9 minute read
Business development
We chat to Eddie Linehan who has big plans afoot with his new company Linehan Bloodstock
WITH THE various sad events through early September it has been something of a gloomy end to a glorious summer.
So it was a very cheering to chat, via zoom to the Arqana September Sale, with the likeable and emerging bloodstock agent and breeze-up consignor Eddie Linehan to hear about his exciting, ambitious new business plans. Earlier this summer the 29-year-old launched Linehan Bloodstock.
After starting out in pony racing before riding as a NH jockey, Linehan has been buying horses and producing breeze up prospects.
This year’s onward development of the business has come about after working alongside trainer Johnny Murtagh for the last couple of sale seasons.
Linehan recounts: “When we were growing up, Dad was a dairy farmer and an auctioneer. He started to get a few horses as his best friend is Eugene Sullivan, who is big into point-to-points. As my sister and I got older and into riding, we started to do them at home and it all developed a little more.
“I suppose then becoming a jockey was the initial plan, but I was very interested in training or doing something with horses – I’d always had one or two horses to trade so I was interested in that. “
Linehan spent some time first with trainer Willie Mullins and then Nicky Henderson and rode 25 winners, but decided early that the riding career was not the future.
“I went home when I was 20,” he says, adding: “After for two or three years I quickly realised how difficult it is to make money with the NH horses; the breezers give a quicker turnover so we started to head that way.”
The first draft was bought on a little bit of a wing and a prayer.
“The year I started I didn’t really have any money,” he recalls. “I had gathered a few lads and we all put in a little bit of cash. We bought seven horses for €15,000 total, you can picture what they were like!
“But two nice fillies came out of that first batch, and we managed to sell three or four of them half okay. And next year we went in a little bit stronger and bought another six for about €32,000 and again two of the fillies were ok.
“So we have just kept going and just try to buy a better horse each year. We have had a majority of fillies as we could afford them, the colts we got early on were probably colts other people did not want.”
LINEHAN HAS sold under the farm’s Lackendarra Stables banner, and recently purchased as Eddie Linehan Bloodstock.
The newly created Linehan Bloodstock is something of a natural development of roles he has been creating for himself, but there has been plenty of thought behind the venture and some big plans are afoot.
“Like everything with me I suppose it kind of started a bit unintentionally. I had sold a breezer to Qatar Racing and she was sent into training with Johnny. My brother Denis works there and I got to know Johnny a bit,” says Linehan.
“The following year bloodstock agent Gill Richardson was quite sick before the Fairyhouse Sale, Johnny asked Denis if I have any interest in looking at a couple of horses for him, and we managed to buy Champers Elysses.”
The daughter of Elzaam, of course, went on to win the Group 1 Matron Stakes and the Fairy Bridge Stakes (G3). She collected over £250,000 in prize-money earnings and was sold privately whilst in training to Teruya Yoshida of Shadai Farm, Japan.
Since then the Eddie Linehan / Johnny Murtagh signature has become a regular on the sales dockets, and Linehan’s services have been in demand from others.
“I have just been working away with Johnny since, doing all the yearling sales for him, but then a couple of other lads asked me to look for horses and it has gone from there.
“I was very busy at last year’s October Book 2 and Book 3, as well as at the Fairyhouse and Sportsman sales so I thought it might be no harm to go another step further, make it a bit more efficient, a bit more formal and professional."
MAKING THE whole business “whole” is important to Linehan. With so many annual sales and with such big catalogues, he is aware that working on his own it is very difficult to provide a comprehensive service, or do as good a job as possible.
So the amiable and engaging young man, who clearly enjoys working alongside others, has put together an informal team, including his father John, brother Denis, Dan O’Meara, ex-NH jockey and now bloodstock agent David Mullins, and pedigree expert Aisling Crowe. All bring differing attributes and skills to the start up.
Linehan outlines: “Dan has started working with me, he is a very good lad, very keen for the whole thing.
