It was a summer of success for Kodi Bear
Rathbarry Stud’s son of Kodiac bagged his fourth Group 2 winner with Lifeplan’s impressive success in the Gimcrack Stakes at York – the Declan Carroll-trained colt goes into winter quarters with connections planning for a Classic campaign in 2026
WEATHERBYS STALLION SCENE
RATHBARRY STUD’s Kodi Bear has enjoyed a fabulous 2025 headlined by his exciting Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes winner Lifeplan and about whom his trainer Declan Carroll harbours legitimate 2,000 Guineas aspirations, the yard’s stable star unbeaten in two starts in 2025.
But Kodi Bear’s season has not revolved around just one stakes race star –the stallion has also had his most winners in a racing year (85), and by December is sure to have accrued his highest-ever annual progeny prize-money earnings.
As the table overleaf shows his 2022 crop (three-year-olds of this year) has been by far his most successful in terms of named foals and winners – 49 in total with 22 juvenile winners last year, while his early runners from this year’s two-year-old crop have also shown improvement on the ones who have gone before.
Importantly, for those who like to look at trends, these two crops, his fifth and sixth, were conceived on the back of the results of the stallion’s first two crops, foals who were born in 2018 and 2019 and two-year-olds of 2020 and 2021.
The uptick in fortunes reveals the importance of a stallion getting notable results in those debut crops, and the time lag and patience that is involved in thoroughbred production and stallion establishment.
Kodi Bear retired to stud for the 2017 covering season having won the
Group 2 Celebration Mile as a three-year-old in 2015 and finished runner-up in the Dewhurst Stakes (G1) the year previously.
From his debut crop emerged Cobh, who in his first season won the Listed Stonehenge Stakes and finished third in the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes and then fourth in the Futurity Trophy Stakes (G1), while Measure Of Magic took a third placing as a juvenile in two Listed races and in the Flying Childers Stakes (G2).
Despite the difficulties the 2020 racing season presented with the
impact of Covid, Kodi Bear bagged a respectable 18 winners from his first crop of two-year-old runners in Europe.
The following year, although his progeny did not turn their sire into a Royal Ascot-winning stallion, two of them did get onto the podium at the meeting.
Measure Of Magic finished third behind Campanelle and Dragon Symbol in the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup, and, excitingly, the meeting saw the emergence of second crop son Go Bears Go as a stakes-quality juvenile.
The David Loughnane-trained colt, who had won on his two-year-old debut at Ascot in May 2021, stepped up to stakes class at the Royal meeting finishing a head second in the Norfolk Stakes (G2) to Perfect Power.
The race was a direct springboard for him to Group 2 success in the Railway Stakes at The Curragh, and the colt went on to collect Group 1 form when a third in the Phoenix Stakes (G1).
At the end of the year, he was shipped to Del Mar for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (G1) to finish second just a half-length behind Twilight Gleaming.
Also from that second crop came Ever Given, who won four times as a juvenile, including on his two-year-old debut in May and when successful in the valuable Goffs UK Premier Yearling Stakes and finished second in the competitive Weatherbys Scientific £300,000 2-Y-O Stakes.
Kodi Bear
Kodi Bear
That 2021 season with first three-year-olds and a second crop of two-year-olds saw Kodi Bear bag 48 three-year-old winners, his prize-money earnings hit £1,289,838, while he also achieved his best-ever annual number of stakes winners at five.
The shrewd Lyons family of Summerhill Stud had duly taken note of the stallion standing in Cork at the Cashman family’s farm and decided that the son of Kodiac would be a suitable first mate for their homebred maiden mare A Taad Moody, a good-looking daughter of Awtaad.
“Kodi Bear had been doing well on the track, and we’d had good luck with him as well,” recalls Joey Lyons who oversees the broodmare band on the family farm. “We thought that the cross would work.”
Importantly, certainly something that helped Kodi Bear through those tough covering years before runners, is that he generally produces a good-looking horse; a fact not lost on horse people, and a factor that was particularly influential for those involved in the breeding of Lifeplan.
“He does get a gorgeous individual, which was a factor for us to choose him, too,” confirms Lyons, who adds: “Brian O’Neill of Rockton Stud foals our maiden mares and, after he foaled A Taad Moody, Brian rang and said that not only did we have a quality foal, but that he was nicest foal he’d foaled in a long while.
“He had that bit of class about him from the get-go, he was a standout. When he and his dam came back here, we popped them out into the little nursery paddock, he stood there proud as punch being like, ‘This is me, I’m the new guy!’”
A Taad Moody is out of Princess Mood, the first mare bought by the Logans and purchased for just €10,000 from Goffs in 2002.
