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| Staff Writer |
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The Holland family has its roots in greyhound racing but luckily for the betterment of horse racing and trading Brendan Holland’s career went a different route.
Born in Ireland he spoke about his childhood, his journey and his success along the way.
“I am from Blarney in County Cork and that’s where I grew up and went to school.
“Even though I wasn't born on a stud farm, that's where I developed a passion for horses from an early age.
“My family was in the greyhound business but my dad's number one prime interest and hobby in life was racing, and it still is.
“My father had the greyhound track in Cork for forty years and my brother is involved in breeding and my cousin is a trainer, so we are very involved in the greyhound business.
“From hanging around with Dad and going racing from an early age to betting shops, point to points etc I developed a passion for horses.”
With a passion for horses Holland decided to work away from the family business of greyhound racing and follow his dreams.
“I suppose I have a greater passion for the horses than I had for the greyhounds.
“I wasn't quite sure initially how I could make a career out of horses not having a barn or any form of connections but I knew it was a career that I wanted to pursue.
“I went to college and studied agriculture at UCD. While there I met a student who had worked at the renowned Mount Coote Stud. I was very keen to get the best experience in the industry so I applied to do the yearling sales season there. After interview I was delighted to work at Mount Coote as a student preparing yearlings under the tutelage of Alan Lillingston.
“There was an annual intake of students from all over the world prepping their yearlings and I was privileged to gain that valuable experience.
“With that experience with Mount Coote, I could see that there was a career path that I could develop and follow.
“When I completed my studies, I just kept going with a career in horses.”
Horses All The Way
From this point, Holland knew there was no other alternative in his career for him going forward.
“I think as soon as I started working for Mount Coote, as soon as I landed on the stud farm, I knew it was for me.
“My only thoughts then were how I would develop that career path but once I started to work in that side of things, I knew I would never do anything else.”
Throughout his career, he has had various mentors and individuals who have guided him along the way, but it was a chance meeting at university that really got the ball rolling in his career.
“Well, I was very lucky! I mean it was a chance encounter in college and a chance conversation that led me to getting a place as a student at Mount Coote.
“Mount Coote at that time had a very international reputation for preparing yearlings and I remember the year I started six students were taken in from over 100 applicants.
“That in itself is quite remarkable and when you think how many years later, we have such a worldwide staff shortage, in every aspect of the industry, but it was amazing the number of people who wanted to start their careers in the industry.
“One of the reasons Alan Lillingston was considered not just an outstanding horseman but he was also a great mentor, not only to me but to many other students that started their careers under his tutelage.
“He was certainly a very big influence on me. When I set up my own, he continued to support me sending me horses to pre-train. I was lucky that he had a manager at that time called Paul McCartan. Anybody who knows horses will know that Paul is an outstanding breeder and pinhooker. So, he was my first manager and he is a fantastic horseman.
“Again, lots of young people have started their work under Paul and he's helped so many careers. He's extremely knowledgeable and we are still great friends.
“From the very start, I was lucky enough to work with good people.
“After doing two or three yearling preparations with Mount Coote I then moved on to work during a breeding season at Rathbarry Stud.
Liam Cashman, owner of Rathbarry, stood Barathea for the flat and Strong Gale was the leading stallion of the National Hunt. Therefore the farm had top-class stallions of both codes for a long time.
“Liam was another fantastic horseman and it was a great place to work under an extremely knowledgeable person. You worked hard and you learned plenty working with extremely talented horse people.
“After working there for a year what I felt I was lacking was a direct experience in horse racing and I wanted to change direction slightly and get more involved in racing.
Australia Beckons
“That’s when I decided to go to Australia and after a few phone calls I landed there starting off in Flemington for John Meagher. I spent six months with John and he had a very good yard at the time with some talented horses including a horse that won the Victoria Derby called Staroftherealm.
“Then I went to Randwick for the next six months working for the legendary TJ Smith and his daughter Gai Waterhouse. The year was 1993, TJ’s last year of training.
“When you speak about mentors, these are big names and outstanding people.”
With this experience directly with racing in the Southern Hemisphere, he returned home.
“When I left TJ and Gai I came back and got a job in England working for Mark Johnstone I stayed with him for nearly eight years and became his head man eventually.
“It was a very successful period for Mark Johnston Racing because there were 55 horses when I started, and it grew to 155 by the time I left.
