Rolf Johnson: 2011 Yearling Parades

No, Sat Nav hasn’t sent you to Wimbledon by mistake though the paddocks are as manicured as the lawns of the All-England Club. This is Highclere Stud, Hampshire, braced for its annual invasion – and for once the Castle isn’t the first line of defence.

Though not one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Highclere Castle, designer Sir Charles Barry, responsible for the Houses of Parliament, is currently as famous as any building on the planet doubling as it does as ‘Downton Abbey’. There’s a TV Christmas Special of the prodigiously successful period drama being filmed in the Castle, so Highclere Syndicate members and guests, for the first time in nineteen years, are routed direct to the heart of the stud.

Eight hundred people over four days congregate in the stallion covering shed, now the domain of Paco Boy, for breakfast on the hoof.

There follows what is best described as a thoroughbreds’ catwalk where Highclere Racing’s yearling intake, introduced by Harry Herbert and his brother-in-law John Warren, strut their stuff.

After the presentation, a sumptuous free lunch (on the house rather than the castle) in a marquee that is more miniature palace: no wonder the Highclere Yearling Parades are as hot a ticket as the Cartier’s (coincidentally another Herbert enterprise).

The majority of shares in the sixteen yearlings on show (“from the 2500 we examined” – Warren) were snapped up when brochures went out in mid-summer. Many of the Parades’ audience are there to see what they have bought blind: some to swap; others to speculate.

“We do need fresh blood each year,” said Herbert. “While we’re fortunate in the loyalty of so many people, new faces are essential, especially as we continue to expand.”

Among its other claims to fame the 2000-acre estate provides the oats which help make Richard Hannon champion trainer. No man enjoys a celebration more. “The only thing I’d miss the Parades for is a winner,” he said.

During lunch Hannon-trained Highclere filly Forgive rocks up at Yarmouth – cue high jinks.

Of the eight, two-horse syndicates, prior to the Parades four were fully subscribed. They included the most expensive, the Wavertree, consisting of an Excellent Art colt going to William Haggas, and a Galileo colt destined for Sir Michael Stoute, offered as a package for a first-year payment of £46,950 plus VAT.

“The syndicate was originally going to cost around £36, 000,” Warren explained, “but we had to redo the maths when we got the Galileo (225,000gns) and Harry was not sure it would sell.”

The syndicate filled on the first morning.

On his first visit two years ago Sir Desmond Pitcher, former Everton and Littlewoods deputy chairman once dubbed ‘Mr Merseyside’, purchased his first share, in a filly – Memory.

“It’s about joining a club with a circle of unique people,” he said. “Football is a collective, arena sport, whereas horseracing goes on all the time and you’re involved with a small group”.

One of Highclere’s staunchest supporters, Sir Alex Ferguson, all smiles, no chewing gum this day, echoes Sir Desmond’s sentiments.

Herbert says, “We have more than five times the syndicate membership of that first year. This is a huge production and couldn’t be achieved without my Highclere team. The Parades are part of a package. We want them to be informative, educative and colourful. The environment is right and John and I swap anecdotes about the Sales while he switches on the light regarding the finer points of each yearling.”

It’s a formula that has tilted many a hesitant ‘might-be’ into considering that the pleasure of following their horse was worth more than bean counting. Those beguiled into the standout at the 2007 parade bought into what was to become the best horse in the world, Harbinger. Returns from his sale to Japan were life changing.

A star of this show was a Highclere ‘freshman’, Sir Henry Cecil. He will train a Shamardal colt from Ireland’s Round Hill Stud in the Archer Syndicate made up with a Manduro colt out of the Galileo mare Gaze, which goes to Luca Cumani – twenty shares, first year £16,950 plus VAT: full.

Herbert is gifted with the flourish of Simon Rattle, the bonhomie of Terry Wogan. “Sir Henry was underbidder for the Shamardal” he told his rapt audience. “He said to me, ‘I don’t know about the protocol but I would love to train that colt’. I spluttered, yes of course Sir Henry. Who am I to say ‘wait your turn’ to the great man?”

