Telecaster is the main threat to Ballydoyle dominance in this year’s Derby and Ben Linfoot caught up with his owner-breeder, Mark Weinfeld, ahead of his sternest test.
At the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale in 2006, a son of the stallion Montjeu was sold to Demi O’Byrne, representing Coolmore, for 300,000 guineas. Lot 570. He was later named Alessandro Volta and he finished sixth in the Derby, for trainer Aidan O'Brien.
The vendor was Meon Valley Stud and it was business as usual. Breeding, rearing, selling. Most of the colts and some of the fillies, too, with just a few kept back to maintain the bloodlines. It’s a tried and tested method that has served them well for four decades.
Champions like Colorspin, Milligram, Opera House, Lady Carla, One So Wonderful, Kayf Tara, Zee Zee Top, Izzi Top and Speedy Boarding were born and bred at Meon Valley. All Group One winners, all whose pedigrees can be traced to one of four foundation mares the stud purchased in the late 1970s.
One of those mares was Reprocolor, who was the dam of Bella Colora. Her daughter was Hyabella, who was the dam of Hyperspectra. Her daughter was Spectral Star, who was the dam of Shirocco Star. And Shirocco Star is the mother of this year’s leading English-trained Derby hope, Telecaster.
Shirocco Star was one of the few that didn’t sell. Tattersalls October Book I, 2010, Lot 616. Bought back for 48,000 guineas by Meon Valley, she raced in the black and white ‘Helena Springfield’ colours, made famous by the likes of One So Wonderful, Zee Zee Top, Izzi Top and Jazzi Top. Top stuff. Dash To The Top, another one, is the dam of Anapurna, who will adorn the same black and white silks in Friday’s Investec Oaks.
I digress. Shirocco Star was trained by Hughie Morrison, who did such a good job that Mark Weinfeld, owner of Meon Valley Stud, sent him her son, Telecaster, as well. Morrison trained Shirocco Star to be runner-up in both the English and Irish Oaks and she handled the demands of Epsom with aplomb, going down by just a neck to Was.
It remains the closest Morrison has got to winning a Classic. You can’t get much closer.
The closest Meon Valley Stud have come to breeding the Derby winner was with Alessandro Volta. Born, bred, sold. Telecaster could’ve gone the same way. He was certainly at the same sale, 11 years on. The Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, Book I, 2017. Lot 212. But, like his dam, nobody wanted to buy him and he ended up back at home.
"We were disappointed when he didn’t sell as a yearling," says Weinfeld, on the Wednesday of Derby week. "It’s a different story now."
The story now is one of rapid progression from the colt that nobody wanted to buy. In March Telecaster still hadn’t run. There had been no setback as a juvenile. Morrison was just patient. In the December of his yearling year he was entered in the Derby for £560, but in March this year he was taken out.
"I spoke to Hughie in the spring when we were looking at the Derby entries and we thought ‘we haven’t even run yet’," says Weinfeld.
"We thought we’d have to win first time out and then take in a trial and I said to Hughie ‘is he going to manage that?’ and he said ‘no’, so we took him out and there we go.
"Horses can make such a fool of you sometimes."
Telecaster – What’s In A Name?
“He’s named after the Fender Telecaster. I’m an amateur guitarist in my spare time. Occasionally I have a jam session with a few friends of mine but they are all somewhat better musicians than me!"
Mark Weinfeld, owner-breeder.
If Telecaster was left in the Derby, it would’ve cost £7,300 in entry fees to get him in the race. Instead, it cost £85,000 to supplement him. But nobody could’ve predicted the improvement he’s shown this spring.
On March 30 he made a striking debut behind Bangkok, a Derby rival, at Doncaster, the pair pulling nine lengths clear of the rest, the winner with three runs as a juvenile under his belt. Just 16 days later Telecaster won by nine lengths at Windsor, form that is working out well. And then a month after that he won the Dante Stakes at York, beating the Two-Year-Old Champion Too Darn Hot.
In the space of 48 days he’d gone from an unraced unknown quantity to second-favourite for the Derby. The only problem being he wasn’t in the Derby anymore. And Weinfeld says the decision to supplement wasn’t as easy as you might think.
"It has been very hard as we wonder if we have done the right thing," he says. "We’ll know come 5pm on Saturday whether we have or not. The horse seems very well and there’s only one Derby so we just felt that we should bite the bullet.
"We don’t normally keep colts, so to find ourselves with a colt that could be good enough to run well in the Derby it'd be a shame to reject the idea."
For a horse that wasn’t sold at Tattersalls, the irony is the offers are now flooding in. For plenty more money than the 180,000gns reserve price that hung over his head at auction as a yearling, as well.
But, while the business practice of Meon Valley Stud isn’t to breed Derby winners to keep, the lure of Epsom has proven too strong now it has fallen their way by happenchance. Telecaster will run in the orange and black silks of Castle Down Racing and after the Derby, well, we’ll see what happens on Saturday first.
Weinfeld says: "We had one or two offers and several interested parties just before the Dante. We weighed it up and thought, having not managed to sell him, ‘we’ve got this far, why not just see where the journey is going to take us’.
"The policy is to try not to keep colts. So if we do keep one they run under Castle Down Racing so as not to confuse the issue. He’s quite an extraordinary horse and we probably won’t get another one like him."
In the 2008 Derby Aidan O’Brien ran five colts, including the Meon Valley Stud-bred Alessandro Volta. After a few twists of fate, the same stud farm, situated in the South Downs National Park towards the south coast of England, is home to the biggest threat to Ballydoyle dominance in this year’s renewal.
The winner of the 2008 Derby was Jim Bolger’s New Approach, Telecaster's sire. He sired last year's Derby winner, Masar, too, and Telecaster is his sole representative this year. There are eight potential rivals from Ballydoyle, but the one that could beat them all, according to the betting, at least, is a horse that couldn’t be sold.
"It is daunting," says Weinfeld. "I just hope it will be a clean run race and he runs well. We would like to see the best horse win and it would be amazing if that horse was Telecaster."