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Brut gives Easterby the taste for Ascot

By Nick Townsend

It’s not for Tim Easterby, the topper and tails, the pomp and formality of Royal Ascot, you suspect. You can almost predict the response when you suggest, part in jest, that he must relish the social aspect of the Royal meeting. “If I want the social side, I might go to York,” the Yorkshireman retorts.

Indeed, last year, when his 25-1 shot Snoano prevailed by a neck in the listed Wolferton Handicap on the Saturday of the Royal meeting, the trainer was absent, opting instead to saddle two runners at the rather more mundane Redcar.
Next week, though, it is hard to imagine that Easterby, an integral part of that celebrated North Yorkshire racing dynasty, will discover alternative duties when his stable stars Vintage Brut and the splendidly-named Wells Farhh Go (son of the stallion Farhh) contest the Norfolk Stakes and the King Edward VII Stakes respectively.
Intriguingly, by that time, the first-named may well be in different ownership.

While more than a few pricey bottles of vintage brut will be consumed at Royal Ascot, the horse bearing the same name could be one of the most sought-after of the 32 lots coming under the hammer at Goffs London Sale at Kensington Palace

Gardens on Monday. The successful bidder of Vintage Brut will have the unbeaten colt run in their colours in the Norfolk on Thursday.

The son of Dick Turpin had scorched home by seven lengths on his Thirsk debut and followed up with victory in a listed event at Sandown, after which jockey David Allan opined that the colt would be “a force to be reckoned with at Ascot”.

Vintage Brut’s owner-breeder is Deborah O’Brien, whose horses run under the appropriate name of name Lovely Bubby Racing. “This horse (Vintage Brut) would have been unsaleable as a two-year-old,” explains Easterby. “He was a very nice horse, but he’d no pedigree. I trained his mother (Traditionelle, a sprinter who won one race) for Deborah and she was very fast, but feisty and tricky to ride. But this horse could gallop from day one. He’s very fast and has kept improving. He gets the 5f well. He’s a proper little racehorse.”

Wells Farhh Go is a rather different proposition. The colt, purchased by Easterby at Tattersalls yearling sales for 16,000 gns, and in whom he has prudently retained a share, triumphed twice at York, including in the Group 3 Tattersalls Acomb Stakes and though he managed only sixth to Roaring Lion in the Derby trial, the Betfred Dante, Easterby says: “He’s done very well since. In the Dante, he ran a bit too free, and he hadn’t really come to himself properly. Now he’s eating well, and in good form and I’m very happy with his work.”

Easterby, right, and his fellow owner, Alan Heley, have had offers for the colt, all, thus far, declined. The trainer anticipates that his charge, whom he compares with his 2002 St Leger victor Bollin Eric, will improve with time. “We think he stays well, but he’s also got speed and he’s got class. He’s got a good presence about him and lots of ability.”

What Easterby wouldn’t countenance is a horse making a purely speculative 500-mile return journey to the Royal meeting. While the likes of Snoano, last year, and his four other Royal Ascot victories are proudly chronicled in the stable’s long and illustrious history, he insists: “I don’t have many runners (at the Royal meeting). Not in stakes and two-year-old races.

“We don’t run ‘em unless we think they’ve got a good chance. Handicaps are different. With a good handicapper, you take your chance. You hope that you get the right draw and things go right for you.”

Next week, with handicaps in mind, he has Golden Apollo (an Ascot winner), “a very decent horse, he loved Ascot when he ran there” and Flying Pursuit in the Wokingham. Golden Apollo is also a runner at York today.

You suggest that the stable is on a roll. A 20 per cent strike rate recently looks propitious. Directness was made an art form by his father Peter and Easterby Jnr is no different. “We don’t look at stats,” he responds. “Horses here are in a good vein of form, and we’re picking the right races.”

It is 22 years since Easterby, 56, succeeded his father, the redoubtable Peter who started out with seven horses in 1951 with 25 acres and became champion trainer in 78-79, 79-80 and 80-81. Easterby Snr was also responsible for Sea Pigeon, the dual Champion Hurdler who also won two Chester Cups and an Ebor (off 10st), and Night Nurse, also a two-time Champion Hurdler and Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up.

Tim, 56, recalls: “I used to ride out Sea Pigeon – if Mark Birch (the Flat jockey credited with “taming” the horse) wasn’t around – and he was electric. He pulled quite hard at home, but Mark got him settled down.”

Those equine giants are buried side by side at the stables which now accommodate 120 horses and occupy 2,000 acres. Peter, who has been the only trainer to record 1,000 winners under both codes, is now Tim’s assistant in this formidable family enterprise and, despite his 88 years, is out on the gallops at seven every morning. It is remarkable that this powerful operation should have originated from such humble beginnings.

Peter’s trainer brother Mick Easterby, 87, is long established nearby, at Sheriff Hutton.

Unlike certain other Yorkshire-based trainers like Mark Johnston, Richard Fahey and Kevin Ryan who benefit from Middle East patronage, there is no supply line of talented juveniles. What Easterby does possess, though, is a discerning eye for potential in youngsters and what he describes as “second hand” individuals, with a bit of mileage on the clock.

“I like buying horses that I can try to improve and mend,” he explain. “Aasheq is a very nice horse, and Snoamo, though I’ve sold him on again now (to race in Australia).”

Easterby bought Aasheq, previously owned by Hamdam Al Maktoum and trained by Dermot Weld, for 5,500 gns in October last year. The gelding had failed to win in eight races in Ireland. Since joining Easterby he has already won twice.

The family philosophy hasn’t altered over nearly seven decades. “We buy what we can afford,” says Easterby. “If I could buy everything I liked at the yearling sales, I’d have a lot of good two-year-old winners.”

Once new bloodstock has arrived, his approach replicates his father’s since the early fifties. “My job is to train horses and get ‘em on the track and win races, and try to keep the owners having winners, and keep them at the stable so we don’t go skint…”

The like of Vintage Brut and Wells Farhh Go are testament to such an outcome being decidedly unlikely.

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