FROM THE ARCHIVES:Monday, September 3rd, 1990: Brian O'Connor visits Europe's leading stallion, Sadler's Wells, at Coolmore Stud in Co Tipperary.
CAMERAS ON him 24 hours a day, constant patrol guards, £150,000 to visit him, a lifestyle of undiluted hedonism and comfort. Who am I talking about? Mick Jagger? Warren Beatty? No.
“The hottest stallion in Europe,” is how he is described and he’s Irish and alive and kicking in Tipperary.
Well, kicking might be an exaggeration. He looks you straight in the eye over his gate, decides you’re of the interest of a passing gnat and walks away with arrogant nonchalance.
When you whistle and bang the gate to attract his attention, he looks back, breaks wind and walks on. Style! This guy is so laid back he’s horizontal but when you are Sadler’s Wells, “the hottest stallion in Europe,” you can afford to be cool.
In fact, you can afford to be whatever you want to be.
Sadler’s Wells is currently one of the most valuable commodities in the bloodstock industry and, seeming to know it, he takes the reverence and attention as entirely his due.
“Noblesse Oblige” could have been coined for Sadler’s Wells. Perfectly mannered, blue-blooded, accustomed to only the best in life, he is the class act among 12 other regally-bred Romeos at Coolmore Stud near Fethard.
Sadler’s Wells is currently taking life easy as the breeding season starts in February and continues until the middle of July.
Instead of the “ordeal” of covering two mares a day, he is pottering about in either of his two personal paddocks under the watchful eye of a security camera with only the prying eyes of visitors to the stud to bother him.
At night he is brought in to his customised stable which contains ionisers, a dust extractor, smoke alarms, infra-red lights and spotlessly-clean eating and drinking pots.
In fact, stable is an understatement. Half the population is living in worse conditions.
His straw bed is more inviting than any water bed and of course there is the inevitable camera to make sure the delicate half ton of gold on the hoof doesn’t hurt himself on too prickly a piece of straw. Outside, patrols constantly pass his box and the boxes of his pals Caerleon and Be My Guest who are in the same line of stables as him.
The reason for such extravagance is that Sadler’s Wells “entertains” 65 choicely bred and expensive mares at his boudoir, a privilege valued at £150,000 for each of the mares’ owners.
The object is to produce champion racehorses, something our hero specialises in. It’s not often that £150,000 is considered a bargain but Sadler’s Wells is no ordinary stallion. Last year he produced 11 stakes winners in a sport where a stakes winner is the equal of an Olympic finalist.
That total is a world record for a season, beating his own sire Northern Dancer and Blushing Groom. They included last year’s French and Irish Derby winner Old Vic, this year’s outstanding filly Salsabil and the brilliant French colt, In The Wings, all of them Group One winners.
Add other Group One winners Scenic and Prince of Dance and you have an idea as to why Sadler’s Wells is so valuable. Fifty million dollars would be laughed at if someone tried to buy him. Quite simply, he is worth his weight in gold.
That is why no unnecessary risks are ever taken with him and the other stallions. They never see a public road or footpath for example. Instead, Coolmore put their people hacking through a small wood nearby so the horses could have a nice, quiet walkway to get a little exercise. Coolmore also has its own laboratory to constantly check the horse’s fitness as well as a weighing scales to make sure Sadler’s Wells is in the pink.
His current break is hardly different from his usual routine, aside from the lack of female company. During the season he is free and exercised a bit more as he has to cover two mares a day and with Sadler’s Wells there is no messing around. Foreplay goes out the door. “He comes in and there’s no messing about. He’s very quick and incredibly fertile,” says Coolmore’s head stallion man, Eamonn Phelan.
Is it because he enjoys the job so much that he is so successful?
“Very few stallions get offspring like themselves,” replies Eamonn, “but this fellow does. He’s so tough and very well bred as well as being very sound. And, yes, he enjoys the job.”
However as the stud manager, Christy Grassick, says, so much depends on luck. “He’s very successful but for every one like him there are ten who don’t do so well.” However, the signs for success were always pretty clear.
An outstanding racehorse who won the Irish 2,000 Guineas, the Eclipse Stakes and the Phoenix Champion Stakes, he was syndicated to Coolmore for 26 million dollars. By Northern Dancer, he has the ideal bloodline which assured him of a top quality book of mares and Coolmore has provided all the possible facilities. Nothing is left to chance. As someone said, the horse is treated like a Ming vase.
And you would not expect a Ming vase to do anything as boring as seduction would you? That is much too base a concept for “the hottest stallion in Europe.”
Nothing is guaranteed to make a shareholder in a stallion blanch quicker than a temperamental maiden who gives all the signs of wanting to go a-courting but then changes her mind.
To stop Sadler’s Wells getting physically rebuffed by a few quick kicks to his nether regions, a poor pleb of a teasing pony is used to do the softening up. Small, butty and tough as an old boot, Tarzan is what Christy Grassick calls “the guy that goes into the bar to make sure the going is good for his mate outside”.
Charming, Christy. However, before Tarzan can consummate his passion with a mare who is ready, he is led away and must endure the sight of Sadler’s Wells coming in to finish the job he has spent all day doing. Infuriating.
However, it fits in with the Coolmore aim, which is to be as careful and scientific as possible while keeping it natural. If either Tarzan or Sadler’s Wells is to be kicked, it will be Tarzan. The poor little guy has such an air of resignation about him that you hope there is a hereafter for him.
He deserves it. It’s impossible though to hold a grudge against the star himself. The attention and perfect environment have paid off because I have seldom seen a more placid or good-natured horse. Forget the snorting, prancing stallion image. Totally laid back, he examines you with an inquisitive eye that is one of his great advantages.
Trainers love the patrician indolence he passes on to his offspring.
If you have a Sadler’s Wells that shows a lot at home, one trainer told me, you can forget about it being any good. The best of them always keep it for the track where it counts. Handsome, even-tempered, amazingly successful, maybe Sadler’s Wells does deserve the life of a young superstar. If he doesn’t, nothing does.
But watch out.
In the films Tarzan always has a knife.
Update
Sadler’s Wells still resides at Coolmore Stud. Now 28-years-old, he no longer covers mares. Since Brian O’Connor’s visit, his progeny has included Istabraq (1992), Galileo (1998) and Yeats (2001).
