By Brian Sheerin
If you don't know the name, chances are that you will recognise the face. And if all else fails, you'll definitely spot the jackets. There is no mistaking those jackets.
Through his association with marketing maestro Jack Cantillon, John Bourke has become one of the most recognisable faces on the sales circuit, be it in the illuminous yellow for Far Above (Ire) or the fluorescent green of Bouttemont (Ire).
But there's more strings to Bourke's bow than dealing with cheaper stallions, as he proved at Goffs when selling Stakes-producing mare Ambiguous (GB) in foal to Mehmas (Ire) for a cool €230,000.
That transaction, which was carried out under the banner of his family's Lackagh Spring Stud, represented a €222,000 jump from the €8,000 that the Godolphin Flying Start graduate parted with to secure Ambiguous from Godolphin at the same November Breeding Stock Sale at Goffs just three years previously.
Unsurprisingly, a certain Mr Cantillon had a role to play in Bourke bagging what was then a barren mare with no major upside. However, the emergence of Marine Wave (Ire) (Harry Angel {Ire}) as a bona fide Listed performer in the pedigree led to Amo Racing swooping for the 12-year-old mare through Alex Elliott at Goffs last month.
Bourke, 30, reflected, “It's actually only now that, when I click on the sales result that it hits home what actually happened. Those results don't come along too often so it hasn't really sunk in. It's actually a funny story as to how I got her in the first place. I left the Flying Start in 2020 and went gung-ho buying mares with a couple of good friends but we didn't have any great luck. So the following year, I was adamant that I wouldn't buy a barren mare. I wanted a nice mare with a good cover that could help get the farm at home off the ground.”
Jack Cantillon and John Bourke | ITM
He continued, “I remember underbidding One Spirit (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) at €20,000. Her Earthlight (Ire) foal went on to make a lot of money the following year and her daughter One For Bobby (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) won a Group 3 race as well. So that was one that got away. Then we underbid another mare in foal to Blue Point (Ire) and that foal made a lot of money as well.
“It looked like we weren't going to get anything at that stage. But I can remember being familiar with Ambiguous because she was actually booked to visit Far Above. That was when she was under the Rabbah banner but, needless to say, she didn't end up going to Far Above and ended up being in the sale. I can remember Jack coming to me and telling me that I simply had to buy Ambiguous.”
Cantillon is nothing if not persuasive. But there was another larger-than-life stallion man involved in providing Bourke with the courage to abandon his one simple criteria when it came to sourcing a mare.
“I can remember Bernard Condron was auctioneering and, because she was a barren mare, I was getting watery at around seven grand. Micheál Orlandi was sitting in front of us and Jack grabbed my iPad, ran down to him, and asked for a free nomination to Kuroshio (Aus) if I bought the mare. In fairness to Micheál, he took the iPad and wrote, 'one free nom to Kuroshio' on it so I went once more and got her bought at eight grand.
“A good friend of mine, bloodstock agent Nico Archdale, was standing beside me at the time. He'd never been involved in a mare before but, I turned to him and said, 'you're the luckiest man in the world, you may take a leg,' and he did. Meanwhile, Eoin Fives [Ballylinch Stud] came sprinting over to us from the other side of the sales complex asking could he take a leg as well so it was divided up there and then.”
Contrary to how the story goes, this wasn't a case of a few guys standing at the roulette wheel hoping that lady luck would look favourably on them. There was a certain level of calculated risk involved here.
Ambiguous may have been barren but she had produced foals previously and boasted a strong pedigree being a sister to five 100-plus rated runners, including Group 1 winners Alpha Delphini (GB) (Captain Gerrard {Ire}) and Tangerine Trees (GB) (Mind Games {GB}). On top of that, her Kuroshio half-sister Jurius (GB) was not too bad, either, given she scored at Group 2 level, making that mating with the Starfield Stud resident a no-brainer at the time.
But it was the little known Harry Angel filly, that would later be known as the Listed-winning Marine Wave, who would do the most for the pedigree. And, in many ways, the Richard Fahey-trained four-year-old put Bourke and his partners in Ambiguous in a position where there was little choice but to sell.
He explained, “On the Darley notes, you could see that her Harry Angel was coming along and all of the gradings were good. That gave me a little bit more confidence. Meta Osborne was very good as well. We had a 20-minute conversation about getting the mare in foal on the day that I bought her and she gave me some brilliant advice.
“But we could never have expected Marine Wave to come out and do what she did. I actually went up to Richard Fahey at the Premier Yearling Sale at Goffs this year to track how she was getting on and he turned to me and said, 'I think you know more about this filly than I do!' I've been following Marine Wave from the very start and remember thinking that it could be potentially life-changing if she could pick up black-type.”
Marine Wave did exactly that by placing in four Listed contests for Fahey. But it was at Pontefract in August, when she ran out a cosy winner of the Flying Fillies' Stakes over 6f, where she notched that all-important black-type success.
“The big day came at Pontefract,” Bourke remembers. “That was wild. I was actually going to the day two session of a friend's wedding and we were sitting down having a warm-up pint watching the race on my phone. My whole body started shaking when she crossed the line! A few of the lads that were there didn't quite understand what was going on. I had to explain to them how big it was. Not even 30 seconds after she crossed the line, we had an offer in for Ambiguous. It really was a dream result.”
He added, “I've always been told that the first money you're offered is the best money. I actually learned the hard way to always accept the first offer you get. We had a horse in training a few years ago and she finished fourth behind Love (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in a fillies' maiden at the Curragh. The offers started to come in but we got a bit cocky and thought we could double our money if she won a maiden. What happened? We ended up getting her claimed for eight grand at Fairyhouse two years later.
“So that was always in the back of my mind but I knew how important that Listed race was in the pedigree. I also knew how hard it would be for me to find a mare like Ambiguous again. I spoke to Roger O'Callaghan one day and, for any young person in the industry, he's just a brilliant person to give advice. He actually told me not to sell the mare, that I would find it very difficult to replace her.
“But he told me that, if I really did want to sell her, I should sell her off the back of people seeing the Minzaal (Ire) colt foal out of her because he was so nice. Unfortunately, the Minzaal had a drop in his foot just a few days before the sale, but I have to say, Goffs did a wonderful job with the mare. She had 50-plus shows and all the right people looked at her. Not in our wildest dreams did we think we'd get €230,000 for her.”
The sale of Ambiguous provided Bourke with something of a tonic after what he openly admits to being one of the most difficult years of his life following the death of close friends Ed Prendergast and Michael Byrne. Both men, who were deeply involved in racing and bloodstock, died separately in tragic circumstances.
Bourke said, “They were very close friends of mine so Ambiguous selling provided us all with a bit of a lift at the end of what was a very tough 2024. I had been trading away in mares with Ed since the early days and he had a big part to play in the whole thing.”
Bourke is a man who wears many hats [or even jackets!]. Along with dabbling in breeze-up horses, foal pinhooks, working part-time with Syndicates.Racing and breeding from his own mares, he is studying for his Masters in Sports Management at the University College Dublin. He keeps an open mind with regards to the future but safe to say that his family-run Lackagh Spring Stud is gaining as much recognition as he is.
“After I came off the Flying Start, Covid hit. I had a few jobs lined up abroad at the time but obviously they didn't happen,” he explains. “I remember saying at the time, 'do you know what, let's try and get our home place up and running.' We've gradually improved the facilities at home. My Dad has been talking about retiring for a while now but I don't think he ever truly believed that what happened at Goffs was really possible. I think the sale of Ambiguous might get him over the line to retire and, if he does, please God he can come home and help me.”
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