Good morning all,

In the latest of her breeding pieces, Caroline looks back at one of the best-known mares of the 1980's, the teak-tough Triptych.

I hope you all enjoy it.

Triptych: the iron mare with a tragic ending

Good day all,

I had a few ideas for what to write about this week, but a tweet at the weekend about an imminent blue chip mating between two superstars made up my mind. So we’re back off down memory lane.

Anyone who was a racing fan in the mid-1980s will remember Triptych. She was a superstar from the outset and made headlines at every stage of her life. Known as the ‘iron mare’ when she was racing, she had the sort of career that is very rare at the top level and was duly celebrated for it. However, she met a tragic and premature end that was as shocking as it was sad.

Some horses just seem to exude star quality, don’t they? At every stage of their lives, whatever their circumstances, they shine. Triptych was born and raised in Kentucky and, bred in the purple, she was sold for $2.15m as a yearling. By the Never Bend stallion Riverman, she was out of Trillion who was herself an excellent racemare. She was purchased by the wealthy French-based art collector Alan Clore and was very aptly and cleverly-named by him, a triptych being a painting in three parts or panels. For most of her career, she raced in his colours of pale blue with lilac halved sleeves. Clearly well made physically to command that sort of price at auction, she was a bay filly with a white star, not flashy and some might say almost masculine in appearance. I wasn’t soppy about her, like I am with some horses; she didn’t really encourage that sort of response. What she did do, however, is force you to admire what she achieved; how talented and durable she was.

The first time I saw Triptych race myself was when she came to Epsom for the Oaks in 1985. By that time she was already a dual G1 winner, having taken the Prix Marcel Boussac as a 2yo and then, most unusually, the Irish 2,000 Guineas that spring. I’m not sure why she went for that race rather than the fillies’ equivalent but it was an early sign of the fearless campaigning that was to become her hallmark. The ground at Epsom had been on the soft side all week – it was still a four day meeting then, concluding with the Oaks on the Saturday – and I recall it was a pretty filthy day with poor visibility. They came wide in the straight, racing up the stands side (far more unusual than now) and Triptych was well-beaten into second by another star filly, Oh So Sharp. History tells us that this was nonetheless high class form.

I remember more about Triptych’s 4yo season, much of which was also spent as a bridesmaid in the very top races. She was on her third trainer by now, having been with David Smaga in France as a juvenile and then David O’Brien in Ireland for her Classic season. Now back in France, she was under the care of Patrick Biancone for three more years of racing and the world became her stage. It was in 1986 that her reputation for toughness and consistency at the highest level was forged. In what was a vintage crop of middle distance horses, she was always thereabouts, being placed consecutively in the G1 Coronation Cup, Eclipse, King George, International Stakes, Irish Champion Stakes and Arc de Triomphe. Only the very best were able to get the better of her; horses of the calibre of Dancing Brave, Bering and Shardari. In a more ‘normal’ year, it is easy to imagine her winning a number of these races, but she did finally have her moment in the sun, winning our Champion Stakes at Newmarket that autumn. Can you imagine a filly these days – Enable for example – being raced like that? The iron mare had well and truly arrived!

In 1987 Triptych was back for more. With many of her former foes now retired, she took full advantage and converted a number of her G1 places to wins, including the Coronation Cup and International Stakes, before adding a second Champion Stakes. She seemed to be at her very best over 10f with some cut in the ground and was granted the latter more often in 87 – York was soft that year, for example. It underlined how, unless an outstanding horse at the top of its game was up against her, she was a formidable rival. Defeat didn’t seem to deter either her or her connections either; she kept bouncing back and danced every dance. She really must have had some constitution.

At this point in her life, Triptych starred in another high profile event, when Alan Clore dispersed all his bloodstock interests and she was sold again at public auction. She must have seemed something of a relative bargain at $3.4m, given her pedigree and racing record – imagine what a Coolmore or Darley might have shelled out for her today! Purchased by Peter Brant, she remained in training for one more season. It was a little more hit and miss but she did scoop a further G1 success, gaining a second win in the Coronation Cup on her annual trip to Epsom. She ended her racing career with a fourth place in the Breeders’ Cup Turf before remaining in Kentucky to become a broodmare.

