Brian Meehan - The Master of Manton CLICK ON IMAGE TO READ ARTICLETHIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN - EUROPEAN TRAINER MAGAZINE ISSUE 45 PROFILEWebmaster12 April 2014Sangster, Brian Meehan, Manton, Training, EUT45 Facebook0 Twitter LinkedIn0 Pinterest0 0 Likes
![illies, such as a $1 million Malibu Moon signed for by Merry at Keeneland last year. She has yet to travel to the UK, but one expensive two-year- old already at Manton is Alkhayyam, a 1,100,000 guineas Tattersalls October Book 1 purchase by Shadwell Estate Company. Alkhayyam is an own brother to Arcano – who Meehan trained for Sheikh Hamdan – and the most expensive of his sire Oasis Dream’s yearlings in 2013. Coincidentally, Oasis Dream was based at Manton during John Gosden’s tenure. Arcano’s first two-year-olds run this year, and although Meehan tries “to stay away from first-season sires,” he has several Arcanos and one by another first-year sire he trained, Fast Company. Fast Company won the Acomb Stakes-Gp3 for Earle Mack before being sold he’s been with us ever since. He does wonderful things.” Meehan proudly reels off a list of Pattern races whose winners Pistolero has ponied to the start for his stable. “This place is known for being cold and windy,” Meehan says, bracing against the firm breeze. Mobile phone reception is poor, so he and key members of his staff carry around walkie-talkies, which buys him time to look after other business until he knows that the horses are near the rendezvous point, where they will circle around until their trainer is satisfied they’re relaxed enough to head off up the gallops. “Most of the day is taken up by things other than the horses,” Meehan says. This morning, ‘other’ business includes inspecting one of many on-site lodgings with his assistant, Rory O’Dowd, to see if it’s ready for new staff to move in. At the Godolphin Stable and Staff Awards in February, O’Dowd was a runner-up behind Hannon’s head lad Tony O’Gorman for the Leadership Award, while Meehan’s racing manager Marbeth Blair, who works in the office alongside Ruth Morgan, collected the Administration Staff Award. A couple of days after the ceremony, Blair receives a large bouquet of flowers, and she continues to take congratulatory phone calls. “Thank you very much indeed,” she tells a caller. “It was one for the team and it was smashing. And Rory got to the final three, which was tremendous.” Blair came to Manton via Newlands, and her perfectly organised files, if not her recall, provide endless information on Meehan’s horses past and present trained. When he quizzes her about a horse from many years ago, she’s quick to supply the answer. As Blair might say, it’s a good team. Of course, not everything can go smoothly. This morning’s hiccup comes before third lot can head out, when Meehan unexpectedly has to scramble to leg up the riders himself. He doesn’t waste energy getting upset, which puts his philosophy of what he looks for in a racing prospect into perspective: other than good movement and balance, he is drawn to “steadiness, a little bit of plainness. Old fashioned, straightforward. Uncomplicated.” These traits mirror his working demeanour. He recalls that Hannon’s advice when he took out his licence was, ‘Just keep it simple and the horses will find their level.’” So, too, has Meehan seemed to find his. One of the last horses awaiting a rider is a More Than Ready first foal from a half-sister to 1,000 Guineas winner Speciosa. The filly is a homebred for American Andrew Rosen, for whom Meehan trained her dam Liberally to win three races before she was placed in a Grade 3 in the US for another trainer. Of Rosen, Meehan says, “He’s been a massive supporter of mine over the years.” In 2003, Rosen, Peter Minikes (Georgica Stable) and Stephen Mack – whose uncle Earle Mack campaigned Electrocutionist prior to the horse’s sale to Godolphin and subsequent Dubai World Cup win – bought into three-year-old Listed-winning filly Buy the Sport, a US-bred by Devil’s Bag that Meehan was training at Newlands. Meehan and bloodstock agent Hugo Merry had purchased Buy the Sport for $155,000 out of a breeze-up sale in Florida. For her first start in new colours, Meehan shipped her to New York in September to win the Grade 1 Gazelle