There was a sense of deja vu as Porta Fortuna entered the Ascot winners enclosure following her win in the Coronation Stakes. A glance at her enthusiastic American ownership group, made up of Medallion Thoroughbreds and Reeves Thoroughbreds among others, told plenty on how important the filly has become in promoting British and Irish racing to an international audience. Yet her background is a familiar one that represents one of Irish racing’s most successful dynasties.
As with Ribblesdale Stakes winner Port Fairy the day before, Porta Fortuna was bred by the O’Brien family’s Whisperview Trading, run under the eye of Ana O’Brien, out of an inexpensively sourced female line that has been in the family’s hands for several generations. Both are also daughters of stallions once trained by Ana’s father Aidan O’Brien and are now themselves in the hands of an O’Brien – Porta Fortuna is the year’s leading light of Donnacha O’Brien’s Bawnmore Racing while Port Fairy’s Ribblesdale contributed to Aidan O’Brien landing a 13th leading Royal Ascot trainers title. Another quality representative, Heavens Gate, also nearly went from pillar to post in the Albany Stakes, only to be overhauled in the last 100 yards by her Ballydoyle stablemate Fairy Godmother and Simmering.
Only Coolmore bred more winners during the week, but when it came to the production of Group winners, Whisperview jointly shared the accolades with that leviathan as well as Sheikh Mohammed Obaid al Maktoum, whose Reem Three family supplied him with Rosallion and Inisherin.
“It’s not something you’d ever expect,” says Ana O’Brien looking back to that week. “We were so delighted last year when we had one winner [when Porta Fortuna won the Albany Stakes] and going back this year we never thought or expected to have two. We had a few runners and so you’d always be hopeful but to have two winners was great.”
Success has already extended beyond Royal Ascot, however. Porta Fortuna has since taken the Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket while Heavens Gate won the lucrative Irish EBF Ballyhane Stakes at Naas, thereby becoming the second Whisperview-bred winner of the race in three years following Voce Del Palio in 2022. Usdi Atohi, a Ten Sovereigns filly trained by Donnacha, also won the Listed Tipperary Stakes while the Aidan O’Brien-trained Mountain Bear, last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf runner-up, recently ran a fast-finishing second in the Desmond Stakes as he continues his return from injury.
Porta Fortuna captures the Falmouth Stakes under Ryan Moore. Photo – Bill Selwyn
Of course, such Group 1 exploits are nothing new. In the years since Rock Of Gibraltar flew the flag for Joe Crowley and Aidan and Annemarie O’Brien as breeders with his championship three-year-old campaign in 2002, Whisperview-breds have regularly featured at the top level, among them Oaks heroine Qualify, Dewhurst Stakes winner Beethoven, Racing Post Trophy winner Kingsbarns and National Stakes winner Thunder Moon alongside the Group 1-winning siblings Iridessa, Order Of Australia and Santa Barbara. Plenty descend from mares originally sourced by Annemarie O’Brien and her father Joe Crowley and while the availability of leading sires Galileo and Danehill have in some instances been important contributory factors, several highlights have also turned out to be among the better performers produced by their sires, the multiple Group 1 heroine Iridessa, by Ruler Of The World, and Beethoven, by Oratorio, being cases in point.
Recent achievements, however, also coincide with the arrival of Ana O’Brien as stud manager.
O’Brien could still be enjoying a career in the saddle had fate not taken a cruel turn in July 2017. She was riding Druids Cross at Killarney when the horse slipped up and fell, firing his jockey into the turf. Although she escaped serious brain injury, O’Brien fractured vertebra on her neck and T6 in her back, thereby bringing an abrupt and sad end to a successful career as an apprentice. At the time, she had clocked up 18 winners for the season and given her lead in the Irish apprentice race was only overhauled several months later in October, would have most likely ended the year as champion.
They say though that as one door shuts, another one opens and once her recovery was complete, a gateway into the world of bloodstock awaited.
