Even the language of the two men, that late afternoon at Haydock Park, was different. Robert is always inclined to talk in terms of great victories, courage, jockeys, bets and values. John Magnier is much more of the horse. His judgments are punctuated by the phrases of the horseman: ‘If you look at him in a certain light he can really fill your eye’, ‘For a sprinter he stands over a lot of ground’, ‘For a son of Red God he has quite a kind look to him, but at a certain angle you can see a touch of the devil in his eye’. Those are the timeless words of the stallion master, bred into the man as profoundly and surely as the speed, gallantry and temperament is bred into the horse. In John Magnier’s case, it was bred into him for just as many years. When he stands and looks at a racehorse going into action, he is not looking entirely at him. He is looking, in his own mind, at the foals of a future generation: ‘Will I always be looking for mares with better knees than he has?’, ‘Will he want medium to small mares given his own imposing height?’, ‘He was sweating when he went to post – is there more of Red God’s temper about him than I can see? Will I spend half the year looking for mares of a quiet, calm temperament for him?’
Always a thousand questions. Usually considerably fewer answers. He and Robert Sangster had many things to say to each other but largely in a different language. And yet there was a quick and early bond between them. That bond was money. Robert, having inherited his first one-third of the Vernons empire, had a considerable amount of it. John had long had far-reaching plans to make a considerable amount of it but, in broad terms, it occurred to him that he could go further, faster, with some serious Sangster money behind him. In turn, Robert did not care how far John went in the stallion business, nor how rich he became in the riveting business of syndicating expensive stallions, just as long as he took him, Robert, along with him. Great partnerships have thrived on less worthy premises. This one was destined to go every step of the way.
The two men talked for a long time at Haydock and, aside from the Irishman’s enormous knowledge of breeding, he demonstrated to Robert an equally grand knowledge of the actual racing. John Magnier’s family stronghold of Fermoy was a mere twenty-eight miles across the Cork–Tipperary border from the south of Ballydoyle, the sprawling training complex which was home to two of the last four Derby winners, Sir Ivor and Nijinsky. It was also the home of Robert’s boyhood hero, Vincent O’Brien, who had prepared them both for glory. The Magniers and the O’Briens, both originally Cork families, had known each other for generations. Indeed John’s mother was matron of honour at Vincent O’Brien’s wedding. John’s keenly observed views on the various merits of the two Irish-based Derby winners were completely absorbing to Robert. John’s words were glossed by the fact that here was a man who was not simply fiddling about trying to win a sprint handicap at Haydock. Here was a man to whom racing at the very highest classic level was the principal arena in which he intended to participate.
There are many owners and breeders who have a fairly shrewd idea of what is going on in a training stable, but John Magnier possessed insights which no one had ever expounded to Robert before. He had, perhaps, only a vicarious proximity to racing’s Hall of Fame, but he had talked with the natural authority of a young man who knew the O’Brien family and nothing seemed to intimidate him. He would, he said, given half a chance, have dived at the opportunity to stand the great Nijinsky at stud in Ireland. As he mentioned on that afternoon, ‘Jesus, Robert, he was sold to an American syndicate for $5.5 million, which is only about 2.2 million Irish punts. With 40 shareholders, that’s only £55,000 a share. That seems like a lot of money, but it’s not. I’m laying you dollars to doughnuts right now that Nijinsky’s first-sale yearlings, on the market in Kentucky in 1973, will fetch $100,000 each. I would not be that surprised if they fetched up to $200,000 each. How the devil can £55,000 be expensive when your first yearling will – at least in my view – damned nearly get you out of your investment? After that you can breed to him every year for the rest of his life. Free.’
Robert Sangster has never forgotten that conversation. Magnier’s cool belief that he should actually have bought the great Nijinsky from the platinum billionaire Charles Engelhard and run his stud career in County Cork was tantamount, in Robert’s view, to calling the Queen and asking her how she felt about raffling the Crown Jewels. Top stallions, Robert believed, went to Kentucky, where the big dollars lived. That was the modern pattern. There was not enough money in Ireland to buy a leg in most of them, never mind the entire horse. In addition, things looked like growing worse because, in John Magnier’s view, there were signs of a serious upswing in world bloodstock prices which were being driven by a run of star racehorses: aside from the recent US-bred English Derby winners Sir Ivor, Nijinsky and Mill Reef, there was the crack English 2000 Guineas winner Brigadier Gerard, who had never been beaten. In the United States yearlings by sires such as Buckpasser, Raise a Native, Dr Fager and Northern Dancer had all gone close to $200,000. What bothered John Magnier was that Ireland, and England, might be left behind in the world bloodstock league. This would be something of a mortal blow to him, since he envisioned himself at the top of that league, not in some halfway house.
Magnier’s view of the future, his slightly roguish charm, his deep, conspiratorial Irish voice, the muttered tones whenever he mentioned specific amounts of money – all of this appealed enormously to Robert. Because this was a man who was not just nattering about the industry, this was a man who had just laid a king’s ransom on the line for a horse called Green God. Robert had watched it, comprehended the risk and admired from afar as Magnier and his friends had somehow bounced out on top, with the best of the deal. When they parted in the early part of the evening, he and John shook hands again, resolving to stay in touch and to talk more. Neither one of them, however, had the remotest idea of the ferocity of the financial rollercoaster ride upon which they would ultimately embark.
Through the following spring the whole of Ireland was discussing the chances of Vincent O’Brien winning a third Derby in five years with his American-bred bay-colt Roberto, owned by the Ohio construction millionaire John Galbreath. John Magnier told Robert all about it, how fast, though slightly unpredictable, Roberto was. But, generally, they all thought he would get home at Epsom. On Derby day they were proved right, Roberto made it by a short head, ridden by Lester Piggott.
That same day Robert said on the telephone, only half jocularly, that he supposed John would be out there trying to buy Roberto for God knows how many millions, but the Irishman replied very seriously:
‘I’ll give you several reasons why not. Firstly, Mr Galbreath has just a little bit more money than Croesus and he never sells anything, far less his first English Derby winner. Secondly, he has already announced the fact that the horse will stand at his own Darby Dan Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. And thirdly, there’s just a little bit too much fire in Roberto’s make-up for me. I think he might produce a lot of very hot horses which might be difficult to train.’
In the same phone conversation, however, Robert agreed to make the trip to the Keeneland Sales in Kentucky in July, where he would team up with John Magnier’s Irish friends and have a proper look at the world market. There was now little doubt that Robert was determined to enter the breeding industry in a major way. Before he went to Keeneland he talked the entire subject through with his father, who affirmed what Robert had always known: that he would support financially his hard-working son and heir in all of his serious business ventures. Robert was already making a success of his Swettenham Stud breeding operation and Vernon was wisely of the opinion that he would not interfere until the former heavyweight champion of the Berlin Brigade made a mistake of unreasonable magnitude.
Robert arrived at the Keeneland Sales as a near-total stranger. There were one or two English trainers and bloodstock agents who knew him, but as far as the big buyers and sellers were concerned, the name ‘Sangster’ was not poised on the lips of the mighty. John Magnier casually introduced