The Mariscottis have enjoyed more than 80 winners since Celtic Spur got them off the mark in a Chelmsford maiden in 2008, the vast majority of them with Andrew Balding and a significant number of them at some of our biggest meetings.
They include winners at Royal Ascot, where Dashing Willoughby and Coltrane both won, and a previous win at this week’s Tote-Ebor Festival, where Coltrane won the Melrose Handicap as a three-year-old, not to mention others on Derby Day, at Sandown’s Coral-Eclipse meeting and at Doncaster’s St Leger week.
According to former Coral financial director Mick Mariscotti the couple have never had more than a dozen or so horses at a time, often significantly fewer, and so it’s a measure of how well those horses are sourced and handled that Coltrane will hopefully be joined at York this week by Aragon Castle, Glenfinnan and Masekela.
Coltrane is the main flagbearer at present and Mariscotti said: “He’s been a star. He’s very consistent, and at a high level too. He had only one more race as a three-year-old after winning the Melrose, and then missed most of the following year, but since he came back his wins include an Ascot Stakes, a Coral Marathon, a Doncaster Cup and a Sagaro Stakes.
“He’s also been second to Trueshan in the Long Distance Cup on QIPCO British Champions Day, having beaten him at Doncaster, and to Courage Mon Ami in this year’s Gold Cup, where frustratingly he was caught near the finish.”
Looking ahead to Friday’s race, where Coltrane is likely to meet Courage Mon Ami once again, as well as last year’s runaway winner Quickthorn, Mariscotti said: “Quickthorn beat us at York last year, and he did it again last time in the Goodwood Cup. He’s a very good horse and his owners the Blyths are good friends of ours, but I’m hoping our jockey has a game plan that can help us turn the tables this time.”
He added: “The Cup races are very competitive at the moment, and with Stradivarius retired and Kyprios out of action there are a number of different horses who are all capable of winning them on their day. Coltrane is one of them, and although he might not win as often as we’d like, he’s always going to be there or thereabouts.
“He appears to enjoy his racing enormously, and his recovery rate between races is very good, so we’ll carry on with him as long as he’s competitive and keen.”
The couple plainly get a great deal of enjoyment from their hobby, but it does not come cheap and so buying at the right price and selling at an opportune moment has been key to its sustainability.
Goldoni, who was their first Listed winner, cost only 16,000 guineas but was sold at Tattersalls’ Horses in Training for 210,000 guineas. Real Dominion was bought for 60,000 guineas and sold 350,000 guineas, while Le Don De Vie cost 50,000 guineas and sold at the Goffs London Sale for £400,000. The Graduate, Torcello and Neenee’s Choice, also sold publicly for six-figure sums, are among others who have also helped finance the fun, while some of the best business has been done in private sales to Australia, Hong Kong and the Middle East.
Mariscotti said: “We certainly don’t make money out of racing and we need to keep the money rolling in to keep the whole thing going. In terms of buying the horses we take advice obviously from the experts, who are mainly Andrew and Emma Balding, and Tessa Hetherington, but we trail around with them at the sales.
“Selling at some stage is always a consideration both when we are buying horses and when we are deciding what we should keep in training, and at the right price we are prepared to sell even horses we rate quite highly, often privately.
“We don’t have a racing manager as we are our own racing manager. We are still learning as we go, but we are lucky enough to just about wash our face.”
A first win in Friday's Group 2 Weatherbys Hamilton Lonsdale Cup would go a long way towards balancing the books.