Hill climbing

IT HAS BEEN A PRETTY HOT START to the 2019 yearling sales season for Charlie and Tracy Vigors of Hillwood Stud.

Selling a record-breaking yearling at the GoffsUK Premier Sale, the first major sale on British or Irish shores for the 2019 season, is a neat accomplishment, and one that must give the couple plenty of optimisim, even amidst the current choppy political waters, for the remaining autumn. That yearling was, of course, by one of the most celebrated sires of the year in Juddmonte Farm’s Kingman, a stallion who seems to be pushing his early-career achievements further and further up the results table.

The team’s hopes were high heading to Doncaster that they might just have a horse in their draft who might be a star.

“He was and always has been an exceptionally nice physical,” says Charlie Vigors. “It was perhaps a bit of a punt sending him to Doncaster, but the page fitted the sale – we thought he would be notable as a son of Kingman and out of a two-year-old stakeswinning mare. It was an opportunity to stand out from the crowd.”

The reckoning paid off with MV Magnier, signing via UK representative Kevin Buckley, going to £440,0000, a record price for the sale. It was certainly the biggest auction ring success for his breeders, Robert and Pauline Scott of Park Farm Stud.

“They are such lovely people, it is wonderful to have got such a result for them,” says Tracy Vigors. “They were at home and were shaking as they watched online! We spoke to them ten minutes after the sale and they were in tears – they are lovely people, who love racing and are big supporters of the sport.

“They have put a lot of money into breeding and racing so it is great they have got something back.”

The Scotts still sell under their own banner – and in the Silver Sale successfully offered a Dutch Art filly who fetched £27,000 – but Vigors explains the reasoning behind Hillwood’s involvement.

“We started selling for them a couple of years ago,” he reports. “We go and see the yearlings in the spring and help advise which ones should be sold through us and which by themselves. They would be the first to admit they are probably lacking a bit on sales ‘know how’ at the top end of the market, which is where we can come in; Pauline also tends to fall in love with them and then can’t sell them!”

Hillwood Stud came under the Vigors management 14 years ago when they took on the tenancy at the 130-acre farm, part of a big Wiltshire farming estate.

And while a big multi-national and multi-horse operation such as Rabbah Bloodstock has been a long-term client, and for whom Vigors sold the Street Cry ex Meeznah colt for 1 million gns in 2014, working alongside individual British breeders and getting them good results in the sale ring gives the couple a great deal of satisfaction.

“One of the joys of the job is working with these breeders and having and enjoying the success that this year the Scotts, and previously Gaye Johnson-Houghton and Barry Walter have enjoyed over the years; to be a small part of that success is very satisfying,” says Vigors, adding: “It is important as the small breeder is a dying breed.”

Tracy adds: “Barry Taylor was one of our first owners and he has bred horses such as Kalindi and Medicean Man from an amazing family. Sadly, he has his last yearling with us as a lot of his mares have gone to heaven and he stopped keeping the fillies to race. He has always had two or three mares with us until this year and has had huge success with a number of horses selling for over 200,000gns.”

The couple now have around 21 permanent boarding mares at Hillwood, their business becoming more focused on this arm of the operation alongside yearling consigning, pinhooking and the spelling and resting of racehorses.

It is very much a hands-on operation, the couple work alongside each other 365 days of the year with the focus purely and simply on doing a good job well.

“Everyone wants to upgrade and to move their stock up the ladder, it is difficult to buy into that, but that is everyone’s aim and aspiration.

“We are obviously fully involved in the decision-making process with the boarding mares, while for the clients who send us yearlings to prep for the sales, we give a bit of advice as to what we think, they probably ignore it! We try and get to see their horses as foals, and then again in the spring time of their yearling year; it helps to make plans to get into the right slots at the sales.”

Some changes have had to be be enacted along the way – primarily due to the addition of the two family members, Harry and Oliver, ten and eight years of age.

“The biggest thing, I think, has been my step back from the sales,” explains Tracy. “It was a must-have with the kids and staffing situation – when Charlie is selling through Book 1 we will still have 100-odd horses at home to be done!”

The farm used to also consign foals and sell breeze-up horses, but Hillwood has not offered a foal at the Tattersalls December Sale since 2014, and brought its breeze-up consigning to an end in 2016.

As was published at the time this was driven by the lack of available top-class work riders, but also because the couple realised “you can’t do everything” and found that people were “questioning when you are off trying to buy yearlings as well as sell them”. The couple has six pinhooked yearlings to sell for this season, as well a mix of homebred and preps, the majority produced from home. Knowing their stock and producing them well really is Hillwood Stud’s USP.

“In the first two years we met horses at the sales, but then we said no more, it works for some but it is not for us,” explains Tracy.

