A marriage of convenience and multiple market rejection – the 'mad' tale of a Hong Kong hero

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On this occasion, Martin Stevens speaks to the breeder of Red Lion about the remarkable tale of the Hong Kong Group 1 winner – subscribers can get more great insight every Monday to Friday.

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Red Lion will go down as a shock winner of the Champions Mile at Sha Tin after making all and bravely holding at bay the brilliant four-time Hong Kong Group 1 winner Voyage Bubble in this year’s edition of the race on Sunday.

The six-year-old gelding, trained by John Size for former HKJC chairman Ronald Arculli and his wife Johanna, had plenty of decent form in the book, though, having finished second to Beauty Eternal in last year’s renewal and third in two other top-level events at Sha Tin.

He is also known for being an admirably game individual, so was never going to wimp out of the sort of fight he found himself in with Voyage Bubble at the weekend, and he had the assistance of top jockey Hugh Bowman in the saddle. So, all in all, his starting price of 90-1 probably underestimated him quite considerably.

Far more surprising about Red Lion than his most recent victory is that he ever made it into this world, and then got to a racecourse, as his biography is littered with happy accidents and unfair rejections. For most of his formative years the chances of him ever lining up in a top-level event in Hong Kong – let alone winning one – would have been a billion to one.

The achievement of Red Lion’s breeder Patrick Harney certainly shouldn’t be played down, though. The mating that led to the gelding’s birth might have been a marriage of convenience, but the County Offaly horseman always believed in him and stood by him.

Harney takes up the tale, which begins with the purchase of Red Lion’s dam Crystal Idea, a wide-margin Curragh maiden winner by Namid and from the family of leading two-year-old and Derby hero Sir Percy, for a mere €5,000 at the Goffs February Sale of 2011.

“My brother John and I were working at Declan Carroll’s in North Yorkshire and sending home money to our father [also Pat] at the time,” says Harney. “He was going to Goffs and told us to pick out a mare, so John and I started looking through the catalogue to see what we liked. 

“Declan also had a look through the book for us. I learned a lot from him, and he was a big influence on me when it came to pedigrees. He picked out a few mares, and one of them was Crystal Idea. He had a good horse by Namid called Mayoman in the yard at the time, which helped.

“John and I liked the page too. It’s a really tough family that's thrown up heaps of winners. Namid was a Prix de l’Abbaye winner, so had proper five-furlong speed, and that's what every breeder wants their mare to put into a mating. It helped that Namid turned out to be a very good broodmare sire.

“Crystal Idea is a huge mare, about 16.3 hands. Dad said he’d seen nothing like her before. When he took her home and had to get her in from the field he was having to run to keep up with her walking.

“She was actually our third preference in the sale, partly because of her size, but we were unable to buy the other mares who were further up the pecking order as they went out of our price range.”

That was the first of several twists of fate that eventually led to Red Lion roaring in Hong Kong on Sunday. 

Red Lion, then known as Fiach McHugh, winning at the Curragh in May 2022Credit: Racing Post

The second occurred after Crystal Idea arrived in her new home of Ballybeg Stables in Croghan, outside Rhode, a fertile patch of the Irish thoroughbred landscape that the late Pat Smullen, the Veitch family of Ringfort Stud and the Lacy family of Ballyheashill Stud have called home.

Harney once trained horses there, including the six-time winner and Listed third Johann Bach, a descendant of the Lacys' high-class sprinter Ingabelle. However, he returned to his first trade of carpentry after Johann Bach fell when going well in a premier handicap at the Curragh, and he became disillusioned with training.

“Crystal Idea was covered a few times, but she wouldn’t go in foal, probably because she was just out of training,” says Harney. “I had a licence at the time so I started running her, and thought she was going fairly well, but when she made her debut for us at Leopardstown, she didn’t turn up at all. 

“She just wasn’t moving right. We got the vets out, and they told us to go easy on her, so we went back to trying to breed from her.

“We sent her to Ballyhane Stud to cover her with Roderic O’Connor, and she got a filly from the mating, and then she went to So You Think, and she got another filly. The covering fees had nearly cut the pockets off me and my brothers, and she was only throwing fillies, so we didn’t breed from her again for ages.

“But then a few years later we had a real good black-type mare we wanted to give a better cover to, and so we spoke with Darley and they said they’d do a deal if we sent one of our other mares to another of their stallions.

"That’s when John suggested we should bring Crystal Idea out of the field and send her to Belardo. I just said, ‘Yeah, whatever, I’ve no idea how we’re going to scrape the money together to afford the €10,000 fee, but I’m sure we’ll get it somehow’.”

The remarkable reality, therefore, is that Red Lion came into existence only because his dam was brought out of mothballs to make up the numbers in a deal arranged for another supposedly more exciting mare.

His breeding wasn’t a total fluke, though, as Harney points out: “John picked out the mare as being suitable for the sire, and convinced us to do it, so you can’t take that away from him.”

