Under The Radar: Tanya Browne and son team up for fairytale start

Lamar Canyon broke well and was quickly into his stride, but Adam Browne-Souza sat still.   The rider steadied his horse without breaking his momentum.  He allowed Reposado go up on his outside, Cool Azul up on his inside, let his horse ease into his racing rhythm just behind them, settled but not asleep, in behind horses but still going forward.  

“That was the plan,” says Tanya Browne now, the horse’s trainer, the jockey’s mother.  “Get him to settle.  See what he could do at the end.  He has always wanting to go too fast too early in his races.  We always thought that, if he could settle, he could do on the racecourse what he has been showing us at home.”

Gelded since he last raced at Dundalk in November, and dropped down in trip to five furlongs, they went back to Dundalk on Tuesday more in hope than in confidence.  The more the race developed, however, the more that that hope grew.

Fifth of the nine runners as the field hurtled around the home turn, Adam Browne-Souza still sat as they moved into the home straight.  He angled his horse gradually towards the far side and into clear sailing as they raced towards the two-furlong marker.  His rivals started to row away to his right, but still he sat, allowed his horse move up on the far side, closed on the leader.

Hope grew again, but still just hopeful.  Still not confident.

It wasn’t until they were on their way to the furlong marker that the rider got lower in the saddle and, when he did, Lamar Canyon picked up.  He hit the front just inside the furlong marker, and his rider asked him for all he had.  He went a neck up, a half a length up.  Focaccia fought back on the near side, but Lamar Canyon stretched his neck out and surged on to win by three parts of a length.

“It was brilliant,” says Tanya now.  “I was delighted for Adam.  He gave him a great ride.”

She doesn't say that it was a really good training performance, but it was.  Her first winner as a trainer, her first runner as a trainer.  

She and Adam bought Lamar Canyon as a foal at Tattersalls Ireland in November 2023.  They brought him back to the sales as a yearling, but he didn’t sell, so they had him back home with them.

“I wanted 15,000 for him,” says Tanya, “but nobody would give me that, so we decided that we would hold onto him.  We thought that he was better than that.  He couldn’t get into a breeze-up sale, so we said we would hold onto him ourselves.”

Tanya didn’t have her trainer’s licence at the time, so the Alkumait colt went into training with her dad, breeze-up king Willie Browne. 

“He has worked like a good horse from the start,” says Tanya.  “And he was always lovely and settled at home.  But it was just that, when he went to the races, he used to get stressed.  He was just too keen.  We always thought that, if he could relax in the early part of his races, then he could give himself a chance of reaching his true potential.”

Tanya is immersed in horses, in racing.  She was always deeply involved with her dad’s Mocklershill breeze-up operation.  Speciosa was hers at home, sold for 30,000 guineas to Pam Sly and winner of the 1000 Guineas in 2006.  

“Not Walk In The Park though!” she says.  (Sold for 270,000 guineas to John Hammond and Michael Tabor in 2004, Derby runner-up, sire of Inothewayurthinking and Douvan and Nick Rockett and Jonbon and many more.)  “I used to ride a lot of the fillies.”

Tanya is based in Mayfield now, in Rosegreen in County Tipperary, 20 minutes from her dad’s place, she tells you.  Dhruba Selvaratnam’s old place.  It is eight years now since she moved there with her partner, Brazilian horseman Reinardo Souza, who rode over 250 winners at home.  Together they have nurtured and prepared many high-profile performers themselves, Matron Stakes winner Fiesolana and Temple Stakes winner Hot Streak, as well as Legends Of War, a Grade 3 winner in the States for Qatar Racing and Doug O’Neill.

The training side of it is brand new, and they have made some start.  One for one, from just two horses in training.  Viamonte is the other half of the string, a five-year-old gelding by Barraqueri.  He’s going well at home too and he will be making his seasonal return soon.

Immediate plans for Lamar Canyon are not set in stone yet.

“He’s for sale, and we have had some interest, but we’re thinking that we might just go on with him now ourselves.  Adam said that, when he hit the front on Tuesday, he had a look around him.  There could be a fair bit more to come from him.  We think that he’ll get six furlong too.  He’s come out of the race well, so we’ll be making a plan for him now.  He has lots of options.”