Simon Cooper

Frankel


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is €600,000. That is to say, over half a million pounds to have your already valuable mare mated with Galileo. And you will not be the only one. Galileo will ‘cover’, as they like to call it in the business, around 150 mares in the breeding season. Forget your Cristiano Ronaldos, LeBron James, Lionel Messis, Roger Federers and Lewis Hamiltons of this world, for Galileo leaves them puffing in his wake. With an annual income of close to £80 million (some of his progeny have been foal shares), he has been one of the highest earning and most valuable sporting athletes on the planet in recent times. And if you think your cheque book will be enough to guarantee visiting rights, think again. Each year over three hundred applications are made for the available places.

      But when I see Galileo, do these figures tumble through my mind? Not a bit of it. All I see is a horse completely at ease with himself and with people who love him for what he is. A truly magical creature, the equine incarnation of genetic alchemy, who continues to sow the seeds to an ever-growing dynasty. And who knows, maybe another Frankel?

      * Foals’ figure to 2017. Other figures to 2016.

       A certain kindness

      Another Frankel? What are the chances? Realistically speaking, infinitesimally slim, but maybe even more slim than we might ever imagine, even though the thoroughbred you see striding out on the racecourse is very much the product of man.

      As a nation we started riding horses in the seventh century; up to then horses were beasts of burden carrying loads, pulling carts or, in the time of Boudicca, war horses powering chariots. By the early 600s, it was considered a matter of status to appear on horseback, with the riders largely confined to those of the first rank of a society still adjusting itself after the departure of the Romans. Wind forward three centuries and the first mention of racehorses appears, called at the time ‘running horses’, and were so well regarded that Athelstan, the tenth-century king of England, passed a law prohibiting their export. However, the owners were not blind to the benefits of new bloodlines and started importing stallions from the continent, a process that was inevitably accelerated a century later in the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings and the arrival of William the Conqueror from France.

      The word thoroughbred is not unique to horses; it is often used to refer to somebody or something of outstanding quality. However, in the context of horses, with the T capitalised, it denotes a very particular hybrid of the breed. The Thoroughbred has a specific genetic make-up, with all the unique characteristics of agility and speed that flow from that. It has been bred for a singular purpose – racing – which sets it apart from other horses, in the same way that say the Shetland pony or the Shire horse have become deft at the tasks for which they have been bred over the centuries. However, while the Shetland is a product of island isolation, the Thoroughbred came about due to a very different set of circumstances, both at the same time deliberate and accidental.

      The Turk, as he tends to be known for reasons that will become apparent, was foaled in the Balkans in 1679 and, as the story goes, was adopted by a near-penniless groom who saw in him great potential and the chance to escape to make a new life for the both of them. So, having trained this young horse in the art of warfare, the pair made their way to Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire, where they joined the Turkish cavalry. By way of the Siege of Vienna, the Turk, along with his groom, ended up in June 1686 as a military charger protecting the Hungarian capital of Buda (now Budapest), a Turkish conquest since the sixteenth century, in yet another siege. The odds against their side, the Turks, winning were slim: they numbered 7,000 soldiers with the massed ranks of the European army, including the British, somewhere close to 100,000. By the end of the summer, Buda had fallen and the Turk along with his groom were captured by a group of English aristocrats who brought them back to England.

      But for all the importance of the Byerley Turk, who was followed to English studs by the Darley Arabian in 1704 and the Godolphin Arabian in 1729, there was no great plan as such. It just so happens that a few of the great and the good of English society took it into their heads that by mixing the Middle Eastern bloodline with the native stock, they would produce a better racehorse. There was no overarching genetic science to suggest it would work – that explanation was some centuries away. It was simply a notion of an idea. But it was an idea of astonishing perceptiveness, for within the space of a few decades they had bred what was termed the ‘enhanced English racehorse’; and with a further nod to Middle Eastern heritage, the Middle Eastern word Thoroughbred was adopted to define this new breed of equine that was by the 1750s being exported to North America, Europe and around the globe. The international bloodstock business is older than you might suppose.

      The Port of Holyhead does not look much like a hub of the international bloodstock trade. Arrivals from across the Irish Sea are greeted by a sign that welcomes them to the Isle of Anglesey, with the next prominent landmark the Lidl supermarket. Those departing from this northwest outpost of Wales probably don’t feel inclined to shed a tear. It is not a place to linger.