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When Adaay In Devon (Adaay) lines up as the likely favourite for the Listed Scurry Stakes at Sandown tomorrow it will be another chapter in an incredible story that has seen her become the poster girl not just for the county of Devon, where she is trained and her owner-breeders all live, but also for the Thoroughbred Breeders Associations Great British Bonus Scheme which, as a fully registered participant, has allowed this now three-year-old filly to scoop no less than £80,000 by winning four of its 550 fillies-only bonus races.
Adaay In Devons origins can only be described as bizarre. She may be out of the useful mare Favourite Girl, a daughter of Refuse To Bend who won six races for Tim Easterby, was beaten by a nose in the Listed Two-Year-Old Trophy at Redcar and was rated 104 at her peak. Yet, owing to a slow start to her breeding career, Favourite Girl was sold for just 1,000gns at the Tattersalls December Mare Sale in 2016 and then, after the Yorkshire stud at which she was based went bust, for £1,200 at an Exeter livestock market, with a foal at foot thrown in, less than three years later. It was there that she came to the attention of the five members of the gloriously-named Horniwinks Racing Club, all residents of the remote north Devon village of Bradworthy. Micky Ludwell, one of the quintet, jokes: Were not called Horniwinks because were a bunch of perverts, which seems to be what most people think! Horniwink is a west country word for one of the birds that you find around here, the lapwing, and it also happens to be the emblem of the village of Bradworthy.
Ludwell reveals that his great friend Robbie Johns was the man who came up with the idea to pop down to the local livestock auction for this one-off sale and try to get hold of a racehorse, an ambition he had held for many years. Johns is a sheep farmer (whose daughter runs the local pub, The Bradworthy Inn) while Ludwell has a 1,400-strong cattle herd, including 550 milking cows producing 34,000 litres of milk per day which is taken by tanker to Davidstow Cheese Factory to produce Cathedral City cheddar.
The Club is completed by Ludwells sister, Janet Clarke, plus Mark Walters and Kevin Nancekivell, a former professional footballer who is one of the coaches at Plymouth Argyle Football Club, champions of Division One of the English Football League for the 2022-23 season. Nancekivell occupied the post of joint caretaker manager for a five-game period last season, when Plymouth avoided relegation from the second tier of British football, the Championship, on the final day of the campaign. So Johns was in the vanguard when the group went to Kivells livestock market at Hallworthy, right next to Davidstow, for the dispersal sale of the mares owned by the bankrupt bloodstock business Kilashee House Limited, in July 2019.
Were jumping people, thanks to the local tracks at Newton Abbott and Devon & Exeter, so we were really looking for a National Hunt mare, maybe a Kayf Tara, Ludwell recalls. But after wed been underbidder on one we managed to buy Favourite Girl, and her colt foal, for £1,200.
The foal was meant to be by Cannock Chase, but, after some investigation by Walterss wife, Jean, helped immeasurably by Weatherbys, he was actually found to be a son of Peace Envoy.
After he and his mum had over-wintered at Ludwells busy cattle farm, East Ash, in Bradworthy, and at Nancekiivells nearby property, North Blatchborough Farm, a search for information on the internet led to Ludwell phoning Whitsbury Manor Stud and having a conversation with Ed Harper who, by chance, had once tried to buy Favourite Girl. Harper not only suggested fellow Devonian Rod Millman as a suitable trainer for the youngster, soon to be named Devon Envoy, but also offered a deal for Favourite Girl to be covered by the Whitsbury stallion Adaay. Having made the 50-mile journey from Bradworthy to Cullompton to go into training with Millman, the trainer recalls Devon Envoy as not having the best confirmation, he moved like Donald Duck and couldnt gallop around a bend.
Yet Millman still somehow managed to eke three sprinting wins out of him, on straight courses at Chepstow, Salisbury and Nottingham. Already Johnss aim had been exceeded (Johnsy said to Rod that all he wanted to do was get into the paddock, chuckles Ludwell), but the tale was about to get much better. Sent away to Hindon in Wiltshire to be foaled by Carwyn Johns (no relation) and Amy Wilkinson at what was then Glebe Farm Stud but is now Greyridge Bloodstock, Favourite Girl gave birth to an Adaay foal, Adaay In Devon.
She was very small and sickly when she was born, but Carwyn did a great job and when she came up to Kevins she was very friendly and easy to handle before we sent her off to Martin Jones to be broken, Ludwell remembers.
She was a bit on the small side but was very well put together, Millman adds. We soon decided to register for the Great British Bonus, its a great incentive, we always try to target our British-bred fillies at the bonus races.
Adaay In Devon ran encouragingly from wide draws on her first few starts before she won a bonus race at Windsor and then we found three more for her, at Goodwood, Carlisle and Leicester. In between she was badly chopped up around the bend in a valuable race at Goodwood yet still won three grand for finishing fifth.
She should have ended the season by winning a Listed, but one that she was declared for was waterlogged off and she then finished second in a very competitive one at Newmarket.
Ludwells recollections of Adaay In Devons first season are overwhelmingly positive. The day at Windsor was the best day ever and I didnt miss a single run, Janet and me even went up overnight to Carlisle, he says.
Rod and his son, James, kept telling us that she wasnt quite up to her rating, but she kept proving them wrong, he says. Weve been spoiled - Rod said that there are plenty of people who have owned horses their whole lives without ever having one as good as her.
The upward curve has continued this season, on the back of some first-rate care from the staff at Cullompton. She stayed here for the winter and we fed her every food that she would eat, trying to put some weight on her, Millman says. Shes still not especially tall but shes definitely thickened out and has developed into a very strong, sound, tough filly with a good constitution.
A pipe-opening fourth in a Doncaster Listed in March preceded two Bath wins, one in a £27,000 handicap and the other in a Listed, and placed efforts in a Gr.3 at Ascot and another Listed at Newbury. Her official career earnings total is currently £110,181 but you can add £80,000 on to that from all those bonus victories. Favourite Girl, meanwhile, has sadly lost a couple of foals, but she has produced a filly, now a yearling, by the first season sire-of the-moment, Sergei Prokofiev.
Ludwell reports that mother and daughter are based at Greyridge. They have got so valuable that we thought wed better send them up to Carwyn, hes got a lovely professional set-up there, he says.
Rod has been very honest with us and let us know when there was interest from an agent hoping to buy Adaay In Devon for an American client. The plan remains to keep her and breed from her, we are not interested in selling either her or the Sergei Prokofiev.
The Hornwinks will be heading en masse up to Surrey tomorrow, still pinching themselves at quite how their little bloodstock venture has taken off.
Were just a regular bunch of people who fancied having a go at the racing game, Ludwell says. Its only a bit of fun, we certainly couldnt afford to spend £100,000 on a horse. If wed have been running in Class 5 races at Bath and Chepstow and having a few pints, wed have been happy.
Its been like a dream, really. Everyone talks about her and, whenever she runs, the village comes to a standstill and the pub is packed.
She is ideally suited by a bit of cut in the ground and Rod has picked the Gr.1 sprint at Ascot on Champions Day as her end-of season target.