From Baracouda to The New Lion: J. P. McManus acquisitions

The vast number of horses which have run in J. P. McManus’s green and gold hoops over the years have come into his ownership by various means. Some of them are homebred from McManus’s own mares, such as brother and sister Inothewayurthinkin and Limerick Lace, Cheltenham Festival winners in the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir and Mares’ Chase respectively last season who were bred by McManus’s wife Noreen, as was another of the owner’s current leading chasers Spillane’s Tower and his 2012 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Synchronised.

Others have been acquired at public auction which is how Shadwell cast-off Istabraq, a 38,000 guineas purchase out of John Gosden’s stable at the Newmarket July Sale in 1996, came to win three Champion Hurdles in his famous colours. More recently, the owner’s current highest-rated jumper Jonbon first made headlines as a result of McManus buying the then four-year-old for £570,000 in November 2020, a record price at the time for a pointer.

But a large proportion of McManus’s string are acquired through private purchases of horses in training with form in the book, some no doubt changing hands for sums which would put Jonbon’s purchase in the shade were they to be made public, with the latest being Darren and Annaley Yates’ unbeaten Challow Novices’ Hurdle winner The New Lion, also the current favourite for the Turners at the Cheltenham Festival.

The most successful horse currently running in McManus’s colours to be acquired in this way is last year’s Grand National winner I Am Maximus. He’d previously been in the ownership of the late Mike Grech before providing an almost instant return for McManus by winning the 2023 Irish Grand National on his first start for his new owner. I Am Maximus also won the Drinmore Novice Chase and Bobbyjo Chase on the way to his greatest success at Aintree last April.

Apparently integral to the deal involving The New Lion’s change of ownership was Paul Byrne, a shrewd and successful owner in his own right (and bookmaker, as was McManus in the past) who has been the source of several of McManus’s successful acquisitions in recent seasons. Among those is Corbetts Cross whose final start in Byrne’s ownership came when winning a Grade 2 novice hurdle at Naas in February 2023 on his debut for Emmet Mullins. Sent off favourite for the following month’s Albert Bartlett at the Festival, Corbetts Cross made an auspicious first start for McManus when crashing out through the wing of the final flight but made amends at the Festival twelve months later when winning the National Hunt Chase.

Another to swap Byrne’s light blue colours for the green and gold was The Shunter, a stablemate of Corbetts Cross. He landed a gamble, along with a £100,000 bonus having won Kelso’s Morebattle Hurdle beforehand, when winning the Plate at the 2021 Festival on his final start for Byrne before his first run for McManus when runner-up in the Manifesto Novices’ Chase at Aintree the following month. While the very versatile The Shunter hasn’t won over jumps for McManus, he did land a £100,000 prize on the Flat when successful in the 2023 Cesarewitch.

Last season’s Paddy Power Chase winner Meetingofthewaters made the same switch, winning for Byrne at Leopardstown but running for McManus by the time he finished third in the Ultima and seventh in the Grand National. Still only an eight-year-old, he’ll presumably have similar targets again this spring.

Two of McManus’s 2023 Cheltenham Festival winners had only joined his string in the preceding months and, interestingly, both were acquired after defeating one of his existing horses – if you can’t beat ‘em, buy em! Mares Chase winner Impervious had beaten McManus’s Dinoblue in a Grade 2 mares’ novice at Cork before winning at Punchestown on her first start for McManus on her way to the Festival. Similarly, McManus had seen his Fact To File being beaten when favourite for the Grade 2 bumper at the Dublin Racing Festival by A Dream To Share so he purchased the winner as well which gave him a one-two when the same pair finished first and second again in the following month’s Champion Bumper.

A good proportion of McManus’s acquisitions these days are private purchases of horses who have shown early promise across the Channel. Another couple of his 2023 Festival winners, Sire du Berlais (Stayers’ Hurdle and a three-time Festival winner all told) and Iroko (Martin Pipe winner and an exciting chasing prospect these days) had begun their careers in France, as did his 2024 Triumph Hurdle winner Majborough, a leading contender for this year’s Arkle.

Istabraq’s origins have already been mentioned but three of McManus’s subsequent Champion Hurdle winners were all bought privately from France, namely ex-Flat performer Binocular and the French bumper winners Espoir d’Allen and Epatante.

The two other Champion Hurdle winners in McManus’s colours were also private acquisitions. While Buveur d’Air was another who’d begun his career in France, he’d already had a season with Nicky Henderson racing for Potensis Bloodstock when McManus acquired him at the start of the season when he won the first of his two Champion Hurdles. Jezki started life in the colours of his breeder Gerard McGrath but after winning a Grade 1 novice at Leopardstown (beating McManus’s Waaheb into second) he made his debut for McManus when finishing third in the 2013 Supreme and a year later won the Champion Hurdle from the owner’s apparent first string My Tent Or Yours. Incidentally, the latter, runner-up in three Champion Hurdles, had joined McManus after showing plenty of ability in bumpers for another of Nicky Henderson’s owners.

McManus’s ‘French connection’ is by no means a recent phenomenon, however, and two of his most notable privately acquired purchases from across the Channel were a joint package dating back to the beginning of this century when Istabraq was in his prime. On New Year’s Day 2001 came the announcement that McManus had added the Francois Doumen stable-companions First Gold and Baracouda to his string. Far from being unknowns, the pair were established top-notchers, both having recently won Grade 1 contests in impressive fashion on their respective British debuts.

The Marquesa de Moratalla’s First Gold had just put up a scintillating display to win the King George VI Chase by ten lengths, while days earlier Baracouda, remarkably still a novice, had won the Long Walk Hurdle by further still, fourteen lengths, he too delivering a top-class performance. The pair ended the season with ratings of 180 (First Gold was Timeform’s champion jumper that season) and 172 respectively but nobody could have predicted that, due to the foot and mouth outbreak, there would be no Cheltenham Festival that season for McManus’s new acquisitions to show what they could do.

First Gold did end up contesting a couple of Gold Cups later in a rather chequered career for his new owner though he did win the Martell Cup at Aintree twice, a track that suited the front runner’s style of racing and supplemented his second win in that contest by following up in the Punchestown Gold Cup.

But it was Baracouda who proved the more successful of the pair for McManus, winning his first eight races in his new colours. They included the second of what were to be a total of four wins in the Long Walk and the first of his two victories in the Stayers’ Hurdle.

McManus could easily have decided that First Gold and Baracouda would suit his own interests better if they were moved to a British or Irish yard but they remained with their existing trainer in France and continued to be ridden by their regular jockey, Doumen’s son Thierry. Indeed, keeping any new acquisitions with those who know them best has been McManus’s long-standing policy when he’s got his cheque book out and that’s apparently to apply to The New Lion too who’ll continue his career with the Skeltons.

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