Handicap, at odds of 48-1, before handing her over to local trainer Robert Barbara. Meehan had told Buy the Sport’s partners about a good two-year-old, Master David, he had and they bought that colt prior to his running second in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct Racecourse, also in New York, in November. Master David also remained in the US, where he later won a black-type race and was Grade 1 placed for Bobby Frankel. “It’s a great place. The trouble is you never want to leave it” After such a successful first foray into business with Meehan, Rosen began sending his two-year-olds to him, with an eye to switching them to the US to pursue their further careers. “It’s a really good setup,” Meehan says, “and it’s something that’s really evolved over the years.” Both Icon Project and First Passage went on to win Graded races for Marty Wolfson at three and four after early training with Meehan. Theyskens’ Theory stayed with him through most of her three-year-old season, winning the Prestige Stakes-Gp3 at Goodwood at two and two Listed races at three, before joining Shug McGaughey’s stable. Theyskens’ Theory was a homebred by Bernardini, but Rosen also shops at the high-end marketplace for his HE 2,500-acre Manton House Estate in Manton, Wiltshire, could easily dwarf – physically and historically – any trainer bold enough to take it on. But Meehan, with the physique of a rugby player and a hard expression lined on his face, does not look intimidated. Instead, as he stops his car to get out and straighten a fence rail here or a gate there, he gives every impression of being enamoured by the estate. “It’s such a great place, you know? It’s a lot of fun to be here.” Manton produced the first of its many Classic winners in 1873, when Alec Taylor Snr sent out Gang Forward to win the 2,000 Guineas. The great Sceptre was based at Manton when she was sent to Alec Taylor Jnr from her four-year- Meehan, armed with his walkie talkie, putting the second string of the day through their paces old season in 1903 onward. The younger Taylor conditioned Bayardo to win the 1909 St Leger and that colt’s sons Gay Crusader and Gainsborough to win the Triple Crown in 1917 and 1918, respectively. Another of Taylor junior’s 21 Classic winners from Manton was Sceptre’s grandson Craig an Eran in the 1921 2,000 Guineas. And in the Sangster family era that began with patriarch Robert in 1984, Classic winners Rodrigo de Triano, Dr Devious (both trained by Peter Chapple-Hyam) and most recently Lahan (John Gosden) in 2000 emerged from the facility. ( For more on this, see “The History of Manton” beginning on page 28 .) Although Brian Meehan has yet to turn out a Classic winner, he is anything but small in the historical landscape of Manton. Foremost among the 15 Group or Grade 1 races won by Meehan’s horses are two editions of the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf, with J Paul Reddam’s Red Rocks in 2006 and Iraj Parvizi’s Dangerous Midge in 2010. The preserved purple-and-gold garlands from those wins are framed on either side of the television in his racing office. It’s no great surprise that the trainer identifies Churchill Downs, the scene of two of his biggest triumphs, as his favourite racecourse. “I’d like to go back and win more Breeders’ Cups. Definitely,” Meehan says. “I guess when I was younger the Breeders’ Cup sort of captured the imagination.” The son of an orthopaedic surgeon, Meehan, 46, grew up in County Limerick, Ireland. “My mother and father were interested in the game. It was kind of a hobby for them,” he says. “They did a little bit of breeding. It’s not a difficult thing for somebody in Ireland at my age at that time to get into, really. There were a lot of horses around and a lot of good farms.” He got morning jobs riding out, including for Phil Canty – who trained 1985 Moyglare Stud Stakes winner Gayle Gal – and enrolled in the Irish National Stud Course after graduating from school. Near the completion of the stud course, Meehan wrote to three trainers: Robert Armstrong, Dick Hern, and Richard Hannon, looking for a position as pupil assistant. Hannon, whose stable standout that season was English and Irish 2,000 Guineas winner Don’t Forget Me, was the only one Meehan eventually