'I told my mother I didn’t want to go out, I wanted to stay in and study pedigrees' - how a childhood passion paid off

Good Morning Bloodstock is Martin Stevens' daily morning email and presented here online as a sample.

Here he speaks to Francisco Bernal, breeder of wide-margin Goodwood winner Flora Of Bermuda who has a fascinating story to tell - subscribers can get more great insight from Martin every Monday to Friday.

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Spanish bloodstock agent and pedigree guru Francisco Bernal put a lot of thought into the name of his business, Outsider Bloodstock.

“I live in Seville, a long way from Madrid where all the racehorse owners live in Spain, and my family isn’t rich and doesn’t like racing, so I had less chance of making it in this business,” he explains. “I’m an outsider in more ways than one: it’s the perfect name for my agency!”

Bernal might usually operate on the periphery of major western European racing, buying mares and planning matings for mostly Spanish clients, but he made his presence felt at one of Britain’s great festivals this week as the breeder of Flora Of Bermuda, the wide-margin winner of the Alice Keppel Fillies’ Conditions Stakes at Glorious Goodwood on Wednesday.

Remarkably, she is the first runner bred by Bernal himself, and is out of a mare he purchased for the minimum bid of 800gns. The foundations of this extraordinary feat of budget breeding were laid during a lonely childhood in Andalusia.

“I fell in love with pedigrees as a child, when my father brought home a Tattersalls catalogue from our small local track, Pineda,” says Bernal. “I had only one or two friends when I was growing up, and I didn’t like to go out; I preferred to stay at home reading sales catalogues. I used to buy British newspapers like the Daily Star in the city as they were the only things that contained the racing information I wanted.

“It drove my mother mad. She was always telling me I should go out with my friends more, but I told her I didn’t want to, I wanted to stay in and study pedigrees. It’s funny the way things turn out: I have more friends now than at any point in my life, because I met so many people with a shared passion once I got into racing.”

Bernal first became actively involved in the industry after visiting his grandmother’s family in Sanlúcar De Barrameda near Cádiz (apologies for reminding you of all these sun-kissed Spanish spots in what must be the worst summer in Britain and Ireland in decades).

Thoroughbred racing is held on the beach there every August, and it was during one such meeting that he met Pedro Piñar, who managed the stable of Agustín Aulet, president of the Spanish Jockey Club.

Piñar recognised that the young Bernal knew his onions when it came to bloodstock and breeding, and enlisted him to help source mares for Aulet's Cuadra Kebbir.

So Bernal set off to the Arqana December Breeding-Stock Sale of 2006, and on his maiden trip to a thoroughbred auction, managed to pick out the dam of a multiple Group 1 winner for his new patron. De nada.

“It was my first experience of a sale but I bought Entente Cordiale, a placed daughter of Ela-Mana-Mou, for €26,000, only for her son Equiano, an unnamed yearling on her page, to come out and win the King’s Stand Stakes less than two years later,” says Bernal.

Equiano after winning the King's Stand Stakes and putting a smile on Bernal's faceCredit: Edward Whitaker

“As you can imagine, the owner was rather pleased with me, as he was able to sell the mare to Newsells Park Stud for good profit. He used to call me ‘the scientist’, as a joke. I was just happy because I was doing what I had always loved, I was learning as much as I could and I was meeting like-minded people who would become good friends.”

Bernal founded Outsider Bloodstock in 2013 and was managing his clients’ broodmare portfolios with similar shrewdness when he made a new acquaintance in David Byrne, owner of Rochestown Lodge Stud in County Kildare, while comparing notes on a recently purchased mare at the Tattersalls December Mares Sale of 2018.

A few months later Bernal decided to buy a first broodmare of his own to board with Byrne, and so he set himself a small budget and started flicking through the Tattersalls February Sale catalogue.

“I'd been looking for a new farm in Ireland to board my clients’ mares, so I decided to buy one of my own to send to Rochestown and see if it would suit,” says Bernal. “I had just 1,500gns to spend and Dubai Power was my only pick of the sale.

