Duncan McGregor strikes oil once more with €16,000 dam of Marhaba Ya Sanafi

Duncan McGregor was really supposed to be running down Newtown Lodge Stud before fate intervened.

The Scotsman is now responsible for one of the most opportune pieces of business that could happen to anyone, having bought the dam of Poule d'Essai des Poulains winner Marhaba Ya Sanafi for only €16,000 at Goffs last November.

His motive behind Danega’s purchase was the fact she took him back to the beginning of the breeding operation he has kept for the last 30 years or so. It now provides a valid reason to be planning once again for the future.

"I worked in the oil industry, the commercial end of the trading," he says. 

"It’s a high-pressure job and by the time you’re in your 40s it’s like a football player in your 30s, you’re kind of half-shagged. I always fancied owning horses, we’d had a couple of chasers that won a few but weren’t much good, but we bought this place in Ireland and started to staff it with the help of Robert Hall, a great pal of mine.

"Of the first three mares we bought, the most expensive one died and the other two were like blue hens. One was called Near The End [whose subsequent family includes Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte winner Captain Marvelous] and the other Gradille, who's this family.

"Gradille came from a dispersal by Baroness Thyssen but I didn't know she’d already bred La Meillure, dam of Sholokhov, the top National Hunt stallion. Later you had [Irish Derby winner] Soldier Of Fortune on the page, there’s only black type there."

Danega is out of a half-sister to the dam of Jim Bolger’s Dewhurst winner Intense Focus, but McGregor goes back four generations and far beyond what could be covered concisely in the 2022 November Breeding Stock catalogue.

"Gradille was very successful," he continues. "I could almost claim it was my family, but I won’t argue with Mr Bolger, he bought a lot of horses out of that family from me, like Dolydille. They were consistent black-type performers, occasionally a Classic winner.

"Eventually the mare got old and died, had one daughter and we lost her, and I wanted to buy back in. I tried once, spent quite a lot on another filly who turned out no good from the family; I was just looking and saw this one. I knew everything about the family, it wasn’t a surprise, I went with a plan to buy the mare."

McGregor, 80, had a quick look but, struggling with an injured hip, got some further approval from both bloodstock agent Larry Stratton and Jacqueline Norris of Jockey Hall Stud, who both help him.

"I bought her quite cheaply and was always going to buy her, so it’s luck," he insists. "Of course it was luck."

Very often in instances like these, the buyer has an intuition or a useful tip-off that one of the mare’s progeny has the potential to bolster her future value. In this case, McGregor was almost totally unaware of Marhaba Ya Sanafi’s existence, let alone that Andreas Schutz might be nurturing a Classic winner in his Chantilly stable. After his narrow defeat of Isaac Shelby at Longchamp this month, he is set to challenge for the French Derby.

McGregor says: "She’d had a winner by Iffraaj that had won one race in Germany, the next one was an unraced Muhaarar, the next was only a yearling, an Acclamation filly. I was talking to a friend of mine who said, 'Duncan, how do you spell this Danega?' She said, 'This Muhaarar ran, it was fourth at Longchamp'. 

"I said that the catalogue prints earlier, I suppose there’s a chance. Then she said it was entered again, and it won on the all-weather at Chantilly. It was all quiet for a bit, and he only just won at Chantilly in March, went to the Prix de Fontainebleau and was a good second to American Flag. 

"The trainer said after we go onwards to the Guineas, and he said something strange like 'with no pressure'. Does that mean he expects to win or expects to lose! We thought we’d see what happens. So it’s absolutely unbelievable."

Falkirk-born McGregor is the sort of man who you know has led a life but doesn’t need to tell you every boastful detail. He used to own greyhounds and found an interest in horses as his wife Lynne is the daughter of Charlie Mallon, who trained Linwell to win the 1957 Cheltenham Gold Cup. He landed the odd touch with Mick and Noel Quinlan, the shrewd brothers who trained in Newmarket, but left the working grind of London and lives happily in Kildare full time.

"It’s a great area for bloodstock, everything’s to hand and the Irish National Stud is just up the road," he says. "We’ll keep one or two mares but that’s all. Danega has the most beautiful colt foal by Hello Youmzain, his first foals last year made a lot of money so we’ll have to think about if we sell him, and has been covered by Minzaal.

 "I really believe we had good families, bred a Group 2 winner and lots of good horses. It all sounds very blase but this is by far the biggest and most exciting."

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