Lazy Griff
Race entries
Quality Quality Quality
We’re pretty confident you’d struggle to find a better looking, better moving, better pedigree than this fellow, this side of a £250,000 purchase price tag. He’s simply sensational in every regard. He was the nap of the sale, for us, and ace agent Jeremy Brummitt.
This colt’s pedigree, photo and video, we’d hope, would be worth a thousand words, however we’ll attempt to add a little flavour here too...
He’ll head to the Charlie Johnston (formerly Charlie & Mark Johnston) academy, where, from a small cohort of yearlings that we have sent to their Middleham base, they’ve already trained for us, Marie’s Diamond - a €35,000 purchase who won 7 times in our silks and earned £281,905 from a Group 1 3rd, three Group 2 2nd places, including The Richmond Stakes, a Group 3 WIN as a 2 year-old, two Listed WINS as well as Dear My Friend - a £40,000 purchase, who was has won 3 races so far, including the Listed Burradon Stakes and who ran in The Epsom Derby.
A €75,000 purchase from Germany’s yearling BBAG sales, this PROTECTIONIST colt, we believe, represents exceptional value. This year’s renewal of the BBAG sale fell on the same day as the horses in training sale in Newmarket which meant that agents and trainers from these shores, had to make a decision which sale to attend, nobody can be in two places at once. As such, being divided by their whereabouts, we’re convinced there were examples, in the German sale, where certain horses represented exceptional value, given the slight lack of strength in depth of attendees. That’s precisely the loophole we believe we’ve been able to exploit. We went in to bid, hoping we may buy him on a budget of €100,000, fearing he may make a fair bit more, however, the market, patchy as it was on the day, for the reasons explained, allowed us to strike the winning bid at €75,000. We were absolutely thrilled, he looks a potentially top class recruit to the MPR roster.
He was our absolute standout, our nap of the sale, and lest we forget, German bred and trained horses have won 3 of the last 12 Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe’s, so it’s particularly clear, to us, that German stock is a pretty classy hunting ground.
He qualifies for the 'BBAG Auction Races' worth up to 200,000 as a 2 year-old too: 
Watch his profile video, here:
What’s the plan with him ?
He’ll head to Middleham, straight away, to be broken in and he’ll go in Charlie’s main yard In February. He’s a very early foal, 6th February, and he’s already a strong and well put together horse. He should stay middle distances in time, probably 1m4f, given he’s a FULL BROTHER to a Group 3 German Derby trial winner, who himself, cost a mere €5,500 as a yearling. However, we don’t think we’ll be hanging around, waiting for a 3yo career, he has such quality and physique, that we’d be pretty confident he’d come to hand for a 2yo career too, probably starting over 6f in June but stretching out further as the season progresses. It would be no surprise were he to be a very classy performer at the back end of his 2yo season. He’s bred to improve further still at 3, up in trip, and were he to line up in an Epsom, French or German Derby, we wouldn’t be at all surprised.
Furthermore, there’s a potential, commercial angle to a horse such as this. Horses who operate at middle distances, with a bit of size and scope, as has this colt, prove tremendously popular to the resale market eg to sell on to Australia or to the jumps fraternity. Even if he didn’t hit the lofty heights we have in mind, and were he to reach a rating into the 80’s, he’d realise more than we’ve paid at public auction. Were he to operate somewhere in the 90’s, his resale value could easily be £125,000-£250,000 depending on which end of the 90’s he’s operating at. Were he to be operating in the low 100’s, then his value could be in the several hundreds of thousands of pounds. We’ve sold several such horses, successfully in the past.
A quite outstanding opportunity to join the winning most, trainer outfit, in the history of British racing, alongside Britain’s winning most Syndication team, with possibly the best value yearling of the season.
There’s no compromise here, just quality, quality, quality!
He is now at pre-training with Richie McGrath, where we send all our yearlings each year and the updates on her progress will be added below.
Training update (17th October): Richie reports: "He is now ridden away and trotting and hacking up the last part of the 3f AWT on the Middleham gallops. He is also going into the arena afterwards to do some basic flatwork and getting used to listening to the riders aids. They are meeting other strings whilst on the gallops which is also great for their education. He is a real gent and is taking everything in his stride." See the latest videos of him, below
17th October:
22nd Sept:
20th September: