The Story of Ceiling Kitty

We wanted to give visitors to our website an overview of Chasemore Farm - how and why it was founded, what it has achieved in its relatively short life so far and its future outlook. But instead of delivering a boring history lesson, with events listed in chronological order, we thought we would tell the story of the stud through its most famous graduate: Ceiling Kitty.

For, in many ways, the story of Ceiling Kitty is the story of Chasemore Farm. The late mare’s pedigree helps illustrate how the operation’s owner Andrew Black took a typically unorthodox approach to sourcing mares in his early days in the breeding industry, while her racecourse exploits and broodmare career delivered soaring highs and tear-jerking lows for everyone involved in the stud. Moreover, her offspring and grandchildren will hopefully play their part in the ongoing prosperity of Chasemore.

So let’s begin the biography not from when Chasemore Farm was bought by Andrew and Jane Black but several years earlier instead, in the winter of 2007, when Ceiling Kitty’s dam, Baldovina, was acquired in the most unusual of circumstances. While many foundation mares are bought for huge sums at the elite breeding-stock sales, she was claimed by Andrew for just £17,000 after running third in a moderate event at Lingfield.

Never one to cleave to tradition, Andrew had been closely studying claimers to pinpoint fillies and mares who had the potential to improve and even make desirable breeding propositions. Another he and his friends in the Pro-Claimers (geddit?!) syndicate found a few years later was Beacon Lady, who was claimed through William Knight for £3,000 after finishing a well-beaten last of 11 in a Kempton claiming race. Remarkably, she went on to win eight races and improved her official rating from 49 to 99.

With Baldovina it was more a case of delayed gratification for Andrew. She showed little in three starts for Tom Dascombe and even tried her hand at hurdling with David Pipe but cut no ice over jumps either. However, she was in possession of a fine pedigree, being by Tale Of The Cat out of Group 3 Prix Penelope winner Baldwina, so Andrew gave her a chance as a broodmare.

Baldovina’s first foal, Van Go Go, was a fair sort and won three races, but it was her second produce Ceiling Kitty, the result of a mating with Haydock Sprint Cup hero Red Clubs, that would shape the fortunes of Chasemore Farm.

Ceiling Kitty had been foaled on another stud in February 2010 as Chasemore Farm, a 330-acre patch of bucolic bliss located in the otherwise bustling stockbroker belt in Surrey, was brought up to scratch after its purchase by Andrew and Jane. It was around 18 months later, when the filly was a yearling, that Andrew, co-founder of Betfair, left the company that had transformed the betting landscape.

Andrew remembers the period, in his own words.

“I left Betfair when the company floated on the London stock market, in November 2011. I was on the board the day before it floated and had attended all the float parties, but as soon as it did I immediately left and that was that. I was on the board of various other companies related to Betfair, such as Timeform, but I cut all my ties with the business at that point. I hadn’t seen eye to eye with the board on certain things and I didn’t want to stay on it when it became a public company.

“It was a difficult decision for me. I didn’t realise how miserable I would be when I cut ties with Betfair. The company had been my life. I'd been in the office every day, with all my colleagues around me. It was my life. I felt a very strong connection to all things Betfair. It was a bit of a soap opera, there was always some drama happening, something crazy being said in the chat rooms. To cut myself off was a shock to the system. I was a bit depressed for six months or so, getting over it and restarting my life in a different way.

“Chasemore Farm started up at the same time and it saved me as it gave me something else to spend my time and energy on. The animals we had here had been born on other studs, but we moved the mares and young stock across when we got the stud up and running, I only had two foals that year and one was Ceiling Kitty, who hadn’t been named at that time, and the other was called Wall Of Sound.”

Having been such a pivotal figure at Betfair it was probably inevitable that Andrew would not remain a stranger to the firm for long, and just as Ceiling Kitty entered training with Tom Dascombe at Manor House Stables, the chance of entering a fun venture with his former colleagues arose.

“Someone I knew at Betfair was having a leaving party early in the new year of 2012 and Steve Morana, chief financial officer at the time, called me up and asked if I wanted to come up for a drink. So I popped in for an hour or so, had a chat with Steve, and he said they need to do something to keep me involved as they missed me - so they asked me to give them some ideas.

