Anthony Bromley can only shrug his shoulders at the irony. As an up-and-coming bloodstock agent he couldn’t catch a break at buying a Flat horse but instead became the undisputed powerbroker behind the biggest names of the modern jumping era.
Now, through strange quirks of fate and fashion, he is managing something close to the best of both worlds, remade as an identifier of bargain two-year-old talent yet still centre stage at Cheltenham or Punchestown.
If the journey has meandered, there has at least been a constant in his professional life. David Minton, with whom he departed a splintering British Bloodstock Agency to found Highflyer Bloodstock, has not only been a mentor and business partner but equally someone far too easily characterised as a dyed-in-the-wool National Hunt man.
“Minty was a Flat agent and did a lot of big stuff,” Bromley says.
“He was one of the early agents for Cheveley Park Stud and bought Centurius, the brother of Grundy for a fortune, a record European price.
I remember I couldn’t get a deal done for ages
“In the 70s, 80s, you couldn’t make a business out of the jumps market, there wasn’t enough value in the horses or enough going on. Minty used to always say his heart was in the jumps but the business side had to be Flat.”
Bromley, 56, whose parents Bill and Di Bromley ran Wood Farm Stud, has worked with his family friend since leaving school in 1987 and followed him to the BBA. He was allowed to learn his trade and was supported by the agency in reconnaissance trips to France to look for young jumps prospects, an edge being exploited at the time by Martin Pipe.
“I remember I couldn’t get a deal done for ages but suddenly, after trying and trying, I think the first horse I bought was, of all people for Captain Tim Forster,” he recalls.
“He was very poorly at the time, under treatment, but we got him on a flight to Paris, took him to the Aga Khan’s place and got him a nice horse called Lannkaran.
“When I said to people it was quite simple to do, I think they thought if poor old Captain Tim could do it…Once it started, it snowballed.
“You could quantify some of the form with Martin Pipe’s horses, and when we went on our own in 2001, we’d had a lot of big French winners. Katarino won a Triumph Hurdle, Makounji had done well, Cenkos was an early one who was good for Andy Stewart. We were rolling.”
With Bromley developing links with many of Paul Nicholls’ owners and likewise Minton with Nicky Henderson, they would use the invaluable French network of the late David Powell to sign up a stream of hall of fame horses, from Kauto Star, Master Minded and Big Buck’s to Long Run, almost like shelling peas.
“There weren’t loads of players with big money to spend and you could feel pretty confident there were horses that had raced a number of times at Graded level, it was just a question of getting a price everyone agreed to,” he says.
“It wasn’t rocket science in some ways but it’s not to be underestimated what David brought to the table. We also had clients that came with us, it was a yes or a no while you were on the phone.”
He sums up those unprecedented times. “I remember the Cheltenham Festivals in 2009 and 2010, Highflyer had sourced ten winners each time. You know it wasn’t easy but you probably didn’t
appreciate it much as I do now.”
Bromley reckons that was about the time that habits began to turn.
Emboldened Irish buyers wanted a piece of the French market and would go in hard for once-raced horses, just as they would for a point-to-point or bumper winner back home. The figures soon rivalled those he might offer for a proven Grade 1 horse like a Kauto Star.
Many more that might have raced are now bought from the field in France to be offered at store sales making, in Bromley’s view, his old hunting ground of middle-tier competition in the provinces somewhat weaker.
One poor fella was just jumped on by about 20 English, French and Irish agents, demanding a price.
“The top, at Auteuil, is still very good,” he says.
“The winners there are making huge bids but there also quite a lot more owners who are passionate and wealthy in their own right, just like we have, so there aren’t as many for sale.
“I remember being there in early September. As soon as something wins one of those good three-year-old races that’s owned by a trainer, it’s like piranhas. One poor fella was just jumped on by about 20 English, French and Irish agents, demanding a price. You name it, we’ll find someone for it.”
For all that the operation would still purchase the odd Flat yearling for clients, Highflyer’s reputation for National Hunt excellence could be difficult to shrug off. Bromley linked up with John Best for a time, even finding the 2007 juvenile Nunthorpe Stakes winner Kingsgate Native for just 20,000gns at the old Doncaster St Leger Sale.
“It opened no doors whatsoever,” he laughs. “In fact, the next season John did his own buying!”
Instead, it was a far older acquaintance that provided the necessary breakthrough.
Minton adored the late David Nicholson, staying with him for 34 consecutive Cheltenhams, and Bromley bonded with his long-time assistant Alan King, who was of a similar age.
The pair had bought some useful Flat horses together, such Trouble At Bay and Salsalino, although they were overshadowed by Voy Por Ustedes and My Way De Solzen in King’s golden era of
jumpers.
“It went quiet on the Flat for a while and then we resurrected it,” he says. “We couldn’t afford the form horses and we’d wondered if we could buy dual-purpose types at the breeze-ups.
“Chatez was the first one I bought when we came back to them, for about 20 grand off Thomond O’Mara’s Knockanglass, who later sold us [Group 1 staying star] Trueshan. It worked, it really did. Master Blueyes won an Adonis, Tritonic was really good at both; Trueshan only didn’t go jumping as he ended up being too good.
“Now, we’ve found the owners have quite enjoyed the Flat and we’re quite relaxed about the types we buy, they don’t have to make a jumper.”
Bromley has still continued to shop at the breeze-ups for King, who finds it more manageable to start receiving two-year olds just as his jumpers are going out to summer grass. Another development, though, has been more significant to this latest chapter of his career.
“I think the success I had with Eve Johnson Houghton has catapulted me further because Kingy would still connect me to jumpers,” he explains. Trueshan: popular stayer was a 31,000gns breeze-up purchase with Alan King but we got on great and once he left me to my own devices a bit, it went a lot better.
