It had appeared only a matter of time before Gstaad became the second top-grade winner that Kelly Thomas’s Maywood Stud has produced within the space of just two years.
Aidan O’Brien’s colt, who had finished second in three consecutive Group 1s at Deauville, the Curragh and Newmarket after his triumph in the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot, claimed the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Del Mar in decisive fashion and Thomas was determined to be there.
The son of Starspangledbanner was emulating the feat of his half-brother Vandeek, the outstanding Prix Morny and Middle Park Stakes winner who is now a stallion at Cheveley Park Stud.
Carmarthenshire-based Thomas has become a source of inspiration for small operators, as she has just four active broodmares and bought back this champion pair’s dam, Mosa Mine, for only £800 during her modest racing career. It makes her a deserving, and very obvious, choice for the TBA Breeder of the Month.
“Just to be a part of something like that was a huge honour, and to have been lucky enough to actually go was a trip of a lifetime,” Thomas says of her trip to California. “We’ve tried to follow both Gstaad and Vandeek everywhere. When you get a horse like that you don’t want to miss any of it because you never know when you’re going to get another one.
“We’ve been lucky enough to have two on the trot out of the mare now, which is just remarkable, but it’s still a rarity to have bred horses like this, so we’re absolutely making the most of it.”
Thomas had felt humbled when MV Magnier bought Gstaad for 450,000gns at the Tattersalls December Foal Sale on the back of Vandeek’s emergence and she was able to be part of the Coolmore team’s celebrations after Christophe Soumillon guided his mount home by a comfortable three-quarters of a length.
“We got pretty much access all areas, which was lovely, the Breeders’ Cup looked after us so well,” she continues. “I think he was a little bit unlucky in his previous runs, things just didn’t fall right for whatever reason.
“I had every faith that he was a very good horse and although going out there was all very different with the travel, going round a bend, a new distance of a mile, there was a lot he had to prove, but we had to be there whatever the outcome.”
Maywood Stud is very much a family set-up and Thomas is helped by her parents Barbara and Andrew, husband Huw and three children. She has operated with small budgets but it is anything but a plaything. The decisions that the equine science graduate has taken through the course of the last 20 years have resulted in this run of success, beginning with the 12,000gns purchase of the air’s granddam Baldemosa, a minor winner in France.
“We bought Baldemosa in 2005 and we only started in 2003 so it was in our formative years,” Thomas explains. “Mosa Mine was one of the first foals we bred out of her.
“She’s by Exceed And Excel, who was standing his first season in Dalham Hall. I’d seen him at Kildangan the year before and fell for him, I just thought he was so strong, so full of enthusiasm for life.
“Mosa Mine has been fantastic for us. With everything she’s produced, they’ve all been winners. Starspangledbanner was her most expensive cover as we had been very lucky to get into Havana Grey in his second season to produce Vandeek.”
Mosa Mine, now 18, has been given an even more exalted cover as she is in foal to the late Wootton Bassett.
Thomas has another of Mosa Mine’s daughters, Lady Kheleyf, as a broodmare and she will have very close relatives to the pair, being in foal to Havana Grey and a Starspangledbanner colt from this year.
One of her two other broodmares from different lines, Miskin Diamond, had the promising Zennor Storm score on debut at Kempton recently, so there is much to celebrate.
“We only have our own mares and at the moment there’s just four of them, the most we’ve ever had is five,” she says. “I think I read once that we were punching above our weight with the number of winners from the number of foals we produce, and that’s nice, it makes me feel like we’re doing something right.”
