Durston and Michael Dee after winning the Caulfield Cup (Gr1)

We have just finished the 2022 yearling parades which went really well and once again the weather gods looked kindly upon us as we paraded eleven beautiful yearlings under clear blue skies! This was our 30th year of parading and I think it’s only rained badly once in all that time so we have been incredibly lucky.

A full house on the opening day of our Yearling Parades at Highclere Stud

I know I say it every year but these really are an outstanding group of yearlings and for those of you who came on the day it was so lovely to hear all the compliments. I take my hat off to Jake and John who managed, despite the red hot market, to find us serious individuals with excellent pedigrees - not easy I can tell you when the market was as hot as it was. We do still have some shares available so do click here to see those yearlings.

Jake shows off the Wootton Bassett ex Motivation colt in the The Pablo Picasso Syndicate

Meanwhile in Australia we enjoyed our greatest success to date when Durston got up on the line to win the Caulfield Cup (Gr 1) worth a staggering AU$3,000,000 to the winner! This is one of Australia’s most iconic races so to win it with a Highclere Australia horse was simply amazing. He was installed as third favourite for the Melbourne Cup and expectations grew as I boarded a plane to head on over to Melbourne with a number of other share owners who had taken the decision to watch him compete.

Durston storms to victory in the Caulfield Cup at Caulfield Racecourse

I was en route to Melbourne and had just changed planes in Dubai and about to take off when I read an email from Chris Waller, Durston’s trainer saying that the Racing Victoria vets had ruled him out of the Cup due to a “grey area” on his pre race scan. It was an awful moment as the message sunk in that a dream had been shattered. It got worse when I arrived as it became clear from Chris’s vet that Durston was sound and well and that he had no heat at all in his leg! In fact he had worked really well with Damien Oliver on board and had pulled up as sound as a pound ahead of the big race. It was incredibly frustrating to watch Gold Trip win the race, a horse that Durston had beaten in the Caulfield Cup! The argument rages on as to whether this one off pre race testing is the right way to go as so many horses have old injuries that simply don’t effect them. The danger of course is that this great race will become a lesser event as a result.

When I arrived in Melbourne, still in a state of shock Emirates managed to lose my bag and when I got to the hotel I was told that there was no booking for me so it was a testing few hours as you can imagine until everything was sorted!

We did have a thrilling Melbourne Cup day though as Highclere’s Bartholomeu Dias won the $175,000 Furfy Plate (Listed) in front of the massive crowd of around 100,000 people!

Bart’s win has taken our world wide earnings for 2022 up to a staggering £3,400,000!!

Bartholomeu Dias winning the $175,000 Furfy Plate (Listed)

It’s great to have Clodagh back with another recipe for the newsletter and this one, as she explains, can also mean buying our very own Broadspear Aberdeen Angus beef which is so delicious. It certainly went down well with the Chili con carne dish that we had for lunch at Highclere Stud for the Parades so click here if you would like to order some beef.

We have very few flat horses to run so it’s time to look forward to the Highclere National Hunt brigade who are all limbering up for some imminent action!

Rolf's Ramblings

Mark Johnston – Highflier, Top Gun

The winning-most trainer in racing history has the choice of a Cessna Turbo prop and a Piper Cherokee when he pilots himself to the races. He can look down and contemplate how time has flown in his thirty-five years training five thousand winners. Here is a ‘log’ of that journey.

Scrapbooks are democratic, obituaries are not. Any of us can start a scrapbook; obituaries are reserved for those who made an ‘impact’. Information on people who ‘make their name’ is updated, kept ‘oven ready’ (oh how I hate that phrase). In very special cases the individual is selected at birth, by newspapers, for publication when he or she qualifies.

No files were initiated when Martin Pipe or Mark Johnston started training, in obscurity. The Form Book tells us Pipe’s first winner, Hit Parade, made all in a selling hurdle at Taunton in 1975. 4182 winners and fifteen trainer’s championships later, in 2006 Martin handed over to his son David.

