Bryan Mayoh has been fascinated by thoroughbred breeding since his youth, but only started to practise rather than study it 20-odd years ago. From early on, National Hunt rather than Flat breeding became the focus of his attention, since the sums involved did not require rather more billions (or even millions) than were available to him.
Bryan initially practised his breeding skills by producing and showing cavies (guinea-pigs) for 25 years, since this involved even less capital investment and rather more of them could be kept in the average garden shed. This also offered the advantage that the life-cycle of the animals in question means that in 25 years an observant breeder has gained as much practical knowledge of the vagaries of breeding as would a horse breeder whose first coverings involved sending mares to Eclipse.
Bryan has always kept detailed records of his breeding results (both cavies and thoroughbreds) but has supplemented his practical experience by undertaking detailed research into thoroughbred horse breeding, trying to identify the factors that are most relevant in predicting the chances of a particular mating producing a good horse. These considerations strongly influence the choice of mares selected for our broodmare band and of the stallions to whom they are mated, as described in ‘Our Approach to Breeding’.
Bryan was originally educated at Oxford University, where he took a doctorate in Theoretical Chemistry via a thesis that today he finds totally incomprehensible, using a computer that filled a large room but with memory, disk space and computing power that would now be dwarfed by those of the average mobile phone. His business interests have been in computer systems, retail management and management consultancy. He was a Board Member of the TBA from June 2014 to September 2022 and was Chairman of the TBA National Hunt Committee for a number of those years.
