HINDSIGHT is omnipotent but the bookies clearly got the price of Different League wrong in the Albany Stakes eight days ago. The powerful filly returned at 20/1 but connections had helped themselves to five times that price, and plenty around Bansha did likewise.
The bookies weren’t the only ones to misjudge Different League however. Bansha House Stables supremo Con Marnane had bought her for just €8,000 at the Mares and Foals Sale in Arqana in December 2015 and had seen enough in her development subsequently to believe he would turn a little profit.
Instead, no-one was willing to meet the £14,000 reserve at Doncaster’s Yearling Sales the following August and Marnane has never been one to waste time in the haggling that is habitual when a horse returns from the ring. He places a value on a horse and if the market disagrees, he brings it home.
It is a policy that has reaped significant rewards since he established a centre in Maisons-Laffitte for those that weren’t sold.
He has supplemented that group with some cheap buys and raced them under the guidance of trainer Matthieu Palussiere in France, where the prize money is significant and the bonus system for French-bred horses rewards breeders and owners handsomely.
At present, Theresa Marnane lies ninth in the owners’ table with an aggregate total of €542,269 (€396,290 in direct prize money plus €145,979 in owners’ premiums). To put some perspective on that, Khalid Abdullah is in 15th. Godolphin is 19th.
What occurred at Royal Ascot last week topped the lot however. To put context on this achievement, consider that Sir Michael Stoute had to answer questions all week about the possibility of moving one clear of the late Henry Cecil to become the trainer with the most Royal Ascot winners ever.
And the questions continued because No 76 never arrived. Among jockeys, the two leading contenders to be champion, Silvestre de Sousa and Jim Crowley, were unable to add to their tallies.
So to experience the thrill of Royal Ascot success as an owner, 12 months after seeing one of their graduates, Prince Of Lir, enter the hallowed winner’s enclosure having bagged the Norfolk Stakes, was incredible for the Marnane family.
There was something more that added the shiniest of glosses however. This was not the day of days for that was when the best news came. But emerging from difficult times adds value to the happy ones.
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Royal Ascot 2013
BATTLING comes with the territory. Four years ago, before Danseuse Corse had been sent for a career-altering encounter with freshman sire Dabirsim, life was pretty grim for the Marnanes.
They were watching Royal Ascot, as they always did.
With all due respect to the Bons Secours Hospital in Cork however, the surroundings were far less salubrious than last week. There certainly was no dress code.
Theresa had a drip in her arm, dispensing the latest course of chemotherapy.
You think a lot of things in those circumstances, plenty of them dark. Con tried to focus on what was unfolding on the screen.
It was taking place across the water but it might as well have been a million miles away; a fantasy, a surreal escapist illusion. What did it matter, given where they were now?
Theresa turned to her husband and uttered a simple statement. It is trotted out regularly but carries a heck of a lot more weight when the declaration is coming from someone fighting cancer.
“You know what? Life is for living” declared Theresa simply.
Who knew then where they would be four years later? Con leading in Different League, a healthy and fabulous-looking Theresa by his side, sharing their good fortune with daughters Amy, who has added to the quotient of shrewdness at Bansha House since joining the business, and Olivia, who flew over that morning having completed her Leaving Certificate the day before.
Now that’s living.
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The rest is a bonus.
The few quid on at 100/1, the fact that neighbours and friends did well out of it too, the reward for seasons of graft, particularly from the staff, the phenomenal goodwill.
“I’ll bring it to the grave with me,” says Con. “You’d be breaking so many horses there over the years and next thing one like this comes around. It’s just unbelievable. And it’s not just for us. It’s for all the people that work for us, all my friends. Words can’t describe it.
“You think back four years more or less to the day and it puts perspective on everything… To tell you the truth, there were tears flowing.”
The support they got in the most testing times will never be forgotten but it is those that work for him that Marnane reserves the highest praise for and whose endeavours he is constantly emphasising.
He knows that the near 100 group and listed winners to have been educated at Bansha House would not have flourished but for them.
There is very real expertise among these breeze-up specialists. Look no further than Mike O’Brien, who has been head man for 20 years.
In his spare time, O’Brien bred the third highest-rated racehorse in the world right now, Ribchester, an impressive winner of the Queen Anne Stakes. Indeed it was a remarkable week for the parish as a neighbour, Jim Mulcahy bred Coventry Stakes victor Rajasinghe.
“I want to thank all the people that are with me so long. We have a team of people that are with us in Ireland and in France and they’re second to none. Every one of them would stand on their head for me. We are so blessed and eternally grateful.”
As for the race itself, he was optimistic.
VERY SPECIAL
“I thought she was very special before she ran,” says Marnane of Different League. “The first day she ran (at Lyon Parilly on May 11th) there was five hours of rain before the race and we were going to withdraw her. We ran her and she won with her leg tied up in a fast time.
“Then we gave her another run in Angers (12 days later).
“There was a very fast pace in it, it was around two bends and she did very close to (Alpha Centauri’s) time so I knew then wherever she’d finish we’d be there or thereabouts. But our one was about 10 or 12 lengths behind the leader with a furlong to go and she went through them like a knife and won on the bridle. I knew then that we had something very, very special.
“To tell you the truth we had a few quid on her at 100/1 and I heard the bookies in Tipperary and Cashel couldn’t pay out until the banks opened on the Monday, because all the locals had backed her!”