Hit Parade had to win that day or Pipe would have remained restricted the next season to a permit holder’s licence for amateur races only.

Mark Johnston’s first winner, Hinari Video, his one winner in that first season of 1987, made all in a Carlisle maiden. Hinari Video had to win at Carlisle, to spur the owner into partnership with Mark and his wife Deirdre. Released from their first, minimus yard in starkest Lincolnshire, above which warlike RAF bombers practised menacing low-level runs, the Johnston’s took on Kingsley Park, Middleham, North Yorkshire.

Diedre Johnston, giving Royal Patronage a kiss

Now the sound of planes is of Johnston taking off to southern meetings. Indian Neeraj Rawal who rode winner 4999 for his boss, can’t drive so his boss flew him!

Kingsley Park’s potential had been well realised before August 23, 2018, when Mark became the most successful flat trainer, measured by weight of winners, as number 4194th obliged. He remains insistent that the champion trainer should always be the one who wins most prize monies. He has yet to top the table.

On August 24, 2022, he scaled the pinnacle of five thousand winners when Dubai Mile took a juvenile novices’ race at Kempton Park.

Mark won’t depart on a winner. A novelty is that licences to train can be held dually and Mark’s has son Charlie’s name on theirs. The time is coming when it will be Charlie and Mark rather than Mark and Charlie. (Had this new rule not been belated it could well have been ‘Mark and Deidre’).

When Mark broke the record for total winners with Poet’s Society, in his monthly house magazine Kingsley Klarion he acknowledged, “Actually it was Martin Pipe I admired more than anyone else. I even tried to get a job with him.” Pipe and Johnston harnessed? Nightmare for lesser mortals!

And the Kingsley Klarion drily noted on winner 5000, “It’s been a good month for the stable.” Reports of Mark’s ambition sated – Charlie has an ever-increasing grasp on the reins - are ‘greatly exaggerated’. Reports of his constantly expressed “forthright” views are no exaggeration at all. His column in Kingsley Klarion under the heading ‘Straight Talking’ is required, if often painful reading for (deserved) victims. If ever a column was inaptly named it is his blog ‘Bletherings’.

Thunderous, trained by Mark Johnston, after winning the Group 2 Dante Stakes at York in 2020

And yet the trainer who swamps the winners table, whose horses and staff are almost invariably ‘paddock picks’ is surely proof that racing isn’t merely a numbers game. Silvestre De Sousa, describing an association that made him champion jockey, said: “Before a race he tells you about the horse rather than what you should do in the race”.

Johnston jockeys don’t just throw their legs over ‘steering jobs’: and even Kingsley House has the odd barren patch, but the weeds are never allowed to grow.

I have never had a (very) cross word with Mark and I don’t imagine he would, publicly, swap his most modest winner (though I’d like to know what that was) for more political clout. But he had his chance and I attacked him a decade ago for not making a bigger impression during his time on the BHA Board.

Nicky Henderson, Mark Johnston and Rolf at our 30th Anniversary party at Broadspear in June

In Straight Talking of December 2011 under the trenchant headline ‘Bring forth the Messiah’ Mark quoted my words in the Daily Express that he had “lost his mojo” and “gone native” – admittedly abysmal cliches - by associating with such a feeble body.

Mark’s response was measured. “Frankly, there is some truth in it,” he responded, admitting he was constrained by “BHA directors’ legal responsibilities and by board protocol…but it was inevitable that there would be some trade-off for the opportunity to make my voice heard in the boardroom before the decisions are made, rather than as a critic after the event.”

He went on: “There is general acceptance of the fact that the current structure of British racing’s governance is flawed.” No change there then. Here Mark was unapologetic: “Thankfully, I learned at a very early stage of running my business that, if you are looking to get rid of someone, it is a very good idea…to have a replacement available before you swing the axe. If Alastair Down (criticizing chairman Paul Roy at the time) has racing’s Messiah and a few trusty disciples ready to replace the BHA Board, then let him bring them forth because mere mortals could do with some assistance on the miracle front.”