“I decided it wasn’t worth travelling over as I didn’t think I’d be able to buy her – she was a very good runner, finishing fourth in a Listed race, she’d already produced a black-type horse in Power Of Light, and her dam and granddam were stakes performers too.

“So I asked Álvaro Soto, a young and talented trainer here in Spain and a great friend of mine, to bid on her as he was over buying for one of his owners. He inspected her and rang me to say ‘Francisco, you will get her, she is horrible’, as she didn’t look very good at the time of the sale. Then, when she went through the ring, he called again and told me ‘there’s nobody bidding . . . still nobody bidding . . . I will bid now . . . and she is yours, for the minimum bid of 800gns’.”

Dubai Power – a daughter of Cadeaux Genereux and the useful Silver Hawk mare Garmoucheh, who in turn was out of El Gran Senor’s prolific stakes-winning daughter Flowing – was duly shipped to her now home of Rochestown Lodge Stud.

El Gran Senor: Bernal's favouriteCredit: Mark Cranham

“I said to David ‘I’m sorry, she’s very ugly, but just try to do your best with her’,” recalls Bernal. “But he told me not to worry, that he’d call the dentist and farrier and promised that she’d improve a lot, and she did; she was totally transformed within months.

“I sent her to Ivawood that year and got a beautiful filly, but sadly she had a lot of problems and was unable to run.”

It wasn't just Dubai Power's glow-up at Rochestown Lodge Stud that made her look better that year. While she was carrying the Ivawood foal her granddaughter Powerful Breeze, an Iffraaj filly out of Power Of Light, was sent out by Hugo Palmer to win the May Hill Stakes and finish a head second to Quadrilateral in the Fillies’ Mile.

“I suggested to David that we should get a foal share for a top sire in the following season, and he agreed that it would be well worth trying as her page suddenly looked a lot better and it didn’t matter now that she’d cost just 800gns,” says Bernal.

“So I studied the structure of her pedigree and decided I’d love to send her to Dark Angel, and luckily we were able to reach an agreement with Yeomanstown Stud to send her to him.”

Bernal can’t disguise his zeal for pedigrees when describing why he wanted Dark Angel above all others. He almost hyperventilates as he tries to list all the nicks, inbreeding and historical precedents that he identified when studying potential matings.

“First of all, I wanted Dark Angel because he sired Harry Angel from another daughter of Cadeaux Genereux,” he says. “But I also liked him because he is descended in the male line from Try My Best, and Dubai Power has Try My Best’s full-brother El Gran Senor in her family, so it was inbreeding to their blue-hen dam Sex Appeal.

“Marsha, by Dark Angel’s sire Acclamation, was bred in a similar way, except she was descended twice from Try My Best. Ramonti, another top-class horse, also had Try My Best in his top line, and was out of an El Gran Senor mare, so it worked there too.

“I was particularly keen to produce the inbreeding using El Gran Senor as I have a real passion for him; he’s my favourite stallion, and of course it’s not easy to find his blood as he was subfertile.”

Bernal’s intense research was not in vain, as the result of Dark Angel covering Dubai Power was the exciting two-year-old filly Flora Of Bermuda, who was purchased by Yeomanstown Stud as a foal for €65,000 and found her way into the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale, where she was sold by Longways Stables to Highclere for £340,000. She is apparently held in very high regard by trainer Andrew Balding and has the Lowther Stakes on the agenda.

Flora Of Bermuda and Oisin Murphy en route to winning by four lengths at GoodwoodCredit: Mark Cranham

Dubai Power has no yearling but does have a Magna Grecia filly foal who will be offered for sale at Goffs in November.

The mare is no longer in Bernal’s ownership, as he has made a gift of both her and his uncanny knack for planning the perfect mating.

“She’s 18 now, so probably doesn’t have many more foals in her, and as David did such a great job with her and getting the Dark Angel mating I decided to give her to him as a present,” he says.