“People still think of me just buying a big slow horse like Trueshan as a Flat horse but Eve has showed we could buy fast sprinters like Chipotle, who won a Windsor Castle and cost ten grand.”
Bromley thanks the late syndicator Henry Ponsonby for that particular introduction.
“Henry was my biggest promoter,” he says. “He could exasperate you at times “He kept telling anyone that would listen, TV interviews, or a quote, that I was the best kept secret in Flat racing. He was a very sweet man and it was a very sad day when we lost him.
“Eve would say, ‘I don’t use agents, Dad and I do it,’ and Henry kept pestering her. One season, her best two would have been cheaply bought ones that I’d done for Henry and, grudgingly, we did a sale together.
“I didn’t know what type of horses she liked, but I worked out which ones she was coming back to off my list, so I could put a tighter list to the next one. We don’t have much budget but she’s a great judge. I’m the blunt instrument and she fine tunes it. She’s also a good trainer, which is a massive help, and that makes you look better as a buyer.”
Bromley, who has also sparked a recent partnership with the Phil Cunningham and Richard Spencer axis, has found he sticks to similar principles with buying under each code.
Just as he would blanche at purchasing an Auteuil maiden winner for telephone numbers, so too is he pragmatic at the breeze-ups. He studies the recorded times but primarily so he can scratch the very fastest clockers from his list as they would be out of his price range. Assessing the animal itself, across each auction, is his biggest interest.
“Perhaps I just look at it from a different angle,” he says. “I enjoy the logistical challenge of the Flat yearling game”
“I’m one of the earliest agents at a sale and I do annoy the likes of Bill Dwan at Castlebridge because I’m always asking when I can start seeing them. I don’t think I’ve got any master eye at it but I put the legwork in.
I’ll forgive pedigree for individual
“There are obviously a lot more Flat sales about, so you do get more choice – jumps is more concentrated and the stores are very well picked over – and it’s maybe harder to nick one these days.
“Sometimes I scratch my head as to why Flat yearlings can be so cheap but it can literally be just fashion of stallion. It is the same for foal sales over jumps but when you get to the store stage, the
jumping people are after an individual.
“I think possibly that’s why I’m sourcing more of an athlete. I’ll forgive pedigree for individual, I think. Maybe that’s what I’ve learned can cross over, it must do, as I’ve had quite a lot of success with cheap horses on the Flat.”
All but a few agents tend to specialise on one side or the other but none of this is to say Bromley has disappeared from jumping. He oversees the ‘Double Green’ string of Simon Munir and Isaac Souede, who were happy to pay €155,000 for the Aintree Manifesto Novices’ Chase winner Impaire Et Passe but are generally quite circumspect in their buying and have a nursery system in operation in Ireland and France.
A mid-March double, with that team’s Jasmin De Vaux joined by Caldwell Potter for Nicholls and a syndicate including Sir Alex Ferguson and the late John Hales, meant that Highflyer purchases have now won more than 100 Cheltenham Festival races since the team’s genesis.
Ask Minton about which he side he prefers and you would undoubtedly receive the same emphatic answer as it ever was. Yet when it was posed to Bromley, we should hope the response doesn’t turn his old friend apoplectic.
“Different times of year I’d answer differently, I think it’s literally like that,” he says after a pause.
“The jumps, I’m more involved in the Grade 1s still, so jumps at heart but I thoroughly enjoy the logistical challenge of the Flat yearling game. It’s a puzzle to be unravelled in my mind.
“I can see why the late, great [BBA agent] Joss Collins loved the Flat yearlings. He’d follow the sun, to New Zealand or South Africa, just to do more yearling sales, and he absolutely hated the horses in training sale as he had to trust too many people.
“I couldn’t understand his addiction to the yearling sales at the time, I was the bookish, form man and loved the horses in training, but now it’s flip-flopped, gone full circle. I’m much keener on trying to unearth an unbroken gem.”
‘Ying and the yang’
With their Shropshire family links going back generations, Anthony Bromley and David Minton’s bond is pretty much unbreakable.
This is not to say it is without its disagreements. Bromley remembers, for instance, trying to put the brakes on starting the Million In Mind trading syndicate in the early 90s.
Just when the avuncular, vastly popular Minton had began purchasing horses, Bromley became concerned his boss had nowhere near the number of prospective members as he believed he had recruited on the back of a sociable York Ebor meeting.
“Minty’s great for ideas, not so good on much written down,” Bromley remembers fondly.
“But he bought Beauchamp Grace, she won her first four juvenile hurdles and was favourite for the Triumph Hurdle.
“David Nicholson found us loads of people, then the second year Mysilv won the Triumph and it just took off.
“We were the ying and the yang, really. Mint is always very optimistic and I’m always the worst-case-scenario, the half-empty of the bottle.
“But it’s worked well over the years and and I’ve learned so much from him. We’re still doing the stores together, which are his favourite.”
As store season approaches, they will work them along with Highflyer’s third member, Tessa Greatrex.
“There could be 500 horses, a lot to David Minton: integral to the agency get seen,” Bromley says.
“Other agents get people to have first looks but we’ve got three really senior agents that are our first lookers. We’ll then look at the picks of the others in each of the barns, so you get it done
quite quickly.”
Despite the trio acting for different trainers or owners, Bromley says that clashes are surprisingly rare.
“We’ve worked so closely together for so long, we know what we all like, and what their clients like,” he adds.
“There might be no point showing this one to Minty and Nicky Henderson, but maybe Kingy and I should, or Tess has had a lot of success with Westerner, the likes of Cole Harden, so she’d better see that one.
“With stores there’s always another one round the corner. There’s no point falling out over one.”