“The Cheltenham Festival was coming up, so I thought why not do a tipping competition for Betfair employees over the four days for and the winners can come into ownership with me on one of the two foals I had, with all costs paid up front. Also, the person with the biggest winning margin would have the right to name her.

“I chose the Red Clubs filly out of Baldovina as she was the result of a cheap cover, I’d claimed the dam when she’d come third in some random race on the all-weather and she didn’t have a lot on her page at the time. Basically, she was a bit of a punt but actually I really liked her. She was small, compact but just really well built - a solid ball of muscle.”

The overall winner of the tipping competition turned out to have a similar sense of humour to Andrew, as he gave Baldovina’s second foal a moniker that fitted in with Chasemore Farm’s proud history of giving its produce offbeat names. Ceiling Kitty was in honour of a popular internet meme of the early noughties showing a feline poking her head through plastering with the saucy strapline - and sensitive readers should look away now - Ceiling Cat Is Watching You Masturbate.

In truth, the reference was a bit close to the bone even for Andrew, but he went along with it and got into the spirit by calling his new syndicate of competition winners Andrew Black and the Master Bettors.

The scene was set for the owners to have fun following the progress of the cheaply bred filly with the frivolous name throughout her two-year-old season. But, as Andrew recalls, it became apparent early in 2012 that Ceiling Kitty’s racing career would instead be serious business.

“She went up to Manor House Stables and they do a five to follow competition each year. I had a look at the entries and noticed that of all the two-year-olds in the yard, the staff had put her in their entries more than any other horse.

“I rang Lizzie, the stud secretary there, to ask what was going on and she said: ‘They all love your horse, she’s got a lovely action on the gallops and has a lot of natural speed. All those more expensive animals here, but your funny little homebred is the one they all like.’”

Ceiling Kitty did not reveal her immense talent on the track immediately, though, and her first two starts left connections scratching their heads wondering whether she just wasn’t as good as had been hoped. Making her debut on the first day of the Flat season at Kempton she ran green but stayed on well to finish second, and next time out on rain-softened ground at Beverley she led but weakened quite tamely into fourth.

It was on her third start that we got our first glimpse of the immense talent Ceiling Kitty would be remembered for. Lining up against four colts back at Kempton, she won decisively despite being badly hampered in the final furlong of the race.

That effort earned the filly a crack in black-type company and she headed to York for the Listed Marygate Stakes at the Dante meeting, but was sent off at 20-1 in a race dominated by Mark Johnston’s filly Baileys Jubilee, long odds-on after winning both her starts by an aggregate of 12 lengths. Horses don’t know their odds, though, and Ceiling Kitty was an emphatic two-length winner while Baileys Jubilee flopped in sixth. The Master Bettors had filled their boots with the 44-1 available on Betfair.

Ceiling Kitty’s next assignment was the Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot, where Andrew had divided loyalties. He had also owned a small share in Upward Spiral, another filly housed at Manor House Stables who had won her maiden impressively at Sandown and had subsequently been sold to Qatar Racing.

Andrew remembers a surreal day at the royal meeting.

“On the day of the race we were invited to lunch with the Qatari royals behind Qatar Racing and we watched the race down in the parade ring with our hosts. To be polite we were supporting Upward Spiral, who was much more strongly fancied than Ceiling Kitty.

“But obviously I was watching Ceiling Kitty intently and cheering her on under my breath. Our filly led from pillar to post, drifting across the course in the closing stages, to win at 20-1 again - 66-1 on Betfair this time. I’d had a couple of grand on her and was ecstatic, but I ended up having to apologise to the Qataris after the race.

“I can’t remember a more emotional day in racing in my life. If I look back on all my days in racing, none made more of an impact on me than seeing my small, muscular horse with her beautiful action serve it up to the bigger, more powerful horses. She just had that willing attitude and natural athleticism.

“It taught me a lesson that has lived with me ever since. Before Ceiling Kitty I wanted the strongest, most power-packed horses, but now I look at stock in a different way: I look for that athleticism. I should have already known that, but it took Ceiling Kitty for me to realise it.”