heard from. “It’s quite a funny story,” Meehan says. “He called up because he thought I was from the Irish National Stud interested in buying his Guineas winner. So he called up by default and when I explained what I’d written about, he said, ‘Well, come over,’ I went and stayed for six years. I loved it.” When, in December of 1992 at the age of 25, Meehan left Hannon and set up to train on his own merits with eight horses, Hannon’s wife Jo sent him Connect. Connect became his first winner, trotting up by five lengths in his third start, a six-furlong maiden at Brighton in May ’93. It was “quite special,” says Meehan of the win’s association with Hannon, with whom he remains “great friends.” The montage of photos on a wall shows the horses that provided the stable with 15 wins in its first season. So Saucy was the most prolific, with three victories for Leslie Ward of Clarendon Park Stud (now racing as Longview Stud & Bloodstock Ltd), and there was a National Hunt winner: Pam Jubert’s novice hurdler Julios Genius. “That was quite a good year, Year One,” Meehan says. That was before Meehan became a globetrotting trainer of Pattern winners, before The Harlequin Partnership’s Amaretto Bay gave him a first black-type win in May of 1995; before The Tumbleweed Partnership’s Tumbleweed Ridge gave him a first Group win in the Group 3 Horris Hill at Newbury in October of 1995; and before John Good’s Tomba gave him two milestone firsts in 1998: Royal Ascot (Cork and Orrery Stakes-Gp2) and Group 1 (Prix de la Foret at Longchamp) wins. Tomba and Tumbleweed Ridge ran from Lambourn’s Newlands Stables, Meehan’s base at the undertaking it would have been to clear the gallops of these rocks with the equipment available 150 years ago. Meehan’s office is located in Astor Yard, where the boxes, built during Michael Dickinson’s stint at Manton, are laid out in single rows designed give their occupants as much direct sun as possible. Like his predecessors, Meehan has made his own changes, adding portable, open boxes to the hay barn to create a more social environment. “If I was a horse, this is where I’d want to be.” He checks in on a well-bred filly. “I brought her in here because she’s kind of nervy, so I thought if she’s in here with a horse there, a horse beside her and a horse in front of her, it’d help. “It’s quite nice to have more in one place than 50 or 60 in four different places. One year we had 60 or 70 in Astor Yard, 30 in Old Yard, 50 in Barton Yard,and another 25 in Fyfield Yard.” until he moved to Manton in 2006 upon entering into an agreement to train for the Sangster family, whose Swettenham Stud, spearheaded by the late Robert Sangster’s sons Guy, Ben and Sam, owns the estate. Although that association came to an amicable end at the close of last season, Meehan – who still owns Newlands, which he leases to Brendan Powell – signed a three-year lease to remain at Manton. It’s no great mystery why he chose to stay on, with Manton’s private, uphill gallops, stunning panoramas and a little bit of magic in the air. On a high vantage point overlooking the estate, he asks, “You like the views?” A reply would be superfluous, as Meehan well knows; he doesn’t wait for one. “It’s a great place. The trouble is you never want to leave it.” He points to remnants of a glacial deposit, hundreds of millions of years old, off in the distance. “They must have excavated here,” he says, marvelling Now George Baker, in his second season of training at Manton, leases Barton Yard with Meehan stabling his projected 100 head of horses in Astor and Old Yards. The open, square-shaped Old Yard, attached to the main house on the estate, is the oldest and, this early in the season, sparsely occupied, with three of Meehan’s horses still in Dubai and not all of the two-year-olds in yet. “Great spot. A lot of history,” he says of the Old Yard. In one corner is a fully licenced pub, the Trelawny, that was restored in Barry Hills’ time. Its namesake Trelawny was a Manton- based gelding who won back-to-back Ascot Stakes and Queen Alexandra Stakes within days of each other, as well as a Goodwood Cup for George Todd in the 1960s. The Trelawny opens once a week, or more if Meehan wants to have “a little party for the guys.” Not only is there a