'We could end up with milers winning the Derby and NH stallions with no stamina'

Philippa Cooper is continuing to swim against the tide of popular opinion in her determination to breed and race middle-distance horses and stayers — but the task is being made more and more difficult by a lack of top-class, affordable and commercially viable stamina stallions in Britain and Ireland.

Cooper declared her intention to re-introduce staying power into her mating plans in an article published on these pages last year, having been mortified to discover through speed gene tests that many of her mares and young stock were of the CC genotype — that most suited to sprinting.

Twelve months on, she reports she has not been able to use as many stallions of the TT genotype, those whose optimum trips are long distance, as she had hoped.

“I’ve been consciously trying,” she says. “But I have fewer mares since I downsized in 2019, and many of those I retained are from the Fallen Star family. I’ve tried to breed stamina into them before, but the foals have been no good. They’re out-and-out milers, and I’ve realised trying to change that is madness.

“For the other mares, who on earth are the TT stallions I could use? The only one I definitely know of is Galileo. I suspect Sea The Stars is too, as I’ve never seen a sprinter by him, which suggests he has no C genetic marker to pass down. But both are prohibitively expensive.”

Cooper concedes that she could use several other stallions she assumes to be TT, and that there is nothing to stop her doing so as she plans to race most of the stock she produces herself. But she has lingering doubts about doing so.

“You might ask why I don’t use Crystal Ocean,” she says of the joint-world champion son of Sea The Stars. “Well, I nearly did, even though he might actually be a CT like Golden Horn. I thought it doesn’t matter about him being a National Hunt stallion, as I can do whatever I like.

“But first of all, he’s covering such enormous numbers at The Beeches Stud, and, secondly, I’ve got to give myself the lifeline of selling my homebreds as yearlings if I need to, as I may do with a couple this year. I’ve got to have something that I can take to the sales without frightening people off.”

Love Is You (pink): unbeaten Listed scorer is the daughter of Cooper's Coronation Stakes heroine Fallen For YouCredit: Mark Cranham

Cooper argues that the lack of stamina options in the stallion ranks could have dire consequences not just for her ambitions of breeding top-class stayers, but also for the broader racing landscape.

“We have an overabundance of these CC stallions, and the bulk of my mares I now know are CCs or CTs apart from Gretchen, so there’s always a chance I’ll produce CCs now,” she says. “And this is what’s also happening to our country’s breeding programme.

“How can I guarantee I’m going to get a cup horse unless I go to Galileo, who I can’t afford and is getting on in years, or Sea The Stars, who’s also a lot of money? I don’t know of any other stallions who could be TT apart from those that are borderline National Hunt such as Harzand, Nathaniel and Postponed.

“It’s a sad state of affairs and we all know there isn’t anything to be done about it, even with the best efforts of the BHA and TBA. It’s just the way things are, and we could eventually end up with milers winning the Derby and National Hunt stallions who won’t have the stamina to breed jumpers.”

Asked whether studs are forthcoming in revealing their charges’ speed gene designation, she replies drily: “They are if they’re not TTs.”

Cooper might not have managed to find enough TT stallions for all her mares this year, but all will be covered by top-class stallions and/or racehorses.

Cooper’s homebred Coronation Stakes heroine Fallen For You has been matched with Lope De Vega. The daughter of Dansili and Fallen Star is the dam of dual Group 2 winner Glorious Journey and unbeaten Listed-winning three-year-old Love Is You.

Lancashire Oaks runner-up Fallen In Love, a Galileo half-sister to Fallen For You, is pencilled in for Too Darn Hot, while Loving Things, a Group 3-winning daughter of Pivotal and Fallen In Love, is booked into Sea The Stars.

Gretchen, a Park Hill Stakes winner and Galileo half-sister to Cooper’s top-class stayers Duncan and Samuel, has had Kingman appointed as her suitor. Leah, another sibling to Gretchen who is by Le Havre and was unraced, will feature in the first book of Arc hero Sottsass.

Fleurissimo, a Dr Fong half-sister to Gretchen’s Group 1-placed dam Dolores, is being sent to another maiden sire in Earthlight, while Fleur Forsyte, her Listed-winning daughter by Teofilo, will be mated with Lope De Vega.

