Robert and Christine moved out of Swettenham. They rented a house, from the fabulously wealthy Swiss racehorse owner-breeder Countess Margit Batthyany, in Marbella on the southern coast of Spain. It was a terribly upsetting wrench for the entire family. That year, 1975, Vernon Sangster was elected Captain of Royal Liverpool and Robert’s mother Peggy was Ladies’ Captain at the same time. It was an unprecedented situation in the historic old golf club, and rightly a source of immense pride to them both. The three-time Open Champion Henry Cotton came up to play a few rounds with his old friend Vernon. Greatly though the old gentleman enjoyed it, he was fighting a bitter inner sadness. It nearly broke his heart that he could not play the Hoylake links, just once, as Captain, with his only son.
Despite all of his troubles, Robert pressed on as Syndicate Chief of the O’Brien-Magnier-Sangster partnership. As an established member of the Jockey Club, and a considerably rich one at that, almost all doors were open to him and he recruited accordingly. Charles St George, the immensely wealthy Lloyds insurance broker in whose colours Cellini had run, quickly joined the team.
The next man in was the son of one of England’s richest financiers Sir Charles Clore, young Alan Clore, whose inheritance at a very early age had been seven figures, and well over halfway to eight – pounds, that is, not dollars. Alan was extremely keen to break into the top end of the horseracing market and shared the general opinion that Vincent O’Brien was the man to take anyone there who possessed a big enough bank account. Sir Charles himself was an enthusiastic racing man and had owned a winner of the Oaks, Valoris, in 1966 – trained by O’Brien. Alan, who did not have the absolute addiction of his father for big business, was contemplating a career in bloodstock as an owner-breeder which he envisaged being very nearly full-time. But for this he knew he must obtain ownership in world-class stallions. He saw Robert and the team as his way forward.
For his next move towards serious money, Robert chose the aristocracy, casting his sights north to a great Scottish castle set in the Highlands to the west of Inverness, where the ice-cold waters of the Beauly river flow gently into the Moray Firth. Here stands Beaufort Castle, home of the Barons Lovat, a warlike, ruling Scottish family since the fifteenth century. The present lord, and Chief of the Clan Fraser, had served with tremendous gallantry as a commando in the Second World War. He fought both in Dieppe and at the Normandy landings, where he was wounded, and won a Military Cross for his bravery and leadership. His wife Rosamund was the only daughter of Major Sir ‘Jock’ Delves Broughton, who stood trial for the ‘White Mischief’ murder of the Earl of Erroll in Kenya’s ‘Happy Valley’ in 1941. It was however their son, Simon Fraser, aged thirty-five, the romantically titled Master of Lovat, who was of interest to Robert Sangster. Simon loved horse-racing and, like Charles St George, and Charles and Alan Clore, and indeed Robert, was an owner of Vincent O’Brien’s. But it fell to Robert, as the head and chief salesman of the syndicate, to form this diverse group into a fighting unit, prepared to go and do battle at the Keeneland Sales, and to stay in the bidding ring until they came out victorious.
The next member of the syndicate was the steel tycoon Jack Mulcahy, who had left Ireland at the age of twenty and made his fortune in the United States. Jack’s brother Dan was the cashier at the Munster and Leinster Bank in Cork, where Vincent had opened his first racing account back in 1943. Having met through Dan, Jack and Vincent became devoted friends over the years – the O’Brien family called him ‘Uncle Jack’. He owned the great miler and stallion Thatch and would be a stalwart of the syndicate, ambitious with his money, and firm in his belief that if a horse could run, Vincent could make it run for its life. And that if Vincent could not make it run, then no one could.
The final member of the syndicate was Mr Walter Haefner, the Swiss businessman who had bought the lovely Moyglare Stud in Maynooth a few years previously, and nursed similar quiet but strong ambitions to those of Robert himself – to buy, and one day to breed, champion racehorses.
