Carl Hinchy has been best known for his success in National Hunt racing as an owner with Riders Onthe Storm taking him all the way to Grade 1 level in the 2020 Ascot Chase.
His latest triumph, which sees him bestowed with the honours of December’s TBA Breeder of the Month, forms part of a more recent project in which Konfusion is an early hero after he made all the running for a decisive victory in the Grade 3 Rowland Meyrick Handicap Chase at Wetherby on Boxing Day.
It was a second of the traditional winter prizes to go to Joel Parkinson and Sue Smith’s up-and-comer, who had run away with the Rehearsal Chase at Newcastle a month earlier.
“My horse Some Scope won the Rowland Meyrick Chase in 2024 and then I have bred Konfusion in 2025 so it’s an unusual double!” Hinchy says.
“The story of Konfusion started when I bought his dam Tahira from Germany to race in the UK. She won three on the Flat and three over jumps but her last race was at the Cheltenham Festival in 2017, where she suffered an injury which meant we had to retire her.
“I had visited Simon Sweeting’s Overbury Stud as I had two mares to put in foal – one went to Kayf Tara and Tahira to Schiaparelli (above) as I loved him as a physical. He was out of an Old Vic mare, so I felt he would compliment Tahira very well.”
Hinchy has a long link with Claire Hetherington’s yard in Oxfordshire, where his retirees were sometimes retrained and young horses sent for prep-work.
“Claire was keen to look after the mares and we had three broodmares there at one time,” he says.
“It’s fair to say Junior, who later became Konfusion, was Claire’s favourite and was very spoilt under her care. The day he left her yard to go to Will Kinsey’s Peel Stud to be prepared for sale was a sad one! It was all the more sad for Claire as Tahira had succumbed to an infection when in foal to Blue Bresil and sadly passed away, so Konfusion would be her only offspring.”
Konfusion was bought for £30,000 by Harvey Smith at the 2021 Goffs Spring Store Sale and has hit new heights since being switched to fences, the latest Wetherby effort being his fifth win since
the end of last February.
“Will would tell me that the gelding has plenty of attitude, inherited no doubt from his mother, and wasn’t the easiest to prepare,” Hinchy says.
“We were thrilled when Sue and Harvey Smith bought him knowing he would be going to a good home. For me, it has been such a pleasure to follow his progress from afar.
“He has speed and stamina and looks a potential National horse in the making. We watch all his races and for a small breeder like myself, the pride of seeing him be so successful matches any of the achievements we have had as owners of horses. It has been such a thrill.”
While Hinchy has not been seen quite as regularly in recent times as an owner, aside from through the evergreen Fugitif, it is reassuring to note that he has been so enthused by the breeding side of the sport.
While Konfusion was among the very first he bred, he has been followed by a number of others. From mares he either retired from the track or purchased for the paddocks, Hinchy has progeny by top British-based sires including Nathaniel, Gentlewave, Golden Horn and Jack Hobbs quietly getting ready for the track.
He explains that he has particularly enjoyed the intellectual challenge of finding the right matings for the mares and has a soft spot for Schiaparelli, who remains in service at Overbury at a venerable 23.
“As a racehorse owner we have seen our horses win Graded races all over the place, from Cheltenham, Aintree, Ascot, Newbury and Warwick, but the thrill of breeding and using British stallions to breed a nice horse has been one that has left us very proud and fulfilled,” he says.
“Schiaparelli remains a hugely underrated stallion. He is a fine physical with a beautiful pedigree and produces fine fillies and geldings, many of which are are late maturing animals with longevity to their career. I have a lovely three-year-old filly that I bred from Schiaparelli from the family of Defi Du Seuil, who will go to Goffs in May all being well.”
