YOU might think that trying to breed National Hunt racehorses is a sure way of burning through your available capital and doing terrible things to your blood pressure into the bargain. But only a short time in the company of Richard Kelvin Hughes could make you feel that you’re missing out.
“If more people saw the enjoyment you get from it, more people would do it,” he enthuses, the cares of a winter’s morning at work falling away from him as he reflects on the horses in his life. “There’s no way it’s financially profitable but you get to know them so well. I sometimes feel sorry for people who are unable to do it, because they don’t have the pasture or the land or whatever. When they’re young, to have that time with them before they go racing, you get very attached to them. You get to know their characters.”
WINNERS
Since the early days of the reliable Chomba Womba, 10 times a winner, the grey and white silks of Kelvin Hughes and his wife, Lizzy, have been carried to regular victories by the likes of Andytown, Hadrian’s Approach, Different Gravey and Vaniteux. And now they have the animal who looks like being their crowning achievement.
Santini is out of Tinagoodnight, one of the first mares Kelvin Hughes bought when he set out as a breeder a dozen years ago. The winner of four of his six starts under rules, as well as a point to point at Didmarton in Gloucestershire, Santini is clear favourite for the Festival’s RSA Chase and promises to be a Gold Cup contender next season.
That is the peak towards which his owner has been climbing for a very long time. Still, as we talk it over in his office between Victoria Station and the grounds of Buckingham Palace, he is clear that the journey is what he enjoys.
“We get the most excited when the babies go for their first race. Because they’re all looking around, wide-eyed, aren’t they; they don’t know what’s going to happen and you don’t know either. Every one’s a dream.
“I suppose it’s like people who see their son play his first rugby match. They’re all legs at first and then you start to see a glimmer of the talent that possibly is there. Things can go wrong. That’s always in the back of your mind and that’s what makes every victory special, even if it’s a minor victory.”
Kelvin Hughes owns Trull House Stud, about 30 miles south of Cheltenham, lives on the site and loves spending time with his horses there. But he is also happy to send them out into the wide world for various stages of their education, the youngsters spending a lot of time at Robert and Jackie Chugg’s Worcestershire farm before being taken to East Devon for an introduction to training with Polly Gundry.
“The Chuggs have got the most wonderful old dairy farm and the horses can stay out there almost 12 months a year. Wonderful old pasture. He was a great point-to-point rider and probably one of the best stockmen in the country.
HUNTING
“All the babies go to Polly and they all hunt. They often hunt two days before their first point-to-point as well. Polly likes to think that, when they go to the point-to-point, it’s like going to a hunt for them, so it keeps them relaxed.
“It’s like being at a very posh primary school. And then they go to the trainers at the end of that season, just to see what public school is like.
“Then they come to us for the summer and go into training the next year.
“I’d rather have them point-to-point than go a whole season in bumpers. I think it’s much more educational.”
The big, imposing Santini, described as a baby by Nicky Henderson just last spring, has needed all of that education and is still a work in progress, says his owner, who seems already in the grip of Festival fever as the conversation turns to that horse’s various qualities.
“Santini’s terribly exciting. It’s what everyone dreams of breeding. He’s sensible, straightforward, his conformation is to die for and he’s a big, strong horse.
“He’s still incredibly green. He went to Nicky’s and we had to take him away again because he was weak and green. So he went back to Poll and then he point-to-pointed.
“These big horses take a long time for everything to come together. He takes an enormous amount of work to get fit, because he finds everything so easy. Like a lot of good horses, he doesn’t show a huge amount on the gallops.”
Kelvin Hughes draws additional encouragement from a trait that Santini shares with some of the best to have passed through Seven Barrows: vanity. “Some horses, like Sprinter Sacre and Might Bite, they’re good-looking horses and they know it.
“They light up, they like having the adoration.” Santini certainly gets his share of that. “We obviously love him to bits. I think he’ll go all the way.”
SANTINI’S CHANCE TO SHINE
He feels the RSA Chase is “made for” Santini but takes nothing for granted. “There’s no easy race at the Festival. Everything’s trying that little bit harder. Everything’s going that little bit faster. We’ve all had horses that have been hot favourites or had very good chances and 
then, for one reason or another, haven’t done it.” He is perhaps thinking of the time Chomba Womba started favourite for the first running of the Mares’ Hurdle in 2008 but could finish only third after being hampered by a midrace faller.
Eight years later, when a novice hurdle for fillies and mares was introduced at the Festival, Kelvin Hughes was delighted to be the initial sponsor, under the name of Trull House Stud. He recognises the importance of such a race in providing a target for mares and an incentive for their owners to race them.
“I think you’ll find, in a few years’ time, there are more fillies and mares that are leased because it’ll be a very economical way to have a runner at Cheltenham.”
CHELTENHAM
With his roots in the West Country, where he has tried his hand at riding and training in years gone by, and with a home in Gloucestershire, Kelvin Hughes is naturally “Cheltenham-oriented”. “We breed to race. We breed to have horses at the Cheltenham Festival and all breeders would love to have something they’ve bred run at the Festival, whether they own it or not. It’s the culmination of everything.”
At one point early last year, it seemed he might have had enough of breeding when he sent 25 fillies and mares to be auctioned at Doncaster in what was billed as a dispersal sale.
But the decision to offer what amounted to his entire breeding stock was actually a means of showing good faith towards the market.
“We had too many fillies and we did look at selling one or two. But we found that people were suspicious of why I was getting rid of one or two.
“They thought maybe I was keeping all the best ones for Nicky or Alan King. So we decided we should maybe put them all for sale and then, the ones I wanted to buy back, I could do that. “ Or if they didn’t meet the value I thought they were worth, we wouldn’t sell them.
“It was quite rewarding to have it all in one sale and we had a tremendous time with all the other breeders. It’s very flattering when people are interested in what you’ve bred, because it’s a long journey to get there.
“We bought back the old anchor mares and some of the youngsters as well. We have six mares breeding at the moment, including Chomba Womba and My Petra, we couldn’t sell those old girls. And we’ve got three fillies in training.
“You get more fun than we realised by watching horses that you’ve sold.” He mentions, as a prime example, Rockpoint, knocked down as a three-year-old to John and Heather Snook, owners of Thistlecrack, and the winner of a Grade 2 novice hurdle at Cheltenham this season.
“We weren’t totally thrilled to sell him and he needed time. He’s done tremendously well and we love the owners. We get as much pleasure watching with them as we did on our own, so it has its benefits.”
From time to time, Kelvin Hughes has “dabbled” in flat racing but now says: “We’re not serious about it. Everybody says, if you have a very good flat horse, then you’ll love flat racing. I don’t think so. I’m a die-hard National Hunt man and that’s what gets the hairs up on the back of your neck.
“You’re living on a knife-edge and there are people who like the knife-edge bit of life. That’s why a lot of us are in business. And in jump racing you’re on the knife-edge right the way through the race.
“It’s a longer race, a harder race and all of us who have hunted and ridden, we know that feeling when the horse is getting tired. It makes you respect them even more.
“They’re proper gladiators. Obviously people love sprinters on the flat but give me a two-mile chase, flat out over fences. That type of horse has got real ambition.”