really nicely” for Clive Cox and could run in the next two to three weeks, while Lucky Gold, a Havana Gold filly who cost 37,000gns, and Cherryblossom Time, a Kuroshio filly bought for 28,000gns, are “a bit behind” but will be given plenty of time.

Norman Court Stud has bought one yearling filly so far this year – a Sergei Prokofiev half-sister to the smart trio Miss Jungle Cat, Tonkinese and Umneyati for 62,000gns at Tattersalls Somerville last week – but the eventual annual haul might be smaller due to an exciting source of ammunition much closer to home.

“We’re definitely going to look at some more but we might not buy quite so many at the sales,” says Simon. “The main reason being we’ve got some lovely yearlings by our own stallion Rumble Inthejungle to come. They’re about to be shipped out to the pre-trainer, and then they’ll go off to a spread of trainers like last year’s sale yearlings.

“We’ve got a particularly nice Rumble Inthejungle colt out of Drawing, so a half-brother to Mister Sketch, and another homebred I’m really excited about is a Churchill colt out of Crazee Diamond.

“As it turns out, the homebreds Mister Sketch and Juniper Berries – well, she’s sort of a homebred, having been raised here – have been better than the purchases so far, so it goes to show what a great job Keith and Janet and everyone else on the farm are doing.”  

Simon and the Norman Court Stud team are making this breeding and buying lark look easy, I reckon.

Rumble Inthejungle: resident stallion at Norman Court Stud

“I don’t know about that!” says Simon. “I’ve had a few sleepless nights, as there’s a bit of pressure to make it all work, but the trainers are marvellous, we couldn’t have asked for a better set, and I mustn’t forget the jockeys. Charlie Bishop rode a great race on Mister Sketch and he calls Juniper Berries the apple of his eye. He rode a peach on her at Salisbury.”

So does he think he is succeeding in his plan to put Norman Court Stud and its new owners on the map, as disclosed to me back in February?

“I’d say so,” he says. “We’re out there with the sponsorship, buying stock and winning races, and we’ve got some close ties with Whitsbury Manor Stud too. I think we’re out there now, it’s all gradually coming to fruition.”  

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“Nick Luck was on roving reporter duty and has to be applauded for sticking out a shift in stifling heat dressed in a dark suit and tie; by the end of the sale he should have looked less Luck on Sunday and more Luck on Sunbed, but somehow he maintained an appearance of business as usual,” writes James Thomas in the latest instalment of his sales diary.

Pedigree pick

Radharani, a Kingman half-sister to European champion Almanzor, makes her debut for trainer Tim Donworth and owner and breeder George Strawbridge in the Prix Fast Fox for unraced two-year-olds over six and a half furlongs at Saint-Cloud on Monday (3.52 local time, 2.52 BST).

Being out of the unraced Maria’s Mon mare Darkova, a relation to the Aga Khan’s Classic winners Darjina and Darsi, she is also a half-sister to five other winners including the stakes-placed pair Another Sky and Natasha.  

Almanzor’s sire Wootton Bassett is meanwhile represented in this race by Rhetorique, a half-sister to Prix de Fontainebleau winner and Poule d’Essai des Poulains third Dicton trained by Carlos Laffon-Parias for the Wertheimer brothers.