Love at first sight: Hicky Parmar on his horses and his new bloodstock adventure

Hicky Parmar's first experience of racing came about when spending a day at Royal Ascot for his tenth wedding anniversary. The owner, and now breeder, has not looked back since.

The property trader does not hold back his enthrallment to the sport, and it would also appear he has plenty to look forward to after a decade or so of involvement in racing.

At the end of last month he led in a winner on 2,000 Guineas day at Newmarket in Suffolk Handicap scorer Cap Francais, a hard-knocking son of Frankel trained by Ian Williams and whom he owns in partnership.

He said: "I went to Royal Ascot having never been racing in my life, My wife had always wanted to go to Royal Ascot, so we booked the Parade Ring restaurant and we just fell in love with the whole thing."

That thrilling first experience of racing has expanded to having a team of seven horses in training, as well as the small matter of a blossoming broodmare band.

Parmar said: "We've got seven at the moment [in the UK and UAE] including Cap Francais, Prince Of Parma and Paddy The Chef, as well as some unnamed two-year-olds."

Having enjoyed multiple winners at Meydan and in the UK, Parmar's passion and enthusiasm for the sport has only grown. Indeed, he has now turned his attention to breeding his own horses, and he recently welcomed an Iffraaj colt foal out of his dual winner and UAE 1,000 Guineas third Lady Parma.

A daughter of Exchange Rate and out of a Dynaformer half-sister to Grade 3 winner Demarcation, Lady Parma was a straightforward case of love at first sight for Parmar, an attraction that has clearly borne fruit since she was picked up by Bhupat Seemar for 55,000gns from the 2018 Tattersalls Guineas Breeze-Up Sale.

Hicky Parmar with his trophy for Paddy The Chef's success at Chepstow in September 2019

He said: "I just fall in love with horses anyway; before I bought Lady Parma I drew a line through her as I thought I wasn't interested in buying a filly, but when I saw her on the morning of the breeze-up sale I just had to have her. It was a complete love affair from that moment.

"She was in the UK for a while just being a horse and in the paddock, but we've followed the journey to Dubai, where she was third in the UAE 1,000 Guineas and a winner at Jebel Ali, before winning again at Meydan."

The exciting journey could have so easily ended there, with Parmar being invited to sell the Listed-placed filly from a family that includes Grade 2 winner Buy The Barrel, but it was all's well that ends well for both the Parmar family and their talented mare.

Parmar said: "We were offered some money for her as a broodmare but I couldn't do it, so I thought why shouldn't I do it myself?

"She's come out of her foaling really well and the foal is nice and healthy; we received a video of him walking yesterday. Where she's kept there isn't a foaling unit, so she had to go down the road near to Kildangan Stud and foaled there. She'll visit Ghaiyyath next, which we're really excited about."

Parmar, who is based in Staffordshire, now has his sights set on expanding his burgeoning breeding adventure, which will inevitably include more trips to the sales and increasing the number of broodmares in his ownership.

He added: "We own a couple of racing yards which we have rented out to trainers and the plan now is to expand our broodmare band too. We've got a couple of mares and the plan is to breed from them and maybe do it commercially as well."

Read more

(£) First winner for start-up breeders Anna Murphy and Barry Kennedy

Tattersalls announce appointment of Katherine Sheridan as online sales executive

Debut winner for Rajasinghe as Waiting All Night strikes at first time of asking

History the latest chapter in story for Galileo and Prize Exhibit