Between them the partners were prepared to put up something in the order of $3 million to buy yearlings. The arrangements were fairly informal but, in the broadest terms, Vincent would buy fifteen per cent and be given a five per cent share in each horse as a bonus for being the best trainer in the world. John Magnier would then provide fifteen per cent, the shareholders would put up thirty per cent, and Robert would stand up for forty per cent, which may have required of him an investment of $1.2 million, or £800,000. They were not devoted to spending all of this money. But when the chips fell, and they entered the ring to buy, this was their upper limit.
Since the average price of a yearling at Keeneland in 1974 had been a little over $50,000, and horses selling for more than $300,000 were extremely rare, there was likely to be a major impact by the men who came to be known, affectionately, and with immense good humour, as ‘The Brethren’. Each of them closely followed the premise that Robert had discovered on his chart: the only man who can make money out of buying the best and most expensive yearlings is, in the end, the man who buys them all.
Robert trusted John Magnier and he trusted Vincent, but in the midst of all the activity he felt that he, like them, should have a personal friend and advisor standing with him when decisions of great moment were made. His choice was for a man he had known for only a couple of years but who always impressed him with his uncanny instinct for a good horse. He was Mr Patrick Hogan, of County Limerick, one of the greatest riders to hounds in the whole of Ireland, a horse coper, buyer of foals, and bloodstock agent of legendary dimensions – a man some people still swear is the best judge of a potential young steeplechaser who ever lived. In his day he was a brilliant amateur rider, setting a record in 1942 by kicking home thirty-two winners from only ninety-eight rides. He rode for the great Irish trainers, O’Brien, Tom Dreaper and Paddy Sleator. Once at Punchestown Racecourse he rode five winners and a second from six rides. To this day people still say his nickname, PP, stands for ‘Punchestown Pat’.
PP Hogan spent years as the fieldmaster for the great Irish Foxhunt, the Black and Tans. He also hunted for years over the steep banks and ditches of the Limerick country close to his home in the tiny village of Bruff, fifteen miles due west of Tipperary town, to the south-east of the Shannon estuary. This was the foxhunt of the great landowner the Earl of Harrington, and his son Viscount Petersham, each of whom considered PP without peer in pursuit of a fox, and beyond belief in terms of courage and horsemanship. A small wiry little man with the smile and charm of a leprechaun, PP could beguile any man alive with his stories of hunting and racing deep in the green heart of southern Ireland. He could also sell you anything, and after a few glasses of stout you would be well advised to check your wallet. You might just have purchased a share in a seventeen-hand ‘chaser’ when you were thinking it was all a bit of a joke.
On the other hand you might have found yourself a great steeplechaser. PP it was who masterminded the purchase of Rheingold with his trainer Barry Hills for 3000 guineas at Newmarket – and then watched with a cheerful smile as the horse won nearly £360,000 in prize money. ‘Jesus, it was written all over him, in bloody great letters, from the time he was a yearling, from the second I laid eyes on him’, was his characteristic comment. And it may have been. But no one else saw the letters. PP helped Lord Petersham buy the brilliant Royal Ascot winner Highest Trump, and it was calculated that in 1974 PP Hogan had advised in the buying of over two hundred winners. For Robert alone he bought fourteen yearlings, and ten of them won fifteen races, with another two running second. Robert and PP were fast friends. The Irishman was always on the lookout for good, highly bred pedigree mares for the English millionaire. If there was a classy filly for sale, anywhere in Ireland, PP would be certain to hear of it and if he liked her she would be on her way to one of Robert’s studs no questions asked. Robert trusted PP, and the little Irishman respected him for it. He never did a bad deal for Robert, and the Englishman swore by his judgment. PP would go to Keeneland with the team, to make his quiet observations, and to protect his friend from any bursts of overenthusiasm from the partners.
As a matter of fact it was an arrangement which did not terribly please Vincent, who felt he did not require the input of this tough little Limerick horseman. But PP cared not a jot what Vincent thought. He was prepared to back his judgment of a yearling against any man alive, including the Master of Ballydoyle, and if Robert wanted his opinion, he, PP