'It's like watching your child win at the Olympics' – David Ward enjoying Starman's stellar start at stud

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David Ward must have been born under a lucky star – a fitting metaphor when so many of his horses are stellar both in name and nature.

Surely few other owners and breeders could have enjoyed so much success in such a short space of time as the man who represents the third generation of his family’s award-winning waste and recycling plant in Derbyshire.

Ward made his first two racehorse purchases as recently as 2011 and they included Northern Star, who won and posted a decent peak Racing Post Rating of 91.

He then bred from Northern Star his Cartier champion sprinter Starman, in whom he retained a share when he retired to Tally-Ho Stud four years ago.

Starman is now the European champion first-season sire-elect, with five black-type scorers to his name, and Ward has bred from him three exciting winners of his own, including a bona fide Classic hopeful in Rockfel Stakes runner-up The Prettiest Star.

Ward doesn’t take his charmed ascent to the top of the industry for granted, though.

“I was speaking with Charles O’Brien recently, as some of the mares board with him before going to Tally-Ho Stud, and it’s always wonderful to hear his stories about his father [Vincent],” he remarks. “Charles said, ‘do you realise what you’ve got here?’

“I replied, ‘I think so, why?’ and he said, ‘because what you’ve managed to build, all from one filly who was your first purchase, is amazing: it almost never happens’.

“But I look at it like the National Lottery. The odds are enormous but someone’s got to win it, and it happened to me in this case. I’m very thankful for that, although I’d like to think I might have done a little bit to help bring some luck my way. I’m sure that Ed Sackville, Ed Walker and Ed Player have helped put the odds in my favour too.”

There was certainly no fluke about the purchase of Northern Star for €50,000 at the Goffs Orby Yearling Sale 14 years ago. Ward had correctly identified Montjeu as an exceptional racehorse and sire, and directed Sackville to source a lot by him, and Sackville selected the future dam of Starman out of the five lots by the stallion at the sale that September. She was the least expensive of the bunch, as well.

Starman enjoying time out in the field at Tally-Ho StudCredit: Alice Fitzgerald

“It sounds bizarre, but when I decided to get into racing and buy my first horse I was determined to get a filly by Montjeu that I would be able to breed from in the future,” says Ward. “I just loved Montjeu. That’s how we found Northern Star.

“She was trained by Tom Dascombe and turned out to be pretty talented, but she never really realised her full potential because of an injury. We retired her to stud and Ed picked Kodiac for her first cover, the result of which was Sunday Star, and Dutch Art for her second cover, which ended up being Starman.

“It all worked out rather well. It was extraordinarily lucky – just meant to be, I suppose.”

Ward isn’t entirely immune to poor fortune, mind you. Northern Star succumbed to a severe bout of colic aged only eight, a few weeks after giving birth to her third foal, a filly by Kingman who was named Lodestar.

“She just went down and we couldn’t save her, it was pretty devastating,” recalls Ward. “That’s why Lodestar never ran and went straight to stud instead. Sunday Star only has one ovary and while she’s produced a foal every year, thankfully, we didn’t want to take the chance of not being able to continue the line.”

Sunday Star has been the model broodmare, with her first foal, the Frankel two-year-old filly Sunday Girl, running a promising third at Newbury for Ward and Walker in August this year; her second foal, a Pinatubo yearling colt, being retained; and her third foal, a Frankel colt who is eight months old, selling to TBT Racing for 700,000gns at Tattersalls last week.

Lodestar, on the other hand, has had a harder time of it at stud. Her first and third foals, by Dutch Art and Chaldean, both died, leaving her with a Mehmas yearling filly who has been kept and is going into training with Walker. She is in foal to Mehmas again.

Either way, Northern Star’s influence is spreading rapidly thanks to Starman’s skyrocket start with his first two-year-olds this year. Up to yesterday he had 39 winners in Europe, achieved at a good clip of 36 per cent, and progeny earnings of around £1,475,000 – almost £700,000 more than next-best St Mark’s Basilica.

His roll of honour already includes Prix Morny heroine Venetian Sun, Prix Robert Papin winner Green Sense and Group 3 scorers Lady Iman and North Coast – as well as Ward’s own unexposed Group 2 runner-up The Prettiest Star.

