First job in the Thoroughbred industry?
Mucking out boxes, raking gravel at Simontorp Stud in Sweden.
Biggest influence on your career?
Captain A.D.D. 'Tim' Rogers of Airlie Stud, Lucan, Co Dublin; he single-handedly invented the European bloodstock industry.
Favourite racehorse of all time, and why?
Nijinsky – superb athlete; strong and correct with a most beautiful head; probably the last-ever Triple Crown winner…and sire of Niniski (without whom, no Lanwades Stud today).
Who will be champion first-season sire in 2023?
I would of course hope for Study Of Man, but realistically, it will be a sprint-oriented type who has covered more than 200 mares in 2020.
Greatest race in the world?
Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (I have to say that).
If you could be someone else in the industry for a day who would it be, and why?
I can think of a couple of names here but, to save everyone's embarrassment, nothing fit to print.
Emerging talent in the industry (human)?
Plenty of them!
Horse TDN should have made a Rising Star, and didn't?
Empress Wu, a 2020 bay filly by Sea The Moon ex Chinoiserie, by Archipenko. Easy winner (from the worst draw in the race) on her only start to date (Lingfield, Nov. 12) beating colts. Her dam is an own-sister to G1 Champion Fillies' and Mares' S. winner Madame Chiang.
Under-the-radar stallion?
Study Of Man: unlikely to remain so!
Friday night treat?
Watching Babylon Berlin.
Guilty pleasure outside racing?
A rum punch on the veranda when the Caribbean night closes in.
Race you wish you'd been there for…
Mahmoud winning the Derby in 1936, in a record time which stood for 59 years – if only to see the condition of the track at Epsom on the day; it must have been rock hard (officially described as “firm”). Possibly there was even quite reduced grass coverage on parts of the course. What could present-day industry participants learn from this? In spite of Mahmoud's not winning again after his Derby triumph, to his credit he ran three more times, including in the St Leger (in which his stamina ran out and he finished third). His legacy lives on through his granddaughter, Natalma and her son, Northern Dancer.
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