“But I did so with the stipulation that he sent her to Raven’s Pass, because he is such a good broodmare sire and I think the cross works really well. I dearly hope that she produces a filly and she can be a foundation mare for Rochestown Lodge Stud in the future.

“David is a great breeder and is doing an excellent job for my clients.”

Dubai Power’s change of ownership leaves Bernal with shares in two broodmares, also unearthed for bargain sums.

 He says: “Cazaline is a winning Kentucky Dynamite mare I bought in Arqana for €2,500 in 2021 and belongs to Olé Breeding, a sort of syndicate of small Spanish breeders. She’s in foal to Magna Grecia and has a filly foal by the same stallion.

"Then there’s Princess Gold, a daughter of Style Vendome I bought for €8,000 in Arqana. She has a good colt foal by Phoenix Of Spain but, sadly, was barren to him this year. I share him with David and with Jesús Sánchez Ramade, one of my best owners and another of my very good friends.”

Bernal’s head might be full of theories on inbreeding and crosses, but he makes no claims to genius and is refreshingly honest about some of the choices of matings he has made.

Asked how he had the brainwave of breeding a Phoenix Of Spain foal who can be sold just as the sire is making a breakthrough with his first two-year-olds, who include Tuesday’s Vintage Stakes winner Haatem, he replies: “To be honest, I didn’t have any idea whether he was going to be a great stallion or not, all I knew was that the mating with the mare could work out nicely.

Phoenix Of Spain at the Irish National Stud - Bernal was happy to take a chanceCredit: Patrick McCann

“I don’t have a big budget to work with so all I can do at a sale is send a report to my owners that if we buy this mare, we could send her to that inexpensive stallion, and the cross might work for this or that reason. I just plan the best matings I can achieve within the financial constraints I have.

“And, anyway, nobody really knows about stallions before they have runners. People were telling me at the start of the year that one freshman sire in particular, who has been quiet, was going to get the winners of all the Group races at Royal Ascot, and that Phoenix Of Spain wouldn’t make it. It’s all talk at that stage.”

Bernal’s thorough knowledge of, even fanaticism for, pedigrees and his realistic outlook also assisted him in the purchase of Delhi, the Listed-placed daughter of High Chaparral who is the dam of this season’s dual juvenile winner Chaturanga, for just €2,000.

It also saw him called upon to become the first adviser to the now all powerful Yeguada Centurión, breeders of Blue Rose Cen, in which role he bought Prix Imprudence winner Reina Madre as a foal at Goffs for €350,000 during the operation’s early days in thoroughbreds.

All the while Bernal remains the go-to guy for Spanish breeders looking for advice on buying and mating mares, and managing their stock. Safe to say this outsider is a winner.

What do you think?

Share your thoughts with other Good Morning Bloodstock readers by emailing gmb@racingpost.com

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Pedigree pick

The mile novice stakes for three-year-old and older fillies at Newmarket on Friday evening (7.30) features some well bred but evidently late blooming newcomers.

Imperial Quarter, trained by Roger Varian for Ali Saaeed, is a Dubawi half-sister to Prix Vermeille winner Teona out of Pretty Polly Stakes heroine Ambivalent, while Venus Rosewater, trained by John and Thady Gosden for Bjorn Nielsen, is a Frankel half-sister to Listed-placed Amniarix out of Bold Lass, a useful Sea The Stars half-sister to Haydock Sprint Cup scorer Tante Rose.

The most intriguing pedigree in the field, though, belongs to Queen Of The Pride, who hails from the sole crop of European champion Roaring Lion and will be the first runner for Simple Verse, eight years after the Duke Of Marmalade mare’s St Leger victory.

Queen Of The Pride, knocked down for 115,000gns at Tattersalls in November, when Simple Verse also made 500,000gns, is trained by the Gosdens, on behalf of both her parents’ former owners Qatar Racing.

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