I had to learn an awful lot very quickly
“It was a big change but it kind of fell that way really,” she recalls. “I did initially miss the riding. It was very unfortunate. I was probably having my best year ever. It was a dream of mine to win the apprentice title but I missed out on that probably because of the fall. But anyway I can’t complain because at the same time I was so lucky to come out the other end.
“I always had a good interest in the stud but I wouldn’t have had much knowledge of the day-to-day goings on of it while I was racing. Even though we had our own place, I was never here day to day. So I had to learn an awful lot very quickly. I’m still learning every day. But then you never stop learning in this business – every day is a school day.”
Good staff and land are important elements to any stud farm. But the O’Brien team have another advantage in that different members of the family are likely to have either ridden or trained various runners in their horse’s pedigrees, including the sires.
One horse close to the farm’s heart in that regard is Arya Tara. By former Ballydoyle Horse of the Year Dylan Thomas and bred by Whisperview from a fine Aga Khan family, Arya Tara was partnered by Ana O’Brien in all of her nine starts, including when successful in the Stanerra Stakes at Leopardstown. Now part of the Whisperview broodmare band, she hit the ground running at stud as the dam of the classy Caravaggio filly Agartha, who was trained by Joseph to win a trio of Pattern events including the Debutante Stakes at the Curragh as a two-year-old.
Arya Tara and Ana O’Brien return after winning the Apprentice Derby at the Curragh. Photo – Caroline Norris
“It’s a massive advantage knowing the families, and that’s from the lads training them to us then working with the mares and knowing their personalities,” says O’Brien. “I go back a long way with Arya Tara. I won four in a row on her, including the Stanerra Stakes and Apprentice Derby at the Curragh, and also rode her when she was third behind Order Of St George in a Group 3 [Irish St Leger Trial] at the Curragh. Now we have her on the farm and her first runner was Agartha, who was as tough as nails. Having bred the mare, ridden her and got on well with her on the track, it’s very satisfying to have her here doing well at stud.
“We’re very lucky that Dad is training most of the stallions we use as well. So we get a good insight into them from different angles. Not many people can say that, so we’re definitely lucky in that way. Everything I’ve learnt has been off Mum and Dad, Joseph, Donnacha and Sarah as well. We all work together, bouncing ideas off each other and making the decisions.
“We have a great team as well. We couldn’t do it without everyone helping each other. We’re very lucky that way. Mitch Barry is my right hand man and I have a good few young people working here who have been with me for a couple of years now.
“We also sell a few at the sales under Mount Richard Stud and I’d like to continue doing that, maybe grow that side a bit.”
She adds: “I suppose the farm is known for being a good vein of land. We’re very lucky to have it. A few studs around us seem to breed a few good horses. You’d often hear the old farmers saying that ‘this is a good field’ or that this ‘one is better than another’. It’s interesting to hear an owner talk of the land and their knowledge of a farm. I think it counts for a lot.”
Whether it’s the land, the raising and training of them or the pedigrees, the family are doing something right when it comes to producing above-average racehorses. For instance, Porta Fortuna is the best sired by the now Japanese-based Caravaggio, who was trained by Aidan O’Brien to win the Phoenix Stakes and Commonwealth Cup, and the first foal out of Too Precious, a daughter of Holy Roman Emperor who was trained by Joseph O’Brien to win four races. In turn, Too Precious was bred by Whisperview out of the High Chaparral mare Delicate Charm, another homebred whose progeny include Australian Group 2 winner Numerian. This family joined the fold with the purchase of Porta Fortuna’s third dam Kantikoy for €10,000 at the 2003 Goffs November Sale.
“We always liked Porta Fortuna,” says O’Brien. “She was very straightforward without being too flashy. She always did everything right, never caused any trouble or stood out for the wrong reasons.
“She’s out of a young mare that Joseph trained – she did well for Joseph, she was a good racemare and well-rated. We still have her dam Delicate Charm. She’s been a great mare and is still breeding away.”
She adds: “If there’s a family we like, we try to hold on to plenty of the stock. We still have Port Fairy’s granddam [Eccentricity], though she’s in retirement now. She was a great mare too – it’s been a lucky family for us.”