Different League relaxed in front and jockey Antoine Hamelin went for home at just the right time, sneaking a significant lead that the Jessica Harrington-trained Alpha Centauri could not reel in despite a desperate late effort.
“That wasn’t the plan. We were sure that the American filly (Princess Peggy) would be jumping and gone, there’d be loads of early pace and we’d sit in fifth or sixth, put her to sleep. But sure there was no real pace and Antoine gave her a dream ride. He settled her. He knew he had something very special.
“But then again, you’re going to the Olympics of horse racing. That is always how I viewed it. And a cheap filly could do the business.”
Different League is similar in stature to the giant Alpha Centauri. Francesca Cumani of ITV Racing and Paul Morrison of Racing UK were both highly complimentary of the filly before the start. And it appears she is the complete package.
“Her temperament is brilliant. She’s like a kid’s pony. She’s so quiet and relaxed, nothing bothers her. That’s probably why she’s so good.”
That Different League beat Alpha Centauri, who was the favourite, and that the duo pulled three lengths clear of the third, Take Me With You, suggests that there are no holes to be picked in this form.
Interestingly, Take Me With You was pinhooked by Niall Brennan, who is a hugely successful breeze-up operator in America. Brennan and Marnane are long-time friends, having travelled to Australia and America together before settling down.
Different League is back in Bansha at the moment recuperating and the Prix Morny is her next likely engagement.
“I find that a lot of those horses out of Ascot come back a little bit sore and stiff so we’re just giving her a little holiday at home.”
CHANGED
The breeze-ups remain the bread and butter but the game has changed considerably since Marnane began. Not all of it is for the better.
Just like Willie Browne and Norman Williamson on these pages, he does not like the emphasis on time. He refuses to bow to it. This again, is probably contributing to the growth of his racing facility.
“Selling horses is getting more difficult to do lower down the scale because all the markets are gone. The Italians are sort of gone, the Germans are buying nothing, the French will only buy their own, the Scandinavians are quiet. All the markets for those cheaper horses are just not there. So we have no other choice but to race them.
“You can’t even raffle them. There’s nobody there for them. They’re all zooming in on the ones that do the clock, do the time. It’s a load of rubbish. A load of rubbish.
“It’s cuckoo. We’re nearly hitting 100 group and listed horses sold and I guarantee you, 90% of them won’t have done a clock.
“They’re not pushed to do the times and I never will. I don’t care, even if the breeze-up thing gets too tight altogether and I’m gonna be left with horses. I just won’t do it because I want them to be racehorses.”
Rio De La Plata, Fleeting Spirit and Amadeus Wolf accumulated 18 Group 1s between them. While his racing arm is expanding, base camp is still producing the goods.
Already this year Itsinthepost has claimed two Grade 2s in America and makes his first bid for Grade 1 glory in the United Nations at Monmouth Park tonight. Grizzel has been victorious in a Grade 3 at Woodbine.
Closer to home, Robin Of Navan followed up his French Group 1 win of 2015 with Group 3 success in Chantilly this year and lines up for another in the Grand Prix de Saint Cloud tomorrow having been pipped a head in a Group 1 in May. And of course, there is Different League’s Group 3.
“We bought Amadeus Wolf over in Italy, we bought Robin Of Navan for 10 grand. I bought Itsinthepost in France for five grand. We seem to be lucky buying those cheaper horses and turning them into racehorses.”
ATHLETES
With that price bracket, you need to be discerning and you can’t have everything. So what does he look for?
“Just buy an athlete. There’s no substitute. I had slow horses. I hate slow pedigrees. They just don’t work. You can make a fast horse slow but you can’t make a slow horse fast.”
At the height of the season, he will have about 40 breezers in Bansha House and it won’t be long before he’ll be back at the sales, looking for future prospects.
“Different circus, same clowns,” says the genial Tipperary man with a laugh.
He will continue to keep an eye on what is happening at the yard situated right next to the gallops in Maisons-Laffitte and run by five or six Irish people who again, he is very thankful to have on his side. Another two-year-old filly, Beautiful Destiny won a six-furlong maiden at Durtal last Saturday. The Marnanes derive a lot of pleasure from that side of the operation.
“We just enjoyed doing it. It probably started off with necessity with ones we couldn’t sell. We’d buy a few cheaper fillies to run down there that would qualify for the French premiums.
“The prize money they can pull up there is fantastic.
“It’s unbelievable. It’s the best racing system in Europe as far as I’m concerned, and maybe the world, ‘cos every horse, every owner and every trainer gets a chance.
“And when you pull up a good one, you can take on the best in the world. As far as I’m concerned she’s the best two-year-old in the world now. As a two-year-old filly, she was only 0.8 of a second off Caravaggio’s time. That’s only the blink of an eye.”
With all that he and Theresa have encountered, Con believes that fortune has smiled on him.
“It’s unbelievable to get up every morning and just absolutely adore what you do. I’m just one of the very, very lucky people. And I have a great team of people behind me as well.
“I got 735 texts and I have to try and get through those texts, and all the messages on Facebook. People were so genuine in congratulating us. People were so kind.
“I suppose if you’re the underdog. It was like David versus Goliath. There must have been four or five almost millionaire fillies in that race and jaysus, we pulled it off with an eight-grand filly.”
Like the lady said, life is for living.