Red Lion's origin story doesn't get any less quirky after his birth in the spring of 2019.

Harney continues: “He was a late foal, but very nice: so nice, in fact, that we said we’d definitely have to get the cash from somewhere to pay for this lad, because he looked well capable of doing it on the track.

“I reared him and he just got better and better with every month that passed, so I was getting pretty excited to tell the truth. But when we tried to sell him as a yearling at Fairyhouse things didn't go right, first because the sales were delayed by Covid and then because he didn’t pass the vet.

“We eventually managed to sell the horse for small money privately, but not long after I’d left the sales I received a call from the buyer to say they didn’t want him after all, as his wind wasn’t 100 per cent right.

“I said that I could guarantee that his wind was perfect. I knew from having lunged him at home myself. But I just said ‘Grand, put him back in the stable and I’ll come back tomorrow and get him’.”

Back to square one, Harney decided to go down the breeze-up route with the colt who was the apple of his eye, if not the vet’s eye.

“It became clear that we’d have to show people what he’s capable of ourselves,” he recalls. “So I broke him in and did a bit of light training with him, and he was coming along nicely. The time came to enter him in the breeze-up sales, but not a single company would take him. They all said they couldn’t.”

Some better-off breeders might have given up at this point, and given away the horse to a racing syndicate or a riding school, but Harney still needed to recoup the production costs. He realised that to make money he would, reluctantly, have to spend even more money.

“I thought ‘Oh no, what are we going to do now?’ but I’ve got six brothers and persuaded them to come in with me in a syndicate to put the colt in training,” he says. “We picked Andrew Slattery to train him and had some fun coming up with his original name in Ireland. 

“Dad’s family is from Wicklow and he’s always telling us he’s a descendant of the McHugh O’Byrnes, so we said we’d better name the horse after the clan chief Fiach McHugh. It made even more sense because Crystal Idea is out of a half-sister to the dual Group 3 winner Grace O’Malley. She was the pirate queen of the west and Fiach McHugh was the rebel of the east.”

Red Lion, AKA Fiach McHugh, might have been bred by a stroke of chance, failed the vets, returned by his buyer as a yearling and spurned by auction houses as a two-year-old, but it didn’t take long for him to show the ability that his loyal breeder had always believed he possessed.

“Andrew Slattery loved him from the moment he came off the box,” says Harney. “He told us he couldn’t believe we weren’t able to get him sold.

“The horse shone in all his work, and improved every day. He ran very well at two. He was third in a hot maiden at the Curragh and then a head second to Aikhal, one of Aidan O’Brien’s stars at the time, at Listowel.

“I thought great, we’re laughing, we’ll definitely be able to sell the horse for a few quid now. We had a few offers but nobody bought him that season, so we took him home and minded him over the winter.

“Not long after the horse turned three, someone rang up to make an offer on him: €78,000 if I remember rightly. I said to my brothers he had cost us a bit of money by that point, and we didn’t know what the future might hold, so I accepted. We had him sold and then, would you believe it, he failed the vet again, so the deal fell through.”

Belardo: sire of Red Lion

The artist formerly known as Fiach McHugh was therefore rejected for the third time in little over two years. Plenty of Group/Grade 1 winners sell for small money or not at all, but not many could have been rebuffed quite as many times as him.

He went on to prove his detractors wrong once again, although he had to pay a high price for the success that came his way.

“I'd kept him as an entire horse as I thought the world of him and believed he might even be a Guineas horse, as he was so good at two and everything in the family improves a lot with age” says Harney. 

“But when he returned into training he became a bit bold and wasn’t working right, so Andrew said he’d have to have him gelded. I was devastated, and put up a bit of a fight. Andrew thought I was mad and went through with it anyway, as he didn’t want anybody in his yard hurt.

“The horse didn’t do much at home for a while after, and Andrew was worried that he’d gone a bit backwards, and that he didn’t want it any more as he was too much of a stallion, because his goolies had been left in him too long.

“But Andrew rang me one day out of the blue and said this lad was after clicking all of a sudden. It was unbelievable, he said, the horse was doing everything great, and we’d have to run him ASAP.”

Fiach McHugh/Red Lion never looked back. He won a Dundalk maiden on his seasonal bow, beating subsequent Group 3 winner Honey Girl into second, found only Ballydoyle Classic contender Ivy League too good in the always competitive Blackwater Handicap at Naas, and gained a second victory in another hotly contested handicap at the Curragh.

“Andrew told us to dust off our top hats as he would go for the Britannia at Royal Ascot next, and if he finished in the top five we would have a pricey horse on our hands,” says Harney. “All the boys got excited and we went over hopeful of him running a big race.

“The race didn’t pan out for him, though, as there was a fair bit of trouble in running with 30 horses in it. But he came out of the pack late and shot home to finish seventh, beaten only about four lengths. He’d still beaten 23 horses at Royal Ascot, so it wasn’t a bad effort.

