'He's Been Everything To Us': O'Callaghans Toast Dark Angel

Thirty-five years after setting up in the stallion business, Gay and Annette O'Callaghan's Yeomanstown Stud can look forward to an extra special Christmas celebration as the family toasts its homegrown hero Dark Angel (Ire), the 2024 champion sire of Britain and Ireland. 

For anyone who has watched the tenacity with which Gay works the sales in tandem with his sons David, Guy and Robert, and often with Peter back over from America, it is easy to predict that the celebration won't last long. For soon there will be mares to be foaled, and mares to be booked, not least to the farm's latest recruit, the G1 July Cup winner Mill Stream (Ire). 

Moreover, it is simply not the O'Callaghan way to sit around slapping each on the back. That said, there must be ample satisfaction in securing a first championship with a horse bred at the farm – from a mare sourced for just €12,000 – who went on to become a Group 1-winning two-year-old and was later bought back for stud duties. Since the stallion wing has been in operation, based at the family's Morristown Lattin Stud but now branded solely as Yeomanstown, only Coolmore, Darley and Juddmonte have stood a champion sire. 

Frankel (GB) broke the 31-year stranglehold of Coolmore when winning his first championship in 2021. Prior to that it had been passed between Sadler's Wells, Caerleon, Danehill, Danehill Dancer (Ire) and Galileo (Ire), with Sadler's Wells landing 14 of those titles and Galileo 12. Frankel is now a dual champion, with Dubawi (Ire) having been crowned champion in 2022, meaning that the title stayed in Britain for three consecutive years after a long drought. This, then, is a significant achievement as the laurels return to Ireland, but to Kildare rather than Tipperary. 

“He did it the hard way,” says Gay O'Callaghan of his champion after being herded, along with David, Guy and Robert, into a meeting room at Tattersalls during the mares' sale. Separating these men from the sale ring is no mean feat, so Gay's next line makes this interviewer's heart drop a little, when he adds, “He did it and nobody else did it for him. That's all I can say.”

Encouragingly, though, he soon warms to the topic and is spurred on by his sons, the gang of four often completing each other's sentences, which is perhaps not completely surprising from a family which works as such a tight-knit pack.

“I think what's especially good is the fact that he's a a sprinter-miler sire,” notes David. “Those 10, 12-furlong races generally have the bigger prize-money, so to be able to do it, generally just between six furlongs to a mile, it makes it extra special.”

Gay adds, “You have to win twice as many races.”

Fortunately, one of the hallmarks of Dark Angel's offspring tends to be their durability. He was himself kept pretty busy as a juvenile, running nine times from mid-April, with his four wins including the G1 Middle Park Stakes and G2 Mill Reef Stakes. His disappearance from the track after that season was no reflection on his ability, more on the lack of opportunities for three-year-old sprinters at the time. The racing programme has been enhanced in this regard in the intervening years, in part because of the consternation caused by Dark Angel's retirement to stud at the age of three back in 2008.

“They're very sound. And they seem to improve from two to three, three to four,” says Gay of Dark Angel's stock. “I mean, if they have a reasonable amount of ability too, they seem to progress and progress on a year-on-year basis.

“Take Charyn. From two to three to four, he got better and better. And I have no doubt if he raced next year, he would have won a Group 1 again.”

While they agree that they would have loved to see Charyn continue his racing career as a five-year-old, the O'Callaghans, perhaps more than anyone, are aware of the balance that must be struck when it comes to retiring a stallion at the right time to optimise his popularity with breeders. 

“To rewind to the Dark Angel retiring at two for a second, it's a different landscape now, in so far as, within a couple of years, because of, say, Holy Roman Emperor and him – they were the two high-profile ones around the time – it forced a change in the racing programme,” says David. “The Sandy Lane went from a Listed race to a Group 2, the Commonwealth Cup was brought in, and all of a sudden there was a three-year-old [sprint] programme. Because what had been happening historically was the three-year-olds got swallowed up by the four-year-olds or the older horses for the season. And if they came out of it the other side, they could compete at four, but it actually was to their detriment, and trying to compete with those horses actually finished them.