Nassau Stakes winner Sultanina is booked in for GhaiyyathCredit: Mark Cranham

Cooper’s homebred Nassau Stakes winner Sultanina will be among the debut intake of mares for last year’s world champion Ghaiyyath, while Manzanilla, her unraced daughter by Muhaarar, visits Saxon Warrior.

French Dressing, a Listed-winning daughter of Sea The Stars from the Foodbroker Fancy dynasty that yielded Sultanina, is being rested as she is on a late cover to Frankel, while French Polish, her winning daughter by New Approach, has been assigned to promising second-season stallion New Bay.

Mating plans are really of secondary interest to Cooper this year, however, as she is channelling much of her energy into her two-year-old runners. She decided to not sell any as yearlings last autumn, and is instead using the revenue generated by the part-dispersal of her mares in 2019 to fund their training fees.

“The two-year-olds are my focus now,” she says, “I’m returning to my roots as this is what I used to do. I’d put all my horses with John Dunlop, and we'd race them with success and trade some on — as we did with King Of Wands.”

Cooper owns 18 two-year-olds who have been speed gene tested, with the results throwing up some surprises.

“I have four who are TT long, which I’m absolutely ecstatic about, although other people would go raving mad over,” she says. “One is TT short, and that’s great; they should definitely get a mile and a half-plus.

“Three are CT [the genotype best suited to a blend of speed and stamina] long, so they should stay 12 furlongs, and four are CT short - they should get ten furlongs.

“Five are CC long, so could get a mile, and then I have one - the Fastnet Rock colt out of Fallen In Love - who is CC short, and will need five or six furlongs. I asked Plusvital to test that one again, as I was convinced it must have been a mistake. So they did, but he really was CC short.

“You might think, well, if you go to Fastnet Rock, what do you expect? But I certainly never expected to produce a CC short out of a Galileo mare.”

Many in the breeding industry would be licking their lips at the prospect of a precocious sprinter, but Cooper bucks the trend - and that’s putting it mildly.

“I had a sprinter called Present Alchemy once,” she says. “He broke the track record over five furlongs at Beverley, but it didn’t excite me in the slightest.

“There’s no artistry in sprint races, the action is all over before it’s started. I love watching a race unfold, with the horses coming on and off the bridle. In fact, if you told me that all I'd be producing in five years’ time was CC shorts, I’d give up now.”

Cooper’s two-year-olds have been entrusted to a range of stables - those of her principal trainer Roger Charlton as well as Charlie Fellowes and Jedd O’Keeffe, with David Menuisier and Kevin Philippart de Foy joining the roster this year.

Kevin Philippart de Foy: joining the roster for Philippa Cooper's runners

The plan had been to send some to France to take advantage of the better prize-money available across the Channel, but there was a change of heart that underlines how Cooper is never one to cleave to convention.

“Five two-year-olds were meant to go to France, three to Andre Fabre and two to Henri Devin, but I decided not to send them as I was absolutely infuriated by Macron and how nasty he was to us over Brexit and how vindictive he's been about our vaccination programme,” she says.

“It doesn’t matter how much I could win in prize-money. It was a matter of principle and I thought to myself, no, I should be supporting British trainers instead. And anyway, David Menuisier is ideally situated in West Sussex to send them over to France if need be.”

This year’s two-year-olds are of utmost importance to Cooper as they define the future direction of her racing operation, five years after she sold her Normandie Stud in West Sussex.

“People might ask why I didn’t sell them as yearlings,” she says. “But I made the decision pre-pandemic that I wanted to race them. I mean, why on earth would I be doing all this if I had to go to auction each year and sell my best horses? In that case I’d rather do something else.

“I really believe in these horses, and I've a lot of faith in the trainers that they’ll bring out the best in them.”

Showing the same steely resolve with which she has ignored fashion in her love of producing and racing stayers, she sums up: “They said that when I sold Normandie Stud I was finished, but I always knew that was nonsense.

“It was just a new beginning for me as a breeder.”

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