Unsold at €19,000 as a yearling, now a British Classic winner – meet the Norman breeder behind Highwayman

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History runs deep at Normandy breeding institution Haras d'Ellon. Many of its finest graduates owe something to bloodlines and breeding decisions that predate Thierry de la Herroniere, stretching back through generations of horses and his own family.

Highwayman is a rather different story. The St Leger winner, who carried Saffie Osborne into the history books at Doncaster as the first woman to ride a British Classic winner, is a product of De la Herroniere's own vision.

The Normandy-based breeder had been unable to sell the Persian King colt in the ring at the Arqana Deauville October Yearling Sale in 2024, where he was unwanted by the market at a mere €19,000.

De la Herroniere had found Highwayman's dam, Salyana, back in 2017 from an Aga Khan draft at Arqana's December breeding stock sale, going to €32,000 for a US-bred daughter of Harlan's Holiday who had beaten one rival home on her only start for Alain de Royer-Dupre at Nancy.

"What I liked about her is she's from the family of Siyouni, I'm a big fan of his," De la Herroniere said.

"It was a disappointing moment [when Highwayman failed to sell]. He was very correct, I don't know what the problem was. But I sold him privately to the owners [John Neocleous]."

De la Herroniere would be very much forgiven for having forgotten about Highwayman in his entirety. The colt who had shown next to nothing in his first four starts this year has turned the situation around dramatically since mid-summer and powered down the Town Moor home straight to make headlines around the world.

Thierry de la Heronniere, left of friend Alec Waugh, at TattersallsCredit: Tattersalls

Joseph O'Brien's colt is the fourth and final foal out of Salyana, who has had only one other winner in the Wootton Bassett colt Swann. He broke his duck in the De la Herroniere silks in a maiden at Fontainebleau a couple of years ago and has gone on to race in Qatar.

"I'm very proud to have bred the horse. It's very important for me," De la Herroniere said. “I'm very proud for my family and for the history of Haras d'Ellon, the stud itself."

Haras d'Ellon, which is just south of Bayeux, was founded by De la Herroniere's father Herve back in the early 1970s. He was the breeder of Vitiges, a son of Phaeton out of former Wildenstein mare Vale who won the Prix Robert Papin – in those days a Group 1 – followed by the Prix Morny.

At three Vitiges finished a good second to Wollow in the 2,000 Guineas before contesting the Derby, where he was sixth behind Empery. Switched from Gerard Philippeau to Peter Walwyn later that season, he would drop back in trip to beat a good field in the Champion Stakes.

Thierry de la Herroniere subsequently bought back into that same line and bred Volta, another daughter of Siyouni. The winner of the Prix de Sandringham in 2016 was later third in the Prix de Diane and second in the Rothschild.

It is also the family of another smart performer of the present for Ellon in Wootton Verni, a French export to Australia who won the Group 2 Neville Sellwood Stakes at Rosehill in March and would appear a likely type for Chris Waller to find further spoils with towards the end of the year.

"Volta was a big horse for me," he said. "Porlezza, who won the Maurice de Gheest was bred at Haras d'Ellon for Mr [Paul] Hilger and Teppal, who won the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches [2018] was also bred at the stud."

In overseeing about 50 broodmares, a considerable number of whose progeny head to the sales, De la Herroniere is constantly updating and reviving his strategy. The one real disappointment is that the collection does not contain any of Salyana's immediate relatives.

Volta: smart filly was one of Haras d’Ellon’s best graduatesCredit: Alan Crowhurst

"The mare unfortunately has died a few years ago and I don't have much of the family left," he said. “I've got just one member of the same family, not a daughter or a sister, but it's the same line going further back through the grandmother. She's got a colt by Onesto who I'm taking to Arqana in October [lot 369]."

Highwayman just appears to be a horse who has defied expectations all the way along and is the first Group 1 winner for his sire Persian King, the top-class miler and Arc third whose career has not really caught alight to date for Haras d'Etreham. 

There were no obvious indications of reserves of stamina on his maternal side with Salyana being out of a sister to Slickly, a multiple Group 1 winner over a mile and ten furlongs for Godolphin. Slickly is an uncle of Jean-Luc Lagardere winner Siyouni and his half-sister Siyouma, who took the Sun Chariot over a mile.

De la Herroniere was being congratulated on Monday by his old friend Alec Waugh, who runs Jedburgh Stud in the same region and hails from an even more venerable racing family himself.

"Vitiges was a hell of a horse and he went on to stand at Someries Stud in Newmarket, which my father managed for the Philips family, and that's why we've been friends for a long time," Waugh said. “We're going to have a good lunch for Saturday; I hope he's going to pay as well!"

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