David Redvers’ Tweenhills operation in Hartpury, Gloucestershire is a deserving recipient of the TBA Breeder of the Month award for June having produced not one, not two but three stakes winners.
The hat-trick was initiated by Queen Of The Pride, who showed class and courage to win the Group 3 Betfred Nifty 50 Lester Piggott Fillies’ Stakes at Haydock. Next up was Running Lion, who registered a popular victory in Group 2 Duke Of Cambridge Stakes at Royal Ascot before Mgheera was a similarly convincing winner of the Listed Prix Hampton at Chantilly.
There is a poignant subplot to the wins of Queen Of The Pride and Running Lion, as the pair are by Tweenhills’ star-crossed stallion Roaring Lion. The four-time Group 1 winner covered just a solitary book of mares before he succumbed to colic while on shuttling duty in New Zealand, but is now the sire of an impressive ten black-type performers. His record is headed by Group 1 Critérium de Saint-Cloud scorer Dubai Mile.
“There’s mixed emotions, obviously,” Redvers says as he reflects on the fillies’ Group race brace. “As any stallion manager will tell you, standing stallions and seeing their progeny is a bit like seeing your own children turning up at sports day. You’re desperately willing them on, so when you’ve bred them on the farm, and they’re by your own horse, it’s doubly exciting and important when they win.”
There was no shortage of excitement in the Royal Ascot winners’ enclosure after Running Lion carried the two-tone green silks of David Howden to victory. The four-year-old filly was bred by Redvers and Howden under the banner of the Bella Nouf Partnership after the dam was purchased from Tattersalls for 325,000gns.
“Bella Nouf was the first mare we bought in partnership to breed from and it was a massive investment from both our perspectives,” says Redvers. “To see that decision vindicated in that style was fantastic, but also seeing the pleasure and excitement it gave David made it doubly special.
“He’s involved in the colts partnership between Qatar Racing and China Horse Club as well, so he’s just getting going, I hope. Anyone who sees his reaction whenever he has a winner will understand what it means to him.”
Howden, head of the eponymous insurance empire, has seen his colours become an increasingly familiar sight on racecourses in recent times, as has the branding of his company, most notably through the partnership with Ascot Racecourse.
“His love and interest in the sport has really blossomed and he’s become heavily involved in the insurance side of the industry as well,” says Redvers. “In the last few months he’s purchased David Ashby Underwriting and Anglo Hibernian Bloodstock, and several others. They do a huge amount of sponsorship throughout the year worldwide. Next year he’s sponsoring the British and Irish Lions in their quest to vanquish the Australians, so he’s a real sportsman.”
Redvers plainly values the power of collaboration as June’s three stakes winners were bred at Tweenhills with a range of different partners.
The Blue Aegean Partnership of Redvers and fellow bloodstock agent Stephen Hillen was responsible for Mgheera, a daughter of another Tweenhills stallion in Zoustar, while Queen Of The Pride is the second foal out of Simple Verse, who famously carried the Qatar Racing Silks to victory in the St Leger of 2015. The Simple Verse Partnership comprises Sheikh Fahad, his brother Sheikh Suhaim and Mohammed al Kubaisi.
While this shared approach is a way of spreading the risk – and the fun – of breeding thoroughbreds, Redvers says there is one drawback for a commercial operation such as Tweenhills.
“We see partnerships as very much the way forward,” he says. “The only problem with having mares registered under the name of a partnership is that normally it goes unnoticed that all these good horses have been bred and raised at Tweenhills. Maybe that’s something we need to change in future.”
Tweenhills’ purple patch has continued into July as Queen Of The Pride followed up her Lester Piggott Stakes success by winning the Group 2 bet365 Lancashire Oaks, while the farm’s first-season sire Kameko has begun to catch the eye with a flurry of two-year-old winners.
“I think Kameko’s only just getting going,” says Redvers. “What’s been wonderful about all of his stock is that the trainers love them, they try and have the same can-do attitude, and when you watch them running for the first time, all their best work is at the end of the race. I’m really excited to see how his two-year-olds go over the coming weeks because I’m pretty confident that by the time we get to the yearling sales, he’ll be the horse everyone’s talking about.”
