The Man Who Came For Breakfast

I’m late getting around to it, but I can’t let the passing of English bloodstock agent Richard Galpin go without mention. If personalities can be colourful, he was a veritable kaleidoscope.

He was an eccentric savant around horses, one of the great agents of the latter part of the 20th century, nearly always mired in some form of controversy, ill-starred venture or speculation. For a time he lived in Sydney. During his career, it was either fashionable to say you knew him or, conversely, it was fashionable to deny it vehemently.

My (former) wife banned him from our home in New Zealand after an invitation to breakfast one morning during a pre-sale yearling inspection. Stuffing a napkin into the top of his shirt, he slurped and belched his way through the repast with as much food ending up on the tablecloth as went down his throat. It was not the suave, quasi-aristocratic Englishman who got up that morning. My wife adopted the view that the yearlings were good enough to sell themselves without having to put up with that in future. (Now is not the time to say my former wife also ended up banning me!).

I had just a few direct dealings with Richard, all of them satisfactory. The first I can recall was when he sold me (Waikato Stud) a stallion by the name of Kirmann (Ire).

I had been negotiating through Richard to buy Gold and Ivory (USA) but was haggling with the owner over $100,000 – imagine the futility/stupidity of haggling with the late Paul Mellon – but (Sir) Patrick Hogan snapped him up meantime, for whom he became one of the less-memorable chapters in the Cambridge Stud saga. At least I had paddocks full of Zephyr Bay mares which might have suited Gold and Ivory! Perhaps. A dud’s usually a dud.

So Kirmann (Ire) came into the picture. He was a Group-class stayer by Top Ville owned by the Aga Khan. The deal was that Robert Sangster would buy half with us and the horse would be transferred from Fulke Johnston Houghton to Michael Dickinson who had just taken up residency at Sangster’s Manton training centre, where he was short on older horses.

Dickinson, a great trainer of jumpers in concert with his mother, declared to me somewhat arrogantly in a phone call that he would “improve the horse seven pounds”. Kirmann (Ire) had one start for him, at Royal Ascot, being described by interested New Zealand witnesses as “bull fat”, and he ran accordingly. The colt was shipped to John Gosden in Los Angeles to be prepared for their turf marathons but a hock problem limited him to one unsuccessful start after which he was shipped to New Zealand.

My successors at Waikato justifiably didn’t want a bar of him. He was banished to as far south as a horse can go in the South Island without falling into the sea, siring 127 foals in seven seasons for 37 winners and a solitary stakeswinner. He might have done OK as a National Hunt sire.

Another Richard Galpin transaction was the purchase of the racemare Attempting (Ire) in Italy. I had seen a magnificent Sir Tristram (Ire) filly sold through Widden Stud at the 1988 Magic Millions. Our yearlings were stabled in the same block and I watched her at length. Noting she was out of an imported mare I determined to buy a relative as I was convinced this Sir Tristram filly was something special.

Richard tracked down the filly’s half-sister to a stable in Italy. She had won twice at two, at Folkestone and Bath, and was Group and Listed placed, earning a 97 Timeform, but had been banished to the land of Tesio's birth. In partnership with Whakanui Stud, the filly was bought for 40,000 guineas.

The Sir Tristram filly turned out to be Tristanagh. Attempting (Ire) had her 13th and final foal sold at Karaka Premier last month. Her nine foals to race have all won, two are stakeswinners and two are stakes-placed. Which is a heck of a lot more than can be said for Tristanagh who left everything she possessed on the racetrack! Attempting (Ire) has seven fillies to carry on her line.

Richard Galpin was a larger-than-life character, hard to describe unless you knew him. Amongst the people with whom I've had contact, I've always regarded the late Doug Mackenzie in New Zealand as the most adroit operator, armed with an amazing understanding of human psychology. On his good days, Richard Galpin wasn’t too far behind him.