Cool Silk Partnership enjoying a hot spell with its breeze-up purchases

This article first appeared in our pullout preview of the breeze-up sales, published March 28

Peter Swann has enjoyed so much success with his breeze-up purchases that he reports, only half joking, that he will have to keep a low profile when bidding at this spring's round of sales to ensure other players don't poach his picks.

The successful businessman and chairman of Scunthorpe United football club has celebrated Royal Ascot triumph with Prince Of Lir, purchased for £170,000 from the Goffs UK Breeze-Up in 2016, and welcomed £75,000 Tattersalls Ireland Ascot graduate Sands Of Mali into the winner's enclosure after the colt's victory in the British Champions Sprint last October.

Both horses have generated handsome profits, with Prince Of Lir sold to stand at Ballyhane Stud – his first crop are now yearlings – and Phoenix Thorougbreds taking a share in Sands Of Mali, who finished a creditable sixth to Blue Point in the Al Quoz Sprint on Dubai World Cup night at Meydan on Saturday.

“We'll have to hide when we try to buy the ones we want at this year's breeze-ups, or employ a few strange people to do the bidding,” laughs Swann, whose charges, including other notable breeze-up finds such as Charming Kid and Chica La Habana, have been sourced with the assistance of bloodstock agent Matt Coleman and trainer James Given.

The horses carry the white silks and purple cap of the Cool Silk Partnership, an umbrella that covers his family – wife Karin, mother-in-law Barbara Wilkinson and sons Christopher and William.

Explaining the genesis of the enterprise, Swann says: “I've been involved in racing for a long time, always been fascinated by the sport, and as a bit of a gambler I wanted to know a bit more.

“The chance came along to get into ownership with my mother-in-law – we both love our horses and she had some time on her hands – and we developed Danethorpe Racing and Swann Racing into nice mini-brands between us.

"We were very successful, particularly on the all-weather, culminating in one year when we had 25 winners to finish second only to a member of the Maktoum family in the winter owners' championship.

“Cool Silk came along around a decade ago. The name is a combination of Cool Sands, who won 11 races for me but sadly died of colic, and Sahara Silk, a very successful all-weather horse of ours, especially at Southwell.

“We'd had 150 to 200 winners up to that point but decided after one of the all-weather campaigns that we'd like to have a crack at two-year-olds, to try to produce quick turnover, aim for success at Royal Ascot and if all went well, turn a profit on the colts and sell the fillies at the December sales.”

One of the first horses who raced in the Cool Silk name was the Speightstown gelding Royal Bajan, bought for £125,000 at the Doncaster breeze-up in 2010.

“He was a fantastic horse, very fast, but broke a sesamoid soon after we bought him,” says Swann. “We thought he was so good he could have won a Norfolk, but he didn't race until three and went on to win 17 races. He was a great servant to us.”

Another early flagbearer for the Cool Silk Partnership was Oriental Relation, a 12-time winner by Tagula bought for £37,000 at the then DBS Breeze-Up Sale of 2013.

COOL SILK PARTNERSHIP'S BREEZE-UP STARS

Prince Of Lir
5yo b Kodiac-Esuvia (Whipper)
Bought at Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale in 2016 for £170,000

Won his first two starts including the Norfolk Stakes within two months of his purchase; now stands at Ballyhane Stud, with Swann having bred three yearlings from the sire's first crop

Sands Of Mali
4yo b Panis-Kadiania (Indian Rocket)
Bought at Tattersalls Ireland Ascot Breeze-Up Sale in 2017 for £75,000

Gimcrack Stakes winner at two, triple Group scorer at three including in British Champions Sprint; bought into by Phoenix Thoroughbreds and has a bold international campaign mapped out, starting with the Al Quoz Sprint at Meydan

Charming Kid
3yo b Charm Spirit-Child Bride (Coronado's Quest)
Bought at Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale in 2018 for £105,000

York novice stakes winner on debut and third in July Stakes at two; an easy winner of a Dundalk conditions stakes in January and being targeted at the All-Weather Championships at Lingfield

A few other nice horses featured among the owners' early runners, along with some indifferent ones, until Swann decided around six years ago to fine tune the family's approach to sourcing stock at the sales.

“I decided at that point we needed help,” he explains. “I met Matt Coleman at the sales and had a chat with him, telling him we wanted assistance in identifying different vendors and the people who work with the horses so that we would have a better idea of the horses' backgrounds, as well as co-ordinating and helping to interpret timings.

“James Given, who has been with us about ten years and is a qualified vet, does our vetting, even for the horses who don't end up going to him.”

The more professional outlook appears to have paid off, the first coup being Prince Of Lir winning the often informative Brian Yeardley Conditions Stakes at Beverley and Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2016 – both times demoting subsequent Middle Park Stakes winner The Last Lion to second – within two months of becoming a joint sale-topper at Doncaster.