“My heart was pumping outside my chest when The Prettiest Star made her debut at Nottingham in August,” says Ward. “She was my first homebred runner by the sire and with Ed [Walker], who trained Starman. It meant a lot.

The Prettiest Star (left): Rockfel runner-up is being aimed at the GuineasCredit: Edward Whitaker

"I desperately wanted her to win, and she did so, very easily. It honestly felt as good as Starman winning the July Cup. It was fabulous. You can’t put any sort of price on that feeling. That’s why people breed, for magic moments like that. 

“But then I feel like that when any Starman wins. I’ve watched 99 per cent of them run, and any winner by him is like watching a son or daughter win at the Olympics.”

The Prettiest Star is being aimed at the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket next May.

“She’ll go down the traditional route of running in a trial and then, depending on what happens, going for the Classic,” says Ward. “We’re excited by her, she’s a special filly. We’ll be taking on some other special fillies, of course, including Venetian Sun, but she’s done everything we wanted her to do at this point. 

“She’s a nice, scopey filly with a fabulous physique. There’s not an imperfection on her. She should get a mile, no problem.”

Ward is drawing encouragement for The Prettiest Star’s stamina from her distaff pedigree. She is out of Ediyva, who was a seven-furlong winner by Kingman but from a stout Aga Khan Studs family that goes back to Ebaziya, the dam of Gold Cup-winning siblings Enzeli and Estimate. 

The dam was bought for €300,000 from the Goffs November Sale four years ago, when Ward was determined to show he meant business in supporting Starman at stud.

“We were looking for reasonably good pages with an element of speed in there, and we bought a couple with more of a staying pedigree to see if we could get a horse by Starman who stays a mile-plus,” says Ward. “We wanted a mixture of types.

“I do like something with a bit of class, not just early speed. I’ve never been one who has to get a horse to run as a two-year-old, as you saw with Starman. Maybe it’s a generational thing, and I’m a bit older and prefer distance horses who progress from three to four, like Scenic did too. I’m prepared to be patient with them, and I think there’s a lot less patience around today.”

Ediyva has a yearling filly who is being retained and going to Walker, and a Starman colt foal, so a full-brother to The Prettiest Star. She is back in foal to Starman and has "a nice mating that isn’t Starman” next year, Ward says.

Starman: will stand the 2026 season for a fee of €40,000Credit: Alice Fitzgerald

Ward’s other homebred winners by Starman are Soul Love, who turned heads when winning a six-furlong maiden at Southwell on debut for Karl Burke last month, and the Walker-trained Hallo Spaceboy, who finished placed in hot races at York and Newmarket in October and broke his duck in good style over five furlongs at Newcastle recently.

“Soul Love is definitely more of a sprinting type than The Prettiest Star, she’s very talented,” says Ward. “I’m particularly keen on Hallo Spaceboy. He’s a lovely stamp of a horse, and if he can fill out next year I think he’ll be an exciting prospect.

“I’ve got a couple more by Starman to run before the end of the year, in the hope that we can get a win into them, and a few others who haven’t run who’ll probably come out in the spring. Then we’ve got another crop of two-year-olds by him.”

Some questioned last year whether Starman would achieve all this in his freshman season, when he didn’t compete at two himself and is a larger horse with stamina influence Montjeu as his damsire. It was never in doubt for Ward, though.

He says: “Everyone got lured into thinking there must have been a reason he didn’t run as a two-year-old, that he was backward or something, but I’ve always been open about the fact that I don’t need to run my horses at two. I have a very patient trainer in Ed and we always give the horses plenty of time. 

“We could have run Starman at two, as he clearly had the ability, but he was a big, strong horse who looked like he needed time, so we waited and reaped rewards in his three-year-old and four-year-old career instead.

“There’s a misconception that a stallion has to have won at two to be any good. I sort of get it from a commercial point of view but I also don’t. The crucial thing is that a horse proves he is high-class, and especially at three or four, for me at least.

“Yes, it might make you wonder whether he would get two-year-olds, which is important to some, but Starman has proved that shouldn’t be the case: just because he didn’t run a two, it doesn't mean he can’t get a two-year-old.”

And what about the Montjeu effect? Did Ward ever worry that the middle-distance megastar’s influence might prevent Starman’s progeny from having commercially all-important pace or precocity?

