‘We’d be fool-hardy not to breed to him’: Peter O’Brien maps the spring for Segenhoe Stud

Since 2013, Irishman Peter O’Brien has captained the ship at Segenhoe Stud. This will be his 10th breeding season at the pretty Hunter Valley establishment, a property he claims is “the perfect farm”.

Segenhoe is one of those illustrious operations that ticks over as a broodmare farm only. There are no stallions to worry about, so no books to fill and no catchy marketing required. It’s all about the girls, which is exactly how O’Brien likes it.

“The beauty for me, leaving Coolmore all those years ago and coming to Segenhoe, was that I had a blank canvas to work with here,” he said. “It was incredible. I had this complete, open canvas and it was invigourating. I’ve had a couple of stallion shares over the years, but I try to avoid that now because it can cloud your judgement, especially at this time of year.”

O’Brien worked at Coolmore for 25 years. It was a long and successful tenure and it was the making of him. However, at Segenhoe he has been knee-deep in outstanding thoroughbred families without the theatrics of the stallion game, and he loves it.

The farm will breed 140 mares this spring, 50 of them belonging to Segenhoe Group and 90 belonging to clients, and those clients include the likes of Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum, Amelia Park and John Camilleri.

“Most have been clients of mine for 30 years,” O’Brien says. “They’re not actually clients now; they’re friends.”

The process of selecting matings is individual, according to O'Brien. It can vary from complete selection on the part of the client, with O'Brien hovering for an input required, to a collective effort.

“John Camilleri, for instance, will ultimately make the decisions when it comes to his mares, and I’m there for any physical or pedigree side of things. For Sheikh Khalifa, I’d be very much involved with Tim Stakemire, and the same with Chris and Jane Barham.

“In fact, for all our clients, it’s a collaboration and I love this time of year. I love the pedigree side of things, researching the matings. The physical side of things then is quite easy.”

After so long in the game, O’Brien has fascinating insights and opinions on breeding mares. He is almost methodical, a fan of the tried, tested and historical.

“I used to look after Vincent O’Brien’s mares when I was a young fella,” he said. “He was there one day looking at some of his foals, and he was saying that everybody makes the mistake of looking at a stallion when they’re retired and four years of age. He said you have to remember what those stallions were like as a yearling because that’s what they’re going to throw as types.

“It’s very true. If you look at stallions when they’re four or five, they’re mature horses, so you want to remember what they were like as yearlings because that’s what they’re going to produce, generally.”

O’Brien says it’s a worldwide truism in thoroughbred breeding, so during the winter, when he is planning matings with clients, he is also digging through old notes and making phone calls, researching first-season stallions and how they might have presented as yearlings.

“When we’re doing matings, I’d always look for notes I have on that stallion as a yearling,” he said. “If it was a Darley horse, for example, I’d ring John Sunderland at Godolphin and ask him all the questions. And that’s just for input into the physical attributes of a mating. Of course, there’s much more to the whole process.”

There is a lot more to the process at Segenhoe, especially as the farm is handling some of the best bloodstock in the Australian Stud Book. O’Brien shared with The Thoroughbred Report a shortlist of some of this season’s bookings and, overwhelmingly, they are elite mares going to elite stallions.

Let’s take a look.

Breed the best...

Among the Segenhoe-owned mares on this season’s breeding list are Breakfast In Bed (Hussonet {USA}), Eloping (Choisir) and Pretty In Pink (Sebring).

Group 2 winner Pretty In Pink factored at Randwick on Monday when her first foal, Shivermepink (Zoustar), was among the new season’s very first juveniles to trial. The filly, trained at Tulloch Lodge, finished second.

Pretty In Pink is booked to Zoustar this spring after foaling a Snitzel filly on August 24. It’s a good mating on many fronts, namely that Shivermepink set a good precedent when selling for $520,000 at this year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. Consigned by Segenhoe, she was bought by Waterhouse, Bott and Kestrel Thoroughbreds.

Gallery: Some of the matings Segenhoe has planned for this season, images courtesy of Sportix

Breakfast In Bed, meanwhile, is a headline mare. She is the dam of King’s Legacy, who was a $1.4 million yearling and who is currently carving his stallion reputation at Coolmore. Breakfast In Bed is booked to Snitzel, probably to replicate that successful Redoute’s cross that resulted in the dual Group 1-winning King’s Legacy, while the mare is expecting a Snitzel foal any day.

Which leaves Eloping, a dual Group 3 winner who is already the dam of the superstar filly In Secret (I Am Invincible). Eloping is expecting a foal by I Am Invincible and she is booked back to the Champion Sire. It will be her third successive visit to him, and her fifth overall.

“It would be extremely rare for me to risk a very good mare with an unproven stallion,” O’Brien said. “Why would you? But there are obviously exceptions.”

One of these exceptions is the 7-year-old mare Taraayef, a daughter of Lonhro who belongs to Camilleri’s Fairway Thoroughbreds. She is a winner of the Listed Poseidon S., bred by Shadwell and bought by Camilleri via James Harron Bloodstock for $1.2 million at Shadwell’s Magic Millions dispersal two years ago.

Taraayef is booked to Anamoe, a prolific stallion for Godolphin but a very new one for Taraayef.

“We’d be fool-hardy not to breed to him,” O’Brien said. “He’s as good-looking a horse as I’ve ever seen. I went down to see him in the saddling areas at Randwick when he was racing, and he blew me away. When I saw him a month after, when he was retired, he blew me away even more.

“He’s just got so much quality and a beautiful action. Some people say he’s expensive for a first-season sire, which he might be, but he’s full. He’s a beautiful mating for some of our mares, so we were always going to send some of the good ones to him.”