“He has a degree in Commerce from University College Cork and worked at Kildangan Stud, Newsells Park Stud, as well as at Segenhoe Stud in Australia. He has bought his own yearlings to sell at the breeze up sales and done well. “We have got Aisling Crowe on board, she keeps an eye on pedigrees – we send her our list, but she’ll watch out for any we might miss. She might ask us why we haven’t looked at one, alert us to some bits and pieces going on with the pedigree.
“I have done all the NH store sales with David Mullins for the last two years, and in return I asked him last year to give me a hand at a couple of the bigger yearling sales.
Linehan with Dan O'Meara: the pair are hoping to be busy on the sales grounds this autumn
“He’s obviously a bloodstock agent in his own right as well – I’ve been doing a bit with him, and he’s going to do a bit with us.
“He’s coming to Fairyhouse with me and he’ll come to Newmarket as well.”
The family links are maintained, too. Linehan’s father John, who bought the twotime Grade 1 winner Oscars Well in 2008 and whom Linehan Jnr cites as one of the biggest influences on his life, is part of the business, while his brother, whom Linehan says has a “great eye for a horse”, is fully involved alongside his day job as assistant at Murtagh’s Fox Covert Stables.
“At the big sales,” reasons Linehan, “you can’t have enough help because you can always miss things. It is also great to get a second or third opinion on a horse for clients. The ‘chancy’ or cheaper horses are the ones who could give you a touch, so you really can’t have enough eyes on the job.”
THE INFLUENCE OF Murtagh has been important to Linehan taking this forward to such a degree, but he has a developing book of clients and is keen to work with a variety of differing business to make full use of time at the sales.
“There are a couple of young trainers, there are all getting going and they know that I am looking at the majority horses,” he says. “A lot of them fellas can’t be at the sales two days ahead of selling, they have shoot up on the day of the sale. It is so easy for them to ask me, ‘Have you seen any that will be good to me?’ We are looking at everything anyway, so it is good to be able to be busy.”
Linehan is a straightforward man and it is important to him that his business acts responsibly, is trustworthy and is always doing the best for its clients.
“It’s about trying to find value, and work professionally,” he explains. “The whole thing is now very commercial, everyone’s thinking whether a horse will be able to be sold on to Hong Kong or America.
“So you’re trying to weigh up everything and see where is the better value for someone – should you hold off for the next lot or for the next sale?” So what does Linehan look for in a horse?
“I’ll take the physical over pedigree because that is what have bought for myself, I haven’t been able to afford pedigree. That’s what’s worked – a lot of cheap €5,000 horses have turned out to be stakes horses.
“But the big thing for me is walk and temperament, I used to be very strict on conformation, I am not as strict now.
“Eddie O’Leary said something two years ago in Newmarket that has really stuck. I was looking at a horse and I started knocking a front leg or something.
“He said, ‘Today is the only day you’re looking at that horse coming at you head on – from now on, you’ll always be seeing the horse side on.’
“It’s not a bad point. Now, when I look at a horse who might be toeing out or something similar, I’ll stand back and look at the side view and think about Eddie said.
“If I buy one to breeze for me or if they win a two-year-old maiden for a trainer, the next buyer is not too worried about what they’re like coming at you, all they want to know is if they are sound and if they can gallop,” he says, adding: “It is so easy to leave a good horse behind if you are too strict.”
The dream is to build up a substantial and busy bloodstock agency. “I’d love to be at sales with the three lads and Aisling as well,” he smiles.
“So it is now all about us getting out, meeting people, moving things on from here.”
“Have a right team at the sales and all of us with one or two clients each.
Linehan, who married long-term girlfriend Ellen this summer, is certainly putting the structure and building blocks in place for the fledging business.
And the plan is to be busy at the sales this autumn…. Ellen might not get to see much of her new husband this autumn.
Linehan is relishing working with the new team he has put together.
Linehan with Dan O’Meara: the pair are hoping to be spending a lot of time on sales grounds
