BROTHERS Patrick and Michael Fennessy have already seen quite the return on a €6,500 investment when purchasing broodmare Agathe Du Berlais at Arqana back in 2012, and that well-bred Poligote mare has pulled off another two excellent results for connections in recent weeks.

The siblings, who operate together under the Ballinaroone Stud umbrella in Co Waterford, have previously sold some of Agathe Du Berlais’ progeny for €100,000, €50,000 and €50,000 as stores (and another for €47,500 as a yearling), but it’s a daughter who never entered the sales ring that is keeping her dam’s name up in lights lately.

Patience is certainly paying off with their six-year-old Ah Fuhgeddaboudit, who had gone 0-14 before opening her account in a mares’ maiden hurdle at Ballinrobe last month in the colours of Michael Fennessy. That victory also yielded a €7,500 payday through the Weatherbys ITBA National Hunt Fillies Bonus Scheme.

Trained by Denis Hogan and ridden by Daniel King, the Crillon mare then delivered a career-best to finish third in the Grade 3 BoyleSports Novice Hurdle at Tipperary last Sunday - earning all-important blacktype in the process. The four-runner affair might have represented a decent opportunity for the home-bred to get placed, but she still had to show improvement off her official mark of 105 to achieve the bold print.

“She’s improving and probably ran well above her mark at Tipperary,” Patrick Fennessy explains.

“We put her in that race because we thought she had that ability to do it. She improved an awful lot from last year; when Denis got her back in, he couldn’t get over how much she had strengthened. Last year was a bit of a washout in terms of the ground. It ended up being a horrible year and her form kind of petered out. Previous to that, she had been running well in her bumpers.”

Future plans

He adds: “She’ll probably stay down the hurdling route. I expect Denis will probably want to go that way with her. Daniel King, who knows her very well and rode her last weekend, felt she galloped out really nicely to the line and is an honest mare.

“She had a 123-rated mare behind her and was beaten seven lengths by a 132-rated horse. We’re not getting above our heads and will keep it sensible, but we might look at some of those mares’ novice hurdles or listed novice hurdles. She won’t go chasing this year, but time will tell. We’ll see how she holds her own in that company for now.”

Ah Fuhgeddaboudit is a half-sister to the J.P. McManus-owned Thanksforthehelp, who was sent off the 100/30 favourite when mid-field in the 2022 Pertemps Final at the Cheltenham Festival and held a peak rating of 128 for David Pipe. Hopes are also high for another half-sibling named Sutherland, a four-year-old who finished mid-field in a Punchestown Festival bumper for Ronnie Bartlett and Jamie Sloan.

The fact Agathe Du Berlais is producing competitive performers should hardly be a shock given she’s a half-sister to dual Grade 2 winner/Champion Hurdle third Afsoun, as well as two-time Grade 2 winner/Betfair Hurdle scorer Agrapart.

“She’s a very well-bred mare,” says Patrick Fennessy.

“I bought her over at Arqana [for €12,000] and I was surprised to get her for that. She’s done quite well for us and Thanksforthehelp has been quite a useful type to come from her. There’s been some nice talk about the horse by Flemensfirth who we sold last year called Sutherland. He’s gone to Nicky Henderson now.”

American origins

Ah Fuhgeddaboudit races in silks made up of stars and stripes, combining the colours red, white and blue, which makes plenty of sense when considering the origins of Ballinaroone Stud.

“Myself and Michael have been breeding for years and now operate under Ballinaroone Stud. I’m from the States originally, just outside New York, and Michael is living in America,” Fennessy explains.

“I’m back in Ireland for 35 years, but you’ve got a bit of a New York expression in there too with the name Ah Fuhgeddaboudit! When you go back through the family and see a lot of the horses beginning with an ‘af’ or ‘ah’ sound [like Afsoun, Afrad and Afdal], it was nice to continue that on with this mare.

“My father is originally from Ireland. He went to the States and was always involved in horses. He did quite well with breeding and racing in the States and actually had two champion two-year-old fillies. When he came back to Ireland and bought the farm back in Ireland maybe 50 years ago, he started bringing horses back from the States to Ireland. That was that from there.

“He bought some well-bred fillies over the years and now we have quite an extensive broodmare band. We’d probably have over 40 mares. We consign a good few at the sales.”

The Weatherbys ITBA National Hunt Fillies Bonus Scheme has been credited as a positive factor in the Fennessy family having mares trained in Ireland. In total, when combining prize money with the bonus money earned, Ah Fuhgeddaboudit collected €16,500 for connections in the process of her Ballinrobe breakthrough last month.

Scheme success

“Primarily before this, we raced a good few of our fillies in England with the likes of Dan Skelton, Warren Greatrex and Charlie Longsdon, but over the last few years we’ve started to race a few back in Ireland. With the bonus scheme, it’s obviously an added incentive to do that,” says Fennessy.

“I know in black and white it looks like [we picked up €16,500 in total] when reading the results, but with prize money, you don’t really collect the full amount when factoring in the various deductions. Davy Russell spoke very well about this element of the prize money system recently and touched on the ITBA scheme as being beneficial. That’s the truth of it. We actually only really race fillies to retain them for breeding after.

“We have six in training in Ireland and another four in training in England, all fillies, and it means an awful lot when you have a winner. It’s very important to have schemes like the ITBA bonus here, especially for Irish-bred fillies.

“Denis has done a great job with this mare and all the other trainers we’re involved with know what we want to achieve. The scheme works for everyone and there are so many people who benefit from it.”