'We Were Willing To Work – And To Take A Risk'

Year after year, the thread of his horsemanship snags another big prize in the web of his many different interests. And this spring Gabriel Duignan is back on the GI Kentucky Derby trail—this time as breeder, his Springhouse Farm near Lexington having started Forbidden Kingdom (American Pharoah) along the road that has already taken in two of the big Californian trials, latterly the GII San Felipe S. at Santa Anita last weekend. 

Before you ask: disappointingly, there's no real story behind the nickname. When he started as a kid at Airlie Stud, his predecessor had for some reason been known as “Spider”, and the guy in charge just couldn't keep his real name in his head. On the third day he gave up, and announced that Duignan might as well be Spider too. “Though I was a skinny, leggy young guy, so it suited a bit as well,” notes Duignan.

But if that particular line of inquiry turns out to be something of a wild goose chase, then at least we can now formally acclaim Duignan and his wife Aisling as the ultimate such quarry.

Last week they were profoundly touched to return to their native land to be jointly saluted by the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders' Association with the “Wild Geese” Award, made to compatriots who fly the tricolour in exemplary fashion on foreign fields.

They were amused, too, by some of the themes of a video tribute. Repeated reference was made by friends and colleagues, with an air of perplexity, to Duignan's roots in rural Co. Leitrim. (“Okay, so there wasn't a huge horse culture,” he concedes. “But surprisingly enough, there were always a few horses around.”) Paramount's Lesley Campion noted how well the couple complemented each other: “Aisling's smart, hard-working, astute; just a lovely, decent, kind, welcoming person. And, um, Spider is a good dancer. And is tall. And is from Leitrim.”

But the real cornerstone was a contribution from John Magnier, who employs Aisling as Director of Bloodstock at Ashford Stud.

“Spider, I knew you were clever from the time you were working for Tony Ryan and did so well for him,” the Coolmore boss said. “But when you got married to Aisling that confirmed how clever you were.”

Magnier recalled Aisling leading the mares out “as a kid” in all weathers: “Dressed up in rain gear so you could hardly find her. But she always stood out, really, and it's not a surprise to me that she's reached the heights that she has.”

“Those were lovely words he said,” her husband says. “To be fair, I think they've always had a great relationship. Look, it was a beautiful award to receive, the ITBA did a great job putting on the whole night, and the whole thing is very gratifying really. It's always nice to be recognised by your peers.”

Over the years, of course, Kentucky has become something close to a 33^rd Irish county. But when Duignan first arrived in 1985, recommended to Bill O'Neill at Circle O Farm, he was only just behind a pioneering wave of migrants led by the likes of the late Gerry Dilger, himself winner of the Wild Geese Award in 2018. It's fitting, as such, that the bursary fund collected in Dilger's memory should be devoted to fresh cycles in that ongoing, transatlantic exchange of enthusiasm and experience, with two young women from Ireland set to arrive for their belated stint at Springhouse.

“Because of lockdown, unfortunately we weren't able to bring them over as planned last year but we're looking forward to the two girls coming over in the spring and that'll kick it off,” Duignan says. “An American student is also being sent to the Irish National Stud. It's a great thing to give young people the kind of experience that we had. Gerry was such a super guy, kind of the godfather to us all over here, and I'd like to think his fund will be around a long time into the future.”

Opportunities like this, and of course the Godolphin Flying Start, were not available when this wild gosling first took wing, and the Irish expatriate community in the Bluegrass duly owes a great deal to the informal impetus provided by John Hughes, in Duignan's own case, and Michael Osborne, in so many others.

“I'll forever be indebted to John Hughes,” Duignan stresses. “He was head vet at Airlie while I was there, and took a personal interest in sending me over here and setting me up with a job at Circle O. He was a great guy. Himself and Dr. Osborne were the two that looked after a lot of young Irish people at the time, and sent us on our way.

“None of us had very many dollars in our back pockets when we got here. But I guess Ireland was in pretty bad shape at the time. We arrived with very little expectations, but we were willing to work and grateful for any opportunities we got. And then there was a little of that entrepreneurial spirit as well. When we did make a few dollars, we were prepared to take a risk and invest in a horse. It's a fantastic community: a great bunch of people, very close, almost like family really. Everybody pulls for each other.”

For all the banter about his upbringing in a relative backwater of the Turf, Duignan came from a farming family and, like so many compatriots, exported an engrained, instinctive stockmanship.

“I was just one of those kids born with a love of horses,” he says. “My brother Cahill was the same, and we were sent to a local guy who broke horses. I started with the ponies and gymkhanas, but figured out pretty early on I wasn't good enough to make a living out of that. So I transferred over to Thoroughbreds at Airlie Stud. I do think a stockman is a stockman, absolutely: if you've an eye for a horse, you'll have an eye for cattle, for any animal really. And that love for the land is very closely related too. You can learn, you can help yourself, but I see American kids that grew up on a farm, and it's just the same: it gives you a little edge.”