pub, but the Manton estate also has an old chapel – looking after the souls of saints and sinners of yore. Meehan says, “They say [George Todd] used to give the Sunday morning service and every member of the staff had to go.” It would be hard to imagine Meehan delivering Sunday sermons. Now, the chapel is used as a shooting lodge. His appreciation for Manton’s history is as evident as his seeming familiarity with every dip in its ground, but it’s when he says, “I’m bringing you up to meet Pistolero. He’s our pride and joy,” that Meehan’s tone really softens. A paint gelding, Pistolero is turned out with 26-year-old Another Excuse, a retired hack who won the 1996 Midlands Grand National. The older gelding barely raises his head from grazing but Pistolero walks over as soon as he sees Meehan. Meehan, with his first unguarded smile of the morning, tugs and scratches on the ten-year-old’s ear, talking to him. “Hey, old man. Look at you, all hairy and dirty! What’s going on, man? Are you having a nice holiday, are you?” Pistolero pokes his nose around looking for a treat. “I love riding him. He’s gorgeous to ride,” says Meehan, giving the gelding one last pat on the neck. Pistolero was bought in the US as a companion for Red Rocks, who “didn’t really like him.” Meehan says, “And yet he liked him too much. They travelled to Ireland for a race and the boys said it didn’t work very well. [Red Rocks] was just a bit too randy around him bu PROFILE Meehan with paint gelding, Pistolero four, but some, like Red Rocks and Racing Post Trophy-Gp1 winner Crowded House, stay with Meehan after a new owner purchases all or part of them. This may be down to the way the stable’s owners are treated as much as it is to winning important races. Blair’s take on it is thus: “The name of the game is the owner getting what the owner wants, whatever he’s happy with.” Meehan encourages owners to visit and will hold weekly work mornings for them when the weather “cheers up.” “You like to see more people involved and to enjoy it,” he says. Owner Jane Cunningham didn’t sell Donna Blini, fondly remembered as “a lovely old thing” – despite breaking one of Meehan’s fingers – until the end of her three-year-old season. A £20,000 yearling purchase, the Bertolini filly triumphed in the Cheveley Park Stakes-Gp1 and Cherry Hinton Stakes-Gp2 before Katsumi Yoshida bought her out of the 2006 Manton House Stables Tattersalls December sale draft for 500,000 guineas. For Yoshida’s Northern Farm, she has produced Japanese Filly Triple Crown winner Gentildonna. Meehan, Merry, and the late Richard Galpin used to shop regularly at the US two-year-old sales, where they picked out Buy the Sport for Gold Group International and David Junior- Gp1 (bought for $175,000), Freefourracing- Gp3 ($47,000), Freefourinternet ($200,000), and Master David ($100,000) for Roldvale Limited. David Junior was the best of the lot; at three he won the Champion Stakes and at four, the Eclipse and the Dubai Duty Free, all Group 1s, to Godolphin, who also snapped up Craven Stakes-Gp3 winner Delegator, a future Group 2 winner, out of Meehan’s yard. “You tend to sell them at two to keep the thing rolling,” Meehan says. “I’d rather keep them but you have to be realistic about it, too, so if the owner can make a profit and you can make a commission, you know – business has to be kept going, too.” St James’s Palace Stakes-Gp1 winner Most Improved was sold on to Ballydoyle to race at “When I came out of the joint venture with the Sangsters we did make some redundancies. I’d never done that before. It wasn’t pleasant at all” earning the equivalent of more than £2.3 million. Though many of US-bought horses were by dirt sires, Meehan says that “a lot of them had a bit of turf about them,” perhaps none more so than David Junior, a Pleasant Tap colt whose dam was an own sister by Irish River to US turf champion Paradise Creek, from the female family of another turf champion, Theatrical. “The client that was sending me out there every year got into football, so I kind of pulled back for a little bit,” Meehan says of the overseas in-training sales. “I’d like to try to bring it back. We had so much luck out there. I think we had like five Group 1 performers out of it all, which is pretty good.” Meehan