A businessman and a company have claimed in the High Court that a stallion estimated to be worth €2.4 million is wrongly and unlawfully being held at bloodstock expert Joe Foley’s Ballyhane Stud in Leighlinbridge in Carlow.
Sands of Mali, a successful racehorse who finished his racing career in 2020, now covers mares which have produced progeny that have won 13 races in Britain as well as one each in Ireland and France.
Jersey-based Steven Parkin and a UK-registered company he is a member of, Clipper BCS LLP, who say they bought the stallion for £270,000 (€323,000) in August 2020, claim Mr Foley and Ballyhane Stud Ltd are now claiming a 50 per cent share in the horse.
Mr Parkin, in an affidavit, said the defendants never purchased any share in the stallion. He said the defendants claim that he (Parkin) indicated acknowledgment of shared ownership in a WhatsApp message in November 2023.
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Mr Parkin says that “I sent no such WhatsApp message and deny the contents and indication of such an allegation”.
Mr Parkin and Clipper BCS are seeking injunctions and orders requiring the defendants to deliver up possession of Sands of Mali.
On Tuesday, Mr Justice Brian Cregan granted Robert Beatty SC, for Mr Parkin and Clipper BCS, permission to bring short service of the proceedings on the defendants. The application was made with only the plaintiffs side represented and the judge said the matter could come back next week.
Mr Parkin said the row over Sands of Mali is part of a wider dispute between the parties concerning his side’s claims about outstanding covering fees due to them for the stallion and four other thoroughbred breeding stallions which were stabled at Ballyhane.
Three of the stallions have been removed, one was euthanised last December and only Sands of Mali remains at Ballyhane.
Mr Parkin said the parties had a long-standing business relationship in horse racing and horse breeding fields for more than 20 years. He said he had a good personal relationship with Mr Foley who latterly acted as “a trusted adviser” for the plaintiffs’ thoroughbred activities.
That relationship, he said, broke down over the defendants’ failure to account for and make payment for covering fees received.
It led to a heated conversation with Mr Foley last March when Mr Parkin said he requested Sands of Mali be transferred from Ballyhane but this did not happen, he said.
Sands of Mali’s covering fee is €5,000 per foal produced which the puts his value at least £2 million (€2.4 million). He has sired in excess of 250 foals.
When an agreement was made to stable him at Ballyhane, Mr Parkin said, the parties entered into a profit sharing agreement involving an arrangement where they shared the profits when the expenses of the horse were deducted from fees. Ballyhane was also entitled to five free covers per breeding season.
Mr Parkin said claims by the defendants about involvement in the purchase of the horse and about a 50 per cent partnership are inconsistent and false.
He said that with the breeding season due to commence in February, it is important that the stallion is settled well at stud in advance of that deadline.
He also said relations between the parties have completely broken down and his side cannot and do not trust the defendants to manage the stallion’s stud career.
As an example of this, he said the horse was injured midway through the 2023 covering season when he tried to jump a fence to get at another stallion.
As a result, he covered 56 mares that season compared to 152 in 2021 and 74 in 2022. The defendants also failed to inform him of this injury and did not provide certain information in relation to two of the other animals that the plaintiffs had stabled at Ballyhane, he said.
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