“It means that every yearling we take to the sales will be raised here or we will have had had for ten weeks in prep work.

“At the beginning we see them and lunge them together and for every single one we listen to their wind, we watch them move. “We also do the early and late feeds ourselves, which means we see every horse three or four times daily.”

Vigors, the partner entrusted with getting a successful sale concluded at GoffsUK or Tattersalls, adds: “When they go to the sales we know each horse intimately, we can stand by them.

“Buyers can trust that we have fit, sound horses at the sales,”explains Tracy. “We can’t

“Our job is not just to sell a horse, it is to find the right horse for the right person, if you know the horse well, then hopefully then you can do that job. The personal touch is really important.”

A 2019 foal from the 21-strong broodmare band

tell whether they have the right heart and lungs, but everything else is there and correct at the sales stage.”

Upgrading the type of foal they pinhook has been a goal, but it has proved difficult to achieve and, when the foal sale season is at its raging height, is easier said than done.

Vigors adds: “We have six pinhooks for this year, about the same number as recently, but less than some previous years as we have been making a conscious effort to concentrate on quality, trying to get more of the Book 1-type horses as the market is getting more polarised.”

“The foal end of the market is so strong though, we couldn’t get near them,” reports an exasperated Tracy. “We can’t afford to out-lay 150,000gns on one foal, we’d rather have four for that than one. We tried to change our buying, but we had to step back as we couldn’t get in.”

A realistic approach has been adopted by the pair, who pinhook for themselves and for a small syndicate that they have operated since year one when they sold Dubai’s Touch. That was literally a decent touch as they upgraded him from a foal price of 27,000gns to a yearling price of 115,000gns, an important success achieved at the beginning of their business life.

“The day you are buying you have to think who are you going to sell to,” reasons Vigors, adding: “You have to think which sale that horse will get into and at what price is it likely to sell. It is important, if the foal market is running away with a big head of steam, to sit and wait; they tend to come, as long as you are patient. At the end of the day, we don’t need to fill the stable with a pinhook, we have plenty others around and about.

“But pinhooking is part of the business we love, and, touch wood, have been successful at it. We have been doing a while now and are still at it so must have been successful enough!”

The couple has also made a big investment in its mares and the Listed-placed winning mare Yarrow (Sea The Stars), a half-sister to the dual Group 1 winner Golan and Group 2 Dante winner Tartan Bearer, was purchased from the Ballymacoll Stud dispersal in 2017. Her purchase a clear indication as to where

they hope the broodmare band to be heading. Yarrow was given a very commercial first covering and that first foal, a colt by Kodiac, is due to sell in Book 1 (Lot 126).

Producing a quality horse at its best for sales day is clearly what motivates the couple, both brought up in the racing and bloodstock industries, but who forged their own career paths before meeting at Kingwood Stud.

The pair are exactly what the industry should be boasting of, promoting and proud of: talented hard-working, grounded individuals who have made a success of the route they have chosen. The pair do welcome the upcoming bloodstock review, but they are a little exsaperated by the approach that has been taken by the media.

“Buyer confidence is key and it is important,”says Vigors. “If the report helps install buyer confidence all well and good, but the general tarring of everyone has been disappointing and badly handled.

“The trade paper should not be so sensationalist as it has been. Everyone is being tarred with the same brush and it is turning the process into a media circus.”

Hillwood Stud’s average Book 1 price has been over 100,00gns since 2011, and last year it was its largest since 2014. The farm is making ever-increasing gains on quality – in the three years since 2016 it has doubled its Book 2 average from one that resided in the 40,000gns to one over 90,000gns last year. It is exciting times for this sale season, and those in the future for Team Vigors.

“It is really nice to have a Frankel (Lot 91) on the team. He has thrived the last few weeks both mentally and physically, which is nice. He is a good, straightforward colt.

“The Awtaad is a lovely colt (Lot 125). He looks ready to rock, he has done well, he has a good pedigree, fingers crossed!

“We are excited about the Kodiac ex Yarrow (Lot 126), she is the most expensive mare we’ve bought. Kodiac has had countless stakes winners from humble mares, so hopefully he can continue. This colt is sharp, has a great mind, he is racey and has a lot going on – he is the real package.

“We have two Lope De Vega’s for Book 1 (Lot 417, 451) and two for Book 2 (Lot 1019, 1183). The ‘Lope De Vegas’ are a different type of horse all together. They look ready to go – they are big and strong, and when they move it just makes you go ‘wow’! They have size but have everything else as well, which sometimes the big horse doesn’t.

“The colt out of Moi Meme is to die for, we think he is perhaps the nicest colt we have had anything to do with. He is a beauty, his mind is excellent.

"His full-sister sold well to Chad Brown last year, early reports are good, hopefully she will be out soon."