David Redvers, racing and bloodstock advisor for Qatar Racing, answers the questions
David Redvers established his own bloodstock agency in 1995 on his family’s 750-acre Tweenhills Farm in Hartpury, Gloucestershire, England, which he turned into a public Thoroughbred stud.
Early success as an agent came via the leading jumps mare Lady Rebecca, whom he purchased for 400gns as a yearling and who went on to win more than £160,000 in prize-money.
In 2010 Redvers became racing and bloodstock advisor to Sheikh Fahad Al Thani and his brothers, helping establish Qatar Racing as major investors in the sport, not only as owners but also sponsors through Qipco's backing of the Guineas Festival and British Champions Day.
Redvers has bought a host of future G1 winners for Qatar Racing, including the 2011 Melbourne Cup winner Dunaden, Roaring Lion, champion three-year-old in 2018, and Kameko, the 2,000 Guineas winner in 2020. Tweenhills is now home to Qatar Racing’s stallions.
Which racing figure past or present do you most admire?
There is such a vast pantheon, but the person who had the most influence on me very early on was James Delahooke. He had been a high-class amateur jockey, one of the world’s most successful bloodstock agents, and ran his own stud farm. One of my first jobs in racing was for him. I looked up to him. Henry Cecil has to the person I respected most growing up as a boy. He seemed to have that magical horseman’s touch that set him apart and he did everything with such style.
Which is your favourite venue and race anywhere in the world?
My favourite venue has to be Cheltenham. It is next door to the farm, I can see the top of the stands from one of our fields and it’s where I had my first major successes as an owner when Lady Rebecca won three Cleeve Hurdles. Whether you are into Flat or jumping, it is somewhere the whole racing world loves. It’s the ultimate theatre.
My favourite race is split between the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Qipco British Champions Day because it’s Her Majesty the Queen’s own race, we have been fortunate enough to win it a couple of times with Charm Spirit and Roaring Lion, and it’s on the greatest day’s racing in the UK in the year. The other is the Melbourne Cup in which Dunaden delivered our breakthrough race for Sheikh Fahad.
Who is your favourite racehorse and why?
It is a close-run thing between Lady Rebecca and Roaring Lion, for obvious reasons. They were the two best horses I ever had anything to do with but also the two most intelligent. I worked with them very closely, Roaring Lion as a stallion and Lady Rebecca, who we had from a yearling. I broke her in, was with her right through her career and I held her the day she passed away. You end up with a very close relationship with them and, whether I was kidding myself or not, I felt I knew them and them me.
What is your fondest memory in racing?
That would probably be when Sheikh Fahad fell to his knees in shock when Dunaden was announced the winner of the Melbourne Cup after what seemed like a lifetime of waiting for them to count the pixels.
We went there thinking he had a major winning chance. The only thing that put a doubt in our mind was his ridiculous price and that was because at that stage the Australians were still remarkably parochial in their support.
They hadn’t heard of Christophe Lemaire or Mikel Delzangles and assumed they were flying a kite. Beyond that, it was what propelled future Qatari investment in racing as they realised they could compete with anybody.
If you could change one thing in racing, what would it be?
That British horse racing is treated as the world leader that it is and that our regulator stops apologising for it and celebrates it. There seems to be a modern-day mindset that people may be outraged or offended by racing when there is so much that is wonderful about it. You only have to look at how the sport is going in Australia, where it is on a frightening upward curve.
David Redvers was speaking to Jon Lees
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