“Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is” – Stewart Has Big Plans For Tattersalls Purchases

John Stewart says that he is 'putting his money where his mouth is' after spending 6,265,000gns–close to $8 million–on five fillies at Tattersalls this week, headed by Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac winner Vertical Blue (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}) at 3.2 million gns. 

Vertical Blue is trained by Francis Graffard, who manages the career of Stewart's most high-profile horse in Europe, Goliath (Ger) (Adlerflug {Ger}). The four-year-old gelding was last seen finishing sixth in the Japan Cup. 

That effort was deemed unsatisfactory by the man behind Resolute Racing, who has outlined some lofty ambitions for Graffard and the rest of the trainers on his roster.

He said, “I'm pretty satisfied with the purchases. The auction played out pretty much as I thought it would. I was very targeted in looking for specific horses. Of course, we one hundred per cent wanted to be focussed on the top end of the market and Vertical Blue was the number one horse on my list at the sale.”

Stewart added, “She is trained by Francis, who trains Goliath for us. We have developed a really close relationship since we got Goliath and spent time together with him in Japan and got to meet his wife and family in France as well. He could not stop talking about how special this filly is and how he wanted to keep her in the barn. 

“I believe in Francis. He's an innovator from a trainer's standpoint in that he wants to compete globally. He's not afraid to go and take risks. When I bring up some of these ideas about what I want to do with these horses, he probably thinks that I'm crazy but he's the kind of person who tries to figure out how we can do it. I can see him genuinely getting excited when he talks about some of the things we want to do.”

Along with Vertical Blue, Stewart snapped up Irish 1,000 Guineas runner-up A Lilac Rolla (Ire) (Harry Angel {Ire}) for 1 million gns and Group performer Village Voice (GB) (Zarak {Fr}) at 1.3 million. Speedier types Tales Of The Heart (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}) and It Ain't Two (GB) (Clyx {GB}) completed the spend at 650,000gns and 115,000gns respectively. All of the horses were purchased with Keeneland in mind.

Stewart continued, “We're going to surprise a lot of people next year with what we do with Goliath in how we turn him into an international success. He's already a European success and he's a success in Japan, even though he got sixth in the Japan Cup. We're not satisfied with that but the trip was very successful. Francis got a taste of that, as my team did as well. We're going to be back next year and we're going to have a different strategy. We're going to win that race. I didn't get into this sport to go to these races and watch other people win them. It's not enough to just watch these horses competing and, if you look at the horses I bought, the majority of them-outside of Vertical Blue-are specifically focussed on Keeneland. The turf tends to be pretty soft and, even our turf horses that we have in our programme, like Didia and Pounce, haven't run well at Keeneland because they like the firm turf that you see at Saratoga, Gulfstream or Del Mar. 

“We targeted buying the horses who like the soft ground. Resolute is going to have multiple horses taking part in these Graded Stakes races at Keeneland on turf. That's my home track and it's the one track we haven't won races at even though we have won races all over the world. That's not good enough and I'm not one who's going to make excuses. We're putting our money where our mouth is and are buying horses to win on the turf at Keeneland.”