Coventry winner Bradsell's arrival anything but taxing for Deborah O'Brien

Eyes will be drawn to lot 213 of this week's Premier Yearling Sale for one particular reason, the Ulysses colt being a half-brother to the Coventry Stakes winner Bradsell.

For all that the rest of his page is on the short side when it comes to black type, an insight into his provenance and the principles of his breeder Deborah O'Brien shows it in a very different light.

The mathematics graduate found herself fascinated by the theoretical side of the bloodstock game when involved in the ownership of Champenoise, a minor-winning Forzando mare trained by Michael Bell in the early 90s. Through the assistance of Bearstone Stud, she has managed to transform it into Royal Ascot quality over three generations.

"She was just a huge amount of fun and I tried to buy her back at the end of her Flat racing career, she went for a bit too much money and went to Ron Barr up Middlesbrough way, owned by a lovely chap whose dad had an electrical shop in Yarm," O'Brien recalls of Champenoise.

"She got injured. She was hurdling, the only faller I think in hurdles on the all-weather at Southwell, they operated, it never gave her any trouble, but I had said if they ever wanted to part with her, give me a ring for first refusal.

"He did, she was out in the field, as fat as butter, but I said I'd give them £500 now, it was May and too late for breeding that year, and another £1,000 at the end of October if they dropped her off at Bearstone Stud."

Coventry Stakes winner Bradsell was bred by Deborah O'Brien at Bearstone StudCredit: Edward Whitaker

O'Brien has inspiration for breeding on her doorstep in Goldsborough, North Yorkshire, which is where one of the thoroughbred's triumvirate of founding fathers, the Byerley Turk, stood and is supposedly buried.

She has leased her fillies down the line in a syndicate of family and friends called Lovely Bubbly Racing, which suggests they know how to toast a victory but is rather at odds with their background. O'Brien and her husband Michael's hedonistic meeting came when they were inspectors of taxes at the Inland Revenue before Michael's gamekeeper-turned-poacher move into tax adviser.

"Champenoise was lovely; very sound, good looking and a useful sort of outcross but she had just won a selling handicap at Yarmouth, and was a wind sucker as well," she recalls.

"There I was, starting with that, but I set about trying to improve each generation roughly by 10lb if I could. Her first filly Bebe De Cham [by Tragic Role] won two races at two, we couldn’t find a trip for her at three.

"She was a hit-and-miss broodmare but she really clicked with Beat Hollow. I was trying to find the best-bred stallions that I could afford that suited each in the right way, and we got Punch Drunk."

Punch Drunk would score as a juvenile at Redcar but was unfortunate not to add to her total with a string of further placed efforts. The story almost ended here as she would produce only two foals.

"It’s unusual for a page to go as far back as it does but that’s because of the sad loss of Punch Drunk at the age of six carrying her third foal," O'Brien continues.

"One was a colt I sold and the other was Russian Punch, who is by Archipenko. I was in tears when she won on her debut, I was just thinking, 'She’s won, she’s won', because I don’t breed from non-winners.

"I want them to at least have proved themselves and you hope to improve them generation after generation by judicious use of the stallions."

Russian Punch, a juvenile Listed winner in the Radley Stakes, is part of a seven-strong broodmare band that features a couple of other Shadwell families she has acquired.

One, Traditionelle, is of more significance than purely for breeding the Listed National Stakes winner Vintage Brut.

O'Brien explains: "She was born the day we had to put Champenoise down. When the Bearstone stud manager had rung to tell me, she said I’ve got some good news, you’ve got a foal.

"At the time the Europeans had just decided if you made sparkling win the same way as champagne, you could no longer call it methode champenoise, which is how she’d got her name, you had to call it methode traditionnelle. I spelt it wrongly but that’s why I called her that, it’s sort of the handover from one family to another in a way."

She feels she will trim the numbers at some point, with Bradsell's winning Mayson half-sister May Punch one she might consider offering for sale while the family is hot.

While Russian Punch is yet to produce a foal after Bradsell, she has had overtures from various studs. However, having operated with a cautious budget throughout, there will be no flashy and expensive names on her sheet just yet.

"I have to say I've always just wanted to breed racehorses, I’ve not tried to ever just breed sales horses," says O'Brien. "I operated on the principle when I do a mating that I’d be happy for it to be a filly.

"My whole focus has been on them being winning racehorses, hopefully if they’ve done enough along the way and not given too much trouble with vets, then they are going to come back for more.

"I knew roughly what I was looking for in each generation and was lucky enough to land often on the right ones that enabled them to go out and win, and give a lot of owners and trainers pleasure along the way."

Sale time

Deborah O'Brien is already feeling the nerves about her colt for sale, who was born on April Fool's Day, as she is aware of what happened at last year's Tattersalls Somerville Sale, where Bradsell was picked up.

"It was different looking at it as a buyer but as a vendor he was worth every bit of 20 grand," she says. "I was disappointed with 12 but at the same time the mare at the time hadn’t had a winner, you’re taking that kind of a chance and they’re taking a chance on a first-season sire [Tasleet], so I could see why he didn’t fetch as much as I thought he would.

"But Anthony Bromley, who bought him, said that the thing is they haven’t won, but they’re not nothing, they’re obviously nicely rated and they’re getting close. May Punch had been been placed in a Class 4 maiden, so it wasn’t like they were completely hopeless horses, and he loved the individual.

"Bradsell has been in the right hands, there’s no doubt Archie Watson is one of the best trainers there is. You never know where the next good one is coming from, you really don’t, but you can hope and believe, and I loved him from very early on."

Ulysses exercises on the turf at Del Mar 1.11.17 Pic: Edward WhitakerCredit: Edward Whitaker

O'Brien says that viewers can expect something different but equally attractive of her latest offering.

"He’s got a super physique, fantastic temperament, everything you want in a horse," she says. "He looks exactly like Ulysses, being a chestnut with a blaze but maybe a bit more precocious than some of his, that’s what Russian Punch puts into them.

"Obviously you’d hope he’d have the aptitude for something like a mile, which Bradsell would not necessarily have, that’s how they differ.

"I'm a huge fan of Ulysses full stop, I think he’s the most super individual and super sire. He was quite late maturing but his stock aren’t."

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