The Juddmonte purchase who just keeps turning the page

Like the rings of a felled giant redwood, a catalogue page reveals its stories the deeper you look. Few better examples of thoroughbred chronology can be seen than for a filly selling at Book 1 next week, whose ancestry takes us through the ages of Prince Khalid Abdullah’s involvement in the sport.

At Tattersalls on September 30, 1986, he paid 310,000gns for a daughter of Mill Reef that he named Bahamian. It was a moment that Grant Pritchard-Gordon, his racing manager for 17 years, not only recognises as pivotal but remembers with clarity.

He recalls: "It was just down the bottom in the Highflyer [Paddock], just around the corner, at the time George Blackwell was buying our yearlings, so he was with Jeremy Tree, myself and the Prince. I can remember Jeremy absolutely loved her. She was a lovely filly and we bought her, but little did we know then how important she’d be, to Juddmonte and to breeding overall.

"Quite apart from Oasis Dream and Kingman, there have been other sires like Beat Hollow, all the French stallions like Martaline, Coastal Path, Reefscape, they’re very important for the jumping world. So that purchase 34 years ago, look what it’s done for this sale."

Pritchard-Gordon refers to Bahamian’s daughter Hope, who produced both champion-sprinter-turned Juddmonte stallion Oasis Dream and French Guineas heroine Zenda, later dam of Kingman. Those two in turn feature as sire or grandsire for around eight per cent of the Book 1 offerings.

"She was beautifully presented, very well balanced and quite a bright colour; I knew why Jeremy fell in love with her," he says. "She won the Lingfield Oaks Trial at three, was disqualified after winning the Prix Chaudenay and was third in the Park Hill. Isn’t it funny that here’s a filly who had such stamina and who is now responsible for such speed through Oasis Dream and Kingman. Prince Khalid brought it back in."

Grant Pritchard-Gordon (left) was Juddmonte's long-serving racing managerCredit: Laura Green

Bahamian was produced by Northern Irish owner-breeder Gerald Jennings under his Stonethorn Stud Farms out of Sorbus, who was placed in the Irish Guineas and Leger but more famously was disqualified from winning the 1978 Oaks when the stewards adjudged she had interfered with runner-up Fair Salinia.

"They were a long-standing owner-breeder operation from Carrowdore Castle," explains bloodstock agent John Walsh, who worked for the family. "I do remember her well, she was a gorgeous filly and everyone was delighted that she went to Juddmonte as she proved a remarkable blue hen.

"Although Mr Jennings is no longer with us, some of the family do breed and it was great to see their black and white colours winning last year’s Cheveley Park Stakes with Millisle."

The memories transport us back to a time when Abdullah’s pink, green and white silks were becoming an increasingly frequent sight on British racecourses.

"We were very much into buying yearlings at that stage, we’d have bought 30 yearlings a year in '83, '84, '85, the majority were colts but there were some very well-bred fillies too," says Pritchard-Gordon.

"I believe if you look at the Juddmonte broodmare band now, it's not all from purchased mares, some were purchased yearlings and fillies off the track. It’s about a third, a third, a third. The really big broodmare buying came with James Delahooke around '86, '87, '88.

"Probably at that time of Bahamian, I should think there were maybe 60 mares, 100 horses in training. We were in France but not as strongly as now, and weren’t having them trained in Ireland, we hadn’t got that many in America at that stage. Jeremy Tree was the main trainer, and Guy Harwood. Henry Cecil had trained one horse the Prince bought from him, but didn’t again until Jeremy had given up."

Bahamian, as well as the glorious line established by Hasili and the various Juddmonte tributaries which have led to the likes of Frankel and Enable, have seen the operation become the envy of the racing world.

Pritchard-Gordon certainly did not expect that, saying: "I remember when I joined him in '82 or '83, I said, 'What do you want me to do sir?' And he said, 'You’ll find out'. None of us really had any idea of the scale he had in mind.

"The time of Bahamian’s purchase was really when it flipped from, 'I’m buying all these yearlings' to 'I’m going to breed them and this is really what I want to do'. Warning was his first homebred Group 1 winner and meant so much to him; that really inspired him.

"Known Fact retired to stud, Rainbow Quest retired and we didn’t buy that many yearlings after that. By 1990 it was up and running, and I remember in the late 90s we had over 200 mares.

"He bought land in '83, '84 in America and Ireland, but it wasn’t really until '86, '87 that it mushroomed. When I joined it was sort of 60 acres of stud, and when I left it was 6,000."

Pritchard-Gordon remembers his two decades in Prince Khalid’s employ fondly, although it required some irregular time-keeping.

"In his heyday he was the most hands-on man you could ever have met, it was his passion," he says. "I used to send him a fax at five o’clock in the afternoon saying, 'Tonight when I talk to you I want to discuss this and this, and these are the options for each of the questions'.

"I’d ring every night for many years, 10pm English time, 365 days a year. I’d say, 'Question one'. He’d say 'B'. Then we’d discuss them all at length.

"He didn’t employ a dog to do the barking himself, he employed some great experts and trainers, listened to all everyone had to say and took all of their views on board, but there was only one man who made the decision, and that was him. You might put three choices in front of him but he was the person who made every choice."

Household Name has already produced Listed winner Gobi DesertCredit: Alain Barr

Lot 205 next week, by Frankel out of Bahamian’s granddaughter Household Name, is being offered by New England Stud. A half-sister to Listed Navan winner Gobi Desert, she is from one of the very small offshoots of the family not still in Juddmonte’s possession and therefore a rare look at the mare’s achievements in the round.

"There wasn’t that depth of pedigree but it was very solid with good names and her sire Mill Reef was a big attraction," says Pritchard-Gordon. "But how could you possibly have dreamed looking at a page like that, and seeing that every name, practically, is Prince Khalid."

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