I think Australia is probably a stallion who is underrated a little bit
Eccentricity, a Niarchos-bred daughter of Kingmambo, cost just €11,000 at Goffs in 2013. So far, she is the dam of nine winners but Fabulae, her 2015 filly by Fastnet Rock, was not one of them, instead achieving the lowly rating of 35 in six starts for Joseph O’Brien. But it a very classy Niarchos family after all, one that goes back to Stavros Niarchos’ Prix de Diane winner Northern Trick via champion Shiva, and for whatever reason it’s now clicked in the case of Fabulae’s first foal Port Fairy. The filly is one of 41 stakes winners for the Ballydoyle-trained Derby hero Australia, a horse that the O’Briens have a lot of time for.
“We’ve done very well with Australia,” says Ana O’Brien. “We’ve always really liked his progeny and we have some really gorgeous yearlings by him again this year. I think he’s probably a stallion who is underrated a little bit. They also have great temperaments. From the minute they’re born, they’re very easy to have anything to do with. You’d nearly know going into a field which is an Australia by its temperament.
“I remember in training that he was a gentleman of a horse himself, you couldn’t fault him and he was so straightforward.”
While Porta Fortuna and Port Fairy are out of young mares, Heavens Gate is proof that with the right management, age can be no barrier to mares as well. An imposing filly in the mould of her sire Churchill, she is out of 22-year-old Itqaan, surely one of the last Danzig mares with youngstock on the ground who is a half-sister to 1,000 Guineas heroine Ghanaati and granddaughter of Height Of Fashion.
“She’s a lovely filly, a great specimen with plenty of power,” says O’Brien. “She’s actually the last foal out of the mare. It just shows even the older mares can breed a good performer.
“We like the Churchills. We’ve had a bit of luck with him. She’s a lot like him – she has that strength and presence that he has. He’s a straightforward horse to use especially as you know that he’ll put a bit of size into them, which is a massive plus.”
There is the impression that no stone is unturned when it comes to buying into successful families at a reasonable level. After all, it’s a strategy that continues to serve the family well; for that, look no further than the 82-rated juvenile Shimmy Jimmy, a homebred with Donnacha O’Brien who is the only runner to have graced Britain and Ireland by the €2,500 French stallion Jimmy Two Times.
“We bought the mare Anayasa [for €9,500] carrying him,” says O’Brien of the Navan winner. “He’s by a sire you wouldn’t see much of but he’s a fun horse and he should be competitive in some of those nice handicaps going forward. He was always a character here.
“Same with Mountain Bear. He’s a real character, always the pick of the field – you’d go into the field with him and he knew he was good-looking.”
She adds: “It’s about trying to find the value with mares. There’s always a good bunch of mares that people want to buy but only the very few can afford, so we try to find the value where we can.”
In that, the gold standard is arguably the purchase of Senta’s Dream for 14,000gns through the BBA Ireland in 2013. Then a nine-year-old, she was catalogued to that year’s Tattersalls December Sale as the dam of a single winner from three runners. But she was also extremely well connected as a Danehill daughter of the tough Mendocino mare Starine, who carried the colours of her trainer Bobby Frankel to victory in the 2002 Breeders Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Under her new ownership, the mare proceeded to produce Iridessa, Order Of Australia and Santa Barbara, between them the winners of seven Group/Grade 1 races including two Breeders’ Cups.
“Senta’s Dream was really was good for us,” says O’Brien. “I think all the foals we bred out of her won Group 1 races. Dad was responsible for buying her. It was an American family and whatever was in the pedigree caught his eye. He wasn’t too far wrong!”
If the likes of Senta’s Dream, Heavens Gate and Porta Fortuna have illustrated anything, then it is that pedigree nearly always comes to the fore, even if the immediate generations of a mare or filly appear a little exposed. Ignore those types of mares at your peril. As Whisperview have repeatedly shown, they could be the next Group 1 producer.
Connections celebrate Port Fairy’s success in the Coronation Stakes. Photo – Bill Selwyn