That raw material couldn't have been better shaped than by O'Neill, who had managed Bwamazon Farm for Millard Waldheim before taking on Circle O.

“He was a great mentor to me,” Duignan recalls. “He was a proper, old-fashioned Kentucky hardboot. It was hard work, no messing around, but I learned a lot off him. And actually I've just been lucky through life, working with a lot of good people. Like David Garvin, who gave me the opportunity to start buying horses for him at Ironwood, a beautiful farm I managed for him at Bowling Green. And then Dr. Ryan took me on [as president of Castleton-Lyons]. Another great man: he pushed you, he had great foresight. I learned a lot of the business part of things through him.”

And that element would be critical to Duignan's development of such a diverse portfolio: farm owner, breeder, pinhooker and, in 2001, founding partner of Paramount with Pat Costello. They had already been the core investors, along with Ted Campion, in a pinhooking partnership they called The Lads.

“I've always been lucky to have great partners,” Duignan says. “Gerry. Ted and Pat. Charlie O'Connor. Back then, I guess a good bit of it was trial and error. But we all learned a lot from each other. And our timing was good. The market had been a bit more closed before, but as things became more commercial you had more opportunities for striking out and selling on your own.”

His association with Costello now goes back some 30 years. He suspects that they first met in a pub.

“Believe it or not!” he says with a chuckle. “Yeah, we met shortly after coming here and just hit it off and have been friends ever since. Obviously we think a lot alike, as far as a horse is concerned. You do need to have give and take, if you're going to do partnerships, but to be honest we've never had any differences.”

The ultimate partnership, however, is naturally that with Aisling herself. Duignan submits willingly to all the facetious inferences of their friends in the ITBA video.

“She's been huge help,” he says. “It's lovely to have somebody you can bounce things off that's smarter than yourself. She has unbelievable energy, has to juggle lot of balls in the air, and I don't know how she does it: she's a very sharp businesswoman, but also a wonderful mother and just a fantastic person.”

All ribbing aside, however, everyone acknowledges Duignan himself as an outstanding horseman. Wearing his various hats, he has processed too many good horses for there to be any doubt about that. During his time at Castleton-Lyons, Duignan assisted in the rise of Malibu Moon, while young stallions No Nay Never and Gormley are among the graduates of the Paramount consignment. If forced to identify one dimension of his portfolio that gives him most pride, however, it would probably be the mares that have found their way to various farms under his supervision.

When Point Given (Thunder Gulch) was a weanling, for instance, Duignan brought his dam to Ironwood for $160,000; she was sold for $2 million in the same ring five years later. He bought the dam of Gio Ponti (Tale of the Cat) for Castleton Lyons. Then there was dual Grade I winner Brody's Cause, co-bred with William Arvin Jr. and Petaluma Bloodstock after the $130,000 acquisition of his dam.

Just last year two juveniles to have been through Duignan's hands scored at the elite level: GI Starlet S. winner Eda (Munnings) was sold by Paramount as a Keeneland September yearling for $240,000, while GI Breeders' Futurity S. winner Rattle N Roll (Connect), pinhooked as a $55,000 weanling via Rexy Bloodstock, was sold in the same consignment for $210,000. And now, from the same crop, Forbidden Kingdom is advertising the alert recruitment of his dam Just Louise (Five Star Day) for just $150,000, despite her GIII Debutante S. success in a light career.

“That's what it's all about, at the end of the day,” Duignan says. “The buzz of good horses. I think the biggest thing, looking back, was the day I started investing in the game rather than just working in it. In life, you always need luck and thank God I've had my share of that too. But there are always risks involved, so you do need the mentality to take the ups and downs. If things go wrong, you have to be able to take it and move on; you don't look back, only forward.”

In raising a horse, equally, he feels you have to let things flow; to expose horses to the challenges that help them mature into fighters on the track—very much, he suggests, part of a culture shared by his fellow “wild geese”.

“I do think we try to let them be horses,” he says. “They're kept outdoors as much as possible, kept in the herd as much as possible. I think it's very important you don't hothouse horses, because I think it's been proven through the years that you just make a softer individual that way. I think probably all the Irish guys are a bit like that.”

Duignan rejects the pessimism expressed by many for the American industry. Purses in some states are very strong, he notes, while that even the pandemic yielded reasons to be cheerful in increased handle, and a remarkably robust bloodstock market.

“No doubt the business has shrunk over the last 20 years,” he admits. “But it's very resilient. At the end of the day, there is that bond between humans and horses. It's a great game, and I often say that I probably never worked a day in my life. If you love what you do, there's no better way to go through life. So long as you're able to take a few knocks along the way, it's a lovely way to make a living.”