“So, for all that we got criticised, there wasn't a three-year-old programme, and if you'd raced as much as Dark Angel did at two, what were you supposed to do at three? Usually fellas just gave them one or two runs at three and waited until they were four. But we certainly weren't going to wait until the end of his four-year-old career. We needed a stallion.”

Guy adds, “And with Dark Angel, obviously Gay had bred him, so we had a very close relationship with the horse, so he meant a lot to us, and it made sense in our minds straightaway. Whereas it shocked a lot of people at the time, for us it was just so obvious.”

Another horse close to the family's hearts, Charyn (Ire), has very much been this year's poster boy for Dark Angel, with a season that combined that trademark toughness – kicking off on the opening day of the turf season at Doncaster – and including Group 1 victories at Deauville, Royal Ascot and on Champions Day. He too was bred by the O'Callaghan family, under the banner of Guy's Grangemore Stud. 

Charyn may now be ensconced at Sumbe's Haras de Montfort & Preaux, alongside another multiple Group 1-winning son of Dark Angel, Angel Bleu (Fr), but there should still be excitement to come from this particular family. Nurlan Bizakov of Sumbe also owns Charyn's two-year-old sister, who commanded 850,000gns at Book 1 last year, while the price for the current yearling climbed even higher. She was sold by Grangemore to Godolphin in October for 2.9 million gns. 

It may all look so easy now, with Dark Angel having bestowed much kudos on Yeomanstown in his tenure there, but as every stallion master will tell you, the only thing you know about stallions is that you don't know where the next good one will come from. The old maxim is that only one in ten makes it.

“One in 20, I'd say,” chips in Guy.

His father adds, “The first horse we ever stood was very successful, Common Grounds. Again, from a very humble beginning, covering 43 or 44 mares his first year because he raced in France, and there wasn't as much known about the French racing at that stage as there is now. So I know a few people went to see him, and they didn't like him.

“I remember the day we went to see him, we had to stand up in a dung heap and get him to walk around us to see if he could walk or not. But anyway, he wasn't a great walker. But he was quite successful.”

Bred by Stavros Niarchos, Common Grounds (GB), a son of Kris (GB), was France's champion two-year-old of 1987, winning the G1 Prix de la Salamandre and finishing runner-up in the G1 Prix Morny. He sired the Yeomanstown-bred Bad As I Wanna Be (Ire), who won the Prix Morny for Brian Meehan in 2000, the year Common Grounds moved to stand in Turkey. 

“I suppose that would be the biggest mistake we ever made, I think, was selling him,” Gay reflects. “But you learn from these things, because to have got him to that pitch and to sell him was a monumental mistake. I know we were offered a lot of money for him and we had a nice purse but it was still a huge mistake.

“But, you know, he wasn't gone out the door when we knew it was a mistake, when we looked around to try and replace him. But anyway, that's history now.”

Indeed it is, and the stud business is largely about looking forward, to the next crop of foals, the next batch of runners, the longed-for star act. For Yeomanstown, there is plenty on the horizon.

Alongside Dark Angel stands the Classic-placed miler Shaman (Ire), by Shamardal, whose first three-year-olds will be in action in 2025, while Dark Angel's fellow Middle Park winner Supremacy (Ire), one of the first sons of the rising star Mehmas (Ire) at stud, will have his first crop of juveniles at the track. Then there's Mill Stream, who is about to embark on his first covering season. 

With a number of the top horses each year already under the control of major owner-breeder operations, it is becoming harder for the independent stallion farms to recruit new talent. So just how early in a racehorse's career are they put on the watch list?

“I suppose once they get their first group win, and if they are by something good, you kind of follow along,” says Robert. “But you can't go buying a heap of maiden winners and Listed winners in the hope they're going to turn into something. You nearly have to wait until they actually win a Group 1. You can waste a lot of money quickly on promising looking horses that never do anything ever again. That's a high-risk strategy.”