“Mark broke the record for the fastest 1000 winners ever trained in England while I was there and of course now he has gone on to become the winning most trainer in England.
“Mark was a groundbreaking trainer at the time who was very innovative in his methods and a very successful businessman too. I gained a huge amount of experience and learned so much about training racehorses.
All the top trainers have got certain things in common.
“It's not just their application and their knowledge - it's the systems that they have put in place to run their yards.
“Eventually I wanted to work on my own, that was always going to be the plan when I felt that I had enough experience and had a few quid put together.
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The Transition to Grove Stud
“I started trading horses when I was working for Mark. I bought a few cheap yearlings , broke and pretrained them and sold them at the breeze up sales in Doncaster.
“When I left Mark after those eight years, I had some stock and money put together and came back to Ireland to rent a farm . I started trading full time as Grove Stud while also preparing and consigning horses for other people.
“Right now we are in the middle of getting ready for the Breeze Up season.
“ Grove trades foals to yearlings and yearlings to two-year-olds. We have 50 to 60 two-year-olds in the yard at any one time in the spring.
“The first bunch of two year olds have already gone to the respective trainers. We have also sold two at the Goffs Dubai Breeze Up Sale.
“I also buy foals and resell the foals as yearlings and we move into the summer season where we start getting the yearlings ready for the autumn sales.
“I then go to the sales and sell them and then restock again for the following breeze-up season.
The Key Element
With each sale, Holland says that one thing stands above all else when it comes to what he is looking for in terms of a potential purchase.
“Pedigree is the first thing I look at. So first of all, I make a selection based on pedigree. Obviously good stallions produce a higher percentage of successful racehorses than a lesser stallions.
“I want as much of my stock in the yard and farm by good stallions and out of proven mares, so that’s where I make the first selection.
“After that, we do physical inspections, I have a partner Stephen Hillen who has a very similar experience to me. He is Irish and went to England the same as I did. So, we have kind of parallel careers and we’ve been friends and partners for twenty years now.
“He looks at them on his own and I look at them on my own and then we cross over and we look at them together.
“I think if you ask anybody who was trying to buy a racehorse, they’ll come back to you and say they are looking for balance, movement and athleticism but we still end up taking home different horses.
“We buy what we like and what we can afford based on the pedigree and conformation.
“Anybody can be lucky once or twice but to maintain success in selecting and making it profitable with good horses that can run, that is the difficult part.”
Making Mistakes Along The Way
Throughout his career at sales and in trading Holland has seen that sometimes sales trends are not always the best guides to buying racehorses .
“While I primarily look for successful sires, I also have bought some good horses that would not have been considered in the long run to be successful sires but have been from nice dam lines and were good types.
“One of which was by Intense Focus called Astaire. He was a Group One winner at Newmarket and is the one that sticks out the most.
“Another similar horse was a foal by Lilbourne Lad who wasn’t really a top-notch stallion by any means called Dinozzo who was a Group One horse in Hong Kong.
“I think one of the keys to buying good horses is to buy a lot of horses. The more horses you buy the better chance you have of being successful. If I was gifted enough to go buy a handful of horses every year and expected to find good ones in every bunch, I would be rare, that’s not the case and it’s very difficult process.
“I’ve been involved in buying or selling 20 to 25 horses that have been won or placed at Group One level.”
The Charm Of Pinhooking
Holland enjoys the thrill of the chase and pinhooking is one of his favourite skills to have, as is the case with most Irishmen, he said.
“I think I'm correct in saying that the term pinhooking comes from Kentucky and it is a term that's been borrowed from the tobacco industry.
“I think pinhooking basically is trading stock, you know, from the foal market to the yearling market and the yearling market to the two-year-old market.
“Irish guys like dealing and pinhooking seems to suit them, of the pinhookers in Europe 90% of them are Irish.
“Even when you go to America some of the top guys that are pinhooking there are Irish. I think it’s that aspect in their psyche that lends them to liking dealing and trading in horses and exploiting the skills they’ve learnt as horseman.
“I’m no different I like dealing, I like trading and selling, and I like pinhooking.”
A prime example of this is when he purchased Ringfort Stud's Cracksman filly out of Coolmix at the 2020 Tattersalls December Foal Sale. Now called Madly Truly she is trained by Joeseph o Brien .
“The particular filly, she was beautiful, and she had a really attractive balance and outlook.
