By Paul Hayward
With €20,000, you could buy a full ISA top-up, a good second-hand car or a fancy kitchen. Or you might spend it on a filly capable of beating the illustrious Inspiral in a Group 1 race at Newmarket.
If only it were so simple. On any Arc weekend, the focus is on the mighty breeding operations, the big spenders, the most famous silks. And while Bluestocking's win at Longchamp restated Juddmonte's eternal excellence at the elite end of the bloodstock game, the victory of another filly 24 hours earlier in the Sun Chariot Stakes lit a beacon for dreamers.
A €20,000 price tag, syndicate owners and a self-titled underdog trainer who started 10 years ago with one raceable horse: Tamfana had it all, as the David Menuisier stable struck an autumn high for the second consecutive season. 'David v Goliath' is the theme of Menuisier's career – and he likes it like that, as he told TDN in a pre-season interview.
“I'm not fashionable – and you have to realise I'll never be,” he said back in February. His calling cards are patience and intuition. He is loyal to his horses and paternal in his pride when they win big. But we all know a trainer is only as good as the bloodstock that is driven through the gates. And in racing, €20,000 is unlikely to buy you a Group 1 winner, no matter how clever the agent (in this case Jeremy Brummitt) or innovative the owners (Quantum Leap Racing).
Successful business folk often think they can crack the code in sport. Every now and then somebody actually does. Tamfana's Sun Chariot win is the validation Quantum Leap had been seeking.
“We buy around five yearlings each year and, since we started the syndicate in 2017, have produced at least one horse rated 90-105 each year,” their blurb says. “How are we able to do this? Simply, where the market creates a bubble amongst progeny from in-vogue stallions, opportunities for those who are prepared to do the work and follow their own convictions can be found elsewhere.”
They're a lively bunch who believe “group-think and a herd mentality” govern the bloodstock trade. More obviously true is that money, power, experience, knowledge and the best bloodlines tend to determine outcomes.
Tamfana's career doesn't prove that the big players have it all wrong. But is does serve as a reminder that success at the highest level is not always for those with the deepest pockets.
How Brummitt, Quantum Leap and Menuisier came to acquire her is a pleasing tale. Brummitt is a Baden-Baden sales specialist and liked what he saw when this daughter of Soldier Hollow and Tres Magnifique (Zoffany) came up for auction. Tamfana was bred by Gestut Etzean and Hans Helmut Rodenburg. The late Soldier Hollow was a three-time champion sire in Germany. Her pedigree suggested to Brummitt hidden depths of potential.
From a debut at Ffos Las in September 2023, Tamfana progressed to become a Group 3 winner (Quantum Leap's first) at Chantilly last autumn. This season she has been a fast-finishing fourth in the 1,000 Guineas, third in the Prix Diane and fourth in the Grand Prix de Paris. Her springboard to the Sun Chariot was a win in Sandown's Group 3 Atalanta Stakes.
But everywhere they looked at Newmarket on Saturday, they saw big names, glamorous pedigrees, Group 1 form. “It's great for racing that a small syndicate like Quantum Leap Racing can win against the big operations with a filly that cost little money,” said Menuisier, who may now train her for the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. “She's gone and beat horses by the biggest owners in the world and it is just magic.”
Also in the winner's enclosure, Quantum Leap's founder Eamonn O'Connor explained the policy of buying five yearlings a year and turning stock over, with sales to France, Hong Kong and Australia. Like Menuisier, Brummitt works outside the establishment, but had already displayed his judgment when scouting the St Leger winner Masked Marvel and Group 1-winning stallion Russian Camelot.
Five months to the day since her frustrating defeat to Elmalka in the Guineas, Tamfana conquered rivals sired by Frankel (two), Too Darn Hot, Kingman and Sea The Stars.
As she crossed the line under Colin Keane, something Menuisier said to TDN floated back: “Why should I envy anybody – including those big yards? I can't, because I'm living my best life. I know where I come from, I know how I started, I know I don't owe anything to anybody apart from the people who helped us – and that's that. My aim is to be happy in life. That's all.”
In Juddmonte's record-equalling seventh Arc win, and Tamfana's first Group 1 victory, all parts of the sport were reconnected. All the dreamers and schemers, big and small, were as one, for a weekend, anyway.
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