When I woke up on February 1st 2022 I had come to the conclusion I might buy another broodmare, since I knew Midnight Jazz’s half-sister, Coded Message, was available for private sale at what I expected to be a realistic valuation. I had no intention whatsoever of getting involved in the purchase of a much more expensive mare at an auction in Ireland.
On the previous day TBA bloodstock geek, Rob Davey, had told me that Robin de Carlow, a dual Grade 3 winning mare with a good pedigree, had been added to the small broodmare entry for the Tattersalls Ireland February Sale; I had little interest, since, in the then extravagant Irish market for broodmares, I felt she would be far too expensive for one of my limited means.
The next morning, I was talking to Rob on the phone about other matters and he asked if I or Simon Cox (a fellow partner in the stallion Logician) might buy her together. My response was that I couldn’t afford to and I doubted Simon would want to pay the likely price. Nonetheless, I decided to call Michael Moore, who was at the Sale, to ask him to look at the mare; and I then called Simon to see if he might be interested in buying her.
The feedback from Michael was that she was a lovely brown mare, around 16.2 h.h. and with a good walk. Simon was vaguely interested but specified a maximum of ‘60,000 on the board’. We then wisely agreed that auctions were not the best means of buying decent mares at a reasonable price. I didn’t think there was any chance of buying her at the price Simon had specified, and Michael concurred.
I was watching the auction on my mobile phone at around 8.20 p.m. that evening when Michael rang to say the mare was in the ring (there was a lag between the ‘Live Feed’ I was watching and reality). Listening to the commentary on my phone, I expected her to sail swiftly towards €100,000 – but it didn’t happen. At around €50,000 I told Michael to at least make a token bid on Simon’s behalf.
With the icy cool of a seasoned professional, he waited, making his first bid at €58,000, then matching bids with a group of Coolmore managers – during which period I chose to interpret Simon’s figure as referring to sterling rather than euros (£60,000 being just above €70,000). With the bid against us at €68,000 I told Michael to make one last bid at €70,000. There was no response to this; and the mare was Simon’s, or mine, or ours – I didn’t actually know which!
It was two hours before I managed to reach Simon, who had been out watching a production of ‘Animal Farm’ in Birmingham (being an intellectual, unlike many in the breeding industry, he was not under the impression that it was a play about keeping horses at livery); and we agreed a 50/50 partnership, with the mare to visit Crystal Ocean (since she was already in Ireland), before coming back to the UK for some future dates with Logician.
She got in foal on her first cover and produced a chestnut filly in February 2023. Unfortunately, she was not untypical of a first foal in being rather small; neither was she a particulatly good walker. At the Tattersalls November sale in December I wanted her on the market fairly swiftly. Simon, whose most positive comment had been that he ‘didn’t dislike her’ put in a couple of bids but stopped at around the 8,000 mark. The filly was knocked down for €8,500 to the Irish agent Toby Jones, bidding by phone to buy her to race in France.
Robin de Carlow produced another filly in 2024, this time a taller, better-looking model by Golden Horn. but slightly light in bone for my taste. Simon decided he did like this one and we agreed a private sale of my holding. She had a bay filly by Logician in 2025 but by then Simon & I had begun to have different ideas on which stallions to use, so I sold my share in both Robin de Carlow (again in foal to Logician) and her filly foal to him in October 2025.