Matt Coleman Is Thoughtfully Mastering The Selection of The Best Horses On A Budget

This leads us to his latest sale, the Arqana 2YO Breeze Up Sale, where he joined other heavy-weight consultants and owners in buying some of the best 2YOs in training. Stroud Coleman Bloodstock’s purchases included 3 colts by Sea The Stars, New Bay, and Bolt D'oro and 2 fillies by Hello Youmzain and Zarak.

It’s a sunny afternoon in England for Coleman when he joins us for a video interview, just a few days after the conclusion of the sale, held annually at Deauville. Looking back on his career, Coleman reflects on what drew him to horses and how he evaluates differently to people who come from families that have been in racing for generations.

When it comes to the tangibles, could you tell us a little bit more about your selection process? What makes a horse special?

Obviously pre-sale, I'd have a look through the catalogue and would pick out any pedigrees that particularly appeal to me. Sometimes you spot interesting patterns in a pedigree before you go to the sale.

As Anthony (Stroud) and I have been doing this for a long time, the vendors will try will promote the better horses to us. So maybe pre-sale, at some of the previous sales, they might have said, Matt, or Anthony, I've got this really smart horse in our cart and that would stick in your mind. We do look at quite a lot of the horses before they breeze time permitting and then we would watch them breeze.

The breeze tells me a lot. I make notes as each horse goes past and learn quite a lot such as the horse’s attitude, how he took the breeze in terms of whether he got very upset beforehand or was very keen in the breeze or whether he sweats or anything like that. And then when we get the times, we also evaluate the stride length etc.

Then you go and look at the horses. You see how sound they are, trot them up after the breeze, and then they talk to the vendors quite a lot about the horses they like and the horses they don't.

Later we ask a vet to inspect the horses that we like.

And then at the end of the day, it's about having sufficient money. Anthony's very fortunate that he buys for His Highness Sheikh Mohammed for Godolphin, and he buys for some of the Bahraini Sheikhs so he often has bigger budgets to spend for them than I do.

I try to think outside the box a little bit to try and find the horses that I like that maybe aren't super obvious to everyone else. I've had a bit of luck over the years from breeze-up sales buying.

What made Lot 127 by New Bay an exciting prospect from a pedigree perspective?

New Bay is a very proven sire of Group One performers around the world. He won the Prix du Jockey Club, Prix Guillaume d'Ornano and Prix Niel before finishing third in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. I always keep a close eye on his stock. Lot 127 is out of a mare by Galileo who is the most important sire and broodmare sire of our generation. And any horse that's out of a Galileo mare instantaneously would get my attention. And in addition to that, he's from a very good pedigree.

Conor Hoban, who breezed the horse, had been recommending the horse for quite a long time. He's done some very smart pieces of work. He was more of a progressive breeze rather than particularly fast. But I was buying him to hopefully be a wonderful 10 – 12 furlong horse. He had a very good stride, and he's just a fabulous horse to look at. it was a combination of factors.

We had to go quite strong on the budget. But we managed to secure him. We've actually turned him out on a farm in a paddock for a month after the sale because he's a big horse. He's a staying type of horse, and he'll be very much a horse to run at the end of the season.

We've given him a month's holiday after this after the sale. And then he'll go to trainer, Amy Murphy, in Newmarket, and probably start his training in July. And then we'll build forward from there. And hopefully, he can race in September or October this year.

Would you say purchasing is a team effort?

It's very much a team effort. I often work with different trainers. And I always ask the trainer their opinion, and we'd swap ideas. I also swap ideas with Anthony. We sit down before every sale and go through all the horses we like and discuss ideas about which horse might suit which client and how much the horse will make.

We all have different ideas and pick up different bits of information. Anthony might hear something that I don't hear, I might know something on the pedigree that he doesn't know. We swap ideas that way. And then we talk to our clients.

Obviously, certain owners or trainers have preferences for certain types of horses or off certain vendors or certain pedigrees. it's all a mixture of knowledge and information and I always think two or three heads are better than one head when you come to buying a horse because, you know, people you know, the trainer might spot something with a horse I didn't spot and I might know something that he doesn't know he or she doesn't know. It is all a mixture of information.

What has been your past experience with this sale?

It is certainly one of the premier Breeze sales in Europe. As it's later on in the season, vendors tend to target it with a horse who could perhaps run a little bit further, like seven to ten furlongs. The horses tend to have a bit more size and scope and also might be a horse that perhaps hasn't been pushed quite as hard to do a fast time as might happen with some of the earlier fast, smaller 2YOs. They always have plenty of quality with the pedigrees.

Could you tell us about some of your successful graduates from the sale?

It's been a lucky sale for us. Probably the best horse I bought here was a horse called Robin of Navan. He cost € 47,000 euros a few years ago, we bought him for a syndicate with Harry Dunlop. He managed to win Group Three and Group One as a two-year-old and went on to be successful in major races across Europe.