We’re still looking, vainly, for that ‘Messiah’. When a BHA apparatchik ‘regaled’ me that I’d “never had a responsible job in racing” I responded, “No because *****s like you have exhausted themselves ensuring I didn’t.”

Enough, this is a celebration of, a paean to Mark Johnston’s achievements on the track – far removed from the sterile world of racing politics.

Riders who ride most winners; trainers who train most winners; horses who rack up the most victories, record holders in every sporting field should be recognised for their achievements without evoking the lazy appendage ‘genius’.

Alternatively they are derided for stacking success as a commodity or, at worst, they are ‘suspect’ – think of all the aspersions cast against Martin Pipe by people whose horizons were only limited by their patent ignorance of the racehorse and racing.

A regular scabrous reproach to Mark Johnston has partly been of his own making. The stable motto “Always Trying” asked to be traduced by those who are confused when dedication engenders results which are beyond their ken: an instance – Scatter Dice winner of the 2013 Cesarewitch. She hadn’t won for a year – not that she’d been hiding, in true Johnston fashion having run sixteen times that season! And she’d just been beaten off a lower mark at Musselburgh. She won her Cesarewitch, after being slowly away, in a canter – at 66-1!

If that isn’t genius, what is? It’s of the order Martin Pipe conjured up when winning the Pertemps Hurdle Final with Unsinkable Boxer at the 1998 Cheltenham Festival. Pipe told Tony McCoy as they left the parade ring, “This is the biggest certainty that will ever walk out onto this racecourse”. A bigger ‘certainty’ than Scatter Dice? The biggest difference would have been the instructions – “Win as far as you want” – Pipe: “Win if you can” - Johnston.

You don’t need a glutinous mass of figures to measure Mark’s ‘genius’. In 2009 he became the first British Flat trainer to send out 200 winners in a calendar year. On reaching 4000 in October 2017 he nominated Shamardal as “the best horse I’ve ever trained” and Attraction as the one “I’m most proud of.” He’s since added Gold Cup winner Subjectivist to his list of favourites.

Most of her career Attraction was a cripple. Mark put it inimitably. “We managed to keep her racing and she proved it isn’t about statistics and records, but about horses.”

Frankie Dettori brought home Johnston’s thousandth winner Poet’s Society at York. Poet’s Society didn’t win again. Bizarrely nor did Mark’s 2000th (Leamington); 3000th (Birdy Boy); or 4000th (Dominating). Now it’s Dubai Mile’s duty to break the sequence.

The Kingsley Klarion of November 2017 posited, “Is a 5000th winner out of the question? The answer? Dubai Mile made all.

On The Track - October 2022

By Frances Howard

The flat season ended in good style with plenty of winners including many promising performances from the 2yo’s which will allow us to dream big over the winter months!

The George Boughey trained Pastiche was unlucky on her debut getting stuck in all sorts of traffic but she more than made amends next time in a 7f fillies maiden at Southwell when scoring easily. She is very much one to look forward to next season. From the same stable – Believing signed off her season with yet another placed finish at Stakes level. She went to Newmarket for the Bosra Sham Stakes at the end of last month which was a messy affair and she enjoyed little luck in running, but ran another excellent race beaten just 1.5 lengths.

Pastiche winning at Southwell under Kevin Stott for George Boughey

Proverb – another smart 2yo from the Boughey yard was emphatic in two novice races before seeing out an impressive Listed victory at Paris Longchamp. This son of Harry Angel has improved rapidly through the Autumn – the time of his 5f success in France was very quick despite the testing conditions and he is a seriously exciting prospect for next season.

Another winner for George Boughey who teams up with Kevin Stott to bring us French success winning at Longchamp with Proverb!

Sea Eagle trained by William Haggas, also finished his season on a winning note. He lost his maiden tag on the third attempt in good style beating a well touted colt of Mark Johnston’s comfortably by three lengths. Sea Eagle is an imposing colt by Time Test who will no doubt improve physically from 2 – 3 and he should make up into a smart middle distance horse next year.