It is worth pausing for a moment here to consider Triptych’s stats, for which I’ve Wikipedia to thank. She ran 41 times in total, winning on 18 occasions, including nine at G1 level. She was placed a further 19 times, 18 of them in G1s. That’s astonishing: what a hardy, durable and yet classy mare she was! Although I am well aware that Monsieur Biancone’s reputation has been tainted by drug-cheating penalties in the US since those heady days, I hope and would like to think that they were not a factor in Triptych’s era.

After racing against the best for five seasons, it was time for Triptych to embark on her second career. Some potential obstacles were perceived here, as top racemares are said to not always adapt well to breeding and motherhood. I’ve heard two strands to this argument over the years, one physiological and one psychological. The former comes down to hormones, and a memory I have of an interview with someone connected to Triptych at the time (quite possibly Biancone) who mentioned that one reason for her consistency was that, unlike many young mares, she was untroubled by coming into season regularly. This stuck with me, as it was the first time I’d ever heard of this as an issue which caused problems for female racehorses. To this day, I believe it is an underreported and underestimated factor in variable/poor performance in fillies. Let’s face it, men don’t like talking about periods even when it comes to their own wives and girlfriends, let alone their betting slip fancies! This is basically the hormonal equivalent in young horses and, as with humans, some get a rougher deal than others. No doubt there are treatments prescribed by vets to help manage these things but they won’t be perfect. Anyway, whilst not cycling was a help to Triptych whilst she was racing, understandably it was cited as a possible problem now the time had come for her to start breeding.

The second supposition, again prevalent amongst breeders, is that the high class racemare is like the equivalent of a ‘career woman’ and that she may lack maternal instinct or be less nurturing to her foals, in the worst case scenarios rejecting them at birth. Whilst that can happen, I’d say that it’s by no means a given and, just because a mare excelled as an athlete in her first career, with all the mental toughness that takes, it doesn’t preclude her from softening into a good mother to her offspring subsequently. Again comparing them to humans, some horses will make better mums than others, and it doesn’t necessarily equate to their athletic ability or racing character. Motherhood, for all species, is a whole new ballgame!

Anyway, back to 1989 and the first mate selected for Triptych was Mr Prospector. Although she was entirely free from Northern Dancer blood, it was an understandable choice. Not only was Mr Prospector second only to ND himself in terms of reputation at the time, Triptych’s new owner Brant also had an interest in him. So to Mr Prospector she went and, no doubt to everyone’s delight, she got in foal easily. Evidently they were able to bring her into season when the time came and all was well: we could now look forward to her first foal arriving the following spring.

And then tragedy struck in the form of a freak, awful paddock accident. The Racing Post carried the story on its front page – this is before all internet and social media remember – once the news came out. It happened sometime during that summer of 89 and Triptych was turned out in a big paddock in Kentucky with other mares 24 hours a day in the good weather. Apparently she was struck in darkness by the night watchman’s truck as he was doing his rounds. No one realised until she was found dead from her injuries the following morning. I still want to cry now, recalling it all again. It was the most brutal, unthinkable ending for a golden mare who had her whole broodmare career still before her. Instead she was cut down in her prime and, as a result, left behind no foals to continue her legacy.

So that’s the end of Triptych’s history, non? Well, not quite. There is one happier footnote to add, and a link that I realised myself just last weekend. While Triptych was her outstanding daughter, Trillion did have others who were able to continue the female line of that family, including Trevilla. The latter was bred to Riverman to produce a very close relative to Triptych called Trevillari, and in turn her daughter Trevise has produced another durable superstar French mare: none other than Treve. Hear that collective sigh of contentment all round from the breeding purists!

Treve herself is unproven as a broodmare so far but she has recently given birth to her fourth foal, a Sea The Stars filly, and has been given an all-star mating with Kingman this season. Her first two foals, the 3yo colt Qous (Dubawi) and 2yo filly Paris (Shalaa) are both in training with Andre Fabre, with a yearling Siyouni filly also in the pipeline. It would be great to see one of them go on to excel and continue the legacy of this great family, which Triptych was denied.

Keep safe everyone.
Caroline