Morgan Finds New Niche Consigning it

Joanna Morgan has successfully turned her hand to several different roles throughout her career in racing. She has been a trail-blazing jockey, a Royal Ascot-winning trainer, a bloodstock agent and is currently a yearling consigner through her Portlester Stud. Morgan will have her hands full at Tattersalls Ireland next week when she offers a draft of five yearlings in the two-day September Yearling Sale with a further three in Part II of the sale on Thursday.

Morgan has never been one to sugarcoat a situation and she surprised many when winding up her training career early in 2015, just two years after saddling Roca Tumu (Ire) (Footstepsinthesand {GB}) to win the Britannia S. at Royal Ascot. Roca Tumu would then be sold to Hong Kong, where he raced for Tony Cruz as Beauty Flame and was twice runner up at the highest level as well as winning the G2 Jockey Club Mile at Sha Tin.

Despite such success as a trainer, Morgan said she felt the daily grind of her then vocation, for meagre reward, just wasn't worth the hassle it entailed and she said the day she handed in her licence felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

“Oh I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I gave up,” she said. “I don't know how a lot of smaller trainers keep going. I just got worn out by the constant graft. I couldn't get enough staff and I was doing the work of two men and losing money on top of that so it wasn't sustainable for me. A while after I gave up I was looking through the accounts and I calculated I had lost €150,000 in three years in the training side of the business. I was living off trading horses but it was costing me a grand a week to be a trainer,” she adds.

Morgan was never going to allow a lifetime of experience in the game lie fallow for too long. She did, after all, make history by becoming the first woman to ride professionally at Royal Ascot and in an Irish Classic and rode over 200 winners in an era when she did not have many colleagues in the ladies' changing room. It was the pinhooking side of the business that appealed to the horsewoman within and with her daughter Katie McGivern establishing herself in the breeze-up business, it was foal-to-yearling pinhooking that seemed to dovetail best with their set-up.

“I buy most of the foals between myself and Katie. We share the workload as I keep them until they are ready to be prepped for the sale then Katie takes over and does most of the prep work. She has the staff from the breeze-ups and it's a system that works for us,” she explains.

Having an established breeze-up business is always a help if or when a yearling doesn't make a yearling sale or a reserve price, but in Morgan's case breezing is more plan D than plan B. She says, “The mission is to sell as yearlings but we do have the facility to carry them to the breeze-up stage if we can't or don't sell one as a yearling for whatever reason. However, there will be no breezing done next year as Katie is pregnant so there is more pressure to sell this year.”

Morgan's cause in the sales ring in Ratoath next week should be aided by a well-bred draft, but having come through the 2018 sales season with mixed fortunes so far, expectations will be set at a modest level.

“I am optimistic about my draft next week and while I'm hopeful I do think it's going to be a tricky year for a lot of people. I tend to buy a good, correct foal to begin with. I'm not into taking a chance with one that needs a bit of restructuring, I prefer to buy a nice, correct block of a horse,” she explains.

A colt by Whitsbury Manor Stud stallion Due Diligence is the first on offer from Portlester Stud as lot 277 towards the end of the first session on Tuesday. “He's a nice horse and he has a good step to him,” Morgan says. “He looks a 2-year-old, the mare seems to be breeding them sharp and he is a nice racy individual. He's never given us a moment's bother and has a good page, being out of a Danehill Dancer mare, which I love.”

On Wednesday, Morgan offers a filly by first-crop yearling sire Ivawood (GB) (lot 333) and she is a half-sister to Freedom (Ire) (Hurricane Run {Ire}), who won the G3 Diamond S. at Dundalk for Aidan O'Brien a number of years ago.

“She's lovely. I'm a big fan of Ivawood. He stamps them well, they are all good looking stock, just like him. This is a sweet, sharp filly and she has a good pedigree which is important for a filly.”

Next up on Wednesday, Portlester offer lot 409, a colt from the first crop of GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner Outstrip (GB) out of Gandini (GB) (Night Shift), herself the dam of five winners including the stakes performer Powerful Speed (GB) (Compton Place {GB}).

“This lad is a real 2-year-old. He has a great backside to him and is a very likeable horse,” she says.

The Portlester draft has plenty to offer on pedigree and lot 500 is another prime example. This daughter of Toronado (Ire) is a half-sister to a stakes winner in Goldoni (Ire) (Dylan Thomas {Ire}), while her year-older half-brother Lariat (GB) (Poet's Voice {GB}) made an eye-catching debut for Andrew Balding recently when third in a maiden at Goodwood at the end of August.

Morgan also holds the distinction of offering the only yearling by Pivotal (GB) in the sale. Lot 540 is being consigned by Portlester on behalf of a client and is out of the winning Galileo (Ire) mare Minoan Dancer (Ire), whose second produce Hoffa (Ire) (Iffraaj {GB}) has been placed twice in juvenile races for Richard Fahey since the catalogue went to print. It is the reverse of a cross that has produced such stars in recent years as Rhododendron (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Hydrangea (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Morgan says, “He's a nice colt and Pivotal is such a wonderful stallion, and the mare's first produce, who is also by Pivotal, is a winner so it is a proven pedigree.”

Morgan's prowess with bloodstock is not confined to riding, training or trading as she also has shown a canny ability to select a high-class yearling with a relatively modest budget. Sir Dancealot (Ire) (Sir Prancealot {Ire}) and Desert Skyline (Ire) (Tamayuz {GB}) were two horses that Morgan played a major role in buying as yearlings three years ago at Goffs. The David Elsworth-trained pair cost €70,000 in total and have since won 11 races and bagged almost £750,000 in prize-money between them.

Reflecting on a career that saw her train group winners in both Ireland and England, Morgan said, “I don't regret training in the slightest; nothing will give you the feeling of training a winner or riding a winner, but the last few years I was training there was no fun in it. I was so worn out when I gave up that it took the guts of a year to recover fully. Now I really enjoy pinhooking foals and buying yearlings for a few clients in England. It allows me to be involved and, while it has its own pressures, it's nothing compared to training.”