Segenhoe will also send to Anamoe the Fastnet Rock mare Jolie Bay, who belongs to his long-time and loyal clients Chris and Jane Barham. This is the Legally Bay (Snippets) family, and Jolie Bay was herself a Group 2 winner and is a full sister to Merchant Navy.

She is expecting a Zoustar foal this spring, a stallion she has visited for the last four seasons, so Anamoe will mark a significant change in direction.

Galley: Some of the Segenhoe mares visiting Anamoe this season

Tempering the risk

Among the mares booked for Sheikh Khalifa are the four-time Group winner Anaheed (Fastnet Rock) and the Group 1-winning pair of Oohood (I Am Invincible) and Hiyaam (NZ) (High Chaparral {Ire}).

Anaheed is booked to I Am Invincible after a year off, while Oohood is going to Maurice (Jpn) and Hiyaam to Snitzel. Once again, they’re high-end names booked to high-end stallions. Oohood is the only one of the trio expecting a foal this season, due any day to Wootton Bassett (GB).

“In the first three years of a mare’s life, no matter what grade of mare they are, we’ll try to send them to two proven stallions out of the first three years,” O’Brien said. “That’s the bedrock of the decision-making. But I always say to people that there are so many variances in breeding, and everybody has their own different way of going about it. We, being Segenhoe and our clients, this is the way we try to go about it.”

In the case of the Sheikh’s mares, O’Brien works very closely with agent Tim Stakemire, who does the Sheikh’s work. They collaborate closely, along with much of the Segenhoe team that includes Brian Clarke, the farm’s assistant manager, and broodmare manager Luke Taylor. It’s a proverbial think-tank.

“Tim will do his list of mares and we'll do ours,” O’Brien said. “Then we’ll sit down as a group and run through it, sometimes seven or eight times until we get to the final number. We also look at the overall portfolio of mares and the exposure of that portfolio to proven, first-season sires, etc.

“For instance, you don’t want too much of that portfolio to be risked with second- or third-season stallions. That’s just a helicopter view of things, but you need to get the balance. Yes, you can take some risks, but balancing the portfolio without too much risk is always what we’re trying to achieve.”

Gallery: Some of the matings for Sheikh Khalifa's mares this season, images courtesy of Sportpix

Vegas Showgirl (NZ) (Al Akbar), most famous as the dam of Winx (Street Cry {Ire}), has fallen under this rule for much of her breeding career.

At 21 years old, she has consistently visited Encosta De Lago, Exceed And Excel, Snitzel, Deep Impact (Jpn) and I Am Invincible. She is expecting a foal by Snitzel this spring and is booked back to I Am Invincible.

She is in good hands at her advanced age and still well-capable of producing a fine racehorse. Last week, her I Am Invincible filly, Time Of My Life, was a barn-storming winner on debut at Geelong, winning by 1.75l for co-trainers Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman.

It’s also no secret that aged mares have produced magnificent champions late in their careers, among such being the English star Estimate (Ire) (Monsun {Ger}), whose dam was 20, and Ouija Board (GB) (Cape Cross {Ire}), whose dam was 19.

There were also the game changers Royal Academy (USA), Holy Roman Emperor (Ire) and Secretariat (USA), whose dams were all 18 years old, not to mention when Urban Sea (USA) (Miswaki {USA}) foaled Sea The Stars (Ire), she was 17.

Vegas Showgirl will return to I Am Invincible for the second time in her life in aid of a sibling to Time Of My Life.

The overseas input is growing

Amelia Park is a significant client at Segenhoe and one that has brought it a lot of attention via the boom filly Amelia’s Jewel (Siyouni {Fr}).

On the day that Amelia’s Jewel was winning the G2 Let’s Elope S. at Flemington, which was her east-coast debut last week, her dam, Bumbasina (Ire) (Canford Cliffs {Ire}), was in France for another dalliance with Siyouni (Fr).

Bumbasina will return to Segenhoe in foal to the French star, who has been so popular on a limited book to Southern Hemisphere time. She will also have a Siyouni colt at foot.

Likewise, Fairway Thoroughbreds has the likes of Fireworks (Snitzel), California Zimbol (I Am Invincible) and Sangria (I Am Invincible) all possibly returning to Segenhoe after overseas covers to Frankel and Siyouni.

O’Brien said he’s noticing that breeders like Camilleri are opting to keep mares in Europe just that little bit longer and, as such, there are yearlings coming down to Australia when usually it’s been foals at foot with their dams. Segenhoe welcomed four such Frankel fillies just three weeks ago.

It means that well-bred Australian mares are returning to Segenhoe eventually with a yearling, a foal at foot and a cover to these high-end European stallions all in the portfolio. Is it a sign of things to come?

“There are not many absolute proven sires in Australia,” O’Brien said. “You basically have Snitzel, I Am Invincible, Zoustar and So You Think. It’s a very narrow field to work with, and, if you’ve got a Danehill-line horse, then take Snitzel out.

“So you’re dealing then with three stallions, and Zoustar and So You Think need little, neat mares. So, invariably, this opens up your gene pool. Frankel is arguably the best stallion in the world and Siyouni is working down here. We would have sent more to him but he’s limited to a small number I believe, maybe 15 or 20.”

Australian breeders like Camilleri are becoming known for their international investment, and he’s not alone. There are many others who have been prepared to risk the European influence in Australia, and it’s worked out. It’s why a steady stream of Australasian bloodstock is heading to such horses as Kingman (GB), Frankel, Siyouni and even Gun Runner (USA) now.

Certainly, at Segenhoe, it's become a fixture of the breeding season these days, adding incredible depth to one of the most interesting and high-achieving farms in the country.

Table: Some of the matings Segenhoe is planning in 2023