Damian Burns Joins TDN’s Conversations Podcast to Discuss Sales Success, Mating Plans and More

      The Burns family have been producing top-class racehorses from Lodge Park Stud in County Kilkenny since the early 1970s. Derby winner New Approach (Ire) and Oaks heroine Was (Ire) feature among the farm’s long roll of honour and another milestone was achieved last autumn when Lodge Park Stud achieved a world record price for a yearling colt when selling their son of Wootton Bassett (GB) to Amo Racing at 4.3 million gns.

  That colt hailed from Galileo (Ire) mare Park Bloom (Ire), whose sister Al Naamah (Ire) at the time set a European record at Book 1 when selling for 5 million gns 11 years previously. Safe to say the Burns family know a thing or two about the game. 

  The modus operandi for this thriving stud farm is quality over quantity. In fact, the slogan ‘small on numbers, big on quality,’ is the caption on Lodge Park Stud’s X page while the Burns family make no bones about the fact that the objective is to breed for the racetrack rather than the sales ring. 

  Such a business model has not just sustained the farm but has allowed it to thrive and Damian Burns, who helps run the family’s stud alongside his brother Jamie, joined the TDN Podcast to look back on the breeding stock sales from 2024, discuss his philosophy to breeding, building up his own band of broodmares under the Lodge Park banner and a whole lot more. 

Click here to watch the show.

Click here for the audio-only version.

photo credit: Tattersalls