'It's an achievement' - Alex Hales on breeding EBF Final winner Bourbon Beauty

An old adage with breeding horses is to have patience, and plenty of it. For trainer Alex Hales and his wife Sally, victory with their homebred Bourbon Beauty in Newbury's Novices' Mares' Hurdle Final was a just reward for their efforts with the six-year-old and her family.

The daughter of Great Pretender had shown plenty of promise in bumpers, including when third in a Listed race at Kempton last season, but Saturday's Grade 2 success was so much the sweeter given the rather trying times with her dam It Doesn't Matter.

Hales explains: "I had an owner with a foal and he wanted something to run with that foal, so we bought It Doesn't Matter at the Doncaster January Sale for £4,800 in 2008.

"They were reared together and both came into training. She showed us plenty on the gallops and then infuriatingly went lame behind. She also had bad sinus issues, just niggly things anyway.

"Like all good National Hunt people you have to be resilient and patient - we really liked her at home, she'd done some good pieces of work and would arguably have won a bumper.

"She had a nice pedigree, being out of a mare that Henrietta Knight trained and by Karinga Bay, who I've always liked."

The various niggly issues meant It Doesn't Matter could not fulfil her potential on the track, but the 14-year-old is more than making up for lost time, producing not only Bourbon Beauty but the talented Passing Glance gelding Millers Bank, an impressive winner of a competitive handicap hurdle at the same track earlier this month.

Oxfordshire-based Hales continues: "We put her in foal and we've been pretty successful really. It's an achievement to win with any horse anywhere but to go and win two at Newbury in the space of a few weeks is fun.

"We sold half of Bourbon Beauty last year and have leased her to the Old Stoics Racing Club. That lease will carry on through to next season and then we'll see where we are. There are no immediate breeding plans bar the fact I'd like to keep the family going."

While Bourbon Beauty will continue to keep the family name in the spotlight, there are several chapters yet to be told for It Doesn't Matter, who has a couple more progeny in the works.

Hales adds: "She's difficult to keep in foal; she has a three-year-old filly by Clovis Du Berlais and is back in foal to Passing Glance - she's due to give birth in the next ten days.

"Sally and I do the breeding side as a hobby, it's been good fun and we've got another mare who's just retired who is in foal to Passing Glance as well.

"It's not a big thing for us but I think it's important for British National Hunt that small breeders can keep going."

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