Lavery=S Intuition Paves Way to Success Cont
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SATURDAY, 15 JUNE 2019 O=BRIEN LOOKING AHEAD TO ASCOT LAVERY=S INTUITION PAVES At odds-on to collect a fifth straight trainers= title at Royal WAY TO SUCCESS Ascot, it goes without saying that Aidan O=Brien is loaded for next week=s Royal meeting. Four days out from the start of the meeting, the master of Ballydoyle ran through some of his leading contenders on Friday starting with his chief hope in the curtain raiser, the G1 Queen Anne S., in last-out G1 Lockinge S. fifth Le Brivido (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}). "Le Brivido ran a very good race in the Lockinge, Ryan [Moore] just said that he got caught up in traffic at a bad time when the race was just getting going," said O'Brien. "We felt he ran a very good race and we've been very happy with him since then. In an ideal world you'd just like nice ground for him--he's got a lovely action, so as long it's nice ground he'd be fine." Wednesday=s G1 Prince of Wales=s S. is shaping up as not only the race of the day but perhaps the meet, and O=Brien sends out Magical (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), who is unbeaten in three starts this year including the G1 Tattersalls Gold Cup last out. "Magical has done everything right so far this season and has won three Sheila Lavery and Laid Back Luke | Emma Berry races--we're looking forward to running her," said O'Brien of the 4-year-old filly. Cont. p5 By Emma Berry This wasn't the feature we had planned when TDN visited Sheila Lavery's County Meath stable at the end of May. Naturally, the talk then was of Lady Kaya (Ire). Of her spirited runner-up finish in the 1000 Guineas at a distance just beyond her compass. Of her next task: a return to Britain for the most prestigious meeting of the year, Royal Ascot. Of the pride she brought to the trainer and her team who look after 36 horses--a mere ripple, really, in a pool in which rival trainers splash about with battalions numbering into the hundreds. All that changed on Tuesday. During Lady Kaya's final piece of work before her planned run in next week's Commonwealth Cup, a life which had already delivered so much on early Aidan and Joseph O=Brien | Racing Post promise was cruelly cut short when the filly fractured a hind leg and was unable to be saved. It is the fear in all our hearts. A dream died instantly, but for Lavery, in those moments as IN TDN AMERICA TODAY she watched jockey Robbie Colgan pull up Lady Kaya and realised something was terribly wrong, her mind, typically, was INTO MISCHIEF FILLY BREAKS OBSJUN RECORD far from big-race glory. Larry Best’s OXO Equine added another sale topper to its roster "I saw it happen on The Curragh and all my thoughts were of after bloodstock agent John Dowd went to a June record saving the horse. Royal Ascot didn't matter, it was just about $900,000 to acquire a filly by Into Mischief during Friday’s final session of the OBS June sale. Click or tap here to go straight to helping her," she said on Tuesday evening. Cont. p2 TDN America. TDN EUROPE • PAGE 2 OF 11 • THETDN.COM SATURDAY • 15 JUNE 2019 Lavery=s Intuition Paves Way To Success cont. from p1 When she failed to match her i15,000 foal price at the "People outside the racing world think that we don't care Tattersalls Ireland September Yearling Sale, Joanne decided to about the horses but we do," Lavery added. keep her to race. Nobody who spends more than a handful of minutes at "We were driving home from the sale and someone rang Lavery's farm just outside Summerhill could be in any doubt as Joanne and offered i12,000, but she wanted i15,000 and she to the veracity of this statement. It is a busy yard, with a small, stuck to it," Lavery recalled. friendly team of riders and a smaller, friendly pack of dogs. If After Lady Kaya beat subsequent Oaks runner-up Pink such a thing as a peaceful bustle exists, then it's what you'll find Dogwood (Ire) (Camelot {GB}) by 10 lengths at The Curragh on as the morning work is undertaken. Thirty-plus horses are only her second start last August, Joanne would have had to do exercised with gentle exchanges between trainer and riders. a lot more sticking to her guns as the offers came in for her filly. There's no jibbing, no fuss, just the occasional hand on a neck Plenty of owners would have been tempted to sell, but the strap if a dog's head happens