WEDNESDAY, 21 JULY 2021 ON THE RHODE PALACE PIER TO MISS SUSSEX WITH UNSATISFACTORY BLOOD WORK TO VICTORY Top-class miler Palace Pier (GB) (Kingman {GB}) will miss the G1 Qatar Sussex S. at Goodwood on July 28, after presenting with poor blood work in advance of the race. The Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum colourbearer has compiled a record of eight wins in nine starts, and was last seen saluting in the G1 Queen Anne S. at Royal Ascot. He had opened his 2021 campaign with a win in the G2 bet365 Mile at Sandown on Apr. 23 and added the May 15 G1 Al Shaqab Lockinge S. Co-trainer Thady Gosden said, AHis bloods are off, and obviously it wouldn=t have been the right thing to do to try and push him into the Sussex. The next race that suits him is the [Aug. 15 G1] Prix Jacques le Marois [at Deauville]. We=ll have to miss Goodwood, which is frustrating. AHopefully we=ll take him to France. He obviously won the Jacques le Marois last year, so it=s a good back-up.@ Barry and Tom Lacy with Vida Amorosa and her Inns Of Court colt Anna Lacy IN TDN AMERICA TODAY BENNETT LIEBMAN GIVES HIS TAKE ON BAFFERT DECISION Legal expert Bennett Liebman gives his views on who won and who By Emma Berry lost in the Bob Baffert decision. Click or tap here to go straight to The village of Rhode in the Irish heartland of County Offaly TDN America. may be better known for its peat but it can also boast a growing reputation as home to some of the stars of the racing and breeding world. The most recent comet to shoot to prominence having been raised on its turf is Gubbass (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}), winner of Saturday's Weatherbys Super Sprint for Richard Hannon and owner Jassim Bin Ali Attiyah. The youngster was bred at Ballyheashill Stud in Rhode by Barry Lacy and his father Tom, the former jockey, trainer and mentor to many a young person starting out in the racing business. "We would be known as bogland around here, so people say 'oh you're from the bog" and we have to put up with that," says Barry Lacy, whose brother Tony is one of Ireland's many 'wild geese' and was recently appointed Keeneland's vice director of sales in Lexington. He adds, "But when it comes to the land the proof of the pudding is in the eating and the amount of good horses that have come out of this little pocket here in recent years is pretty staggering. Derek has had some amazing results." Cont. p2 TDN EUROPE • PAGE 2 OF 9 • THETDN.COM WEDNESDAY • 21 JULY 2021 On the Rhode to Victory Cont. from p1 training of horses for a lifetime. Sales-ring touches are fantastic, and fast, early 2-year-olds help a mare's commercial value, but The neighbour to whom Lacy refers is Derek Veitch, owner of at the crux of it all is breeding robust individuals who will stand Ringfort Stud with his wife Gay. Their growing number of stakes up to the work required, both mentally and physically, to get winners includes the G2 Duke of Cambridge S. victrix Indie Angel them to the racecourse and into the winner's enclosure. (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}), bred in partnership with Paul Hancock, as "Gubbass looks like he's a black-type horse and for a mare to well as last year's G2 Lowther S. winner, Miss Amulet (Ire) (Sir have a horse like that as her first foal is just wonderful," he adds. Prancealot {Ire}), and the last two winners of the G2 Gimcrack S. "It's also lovely vindication for mum as she would have watched in Threat (Ire) (Footstepsinthesand {GB}) and Minzaal (Ire) all the foals walking round from the kitchen window over the (Mehmas {Ire}). It's not completely unthinkable that the race years and she called it first, that the Mehmas colt was could go to another Rhode-bred this time around as the something special." unbeaten Gubbass already has a Gimcrack entry, through Lacy's mother Margaret is the sister of Paddy Behan, breeder Hannon has identified the G2 Qatar Richmond S. at Glorious of a superstar under another code, the nine-time Grade Goodwood as his likely next target. 