Sea Eagle gets off the mark to win in great style for Stephen Donohoe and William Haggas at Chelmsford

Prince Imperial has been a marvellous horse for his syndicate. This 5yo trained by Richard Hughes seems to be improving all the time at staying trips. He had excuses for his flop in the Cesarewitch which was a great shame following his excellent run in the trial beforehand – however, he soon made up for that when winning at Nottingham in testing conditions next time.

Prince Imperial winning well at Nottingham

The jumps season has started with a bang! Our first runner was a winning one as Snowy Clouds trained by Nicky Richards was victorious on his chase debut- bolting up at Market Rasen last month.

Snowy Clouds leaping the last at Market Rasen

We nearly had a Paul Nicholls double at Chepstow a fortnight ago – Beau Balko our new French recruit attempted to make all in a competitive 2m novice hurdle, and very nearly did so only to get caught on the line! There was a great deal to like about the performance and he should prove hard to beat next time. Patience was more than rewarded for Lime Avenue’s share owners as after a long wait to see her on the track – this gorgeous big mare by Walk In The Park absolutely demolished the field in the bumper on the same day. She could not have been given a more glowing report by Harry Cobden and she is definitely one to watch this season.

Lime Avenue winning by 14 lengths on her debut at Chepstow

Share owners celebrating Lime Avenue’s highly impressive victory

Mount Tempest is another nice young horse who made his hurdles debut at Chepstow last week. This is a big scopey gelding who will be a lovely staying chaser in time. He made a hugely promising start last week in the 2m3f maiden hurdle where he jumped and travelled very strongly through the race; he looked to be making a menacing move turning for home but the tank then understandably emptied on his first start of the season, and over obstacles. It was a performance full of promise however and did not go unnoticed by timeform race analysts who selected him as a horse to follow.

Shares available! CLICK HERE

Mount Tempest schooling smartly at Dan Skelton’s

Clodagh’s Recipe Of The Month

Chocolate Beef Chilli

By Clodagh McKenna

INGREDIENTS - Serves 6

2 tbsp olive oil

300g minced beef

1 small white onion, diced

3-inch fresh ginger, grated

3 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp dried chili flakes

100g pancetta

100g chorizo, cut into small pieces

1 x 400g tin cherry tomatoes

300ml water

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 tsp fresh or dried oregano

2 bay leaves

1 tbsp tomato ketchup

50g dark chocolate, grated

400g kidney beans

METHOD:

1. Place a casserole dish over a medium heat. Pour in one tablespoon of vegetable oil, and stir in the minced beef, cook until browned. Then remove the browned minced beef to a plate.

2. Pour the other tablespoon of vegetable oil in the dish and stir in the onions, fresh ginger and garlic. Allow to cook for two minutes, then stir in the ground cumin, cinnamon and chili flakes, and cook for another minute. Next stir in the pancetta and chorizo, and cook while stirring for 3 minutes.

3. Return the browned minced beef to the dish, and stir well. Pour in the tinned tomatoes, water, brown sugar, dried oregano, bay leaves and ketchup. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, stir well. Cover and allow to cook for 90 minutes on a low heat.

4. Remove the lid and stir in the grated chocolate and kidney beans. Leave to simmer for another 20 minutes and then serve with basmati rice or a baked potato. I also love serving a dollop of Greek yogurt on the chilli.

Watch Clodagh make this on here IGTV HERE

Broadspear Beef

100% GRASS FED | 28 DAY AGED | PASTURE RAISED | BROADSPEAR SUSTAINABLE FARM

CLICK HERE to shop the beef

Country and Town House Article -November 2022

Click Here To Read The Full Article

Where are they now? - Ascension

Ascension, now a five year old gelding won three races in the light blue silks, was sold at the October horses in training sale in 2021 to race in Australia. Now trained by Ciaron Maher and David Eustace he recently achieved his biggest success when winning the Marsh White Trophy at Caulfield, in the process earning AU$130,000!