Lynch banks on Gatewood to sire future racing stars

AS the cream of the National Hunt crop parade their talents at the annual Cheltenham Festival next week, one Galway stud farm owner is already planning the stars of the future.

John Lynch of Windmill View Stud in Kiltormer this week watched approvingly as his exciting new stallion Gatewood, a Group Three winner in two hemispheres, took to his new duties with relish as he covered the first half dozen of an impressive book of mares booked into him between now and July.

And Lynch should know what it requires to produce a good horse, having been responsible with his friend and neighbour, Sean Whelan, for Just A Par, winner of the Betfred Gold Cup Chase for trainer Paul Nichols at Sandown last April.

Exciting as that achievement was, John Lynch is looking forward, not back. “This lad [Gatewood] is the real deal. He had the class and speed to win at Royal Ascot, the durability to come through 28 races on two continents perfectly sound, and he has great conformation and temperament. He’s a gentleman of a horse.

“He’s got all the qualities to be a successful winner-producer and he’ll certainly inject speed into NH broodmares. I can’t wait to see his first crop of foals.”

And that ringing endorsement neglects to mention that Gatewood has many of the characteristics of his great sire, Galileo, and boasts a double dose of Sadler’s Wells (3×4) in a stallion’s pedigree which, on his dam’s side, features Sleeping Indian, Bach and Aiken. And his dam sire, Selkirk, though better known as a flat stallion, was responsible for champion hurdler Sublimity.

The 8yo Gatewood was racing until last June in the care of John Gosden for whom he  won the G3 Prix de Reux at Deauville and the listed Wolferton Handicap over ten furlongs at Royal Ascot among eight wins overall.

That latter win was momentous for the major international owner-breeder George Strawbridge, his first ever at Royal Ascot. “Gatewood gave me the thrill of a lifetime. He was such an exciting horse to watch with an amazing turn of foot. [He] is one of the most honest horses I ever bred,” he recalled afterwards.

In a career that yielded winnings of £285,000stg and total earnings of £420,000stg, Gatewood also won the established Melbourne Cup trial, the Geelong Cup, in October 2012 but had his bid for the Flemington showpiece scuppered by the firm ground. Among his victims over the years was subsequent Gr1 Coronation Cup winner Pether’s Moon.

In the meantime, John Lynch, who had stood a number of stallions at his 106-acre Kiltormer base over the years, was on the lookout for a successor to Island House, the sire of Just A Par, and went to the Newmarket Horses in Training Sale last Autumn with the hope of finding the ideal specimen.

He was accompanied by Sean Whelan, the man who bred Just A Par and was one of the syndicate of eight, including Lynch, who had put him into training with TJ Nagle in Cork and then struck paydirt when they sold him for £260,000stg (€330,000) at the Brightwell Sales at Cheltenham after he had won his Point-to-Point at Loughrea and Maiden Hurdle at Punchestown.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.