A Hollywood ending for young start-up Hyburcon Bloodstock

Lady Hollywood’s recent victory in the Prix d’Arenberg at Longchamp was symbolic for more than one young name to note in the industry.

The chestnut filly, who had already struck three times for Amo Racing and rising training star Alice Haynes including in the Listed Marwell Stakes in Ireland, became the inaugural Group winner for her first-season sire sensation Havana Grey.

If that wasn't enough, Lady Hollywood was also making a giant mark in the story of Hyburcon Bloodstock, a small Anglo-Irish syndicate for whom she was a very first pinhooking venture.

Hyburcon is an amalgamation from the names of Seb Burnett-Wells, Ian and Eoin Hyland and Shay Connolly, who had grouped together to select her at the Tattersalls December Foal Sale.

"We were looking just to buy one, we’d underbid a couple during the week, it had got through to the last day and we’d got through our list," says Burnett-Wells. "We looked through the rest of the lots, 100 or maybe a little less than that, and we picked out this filly.

Lady Hollywood is already a Listed and Group 3 winnerCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

"We went to look at her about half an hour before she went through the ring. We liked her, she went for 10,500gns but the vendor bought her back [for 11,000gns]. After the hammer came down, the vendor came back to us and said we could have her for the original bid as the owner wanted to sell."

Explaining their thinking behind the selection of the daughter of winning Cadeaux Genereux mare Dubai Legend, who is from the family of top miler Where Or When, Burnett-Wells continues: "We were looking at first-season sires and a few of the Havana Greys had made a bit as foals so we were interested in him but hadn’t managed to get one. With this last one left, we took a chance on her.

"There was a three-year-old on the page that Hughie Morrison trained, Legendary Day. He hadn’t done much at the time but we hoped he might do okay, he got to a rating of about 80 before we sold the filly, so that helped a bit."

With the filly in the bag, Hyburcon Bloodstock had some useful expertise to get her ready for sale as a yearling.

"I went and did a stud season at Kildangan in Ireland and that’s where I met my business partner Ian Hyland and Eoin Hyland," Burnett-Wells explains.

"We said to each other while I was working there that it would be great to pinhook a foal, so we got on and did it. Ian is the son of Paul Hyland, Eoin is the son of Jimmy Hyland and the family has Oghill House Stud.

"Oghill were happy to take her on and prep her, she went there three months before the sale, and before she was at Ian’s place.

"We loved her, she looked amazing. The only problem was she was in the Sportsman’s and we thought she was a bit early, we’d have liked to have gone to Doncaster but we didn’t get in there. As it was, she made €25,000. She was the fourth fastest breezer at the Craven Sale but we’re happy that Amo Racing kept her."

Out early for Haynes, Lady Hollywood won on her third start at Lingfield and has been a model of consistency.

Burnett-Wells says: "We can’t believe it, our first ever pinhook, you couldn’t even dream it. She’s a hardy little filly, she’s run badly only once at what was probably the wrong trip [in the Lowther Stakes]. She’s been class."

Such a run of success has helped Burnett-Wells, 21, to crystallise his own plans for the future. After a brief spell riding in point-to-points, he has spent the last two years as a pupil assistant at the burgeoning Newmarket yard of Tom Clover.

"My dad was an amateur for a little while and he’s always done horses, he worked for Michael Jarvis for a long time and has been working for Roger Varian for a long time," he says.

"He flew horses globally for 20 years so he’s always kept me in it, and my auntie is Lucy Wadham, so I’ve always been out riding there as a kid.

"After these good results I’m sort of more into the bloodstock, I’m enjoying doing the training but I could see myself doing more bloodstock rather than go into the training side of it."

The Hylands and Burnett-Wells reinvested proceeds and Hyburcon Bloodstock now has several more interesting prospects up for grabs in the coming months.

"We bought a Phoenix Of Spain who is going to Book 3 and he looks brilliant," says the founder.

"He’s a half-brother to Mostly Cloudy and when we bought him the half-brother had run only once I think, he first got a rating of 60 then worked his way up, won five times and is now 98. We've also got a Calyx who’s going to Book 2 and he’s lovely.

"We also wanted to try to do something else so we managed to pick up a mare in foal last year at the Fairyhouse sale for two grand, and she dropped a lovely Profitable foal who we will potentially try to sell at some point."

With their mixture of youthful enthusiasm and a fine grounding, it looks as if Lady Hollywood will not be a one-off blockbuster for Hyburcon Bloodstock.

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