“It was an eye-catching run and the clever agents noticed it. One made an offer at a price all the boys were happy with, so we agreed to call it a day and accepted it. We had a lot of craic with him.”

Funny that Fiach McHugh managed to pass the stringent veterinary process required for import into Hong Kong, when professional opinion had it that he wasn't sound of wind as a youngster at the sales.

Harney didn’t need to dwell on the bitter irony as Red Lion, as Fiach McHugh was renamed by the Arcullis, had finally paid his way – three years after his breeder panicked about being able to afford the nomination to Belardo, and with at least three failed sales to his name.

Red Lion has always been more than a money-making venture to his first owners, though. Harney has followed his career in Hong Kong closely and enthusiastically.

“I told my brothers that he would take all the beating on Sunday as he had his ground,” he says. “The draw was more in his favour too. On several occasions when he was beaten he had been drawn out wide, whereas Voyage Bubble had been closer to the rail. This time they both came out of high-numbered stalls, so it was more of an even match between them.

“When Red Lion rounded the home turn in the lead, with Voyage Bubble on his heels, I knew he wasn’t going to let anything past him. I shouted him hoarse. They must have heard me from Hong Kong.”

Admittedly, Harney does still have a financial interest in Red Lion winning at the highest level, as he breeds from several of the horse’s close relatives.

“I still have Crystal Idea and all of her daughters, as I’ve never managed to sell anything out of her,” he says with a wry smile. 

“Crystal Idea had a bad year last year, but she’s in good form now and due to Phoenix Of Spain, a son of Lope De Vega like Belardo. She’s getting on a bit now, so we’ll likely cover her again this year. We’ll see what the foal looks like before deciding on the next sire.”

He adds with a twinkle in his eye: “I don’t know if Ballylinch Stud are reading but I wouldn't mind a foal share to Lope De Vega or similar . . .”

Red Lion’s half-sisters owned by Harney are Laodicea and Percy’s Idea, the mares who resulted from Crystal Idea’s early matings with Roderic O’Connor and So You Think respectively, and Sinach, a three-year-old by Cotai Glory.

“Percy’s Idea’s first foal is Pure Granite, a nice three-year-old by Cotai Glory trained by my brother John," says Harney. "We really like him, but things didn’t work out for him at two last year, so we’re giving him a little break. Laodicea is breeding nice stock, so we’re excited about her, and Sinach is still in training. 

“I help out John a few days a week, working horses for him. John worked for Tally-Ho Stud and Jim McCartan as well as Declan Carroll, so he’s had an excellent grounding. He got off the mark as a trainer with Mr Rango last year.

“Red Lion has been some story, and the hope is that we can produce another champion like him from the family now.”

After clearing up a few details at the end of the interview, Harney says: “It’s kind of crazy that we bred a horse who beat the best in the world in Hong Kong on Sunday, but sort of didn’t mean to and then couldn’t get him sold.

“I hope we don’t come out of the article sounding mad.”

Red Lion’s regularly obstructed path to stardom is undeniably a bit mad, but Harney needn’t worry about him sounding bonkers because of it.

In fact, by identifying Red Lion as a future top-notcher so soon after he was foaled, and then persevering with the horse through repeated market rejections until his true value was realised, he was pretty switched on.

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“Sure, other venues might have more prestige or pizzazz, and significantly fewer of those swivel-eyed waifs and strays; but, as I’ve remarked before, no one bought a faster horse because of a few bells and whistles,” writes James Thomas as he looks back on the Goffs Doncaster Breeze-Up Sale.

Pedigree pick

Leader Des Bordes, the top lot at last year’s Goffs Arkle Sale when bought by Willie Mullins’ chief talent scout Harold Kirk for €210,000, is making his debut for the newly crowned British champion National Hunt trainer in the Goffs Defender Bumper at Punchestown today (5.25).

The son of Tunis made such a big sum for good reason. He is a half-brother to Closutton resident Kopek Des Bordes, who was a promising bumper winner at the time of the auction but is now an unbeaten dual Grade 1-winning hurdler – possibly a three-time Grade 1-winning hurdler after today, as he runs in the KPMG Champion Novice Hurdle earlier on the Punchestown card.

Leader Des Bordes has another four black type-winning siblings besides: namely Utopie Des Bordes, who landed the Grade 1 Prix Maurice Gillois at Auteuil for four-year-old chasers before joining Nicky Henderson, for whom she won a Listed mares’ novice hurdle at Sandown; Victoire Des Borde, who took a Grade 2 chase at Auteuil; Quenta Des Bordes, who scored in Listed races over hurdles and fences across France; and Belle Du Berry, who struck in a Listed handicap chase at Lyon Parilly.

Leader Des Bordes and co are out of Miss Berry, an unraced daughter of Cadoudal and Auteuil Listed hurdle winner Gamine Royale.

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