He was sired by American Post and as I mentioned earlier, I've had a bit of luck buying some good horses by unusual stallions. American Post was a successful but fairly small-time French stallion. Robin Of Navan was a multi-Group winner and he's probably the best news story I've had out of the sale.

Will you be attending any other sales in 2024? And if yes, which ones?

I go to almost every flat and jump sale in Europe. If there's a sale, I'm usually present. I have clients with various different budgets with various different plans and goals. So, I buy horses at all levels of the market. As there's usually a good horse in every sale I research every sale. I try and work most of the sales quite hard.

Is there any specific sale that really gets you excited?

Any sale or buy a good horse is it gets me excited. I mean, I'm very much driven by having success on the racetrack.

In terms of the obviously Deauville in France and Baden Baden in Germany are probably the two most enjoyable locations to visit and they really give you a chance to see the top bloodstock in England and Ireland and France and Germany. But, the yearling sales are fantastic all around Europe.

Can you tell us a little bit more about your early influences in horse racing and bloodstock?

Well, that goes back to when I was very small. I was actually born in Australia and my father used to take me to the races at the Flemington Racecourse when I was just in still in a pram. And then my parents moved to the United Kingdom when I was five in 1983. At the time, if I wasn't playing sports over the weekend at school, then I was I always went to the races with my dad.

Dad never worked in the industry, but he's always his hobby. And I just grew a love of the love of the sport. After I finished university, I worked for the British Horse Racing Authority in London for four years. Later I got a place on the Godolphin Flying Start Program. That's a wonderful program hosted by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed. I did two years working on Darley stud farms and for trainers around the world. And then I was fortunate enough that at the end of the two-year internship, I was offered a job by Anthony Stroud to be his assistant. That was 18 years ago. Now we're business partners, and I've been there ever since. I've just built a client base myself but I was fortunate that Anthony gave me a job. I did one sales season with him which went quite well. A few of the early horses I bought did quite well on the racetrack. And I’m still here 18 years later which is amazing.

What motivated you to pursue a career you know, as a bloodstock consultant eventually forming Stroud Coleman Bloodstock?

The truthful answer is I didn't plan that. I always had a really strong knowledge of form and pedigrees. I wasn't a particularly horsey person, I could ride a little bit, but I was more I was more into form, you know, analysing races and looking at the pedigrees. And at the end of the Godolphin Flying Start, I was just lucky that I got offered a job by Anthony Stroud.

What I wanted to do, I just wanted to be part of the racing and bloodstock industry. I literally fell into it rather than had the plan to do it. And I think because I had a good knowledge of form, particularly pedigrees, I feel I brought a different angle to the bloodstock world than other people who have worked on stud farms and more from a horse-orientated background.

I've managed to grow my client base that way and obviously, developed an eye for a horse.

How did your early experiences shape your approach today?

Well, the way I learned how to look at horses first was just by seeing them in the parade ring before a race meeting. you know, if there was a 2YO Maiden, I'd be trying to select the winner from the paddock. I learned to go and look at the horses in the paddock and get an idea for what horses they could run and maybe have a bet or two and try to pick out the horses that way. So that was how I first got into educating myself about how to look at horses. Even now when I select a horse, I always go to the parade ring at the auction but before the horse goes into the sales ring because my eye is trained to how I look at a horse in the paddock at the races. Obviously I look at the horse beforehand, but I would always go and look at them again particularly a foal, or a yearling or a breeze-up horse because that's how my eye is trained. And that will give my final impression of the horse.

Where do you see innovation and growth specifically within the thoroughbred industry?

The growth is coming from the Middle East. Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar, and those parts of the world are becoming increasingly big players in our sport. Godolphin obviously have been doing that for a long time. You've seen well-known racing from Qatar. And now the Bahraini Sheikhs are really getting involved as well. So the growth areas are certainly in the Middle East.

in terms of innovation, I think all of us are becoming more savvy with analysing form and certainly the breeze-ups. There's all sorts of information about stride length and the sectionals or times of the breeze ups, and pedigree. There's a lot more data to analyse than there used to be when I first started doing this job. It's definitely becoming more data-based and more technological. But at the end of the day, having a good eye for horses is still very important. You can do all the data analysis you want. But, you know, being able to see a good horse and spot an angle that other people can't, is still going to prove beneficial.

How would you see this industry evolving with the younger generation?

I think that one of the key challenges is to get the younger generation involved in horse racing. In the UK we definitely have an ageing demographic of owners and racegoers. And I think we all need to do that in order to preserve the future of the horse racing industry.

But equally, there are young owners who are getting into the sport and young breeders. And if you come around the sales in Europe, there's a lot of young people English, Irish, French, who are getting involved in the industry, buying and selling horses. Obviously, we have a lot of challenges. In Europe, or certainly in the UK in terms of prize money. We need to get the prize money up because compared to other countries in the world, it's not great. But equally, we do have some of the best horses in the world. Our horses are always going to be of attraction to the overseas marketplace. But anything we can do to attract young breeders and young racegoers; I think is very important.