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They moved all the horses they had with Harry Whittington to Paul Nicholls only to manage one win (4-runner Oaksey Chase) from 12 starts. Just a few months later they sold every single horse they owned.
What happened to them? They seem to have left the game completely and I couldn’t find anything on the web either. Some horses seem to be running David Maxwells’ ownership who is 2 from 26 rides this season with that kind of material.
Well, I hope they had the decency to apologise to Gavin Sheehan after publicly slamming him over the Saint Calvados ride in the KG.
Wasn’t his best ride, though, was it?
Suspect stayer, led some way out, weakened – looked like a rush of blood to the head to me.
There are plenty of difficult owners in racing, but I can’t criticise because, although I’ve never had the slightest interest in racehorse ownership on any level, I just know I’d make Daniel Wildenstein look like the easiest owner there ever was.
I’d be a complete control freak and if my instructions weren’t followed to the letter 24/7/365, it would be cheerio.
I reckon I’d get through at least six trainers a season!
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"No, it wasn’t his best ride. But the horse never ran that far again, only 2m4f and 2m6f on fast ground.
But, still interesting to know why the quit so suddenly. Even the RP search doesn’t offer you one single article about the Brooks.Their racing manager (Sean Tiernan) hasn’t tweeted anything about them stopping and still has that job description in his Twitter bio.
“Wasn’t his best ride, though, was it?
Suspect stayer, led some way out, weakened – looked like a rush of blood to the head to me.”Agree. I remember a lively discussion here at the time, mainly because it was about the only time Ginger ever agreed with me! It was case of a jockey who does not regularly ride Grade 1 winners sensing a chance and not handling the situation. There is no way the likes of Walsh, Geraghty or Russell would have committed so far out on a suspect stayer.
I do not remember the Brooks criticising Sheehan but Nicholls was clearly unhappy. Sheehan never rode their horses for him again but he still rode their horses with other trainers.
Perhaps their finances have been hit by lockdown etc? Or did they lose a horse and take it badly?
Have to admit that the horses, not the people, in racing interest me most.
And, of the people, the owners interest me least, certainly way behind the trainers and jockeys.
I know they fund the key component (the horses) of the sport, but they just don’t interest me.
Each to their own, I guess.
I’m never surprised when owners leave this expensive sport – what surprises me more is the number who ever enter it in the first place tbh.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I agree with you Ian, I have never heard of these people and have no idea of how many horses they owned.
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysOhnodonttakemehome is in their ownership with Graeme Moore (his name comes first but colours are the Brooks’) and he ran 4th in a Southwell maiden hurdle on 11 December 2022…can’t find any horse on the RP website under their names.
Quite a few high profile owners have cooled off in relation to jumps racing this last while. I personally think that losing horses through injury becomes tough to take for such owners who, with larger strings, will experience this more frequently.
The Rooneys cited welfare concerns, referencing Cheltenham Racecourse, before, shortly afterwards, saying they were concentrating on the flat and on quality over quantity.
The Wylies had wound down to an extent before effectively shutting down their operation and they cited Graham Wylie’s need to focus his attention on his business concerns during the pandemic. But they also made public how hard they found it when they went through a period of losing some of their high profile horses on the track in a relatively short period.
Who knows what O’Leary’s motivations and whether he has actually wound down or is still in the process of winding down but his very public intention to spend more time with his family and scale down his operation over a period of five years was surely fuelled by some deep-rooted dissatisfaction somewhere along the way.
I’m not sure if the injury/fatality aspect was a factor in the Brooks’ decision (if they have made one) to scale back or if their enthusiasm dimmed for another reason.
Pros and cons for ownership under both codes – generally you pay a lot less for good NH horses (although that has been going way up in recent years) than the equivalent flat ones and you get to see/enjoy your NH horse perform for a much longer period of time (unless you own a sprinter) but the down side is you leave yourself much more open to losing your horse through injury or sadly fatalites.
The Rooneys had lost horse(s) at Cheltenham and unfairly (in my opinion) labelled the course as a welfare issue but losing horses is heart wrenching so I can understand why they decided to turn to the safer waters of the flat in which you don’t have the potential turnover of horses through injury or death and depending on the ability of your horse(s) it can take you around the world and potentially can offer you a much greater return on your investment.
Unless you have really obscenely deep pockets there is a balance that most owners have to weigh up as to what they deem as acceptable losses for their hobby and with the financial crisis of the last few years those who have built up their businesses to a stage that would allow them to pursue race horse ownership found themselves having to either scale back massively or walk away entirely and sometime being away from something can mean losing the passion you originally had for it and you either take an extended time away from it or you never come back at all.
To be fair to the Rooneys, I believe they privately asked their trainers to cease making entries at Cheltenham rather than criticising the course publically.
They could hardly be blamed for not wanting anything to do with the course after their experience with Starchitect, even though that was a tragic racing accident that could have happened anywhere.
They were extremely unfortunate to have two horses killed at Cheltenham, in 2017 Starchitect broke down fatally on the flat when leading the Caspiar Caviar Gold Cup and Melrose Boy had to be put down due to injuries suffered after being struck into at the 2018 Festival.
That was the year which saw an unusually high number of fatalities (7 in total I believe) and that may have been the reasoning for the Rooneys feeling that their runners ‘face an increased risk of injury when racing at Cheltenham’ thus prompting their actions of asking their trainers to stop making entries there…….a decision which they later reversed.
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