Sir, - Amy Lynam’s recent review of this year’s Cheltenham Festival results (The Irish Field, March 22nd, pages 26-27) was refreshing in that it looked beneath the surface into the background of the various Grade 1 winners, making valid points about the over-emphasis on ‘fashion’ when it comes to breeding and selecting jumps horses, and on the benefits of the Irish maiden point-to-point programme – which I myself may have mentioned from time to time in this very journal.

However, for some reason, she included my name among a number of comments she made, which I believe did not fairly represent opinions I had previously expressed in an article that appeared in this journal on February 14th.

The first was that she quoted a part of the article where I argued, having given appropriate facts and reasoning, that the superiority of French-bred horses in jump racing over several seasons is not due to any ‘innate superiority of hundreds of breeders all over France’, but to the way that jumps horses are raised there.

Having stated that she doesn’t ‘disagree that ‘starting earlier benefits some horses’ (it is pleasing that she recognises something that is becoming increasingly obvious to most people), before stating that she ‘found this disrespectful to French breeders and the horses they were producing’.

She didn’t actually say why it is ‘disrespectful’ to state that French jumps breeders and French-bred horses were not innately superior to British and Irish ones; but I do hope that neither were unduly upset by my article.

However, I wonder if it occurred to Ms Lynam that the implied reverse statement, that French breeding methods are innately superior to those of British and Irish breeders, could possibly be even more ‘disrespectful’ to these.

Nor did she mention any of the words of praise I used for the approach of some French jumps breeders to favour stallions that themselves won over obstacles, making the point that this is something studs in both Britain and Ireland should be willing to try.

Irish-breds in France

Interestingly, a few weeks after my article appeared, two three-year-old entires by Walk In The Park won maiden hurdles in France, en route to possible careers (should the successes continue) as jump stallions in Ireland.

Talking about this in another publication, Coolmore’s Gerry Aherne made the point that this was something that had been planned for some time; and that a secondary effect was that it would demonstrate that Irish-bred horses too could win as three-year-olds in France, indicating that ‘nurture not nature’ was the source of French-bred jumps successes.

I seem to have read that somewhere before. Now where was it? Oh yes, it was in my February 14th article...

Ms Lynam also commented that: ‘I actually found it amusing that Mayoh used a stallion’s race performance as a way of judging breeders’ decisions, If a Group 1 win was all it took to make a stallion, then standing stallions and breeding racehorses, whether they be flat or National Hunt, would be easy.’

Such a comment about any such certainty assumed by using Group 1 winners would indeed be so ridiculous as to be amusing, had I actually made it! But I did not - I simply used the proportions of Group 1 winning stallions found in British and Irish NH breeding as an illustration of the likelihood that French-bred jumps successes are unlikely to be due to better breeding methods – unless the suggestion is that I had failed to recognise that using less talented racehorses as stallions is a really good idea that the French have come up with!

I have studied the various factors that are most likely - please note that I did not say ‘certain’ - to produce superior runners over both flat and jumps.

These indicate the proven producing abilities of both sire and dam are foremost for both codes, though their racing ability and pedigree are important guides until there is sufficient evidence from reasonable numbers of offspring.

The use of a Group 1 win as a racehorse as a guide to a stallion’s likely ability is a useful piece of shorthand – but no more than that. Once he has shown his prowess as a stallion, then the results of his offspring count for far more.

French advantage

Where the French enjoy an advantage is that many of their breeders tend not to be as ‘fashion-oriented’ as their rivals in Britain and Ireland, as Ms Lynam rightly suggested; whilst using a wider variety of stallions and having young horses developed and tested earlier on the racecourse gives them the opportunity of identifying superior stallions and weeding out inferior mares earlier in their careers.

Since Ms Lynam felt I was being ‘disrespectful’ to French breeders, let me now pay them a tribute by saying that the greatest testament to French breeding at the Cheltenham Festival was the result of the Gold Cup.

Here, a French-bred previous dual winner of the race, by a stallion who was merely a dual listed winner that would have been unlikely to have a chance at stud elsewhere (and was even exported from France before his best son had raced) was comfortably beaten by a true product of the best French methods.

I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking that the impressive winner of this year’s Gold Cup was Irish-bred, owned, trained and ridden.

So he was; but his sire established his reputation when he stood for a small fee in France, where he swiftly established his reputation by producing Douvan (winner of a four-year-old hurdle) and Min (winner of a three-year-old hurdle) in his first two crops.

Sold to race in Ireland, these horses swiftly demonstrated the credentials that have established Walk In The Park as the leading jumps stallion in Europe.

The Gold Cup winner’s dam, Sway, was a French-bred winner of three mares’ listed hurdles at Auteuil as a three-year-old, stimulating her sale to J.P. McManus. So even for Ireland’s best winner of the 2025 Festival, much of the credit goes to French breeding.

Oh dear, I do hope this isn’t being overly respectful to French breeders and disrespectful to Irish ones, or I shall have caused further unintentional offence, this time to another nation whose NH breeding I regard highly! - Yours etc.,,

Bryan Mayoh

England