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00:00Gay O'Callaghan admitted himself that he normally doesn't do things like speaking on camera,
00:07but when the TDN approached him to speak about Dark Angel, the Yeomanstown Patriarch didn't
00:12hesitate but to sit down and have a chat. As Sally and his imprint on the breed will
00:16last for many, many years to come, Gay tells us just how important Dark Angel is.
00:21To get a horse like Dark Angel is just kind of a miracle. They just happen to you. You
00:29don't buy them, you don't find them, they just happen to you. From the day he was born,
00:33he was a real good foal. Very strong, very solid, well made, tremendous action. I think
00:41he ran about either 9 or 11 times as a 2 year old. He won all his races in the front, but
00:47once they jumped him out in front in the sales race in Doncaster, in the middle park, in
00:55the mill race, he just made all those races. It was the makings of it. Once his runners
01:01started to come, they started to win from the work. I think he ended up with 36 2 year
01:05old winners in his first year, which is a good number, which is a really good number.
01:13From May on, everything that was running was winning. It just started to get exciting from
01:20there. The biggest problem with these, like Dark Angel, they won't go on forever. So you
01:26need to try and keep replacing them. What does Dark Angel put into his stock? I think
01:30he puts, one thing he puts into them is soundness anyway. They're all very, very sound. They
01:35have good minds. But the one thing that's coming through at the moment is that Dark
01:40Angel fillies are definitely going to become very good broodmares. That is definitely very
01:46I mean, we've been following his fillies now for the last couple of years, and they have
01:51become extra, extra successful. He'll be in pedigrees for years to come, years and years
01:56to come. He's an easy horse to do, very healthy horse, very simple horse to deal with. He
02:03likes to be in the field by himself. All the others like to have cattle with them. He doesn't
02:08like to have the cattle with him. He likes to provide for himself and he's very happy
02:11with that. So, simple as that. Grange Moor bred Sharon. I and David bred that together,
02:17and he's a wonderful horse. He's a very successful horse. Hopefully he goes to France in about
02:23two weeks' time. Hopefully he'll strike again, you know, in another group hunt. We had a
02:28very good Ascot and he's leading at the moment. Every week that goes by now, he has to keep
02:35topping it up or else he won't stay there. Simple as that, you know. I mean, by the end
02:39of the year, it will possibly change again, but we'd hope that the thing would continue
02:43for most of the year anyway. Look, it's great to have him up there at any stage. He means
02:50everything. He's half-human, like, you know, he's a little bit human. He's an unbelievably
02:56kind horse. Very easy to enter with him. You saw him down there now, you know. He stood
03:01for you while I was holding him. I could pull his ear and scratch him. For a stallion, like,
03:06he's an unbelievably kind horse.