“Outlook is something that's hard to really describe but when you see something with a good outlook and a good presence it’s very attractive , her balance and movement was really great also .
“She qualified in the respect of pedigree ,when I’m buying fillies ideally I want black type in the first dam.
“The filly developed normally, she was nice when I bought her and nice when I sold her. I bought her from a good farm and good breeder in Derek Veitch .
“Listen she is very exciting for this year and ran really well last weekend in the Guineas Trial . We also had a runner , Bold Discovery , who was placed in the colts Guineas Trial on the same day and another colt Alexandroupolis , who was placed in the Derby Trial . It was a good weekend for Grove Stud Graduates .
Success At Meydan
At the recent Dubai Breeze Up Sale, a colt by Constitution (out of Caribbean Babe) was the third most expensive horse sold ,as Holland recounted.
“That colt was an unsold yearling at Keeneland in September. I was asked to look at him with a view of whether would I be interested in breezing him.
“Now the funny thing was I actually had his two and half year-old half-brother last year to pre-train and he went to Jessica Harrington, and he has had two starts. He won his maiden impressively and then was Group placed in the second start, so I was quite familiar with the family and liked the horse.
“Lovely big scopes horse, lovely movement and again a good outlook. His brother had a very strong mind, and nothing phased him. From the get-go even though he was big he is really a very late maturing two-year-old.
“When those horses look like they are going to be 3YOs with the quality they show it early. Immediately we started riding him and his galloping was effortless. So, I had a fair idea that the horse would do well, and he vetted very well and had a fantastic action.
“Extremely athletic, good pedigree, a good type and I would have been disappointed if he didn't sell as well as he sold. It was a great price, but I was not really surprised.
“The buyers ,Najd Stud are from Saudi Arabia, and we are hoping he can be a success story for them next year, but he looks like a real classic ten-furlong type horse to me.”
Lookback
Having come into the industry with no established connections Holland looks back on the journey from his late teens that has brought him so far and is grateful for every step along the way.
“I suppose when you are starting out you are thinking about your next move and what’s in front of you. I had a long-term view to work for myself, but I actually did not know where to start when it came to working for myself.
“Would it mean pinhooking or breeding, actually training would have been my first choice? If you asked me to go back 25 years ago, I would have preferred to become a trainer.
“But anyway, I dropped out of that, maybe I wasn't courageous enough to go to training.
“I started trading when I was working for Mark Johnston to get a taste of it and was moderately successful enough that I decided I would pursue trading as opposed to training.
“I'm grateful for what the industry has given me that I've been able to pursue my dream but the highlights along the way, you don't really think about those things happening to you .
“Everyone wants to be linked to a champion horse and have those connections.
“It’s indescribable the buzz being associated with a good horse whether you’re the strapper, breeder, the work rider or the guy that bought it.
“I think when people are sat at home watching racing on tv they don’t actually realise how many people are invested in that horse throughout their racing careers.
“It’s very exciting having that connection but also very addictive always looking for the next one.”
The One Great Race To Win
Having had connections to victories and places that include the Melbourne Cup and the Derby, Holland is quick to respond to the race he would love to be a part of.
“I'd love to win the English 2000 Guineas.
“I've had a horse place in the English, Irish and French Guineas along with placings in the French Oaks, the Kentucky Derby and the Melbourne Cup.” We have also sold the winner of the French Derby and Irish Champion Stakes , now a young successful sire The Grey Gatsby .
As we come into April and Holland’s trading year progresses what is to come is in focus for him as he detailed.
“We now go to the Newmarket sales coming up before the Doncaster sales the following week.
“Two weeks after that we go to Deauville and then back to Ireland for the last sale which is Goresbridge .
“I'm finished breezing at the end of May and there's another sale in July.
“The next two months are selling two-year-olds and then we will have a bit of a clear out here on the farm and get ready to bring the yearlings back in and start preparing the yearlings for the year.
“I will spend a considerable amount of time during the summer making improvements on the farm and watching racing , forming opinions about what stallions are performing and planning strategies for the autumn.
“We spend the summer forming an idea of what we will do during autumn and what we think is likely to happen the following year.
“Whatever we buy in the autumn we need to sell the following spring so it is imperative to choose well.
Grove Stud has achieved an international reputation for purchasing and producing high quality bloodstock and racehorses. We intend to grow that reputation with continued success at the sales and on the track.