'I looked at my training bill last month...it was still negative by $300,000'

Owner-breeder Paul Reddam, who has enjoyed top-level success with Brian Meehan and John Best, is undertaking a minor reduction of his equine holdings.

"When the answer to the question, 'How many horses do you have?' is 'I don't know,' that means you have too many," Reddam joked on Monday, adding that he estimates ownership of just under 200 horses between his breeding and racing operations.

"We're just going to cut down on numbers," he said. "I looked at my training bill last month and after you took the purse earnings into consideration, it was still negative by $300,000. So we need to cut back a little."

Reddam's well-known white and purple silks are most closely associated in Britain with Meehan, who trained Red Rocks for him to win the Breeders' Cup Turf and Man O'War Stakes, along with the Group 3 Gordon Richards Stakes at Sandown and Listed Fairway Stakes at Newmarket.

Best had Square Eddie for California-based Reddam and he won the Futurity at Keeneland under the Kent trainer's name.

According to Reddam, a group of horses trained by Doug O'Neill, along with "a few trained by Ben Cecil and Edward Freeman" will be offered at Fasig-Tipton's California Fall Yearlings and Horses of Racing Age Sale in Pomona on September 27.

The catalogue also includes a group of California yearlings bred by the CashCall president/CEO and his wife Zilla under the Reddam Racing banner.

"We have about 40 homebred yearlings in this crop and we're going to sell maybe 15 of those or so, and of the racehorses maybe 20," said Reddam. "We'll probably enter 25 and there may be a few that come out."

Frankie Dettori celebrates winning the Breeders' Cup Turf for Paul Reddam and Brian Meehan in 2006Credit: Edward Whitaker

Reddam squashed rumours that he was parting ways with O'Neill, with whom he has partnered to industry heights, including a 2012 Kentucky Derby score with I'll Have Another and a 2016 victory in the same race with Nyquist.

"That's the way it is around the racetrack; rumours fly," Reddam said, adding: "He'll have 20 or so, I would think," once the reduction is complete.

Reddam entered the thoroughbred ownership game in 1998 with the claim of a horse named Ocean Warrior. In recent years he has focused his programme on producing California-bred runners.

"We have a lot of Cal-breds, which is okay for overnight races, but they really don't run the stakes programmes here the way they used to [for California-breds]," he said.

"They just cut, cut, cut the purses. They're not anything like they were ten years ago. They used to have races like the Sunshine Millions, it was a $1 million race and there was another $500,000 race on the card; you might not ever win those races, but at least you had something to aspire to. With the severe cutting over the years, it's like, 'Where are we going with this?'

"Of course, homebreds - generally speaking - aren't good enough to win up the ranks in the open races. Sometimes they are, but not often."

Through until September, Reddam Racing in 2022 has a 27-24-28 record from 179 starts, with earnings of $2,417,852. Their lone stakes winner this season is homebred Slow Down Andy, a son of Nyquist who won the Del Mar Derby at Del Mar.

"We start more horses than anyone on the West Coast," added Reddam. "We might still have that dubious crown next year."

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