to pop up in the grass alongside Lavery family's faith in their charge was rewarded by classy the circular, undulating canter that encompasses the property. performances from the filly in the best of company, including a Lady Kaya wasn't really supposed to come here. The trainer's runner-up finish to Skitter Scatter (Scat Daddy) in the G1 niece, Joanne Lavery, in embarking on the pinhooking business Moyglare Stud S. A winter break was followed by a winning she is establishing at Drumree Lodge Stud, bought the weanling resumption in the G3 Ballylinch Stud 'Priory Belle' 1000 Guineas daughter of Dandy Man (Ire) from her breeder John O'Connor of Trial at Leopardstown--providing her trainer with a first pattern Ballylinch Stud fame. race victory and her breeder the chance to present the trophy-- before what transpired to be her final race in the 1000 Guineas. Sheila Lavery and her team with Lady Kaya | Emma Berry TDN EUROPE • PAGE 3 OF 11 • THETDN.COM SATURDAY • 15 JUNE 2019 Lavery=s Intuition Paves Way To Success cont. Reflecting on Lady Kaya's early days, Lavery pinpoints her emergence as a potential stable star as the catalyst for Robbie Colgan's transformation from being a National Hunt jockey to riding on the Flat. She says of her key team member who lives next door to the yard, "Robbie doesn't say much but what he does say is pertinent. When the babies start cantering he will Vice President, International Operations Gary King occasionally say, 'she goes well', and you know when Robbie Twitter: @garykingTDN says that you're onto something good. But at the time Robbie [email protected] wasn't riding the Flat horses, so both Ronan Whelan and Gary + 1.732.320.0975 Carroll had ridden her work and they both said that she was way above average. And I think she was the one that really pushed it International Editor for Robbie, because he said he'd do the weight. And that was it Kelsey Riley then. I think she gave him the inspiration--and the other boys Twitter: @kelseynrileyTDN were as sick as turkeys when they heard." [email protected] European Editor Emma Berry Twitter: @collingsberry [email protected] Associate International Editor Heather Anderson Twitter: @HLAndersonTDN Marketing Manager Alayna Cullen Twitter: @AlaynaCullen [email protected] Contributing Editor Alan Carasso Twitter: @EquinealTDN Lil Grey and Robbie Colgan | Emma Berry Cafe Racing Sean Cronin Tom Frary It is not at all surprising that Lavery remained loyal to the [email protected] relatively little known Colgan when doubtless she could have taken her pick of jockeys as Group 1 entries loomed. Irish Correspondent "Apart from days when he's racing, he's been in with me every Daithi Harvey morning since I started," she says. "I asked him loads during that time whether he could do the weight because he's just class. Regular Columnists Chris McGrath | Andrew Caulfield | John Berry And then he just started to, but he didn't tell me at first. I went Kevin Blake to Limerick one day and Robbie was riding at 9st 2lbs and I had a runner at 9st 8lbs with someone else on the horse. I looked at him and I felt dreadful, then later I gave out to him and he started to tell me last year when he could do the weight. Now I IN TDN AUS/NZ TODAY put him on everything." What is more surprising is the realisation that Lavery has only NATIONAL DEFENSE BOLSTERS SUN’S ROSTER been training for six years. Sun Stud’s son of Invincible Spirit will shuttle to Victoria this year. Click or tap here to go straight to TDN Aus/NZ. TDN EUROPE • PAGE 4 OF 11 • THETDN.COM SATURDAY • 15 JUNE 2019 Lavery=s Intuition Paves Way To Success cont. thinking..." Lavery doesn't quite find the words to finish the With the influx of new trainers typically being male sentence. Once again, it was the animal in distress rather than 30-somethings, a 52-year-old woman taking out her licence is success that was uppermost in her mind. refreshingly outside the norm but, as a former eventer, she is The horsewoman clearly not only has an eye for a youngster-- not lacking in equine experience, and she is all too familiar with she buys almost all the horses she trains at what could be the rollercoaster ride which one must endure to live a life with deemed sensible prices--but also an intuitive approach to horses. training which allows the horses to come to hand without being "I've always bred, and then when something hadn't sold I did a pushed too hard too soon.