'We've all been very excited' - Maywood Stud's Kelly Thomas filled with pride as graduate Vandeek heads to Goodwood

Kelly Thomas's Maywood Stud will be in the spotlight at Goodwood on Thursday when the expensive breeze-up purchase Vandeek puts his reputation on the line in the Group 2 Markel Richmond Stakes. 

Having bred the late Zoffany's first stakes winner in Argentero, who struck in the 2015 Listed Rochestown Stakes at Naas for Ger Lyons, Thomas can look forward to keeping tabs on another exciting performer, having bred, raised and sold Vandeek as a foal. 

The son of the high-flying Havana Grey was bred at the Carmarthenshire stud out of the placed Exceed And Excel mare Mosa Mine, who was likewise bred there. He sold from Maywood to Childwickbury Stud for 52,000gns at the Tattersalls December Foal Sale, before making 42,000gns to Glending Stables at the December Yearling Sale 12 months later. 

What came next in the ring five months later - exactly two years on from the day he was born - could not have been easily anticipated, for the colt went the way of Stroud Coleman Bloodstock for an eyewatering 625,000gns at the Craven Breeze-Up Sale, jointly topping proceedings.

While that outlay in April will take some recouping for owners KHK Racing - the Richmond is worth just shy of £100,000 to the winner - it is very much a case of so far so good, for Vandeek ran out a cosy winner on his debut for the Crisford yard at Nottingham last month, a result that can be marked up as he was slowly away and ducked left at the start before taking a keen hold.

Vandeek breezing at the Craven Sale earlier this yearCredit: Laura Green

Vandeek will again be partnered by Andrea Atzeni at Goodwood, where he will be among the market leaders for what looks a red-hot Richmond.

Thomas said: "I didn't want to sell him but I had to because you need money to keep going, don't you? 

"Roderick Kavanagh of Glending Stables obviously did a great job with him for the breeze-up, and we've all been very excited since that day he sold. I was there that day, which was nice too."

Recalling his rather eventful arrival, Thomas said: "He was born here, he was an overdue foal and was really big. He was born in the morning. I was about to take the children to school and the mare was in the paddock in front of the house.

"We'd been carefully watching her, and I took one last look over my shoulder. I had to call my husband to take the children and by the time he came back the foal was half out. It was a good job I hadn't set off!"

Thomas comes from an equestrian background, and eventually found her way into racing and breeding.

She explained: "I fell in love with ponies as a child and my mum gifted to me my first pony at the age of ten, which happened to be from people who had racehorses as well. 

"As children we used to go up the gallops on ponies to give the horses something to chase - being chased by thoroughbreds on a 12 hands pony was quite fun, obviously!

"After that I finished school and went on to college and did a national diploma in equine studies. I went to Aberystwyth and did a degree, then progressed to do a masters as well; I spent a lot of time learning as much as I could. 

"Meanwhile a very good friend of my family had a thoroughbred stud and I went and did work experience at the yard."

Kelly Thomas: breeder of 625,000gns breeze-up buy VandeekCredit: Laura Green

As fate would have it, Thomas was to stumble upon an equine soulmate who would help establish Maywood Stud as a thoroughbred operation.

"There was a mare I adored and I joked about having her for myself one day," she said. "As it happened she did become mine eventually; the gentleman who had her retired from breeding, and he just had her left in foal. 

"She was about to give birth, and three weeks after we bought her she duly did. We took the colt to Newmarket for the foal sales, made a profit and were seriously bitten by the bug after that."

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