David adds, “A prime example would be Kind Of Blue at the end of the season. A lot of people would have loved the idea of him. And he had been knocking on the door. Somebody came in and bought him [Wathnan Racing] and he went and won the Group 1 the next day. So, it's a great success, but in so many of those cases, a horse with a similar profile doesn't win the Group 1 and all of a sudden, you're left carrying the can. The horse is not worth anything like what you may have paid for him. So, you know, well done to them. But it's a very risky business, buying them just before they do it. Inevitably, in the long run, you're better off to wait until it's done, and it makes them harder to buy, but not all that much, as in, potential is always worth an awful lot anyway. 

“So, it's so hard to get the balance right. But generally, once they have it done, at least there's no doubt. As opposed to, there's so many horses get close and don't quite get over the line.”

Peter, Gay and Robert O'Callaghan | Tattersalls

Gay speaks from experience when he notes, “I'd say the biggest problem is finding horses that will be sold, because there are two very big outfits that have huge power, and they inevitably turn up with a really good two-year-old or three-year-old. So, in that case, you're getting something that falls in the middle a little bit. Take Mill Stream – Peter Harris is a single owner and he's quite an elderly man now, so I thought he'd race him next year, and so did the trainer.”

Mill Stream, just like Charyn, has unquestionably had his best season as a four-year-old, winning the G2 Duke of York Stakes and finishing third in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes before his July Cup triumph. The most expensive yearling by his sire Gleneagles (Ire) in 2021 when sold for 350,000gns to Anthony Stroud by his breeder Jimmy Murphy of Redpender Stud, he was obviously a looker from the start. 

David says, “Most people actually remember him as a yearling here [at Tattersalls], because he made a big price. He was a very talked-about horse at the sale.

“Gleneagles was a champion two-year-old, he was a precocious horse himself and won two Guineas. He was always going to get a few fast ones and this horse is from a very fast family on the dam's side. So, you know, he actually fits into that mould, because he's a big, beautiful horse with strength and scope, so hopefully he'll get the same kind of horses as Dark Angel was getting: sprinters who will stay a mile. You wouldn't imagine he would be pigeonholed as a five-furlong, six-furlong sprinter.”

Peter Harris, who turned 90 in March, will also be returning to the breeding fold to support Mill Stream. The former trainer was also a highly successful breeder at his Pendley Farm, which boasts yet another Middle Park winner, Primo Valentino (Ire), as one of its star graduates for Harris. 

Robert adds, “Since we bought Mill Stream, we've met Peter Harris a few times and his enthusiasm is just amazing. He has a genuine passion for the game.”

Mill Stream is out of the Hellvelyn (GB) mare Swirral Edge (GB), a winning two-year-old herself who notched a notable double when her sons Mill Stream and the G2 Richmond Stakes winner Asymmetric (Ire) (Showcasing {GB}) won consecutive Listed races in Deauville on the same day in August 2023. The O'Callaghans picked up another member of her family at Tattersalls in July when buying Rare Jewel (GB) (Exceed And Excel {Aus}), out of the mare's half-sister Fashion Queen (GB) (Aqlaam {GB}) and in foal to Shaquille (GB), for 125,000gns. 

“It's such a very good family,” says David. “A lot of very fast, good-looking yearlings came out of that family. It's been on the commercial breeders' radar for a long time, so hopefully they'll appreciate it. And we're well invested in the family now.”

Robert admits that, though the brothers may differ when selecting mares, foals or yearlings, when it comes to buying stallions they are “singing from the same hymn sheet”.

David adds, “Well, if we can't agree on what stallion to buy, how are we going to expect to get support from the breeders? It kind of needs to be a no-brainer. So it has to make sense on every level for us, and then it will make good sense for them.”

One thing that they can certainly agree on is that, no matter the flak they may have taken for it at the time, the best decision ever made by the Yeomanstown team was to bring Dark Angel back to the farm. 

Gay says, “I suppose basically he did it with a common or garden mares. He didn't have the blueblooded mares at his fingertips the whole time. He was made by small breeders. He didn't cover a lot of mares the first year, about 65, I think it was. There were some articles written, saying that he shouldn't have gone to stud, and that hurt us at the time.”

Clearly still affronted by that response, he adds, “That did hurt. But he's 20 at the turn of the year, and he has earned it. He's been everything to us.”