By the start of the 1970s Robert’s organization was well-established in sponsoring a major race at the local Haydock Park, the Vernons Sprint Cup. It was run at the October Meeting with a big prize and some very good horses had won it. But in 1971 there was a particular sense of drama. The outstanding sprinter Green God, who had finished first five times in a row that season, was a very questionable favourite because in his last race Green God had managed to get left at the start in France, and lost to Fireside Chat. Most good judges, including Robert, believed that Green God was the fastest horse in England, but in the Vernons he would face two other pretenders to the sprint championship, Sweet Revenge, who had won two big races in France demolishing Fireside Chat both times, and Apollo Nine, who had shouldered a massive weight of nine stone five pounds to win the Stewards Cup at Goodwood in August. The whole of England was talking about the ensuing six-furlong battle at Haydock Park which would surely decide the fastest horse in the country. Robert, by now a director of the racecourse, was as ever heavily into the ‘crack’ in the members’ bar, talking to trainers, owners, breeders and, on this day, managers of stud farms, the stallion masters who would be watching for the horse who might make a top sire. And the horse they were all watching was Green God.
On the day before the big sprint, there was a large gathering in the members’ bar discussing the day’s events, but more particularly discussing the forthcoming clash between Green God, Sweet Revenge and Apollo Nine. Robert was with a group of Irish bloodstock agents, everyone talking to everyone, whether they knew each other or not, as is the general form on such occasions. Robert was talking to his old friend Jack Doyle who pointed out that the tall, dark-haired young Irishman ‘across the way’ had settled terms with Green God’s owner David Robinson. The horse would be sold this evening for £160,000 and the deal would stand no matter what happened in the race. Green God would run in the colours of Mr Robinson for the last time tomorrow, leased back to his owner just for the day, and then he would leave England to take up stud duties at Castle Hyde in Tipperary.
How, precisely, did they arrive at that figure? That was what Robert wanted to know. What if Green God gets beaten?
‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘that’s where they start. The buyers’ syndicate assumes he will get beat. If that should be the case, I would think they would hope to stand him at perhaps £1000 to cover a mare, which they plan to do about forty times a year. That’s £120,000 in three years. That means each share will cost £3000, because there are always forty shareholders. So he’s got to cover another forty mares during his first three years to get all the shareholders out clean on their investment. Well, he may not quite do that, but I don’t think an extra thirty would be asking a lot. And then they are out very little in terms of cash.’
‘But’, said Robert, ‘what if he wins?’
‘Now you’re talking,’ said Jack. ‘That’s what that syndicate is fervently hoping. Then, as Champion Sprinter, Green God will probably stand at £1500, and forty mares will earn £60,000 in a season. In three seasons he will have earned £180,000. And, if he covers a few extras for the farm and perhaps six or eight for the syndicate members, there’ll be another £15,000 in the pot each year. In three years that’s £65,000 profit, less the cost of his keep. If he is successful, which we won’t really know until his fifth year, there will be a serious amount of cash around for these brave fellows who have just risked £160,000.’
‘Christ!’ said Robert thoughtfully. He looked across at the young Irishman. He seemed such a countryman and here he was representing a group of Irish breeders risking phone numbers on the purchase of a racehorse. As far as Robert could see they had a long-term bet of nearly £100,000 riding on this race tomorrow. Now that was serious. Suddenly all that he had done in racing, all the fun and laughter and betting he had done in partnership with Eric Cousins seemed of little consequence. These Irishmen were playing a major game and Robert felt a weird compulsion to be part of it. He had just received a crash course in how modern thinkers were basing their judgments on the syndications of stallions. Forty shareholders, putting up three times the cost of one covering for a share. You ‘get out’ in three years, after that you are on the gravy train. It was new, but it already made rock-solid financial sense to Robert, and he could not stop thinking about it, through all of the hours that led up to the running of the fifth Vernons Sprint Cup.
The following afternoon when the runners came belting out of the stalls Robert could not take his eyes off Green God. He watched Lester Piggott try to straighten him out after a bad break, saw the horse keep hanging to his left in the middle of the pack, as Apollo Nine and Sweet Revenge fought it out in the lead. Then he saw Lester ask him to quicken, stared enthralled as Green God came to deliver his challenge at the furlong, felt his heart leap as Sweet Revenge swerved violently. And he stood rapt in admiration as Piggott kept his mount straight and drove Green God past the post almost a length to the good. Sweet Revenge was second, Apollo Nine two and a half lengths further back in third place.
Robert reckoned he had seen two great professionals in action in the past twenty-four hours: Lester Piggott, who had ridden this fiery son of the equally fiery Red God to victory; and the young Irishman, who had staked so much money on a six-furlong sprint for the championship of England. Late that afternoon, back in the members’ bar, everyone was talking about Green God, his pedigree and his prospects as a stallion. Robert walked over to talk to Jack Doyle who was deep in conversation with the young Irish purchaser. ‘Hello, Robert,’ said Jack. ‘Will you have a drink with us? I don’t believe you two have met have you.’
‘Well, I know of course who you are, sir,’ said the Irishman. And he leaned forward to shake the hand of Robert Sangster. It was a handshake which would begin a lifelong friendship, a friendship which would change the world of bloodstock breeding for ever, would send prices for young racehorses to heights never before contemplated. ‘I’m John Magnier,’ he said.
John Magnier was twenty-three years old on the day he first shook hands with Robert Sangster. Thus he was eight years junior to the heir to Vernons Pools. In terms of birth, that is. In terms of horses, John was about one hundred and forty-eight years older, since the Magnier family of Fermoy, County Cork, traces its roots in the serious business of breeding racehorses to at least 1800 and probably back into the previous century.
John’s father Michael Magnier stood the great steeple-chasing stallion Cottage at the family’s Grange Stud on the outskirts of the town. Cottage it was who sired three Grand National winners including Sheila’s Cottage and Lovely Cottage in 1946 and 1948. He also sired the immortal Cottage Rake, trained by Vincent O’Brien to win those three Cheltenham Gold Cups in succession 1948–50, while R. Sangster was grappling with elementary French a few miles to the north at the Leas Preparatory School. John’s grandfather Thomas Magnier owned the fine Irish stallion Edlington who won fourteen races in the 1880s and was then occupied in the traditional way as a ‘travelling stallion’, being ridden along the lovely valley of the River Blackwater beyond Fermoy and covering the racing mares of the local Irish farmers. Like John Magnier himself, old Edlington had a firm sense of place in this world and spent many weeks on an annual sojourn at the Duke of Devonshire’s great estates surrounding the castle of Lismore.
Home to Edlington was nonetheless Fermoy. As was the Grange Stud to Cottage. Green God would live about four miles away at Castle Hyde Stud, which had been purchased by John Magnier a few months previously. Green God was a lucky horse because in this deep, quiet Irish country grooms and stud owners alike understand the high-mettled racer perhaps as no other breed of men on earth. To the uninitiated, a thoroughbred stallion can look very fearsome, standing glaring in a paddock, his breath coming in short snorts, perhaps pawing the ground, irritated at being disturbed. Some farms in Kentucky and Australia carry the stark warning: STALLIONS BITE. beware. It is thus a source of absolute wonder to watch