'Breeze-ups make perfect sense, they're filling a need' BLOODSTOCK WORLD GRASS ROOTS Amy Bennett talks to John Hassett, whose company, The Bloodstock Connection, made a big splash at last week's Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale.

Byline: Amy Bennett

SEVERAL big prices boosted last week's Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up sale to record heights, among them a filly by the first-season sire Haafhd who was knocked down for 380,000gns on Wednesday night.

As well as making the fourth highest price of the sale, the half sister to the Group 3-placed Cruzspiel was the first six-figure juvenile consigned by John Hassett's The Bloodstock Connection.

The filly, out of the Listed-winning Trempolino mare Allespagne, had failed to attract such enthusiasm on her previous trip to Tattersalls, when she was led out unsold at 48,000gns last October.

Hassett managed to secure the filly, bred by David Shekell, for 50,000gns, and that price looked a lot cheaper after she impressed onlookers at the pre-sale breezes, and became a bargain when Luke Lillingston finally saw off Jamie McCalmont on Wednesday evening.

The following night, the County Clare operation stepped up again, selling for 100,000gns a Thunder Gulch colt, from the family of Favourable Terms, bought by Hassett for just EUR20,000 at Keeneland last September.

Making Hassett's successes last week all the more noteworthy is that this is only the fourth year in which he has been consigning full time.

Hassett's father, 72-year-old John snr, is a trainer and vet so John jnr grew up immersed in racing before leaving the sport to work for a software company.

For many in the equine business, impending fatherhood might be an incentive to seek employment in a potentially more lucrative field than the racing industry. For Hassett, the opposite was true as the birth of his first child prompted his return to the business.

First came a five-year stint in the US, running the New York division of Todd Pletcher's training empire, followed by two years at Aidan O'Brien's two-year-old yard. During that time, such expensive talents as Hold That Tiger and Van Nistelrooy came under Hassett's care, along with the Racing Post Trophy one-two Brian Boru and Powers court.

Having honed his eye with such power houses, Hassett took the plunge as a breeze-up pin hooker in 2003, and now uses the facilities at the family's training yard at Ballyhannon House at Ennis which include both grass and all-weather gallops.

"I borrowed EUR40,000 from the Cash and Credit Union and bought four horses to sell at the breezes," he recalls. "I was still working for Aidan at the time so I couldn't consign them myself but one of them was Salsa Brava and the other was Woodcote, who won as a two-year-old and was Listed-placed."

Salsa Brava proved a perfect introduction to the volatile market of pin hooking juveniles. Bought for EUR16,000 as a yearling, the daughter of Almutawakel was resold by Bansha House Stables for 26,000gns at Doncaster the following April, and went on to finish a close second in both the Cherry Hinton and Lowther Stakes, as well as earning third place in the Listed Albany Stakes.

Hassett took the decision to go out on his own the following year along with his wife Kate, and they consigned The Bloodstock Connection's first juveniles at Doncaster in 2005. Two of their four lots sold for an aggregate of 77,000gns.

"It was a struggle at first, and it's been a long upward curve," Hassett says now. "I knew I needed a certain number of horses for safety, around 12. I had seven in my first year, then 12, and then 23, and the same again this year.

"This was the first year I haven't expanded, although I spent twice as much on the same number of yearlings. I wanted to get into the real top-end markets and you do need to spend money to do that. The first few years were a struggle and we lost money hand over fist in some cases, but now we're getting it right." WITH seven of The Bloodstock Connection's juveniles having found new homes at the breezeups this year, including a Came Home colt sold for 85,000gns at Doncaster, Hassett has three lots catalogued for Tattersalls' Guineas sale a week today, and a colt heading to Goffs' inaugural Dundalk breeze-up next month.

Last week's sale was easily the strongest of this year's juvenile auctions, and Hassett is confident that market will roll on to the Guineas sale.

"There's an awful lot of people who couldn't land a blow last week and so they've changed their game plan and are heading to the Guineas sale," he explains. "People are planning to go to Dundalk and Goresbridge who wouldn't have otherwise gone there."

The bid to secure candidates for the growing number of breeze-up sales sees Hassett attending every major yearling sale.

"The more horses I look at relative to the ones I buy, the better chance I have. If I want to buy ten, I've more chance if I look at a thousand than a hundred," he explains. "I try to go to a sale with the attitude that I don't need to buy anything as I always get it wrong when I think I have to buy something. I do bid on an awful lot of horses relative to what I buy, looking for the extreme value.

"At the end of it all, you need to end up in April with a gorgeous looking horse who can run really fast and if you have that you're halfway there. And then you need good x-rays and scopes, and then the right buyers.

"It's very easy to do this and that and try to please the market but my best successes have come when I've stayed in my circle of confidence and done what I know best."

Hassett has no plans for immediate expansion of his operation. "I will expand only if it doesn't compromise the quality," he says. "My main expansion would be in quality, not quantity. I have two or three very good staff and we work very hard, and if I keep the numbers small we can keep the quality."

In spite of somewhat patchy trade at breeze-ups on both sides of the Atlantic this year, juvenile sales are still riding the crest of a wave of popularity with increasingly high-calibre performers emerging each year. Hassett believes breeze-ups make "perfect sense".

"We're filling a need," he says.

"The game has evolved and there are now people who are willing to take the risk off the owners, selling horses ready to do fast work in April. It's what everyone who has horses in training is looking for.

"People are in this game for fun.

They want to go racing and stand in the winner's enclosure, not pay months' worth of bills without getting a run. They want a horse they can run straight away and that's what we are all providing."

CAPTION(S):

John Hassett: the trainer's son now making a name for himself in the ultra-competitive bloodstock world