Proudly announcing that his sister Lady Carolyn and John Warren had been leading consignors at Tatts for the fifth successive year, Herbert observed: “There was a weird atmosphere at the Sales much like when the Maktoums came in and locked horns with Robert Sangster at Keeneland, the Northern Dancer days. The prices just went up and up and up.”

The Cape Cross daughter of Herbert and Warren’s mare Model Queen, who has already produced Group winners Regal Parade and Enteefada, fetched half a million.

“Would that I could have afforded her for Highclere,” said Harry. “But we were in there battling for the crème de la crème. The Galileo, from Glenvale, has the priceless Darshaan cross. The Excellent Art’s half-brother is Canford Cliffs whom I could have had for relatively little money as a yearling. Instead I went for a filly with Richard – a £7million mistake!

“We match horse with trainer – yes it’s good to have them at the Parades (clutching brochures – Highclere one hand, holidays in the other) so the owners can familiarize and fraternize. “Hopefully the marriages are made in heaven,” he laughs, “a certain type of horse for a certain type of trainer; stayers, sprinters, colts, fillies; let’s not go there with geldings.”

Matching shareholders with the right horse – here Highclere can’t be so particular. Ideally let’s say a precocious colt with a thrusting hedge fund manager; a comely filly with a football superstar; a late-maturing sort for someone with life expectancy and ambition (such as Herbert’s own) to cheer home an Ascot Gold Cup winner. There are birds of every feather.

Highclere Thoroughbred Racing has kept pace with the fame (if not the infamy) of the Herbert family seat. Harry is great-grandson of the 5th Earl, the man behind the discovery and transportation from Egypt in 1922 of the relics of Tutankhamun (they’re back in Cairo, replicas remain in the castle).

As a child Harry would wing the corridors, skate the cavernous rooms – to which the Herbert’s have been ‘succeeded’ by the Crawleys. “It is fantastic TV,” he concedes while taking understandable satisfaction when Highclere’s Counsel recently eclipsed a runner by the name of Downton Abbey in the shadow of another castle, at Windsor.

Herbert added: “There are still horses, two-year-olds, to be bought at next year’s Breeze-Ups. There are always people who miss out at the Parades and spend the winter chafing.”

This year the headline winners have not been as forthcoming as annus mirabilis 2010 when Highclere finished fourth in the owners’ table. But Dominant’s sale to Hong Kong was lucrative and there is the infinite promise of Bonfire, Gusto, Graphic, Census, Firebeam, a host of untried youngsters and of course the new intake.

Somehow a three-year-old, the ex-Aga Khan Ranjaan gets a look in. Representing Highclere’s burgeoning jumping team this immense beast is with Paul Nicholls. Perish the thought though, that any of the yearlings end up like Ranjaan, gorgeous as he, a gelding, is…

Harry’s original PA, Sarah Ward, heavily involved with the Parades and with the Royal Ascot Racing Club (whose Elusive City yearling colt is also in attendance), recalls the early days.

“We filched chairs from the Castle tea-rooms for folk to sit on: they’ve a smart mobile grandstand now. At the Castle we used to have our handful of trophies on display (a Tutankhamun-size exhibition nowadays!). No, no goodie bags – brollies though, pencils (Crackerjack!! oh dear) and team clothing – they tell me India’s bloodstock agent attends Sales in his coveted Highclere jacket; he must be boiling.

“Helicopters are welcome, by appointment, (the only one this time, Sir Alex’s, parks discreetly). They do tend to upset the estate’s red kites though.”

Immediately Harry finishes his last soliloquy he was Australia-bound for another. A thwarted thespian (what a natural he’d be in ‘Downton’) his party piece at the Carbine Club (don’t bet against some mention of Highclere) kicked off the Emirates Melbourne Cup jamboree.

“Racing is a very expensive sport,” he said. “You can’t get away from that. But if we can make it more cost-effective for people, that’s great. We’re a hand-holding operation if you like, to help people to get their toe into the water.

“Managing expectations is always difficult but with all the effort that has gone into buying the new yearlings, you have to be hopeful.”

The Highclere Castle website states somewhat disingenuously: “This unique setting is also available for private and corporate events and film locations.”

If Downton Abbey is a sensuous daydream of past Edwardian life and opulence, Highclere Thoroughbred Racing offers a realistic vision of the future.