Johnny Collins

Opportunities to source next year's two-year-old talent are running thin on the ground and leading buyers like syndicate manager Nick Bradley, bloodstock agent Federico Barberini and breeze-up handler Johnny Collins revealed that they are hoping to stock up at the October Yearling Sale at Arqana this week. This year's French 2,000 Guineas winner Metropolitan (Fr) (Zarak {Fr}) was sourced at this sale in 2022 and, after a number of buyers reported that they found the competition tough at Tattersalls over the past two weeks, a strong cohort of British and...

No shortage of hard work and bundles of perseverance lie behind Johnny Collins's achievement in turning his Brown Island Stables into one of the finest nurseries of equine talent there is. It is all the more remarkable in that he achieved this with no racing background and just his own eye and pocket to get the whole thing off the ground. Competitive and ambitious, the 46-year-old counts several million euros worth of stock at his County Cork base, which is the culmination of over 15 years producing top-class horses over...

DONCASTER, UK--Look, we all know to refrain from any bold pronouncements in such an uncertain world. But the same market that was last year first to be broadsided by the pandemic has now made consecutive statements: first one of cautious optimism and now, remarkably, one of record-breaking confidence. For if we left Newmarket last week reminding ourselves that a single swallow does not a summer make, then flight after flight seemed to fill the air at the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale. Whatever the ups and downs that inevitably still await,...

NEWMARKET, UK—Thunder is indeed expected in Newmarket as the scorching hot snap comes to an end but it appeared early at Tattersalls on Thursday when Darley's up-and-coming sire Night Of Thunder (Ire) was represented by the leading juvenile, at 575,000gns, of the Craven Breeze-up Sale. With Jane Chapple-Hyam one of the early determined bidders, the bragging rights eventually went to Tom Biggs of Blandford Bloodstock, who played the winning shot in a game of ping-pong in the seats between himself and underbidder Mark McStay. Johnny Collins of Brown Island Stables...