“No, I just loved Montjeu as a fabulous racehorse, and I think some of his class has flowed through to Starman’s progeny,” says Ward. “Dutch Art injected the speed and the result, depending on the mating, is hopefully that Starman is a sire who can get horses who shine from five furlongs to a mile and a bit.”

Roger and Tony O'Callaghan of Tally-Ho Stud: "they know what they’re doing"Credit: www.healyracing.ie

Starman’s sticky first-foal sales two years ago also gave little clue to what he would achieve in his freshman season in 2025. His debut lots made disappointing average and median figures of 28,000gns and 20,000gns, which didn’t leave an awful lot of room for profit on his introductory fee of €17,500 at Tally-Ho Stud.

“I remember being in Ireland and seeing the first foals, and some were patently far too young to be at the sales,” reasons Ward. “A lot of them needed time and were a long way off the finished product, and people can only judge the sire by what they see there, so I can sort of see how it happened.

“But we all know a lot can change between the foal and yearling sales, and clearly that did happen, as the yearlings sold so much better. 

“I had some fabulous first foals by Starman, and a lot of other people I knew also had fabulous first foals by him. But that’s the industry for you: there’ll always be some people who say they have nice foals and others who say they haven’t, and people will tend to focus on the negative. It didn’t drag me down, anyway.” 

Of course, that's all ancient history now that Starman has established himself as one of the most exciting young stallions in the business.

“I can honestly say that I always believed in him – I never doubted that he would be a success at stud,” says Ward. “Besides his racing ability, his temperament was something else too. He takes it all in his stride and copes with everything a stallion needs to cope with, no problem, and he’s passing that wonderful mind on to the vast majority of his progeny. 

“On top of that, he went to the right place in Tally-Ho Stud. The O’Callaghans are wonderful people and have given him every chance to succeed. 

“I really think, and hope, that this is the start of something special. He’s on a steep upward trajectory now, and the higher standard of mare he’ll receive from next year will allow him to do even better in future.”

Starman’s fee for 2026 has been increased to €40,000 from €10,000 in light of his good deeds this year. 

“I leave Tally-Ho to look after everything with him, they know what they’re doing, we just have a conversation about the fee each year and we decided to err on the more cautious side of what we were considering for next season,” says Ward.

“He’s gone up in price, of course, and some people who used him before might not have the wherewithal to go back to him, but we really did try to keep him towards the lower end of what he might have been, so as many people as possible could still access him. I think he’s been pitched at a sensible level.

“It’s better to take small steps when it comes to pricing rather than going too far, too quickly, and I gather his book next year is pretty close to being full already.

“I spoke to a breeder at the foal sales last week who said he’s sending four mares to Starman next year. It’s unbelievable how well the horse has done, when he didn’t race as a two-year-old and doesn’t have an overly fashionable pedigree. But you get that in any sport: there’s always one who bucks the trend.”

Ward has made breeding, racing and standing a stallion look easy. There is one thing he is struggling with, though. He is running out of David Bowie-inspired names to give to all his offspring of Starman.

“I’m down to about ten or 12 names I’ve reserved,” he says. “Funnily enough, the other day I was at work and I printed off the lyrics to all the Bowie songs that I like, and went through them with a highlighter and marked up the lines that caught my eye to build up a portfolio of more names for the future.”

The metal and waste recycling business is keeping him busy, then?

“This is far more important,” laughs Ward. “I’m looking out of my office window as we speak, and seeing the same thing I've seen for the last 25 years, so I need a bit of a break from it, and my children do a lot here now as well. They’re the fourth generation in the family business.”

Family means a lot to Ward. To tell the truth, if Lady Luck was ever going to smile on anyone in this industry, it’s just as well as it was him, as he is a genial soul who got into racing and breeding for all the right reasons.

His words might bring a lump to the throat of anyone who also got into the sport as a child thanks to the encouragement of their parents or other older relatives. 

“When I was young I went racing a lot with my father – we would travel all over the place – and when there was a seller on, I’d often say to him, ‘come on, let’s have a go at buying that horse’, but he never did,” says Ward.

“I suspect he wanted to have a horse deep down, but he was just of that generation that was more careful and conservative with money. So after he passed away, and I managed to get a few quid together when business was good, I thought I’d do what my father always wanted to do, but never did for various reasons. 

“Even when I’m at the races now I still think of him. It’s been quite an emotional journey, as I’m not just doing it just for myself, I’m doing it for him as well.”

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