Guy O'Callaghan

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...

NEWMARKET, UK -- A sister to Alpinista (GB)? How about one to St Mark's Basilica (Fr) or Charyn (Ire), or a brother to Hurricane Lane (Ire)? Then there are the first foals, by Dubawi (Ire) no less, of Lady Bowthorpe (GB) and Glass Slippers (GB), or the first foal from Wonderful Tonight (Fr), by Frankel (GB), with those two top stallions accounting for 10 per cent of Book 1 entries between them.  Camelot (GB) leapfrogged Dubawi on Sunday to be head of the sires' table for Europe when his daughter...

ASCOT, UK -- Far from the madding crowd of the royal meeting, the exploits of those five heady days were still being celebrated at Ascot on Friday. And rightly so, for this was the day of the annual Royal Ascot winning breeders' lunch, a lovely touch from the racecourse to recognise those who make this great sport happen.  There's no one-upmanship here. Every breeder will tell you how much they need the owners - most of them are also owners themselves - and all the various participants in racing matter,...

Richard Fahey trainee Barefoot Angel (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}--Love In The Desert {GB}, by Lemon Drop Kid) bettered an Aug. 1 debut second at Ripon with an Aug. 25 breakthrough at Carlisle and continued on the rise with an impressive tally at long odds in Saturday's G3 Virgin Bet Firth Of Clyde Fillies' S. at Ayr, her third straight start at the six-furlong trip. The 20-1 outsider was held up in rear through the initial stages of this stakes bow. Slicing through the pack to go sixth passing the quarter-mile...

Those who work in racing know all too well the endless hours devoted to getting horses ready for the racecourse, and fans of the sport were able to see that for themselves during the first National Racehorse Week in Britain. The brainchild of National Hunt trainer Richard Phillips, the inaugural week-long spotlight on the racing industry included racing stables being open to the public all over the country, starting at Epsom and Malton, and culminating in Newmarket's popular Henry Cecil Open Weekend. It can be deemed a huge success. This...

NEWMARKET, UK--It's Fairyhouse, but not as we know it. For the second year running the Tattersalls Ireland September Yearling Sale has gone on tour to Newmarket, with just shy of 600 youngsters catalogued to sell over the next two days.  The claim of Tattersalls Ireland's CEO Simon Kerins that the September Sale has something for everyone is fully backed up by two notable graduates of the sale on the track this year. This time last year Go Bears Go (Ire) (Kodi Bear {Ire}) was plucked from Micheal Ryan's Al Eile...

The collective noun for O'Callaghans is unknown, but at bloodstock sales around the world they can often be found travelling as a pack. An intimidating force perhaps, the Yeomanstown O'Callaghans--not to be confused with their cousins, the equally successful Tally-Ho ones--are a close-knit clan who have made a prosperous business of breeding and trading horses with a little help from sire sensation Dark Angel (Ire). Away from the sales, though, the brothers are scattered around Ireland and, at Grangemore Stud, Guy O'Callaghan is quite clearly doing his own thing. "It's...