1-winning jumper Altior (Ire) (High Chaparral {Ire}). "We can dare to dream," says Lacy. "Look, the horse won on Along with the former training stable, Tom and Margaret Lacy Saturday and it was fantastic but we get as much of a kick out of have always kept "two or three mares" and played something of watching Roundabout Magic (Ire) (Zebedee {GB}), who we bred, a key role in one of Ballylinch Stud's major families as the win for Simon Dow at Lingfield. He's seven or eight, still a colt, breeders of Group 3 winner Ingabelle (GB) (Taufan {GB}). rated in the 50s and I think he's won eight races. I love those Lacy recalls, "In the 1970s dad bought a filly by Falcon (GB) tough, sound horses. Horses like that, that are still sound and who turned out to be Bodelle (GB). She was quite a good race loving it, they give you a great kick and they are hard to find. filly and got black type on the Flat and over hurdles. Her first And they don't have to be stars but that just does your heart foal was Ingabelle, who became an important foundation mare good." for Ballylinch Stud. We kept the first two foals out of her, a colt So speaks a man who has been involved with the riding and and a filly, and we still have one grand-daughter here." Cont. p3 TDN EUROPE • PAGE 3 OF 9 • THETDN.COM WEDNESDAY • 21 JULY 2021 On the Rhode to Victory Cont. The Ballylinch connection continues through one of the three mares currently on the farm, Gubbass's 7-year-old dam Vida Amarosa (Ire), a daughter of Ballylinch stallion Lope De Vega (Ire). "We had originally been interested in her half-sister Queen Of Power (Ire), who ran in the Guineas at The Curragh. My brother Senior Vice President Gary King Tony had asked me to have a look at her but for some reason Twitter: @garykingTDN we didn't end up going for her. Then this Lope De Vega filly [email protected] came out of the blue," he continues. + 1.732.320.0975 "In the meantime when we stumbled across this filly, as she was at the time, I noticed that Queen Of Power had had an International Editor Acclamation (GB) colt foal who went through the sale for Kelsey Riley i130,000, so I thought to myself 'he must have been nice', and Twitter: @kelseynrileyTDN it was almost another reason to use Mehmas. We'd been [email protected] interested in that family for quite a few years but looking at European Editor them is one thing, buying them is something else." Emma Berry As it was, Vida Amorosa wasn't too hard to buy and she was Twitter: @collingsberry picked up as a 3-year-old at the Goffs February sale for i1,200 [email protected] and sent to Mehmas the following year. Following a record-breaking start with his debutants, the Tally-Ho Stud Associate International Editor stallion shows no sign of slowing up. And in fact the O'Callaghan Heather Anderson family of Tally-Ho are now the owners of Gubbass's full-brother, Twitter: @HLAndersonTDN having paid i75,000 for him at last season's delayed Goffs Foal Marketing Manager Sale the week before Christmas. Alayna Cullen "He was one of only about three colts by Mehmas at that sale Twitter: @AlaynaCullen last year and we had the impression that they were crazy about [email protected] Gubbass [at Hannon's]. Word must have filtered down because it wasn't just Tally-Ho bidding on him. He was in the last 10 lots Contributing Editors on the first day of Goffs and everybody stayed around. We Alan Carasso thought they were hardly here for our horse, but as it turns out Christina Bossinakis they were," says Lacy. Cont. p4 Cafe Racing Sean Cronin Tom Frary [email protected] Irish Correspondent Daithi Harvey Regular Columnists Chris McGrath | John Berry | Kevin Blake Amy Lynam | Melissa Steele IN TDN AUS/NZ TODAY STALLION FEES POINT TO RENEWED CONFIDENCE TDN AusNZ analyzes the annual service fee trends. Click or tap here to go straight to TDN Aus/NZ. Vida Amorosa and her Inns Of Court colt | Barry Lacy TDN EUROPE • PAGE 4 OF 9 • THETDN.COM WEDNESDAY • 21 JULY 2021 road I'm at Derek Veitch's, and another 15 minutes and I'm at Tally-Ho. So we're surrounded by likeminded people." He adds, "I was at the yearling sales in Newmarket with Gubbass at the time of Patrick's funeral and it was very hard for none of us to be able to go. We lost somebody very important round here. It's hard to exaggerate the effect that it had on the local area. It was like losing your Muhammad Ali, your hero." Gubbass | Racingfotos.com O=BRIEN GIVES UPDATE ON GOODWOOD On the Rhode to Victory Cont. TEAM Vida Amorosa is being rested this year having produced a colt Aidan O=Brien will send a strong Ballydoyle challenge to the quite late in the season by another Tally-Ho resident, Inns Of Qatar Goodwood Festival next week, and has a trio of colts Court (Ire).