“We sent Prince Of Lir to Robert Cowell, not realising at the time that he wasn't renowned for training two-year-olds, rather older horses and sprinters, but I'd been talking to him and asked if he fancied a breezer,” remembers Swann.

“When we sent the horse to Robert I think he was a bit shocked, and he was surprised how well the horse was working. We wanted to run him first time out in the Brian Yeardley although we were worried about the Brocklesby winner The Last Lion, but Robert said Prince Of Lir was beating a lot of talented older sprinters in his yard. He'd probably already run up to a rating of 95 to 100 before even setting foot on a racecourse.

“He duly won at Beverley and then went on to win at Royal Ascot, and I was pinching myself. We'd bought him in April and two months later he'd won a Group 2 and then we sold the stallion rights. It was that simple.”

Prince Of Lir leads home his rivals in the Norfolk Stakes at Royal AscotCredit: Mark Cranham

Swann might have thought he'd achieved his greatest moment on the racecourse with Prince Of Lir. But at the following year's breeze-up sales, along came Sands Of Mali.

Like Prince Of Lir, he was pinhooked and consigned by the master of Bansha House Stables, Con Marnane. Unlike Prince Of Lir, who is by juvenile sire extraordinaire Kodiac, he has an exotic pedigree, being a son of the unheralded Panis out of a mare by Indian Rocket bred in the French provinces.

“Sands Of Mali was the first horse that breezed at Ascot that year,” Swann recalls. “I knew nothing about Panis and he was a touch plain, a bit boxy, and he didn't do the fastest time, but he moved exceptionally well and covered the ground effortlessly. I said to Matt I liked him and would like to have a go at buying him, and we got him.

“At the time we were expanding our roster of trainers as we were spending a lot of money and didn't want to get stuck with having horses in one stable in case they became poorly.

“So Sands Of Mali became the first two-year-old we sent to Richard Fahey. Then, around May time, we got a call from Richard telling us this horse was beating the likes of Kimberella and that he might be a bit special.”

Sands Of Mali did indeed prove to be a bit special, defeating subsequent Listed scorer Eirene by nearly four lengths in a Nottingham novice stakes to break his maiden at the second time of asking, the pair pulling 13 lengths clear.

Next time out he made all to land the Gimcrack by two and three-quarters of a length before disappointing in the Middle Park Stakes – Newmarket never bringing out the best in the horse – and running an honourable ninth in a vintage Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf from which Mendelssohn, Masar, Catholic Boy and James Garfield emerged.

At three last year Sands Of Mali landed the Prix Sigy and Sandy Lane Stakes before finding only Eqtidaar too good in the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot. He signed off for the season with an all-the-way victory over no less than Harry Angel in the British Champions Sprint and is now in Meydan with all roads afterwards leading to a return to Ascot for the Diamond Jubilee Stakes and then an ambitious international campaign that could take in the Everest in Australia.

“To win on British Champions Day and be turning up at Meydan with an Ascot breezer who has no pedigree, no one knowing who his sire is, is going to take a lot of beating,” reflects Swann. “It's like turning up at Crufts and winning best in show with a cross-breed,” he adds with a chuckle.

Despite Sands Of Mali's humble origins, his owner believes his genes could invigorate the stallion ranks eventually, as a refreshing alternative to the procession of Sadler's Wells, Green Desert and Danehill-line horses on offer at present. He calls it a “clean pedigree”, noting a “growing fragility” in some of his purchases from more heavily mined dynasties.

His faith in the family is demonstrated by the fact the Cool Silk Partnership has bought Sands Of Mali's year-younger half-sister by Kheleyf, the 16-length novice stakes winner Flawless Jewel, and that filly's two-year-old brother named Sands Of Giza, with Fahey and considered to have “some ability”.

As if Prince Of Lir and Sands Of Mali weren't enough, Swann and family can also look forward to January's Dundalk winner Charming Kid, a £105,000 Goffs UK Breeze-Up buy, aiming for the All-Weather Championships at Lingfield, and Midnight Sands, a €90,000 Arqana Breeze-Up acquisition, having a productive Dubai Carnival in 2020 after winning at Meydan by four lengths for Doug Watson this month.

Swann might not want others to steal his choices at the coming breeze-ups but he gives some clues to his recipe for success.

On the subject of timings, he says: “Matt does them but there'll be plenty of horses I tell him I don't like regardless of how quick they run. Alternatively there are some we'll give extra credit to if they got going late or didn't handle the ground. There might be some who are wound up specifically for the breeze and won't ever run that fast again, which is fine, as long as you're aware which they are.”

He goes on to advise that, with breezers, “it's more about how they move – you have to take your mind off the pedigree and concentrate on which are the racehorses”.

Summing up his enduring love affair with this sector of the market, he adds: “We've continued to go back to the breeze-ups because we believe you get a good chance to see some quality horses – yes, you sometimes have to pay a bit of money to get what you want – but they have taken our family around the world and given us some of our best memories together.”

Read our pullout preview for this year's breeze-up sales in Europe