When You Got To Me battled her way to victory in the Irish Oaks for Ralph Beckett, she also helped another trainer enter into elite company. The filly was co-bred by Mark Tompkins, who joins the likes of Jim Bolger and Aidan O’Brien in having not only trained a Classic winner, but having bred one too.
“It’s unbelievable and people probably don’t appreciate how hard it is to breed a Classic winner,” says Tompkins, who brought an end to his 40-year training career in July 2019. “It never happens to people like us – we’re the only ‘ordinary’ people who’ve bred a Classic winner in Britain or Ireland this year. To train a Classic winner was a great day, and to breed one is just as good.”
Tompkins, who landed the 1993 St Leger with Bob’s Return, bred the filly in partnership with Richard Marriott, who races and breeds under the banner of Sarabex.
“If you lived in Newmarket you’d have heard me screaming…and I live 44 miles away!” Marriott says as he reflects on You Got To Me’s Curragh triumph. “It’s something you’d never dream would happen. Whilst it wasn’t in our ownership, it still means an awful lot to be part of the breeding.”
Tompkins also enjoyed racing success with You Got To Me’s homebred dam Brushing, who won four times before retiring to the paddocks. “She was a good racehorse once she matured,” he says. “She was a very backward two-year-old but won her maiden at three over six furlongs at Yarmouth and just kept on improving. The further she went, the better she was. She won the Cumberland Plate, which I’d always wanted to win, then she won the Listed Galtres Stakes at York under Kieran Fallon. She was pretty good so we kept her at stud.”
You Got To Me was bred at Dullingham Park Stud, which Tompkins has since sold to Steve Parkin of Clipper Logistics, meaning the mare is now under the care of Stuart Thom at Galloway Stud in Woburn.
Brushing raced in the colours of John Brenchley, and Marriott says he was simply “in the right place at the right time” to acquire a third of the mare after her racing career. Marriott first became involved in racing in the 1980s when he owned Greysby, the winner of a bumper, novice hurdle and novice chase for Owen Brennan.
He took a break from ownership when “family and a mortgage came along” soon after, but re-entered the fray in 2009 when he purchased a five per cent share in six two-year-olds trained by Tompkins. Family continues to shape his involvement in the sport, as the Sarabex monicker is an anagram of his daughters’ names, Sarah and Rebecca.
The owner branched out into the world of breeding when he invested “a chunk of money” won on the Tote’s Ten to Follow competition on a broodmare prospect named Nice Time. “Unfortunately she didn’t live up to her name because she absolutely hated her foals, so that first foray into breeding wasn’t especially successful,” he says.
Marriott has enjoyed better fortune with Battery Power, a winning daughter of Royal Applause who now resides at Colin and Melba Bryce’s Laundry Cottage Stud. She has bred four winners, each of whom have carried Marriott’s own colours, namely Velvet Voice, Velvet Vision, Velvet Vista and Velvet Vulcan.
Better was to come when he bought into Brushing, however. Her third foal is the homebred 100-rated four-time winner Ziggy, a son of Sixties Icon who Harry Eustace is aiming towards the Ebor. You Got To Me is the mare’s fifth offspring, and Tompkins’ wife, Angie, is credited with devising the Classic-winning mating.
“The Galileo – Mr Prospector cross is a great nick,” says Tompkins. “My wife is very hot on her crosses, she spends hours doing research. That’s why we went to Sixties Icon, who’s by Galileo, and then Nathaniel, who’s by Galileo too.”
Marriott adds: “When you look at what Nathaniel has done, it’s quite inspiring to be across National Hunt and Flat and to have produced some wonderful horses in both spheres. He’s got such a presence. I’ve been to Newsells Park a number of times and it always sticks out.”
You Got To Me first changed hands as a foal when she was presented by the National Stud at the 2021 Tattersalls December Sale. BBA Ireland signed the ticket at 62,000gns, a price that proved a welcome surprise for her breeders.
“You look back and think we made a mistake by selling her, but at the time it was the right decision,” says Marriott. “We were gobsmacked when she went through the ring. She was a lovely foal but we thought we’d have been lucky to get 30,000gns at the time.”
Although Brushing is not in foal this year there should still be plenty more for Marriott and Tompkins to look forward to. They have retained her two-year-old Time Test filly, while the mare delivered a daughter of Pinatubo earlier this year.
“The Pinatubo flies around her mother like the wall of death!” says Tompkins. “She’s flat out while Brushing just stands there looking at her. She’s a cracking foal though and hopefully she’ll get sold as a yearling next year.
“The Time Test is in pre-training but as both of us have a few horses in training we might try and find a partner to come in with us. She’s cantering every day so hopefully by the end of the month she’ll have gone into training.”