leans against the grill of his truck and smokes, waiting for the two-year-olds to wend their way to his viewing spot. “It’s a big step for these, what they’re doing right now,” he says. “Two of them have done a little breeze before but nothing kind of structured like this. If they come out of it and they haven’t coped with it then you just stop back for a few weeks and then bring them back into it. They’ll all deal with it in the end, it’s just how long it takes.” As the horses approach at a good clip, several deer stand off to the side. “They always time it right,” he says of them, watching his string pass by before the deer cut across the all weather gallop, which is utilised for routine work year-round. Meehan says, “Once a week we’ll come up on the grass, wherever the gallop man chooses a stretch of ground” after the grass gallops open in the spring. Meehan pays a gallops fee to Swettenham. The new arrangement with Swettenham hasn’t completely altered the scope of Meehan’s day-to-day business. “For the first 13 years I was training,” he says, “I was on my own anyway. And then I was just in a joint venture for seven years, so what I’m doing now isn’t something I’m unused to. But when I came out of the joint venture with the Sangsters and went back into just renting, we did make some redundancies. It didn’t turn out to be too many but I’d never done that before, so that was a first for me. It wasn’t pleasant at all.” And despite a “huge” overhead, Meehan lowered his fees after stable numbers dipped slightly. The training fee “is all you’ve got coming in during the off season,” he says. “If it isn’t enough, I’d have gone and robbed a bank.” Meehan is no stranger to difficult times, none more so than after his name appeared in the gossip section of a mainstream media newspaper for a delicate, private matter in the autumn of 2012, an incident that ultimately led to a divorce from his wife Kim. “I was you’re down to maybe 25 that are ready to run in April or May. “We’re hoping that we have a couple of stars on the place,” he says, looking forward to the prospect of running two in Guineas trials: Windfast, an Exceed and Excel colt owned by Trelawny II; and Rosen’s Footstepsinthesand filly J Wonder, an own sister to Matron Stakes- Gr1 victress Chachamaidee. J Wonder won two of three starts last year, and Windfast one of two, having finished second on his debut to subsequent Group 2 Flying Childers winner Green Door. At the end of the day, Meehan often trades horsepower and muddy tyres for trainers to run three or four miles. “I like jogging around cities,” he says. “I plan my route to go and see things. [Washington] DC, New York, Geneva, Toronto, Dubai, Rome, Paris, London – it’s good fun.” Be it against the backdrop of the world’s leading metropolises or the country’s most historic training centre, Brian Meehan is ready to focus on the future and carve out his own place in history. n annoyed because I couldn’t understand what the interest was, to be honest,” he says. “I’m not a footballer or a politician or an actor. From a personal point of view, it wasn’t fair on my kids. It wasn’t necessary. When it came out in the papers, a week or two later I went to Keeneland. And nobody cared. I was hanging out with [Reddam’s agent] Jamie McCalmont and Hugo Merry. Andrew Rosen was buying fillies and jeez, it was just the best week. “You know, we dropped in numbers a little bit, we didn’t have a great year last year. Sure, people like to surmise, but what did happen a few years ago was that I overbought spec horses. And that’s what put the pressure on – nothing else.” For the first season since 1994, in 2013 the Meehan stable didn’t produce a black-type winner. He reasons, “It sort of goes like that. You have a run of big ones and then, because we don’t train 200 horses or 150 – it’s right at about 100 – it’s a bit of a cycle. Half my horses are two, so they’re untried, unknown, unproven. In, say, April, half your string are two-year-olds, so that cuts you in half straight away, and then half of the other half aren’t ready to run, so if you’ve got a hundred horses,](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/517636f8e4b0cb4f8c8697ba/t/576d0402d1758e1810e9b0ff/1466762278826/Brian+Meehan+Cover+Profile.jpg)