Over the 15 years since she has produced 10 winners from 15 foals, including the stakes winners Sunny Prince, Captain Ramus, and three stakes performers, including A Taad Moody who bagged a third placing in the Listed Ingabelle Stakes. Princess Mood, who Lyons reports has always had a bit of “spark”, is still on the farm and is still just as sassy.
THE FAMILY initially tried to sell A Taad Moody as a foal and a yearling, but a variety of events conspired against a sale and Lyons laughs: “Perhaps it was for luck! Princess Mood only had two fillies and we have both of them.”
The Lyons family, who have around eight mares, generally sell all their stock as foals, so the mare’s young good-looking colt by Kodi Bear made his way to Goffs November where he was bought by Eoghan Grogan of Killourney Mor Farm – and the youngster’s good looks certainly shone out in the sales ground.
“He was a busy foal, he had 80 odd shows just that morning of selling,” recalls Lyons. “Eoghan came to see him on the morning of the sale, but then came back an hour later, and I could tell he loved him.
“I remember telling him that this lad was just different gravy to the rest of them, he was as cool as they come – he just did his show then just ate and slept.”
The pinhooker had to go to €85,000 to make his purchase, the colt becoming the third-most expensive foal to sell in the ring by the sire.
“My farrier saw him first,” recalls Grogan. “He was outside for a cigarette,
I was inside getting a cup of coffee, and he ran in to get me and told me I had to see this foal. We took a look at him and said there and then that we had to buy him – he was an amazing foal, it was love at first sight!”
Grogan adds: “He was always so simple to do anything with and had the most extraordinary attitude – the first show was the same as the last show, so professional.
“I had prepped one by the sire for a client, and he’d had a great temperament, too. It meant the sire was on my radar, but when I saw Lifeplan as a foal, the physical blew my mind.
“He was a no-brainer for me, and I was stretched to my limit! I was very lucky to have bought him.”
Lyons made sure she caught up with Grogan at the Goffs Orby Sale when the colt was re-offered as a yearling, and admits she was thrilled to see how well he had done over the eight months; he more than stood up to inspection from her critical eye.
“Eoghan had him looking amazing, the horse could not have looked any better, he was just stunning,” she says.
Grogan, who has bred Group 1 winners, adds: “He just did so well through his prep, and it is fantastic that he has gone on and is such an exciting prospect.
“I have not been pinhooking for long, he was only the third foal we have pinhooked.
“The other two are also stakes horses – Dandy Man Shines has been a Listed winner and finished fourth in the Vintage Stakes, and I also sold one who went on to be rated 100 and finish fifth in the Prix Robert Papin.”
Lifeplan and connections
Lifeplan and connections
THE YOUNG Lifeplan fetched €165,000 and is the most expensive yearling sold in the Goffs sale ring by Kodi Bear, bought by trainer Declan Carroll for owner Martin Tedham.
Nine months later saw Lyons on the plane to York for the big summer meeting, and she got to watch the Group 2 race unfold with Tedham
and his gang of connections.
“They are all so lovely, and you could see they adore him as much as we did,” she says. “It is so nice, and I just said to Declan, whatever you are doing and don’t stop!
“It is the stuff of dreams. It didn’t feel real until a couple of days later, I was asking myself, did that really happen?”
The colt was put away after that York run, Carroll reportedly planning to be aiming the colt for next April’s Craven Stakes with a 2,000 Guineas target in mind.
It is a move welcomed by all at Rathbarry Stud, the team looking forward to a winter dreaming of Classic glory for the 13-year-old stallion
“Declan has not over-raced him, you know they’ve looked after him with next year in mind, and that’s great to see,” said Catherine Cashman, matriarch at the stallion farm.
“And as they are not being tempted to sell, well, you can’t beat that either.
“A trainer having a horse from day one, he or she will know all the ins and outs of the horse, too.”
Kodi Bear’s stock have had a good time in the sale ring as well this year with a Goffs Breeze-Up selling for 500,000gns, giving Johnny and Danielle Hurley a fine return on a purchase price of just €9,000, while at the Tattersalls Ireland September Sale, the stallion averaged €38,059 for 17 sold, and at the Goffs UK Premier his stock averaged £37,389.
The three sold at the Tattersalls October Book 2 Sale averaged 77,333gns with a top price of 130,000gns,
“Kodi Bear is a good-looking horse and he really stamps his stock, they are fine big sorts and he is over 16hh himself,” enthuses Cashman.
“They have a great physique, they have good minds and there has been a solid trade for his yearlings this year.
“He covered 120 mares in the spring so there will be plenty of soldiers on the ground in future, too."
Built with Shorthand