We will all hear about the sale-toppers and the profitable pinhooks over the coming weeks and months, but what about the breeders who return home with an unsold yearling?Plenty of people will have been in that unwelcome position over the years, and plenty more will have to face up to it as this season progresses, so here is a heartening tale for anyone who has experienced the despair of realising that nobody wants to bid on your horse.It was a situation in which David Garrad found himself only last October with the first yearling he bred from his first racehorse, Tie A Yellowribbon, who he had campaigned in partnership with his brother, Robert. The Poet's Voice mare won twice when trained by TJ Kent and is herself out of Silver Games (Verglas), a winning half-sister to the G1 Falmouth Stakes victrix Nahoodh (Clodovil).“My mother died during the Covid pandemic and my brother and I nursed her at home because there were no people coming around,” says Garrad. “And the great thing about Tie A Yellowribbon was that she was something we could talk about that wasn't the cancer. My mum was a teacher at the local Catholic school and when she was dying, she kept telling us that when we breed horses, they all have to be named with a two-syllable colour.”Garrad retired Tie A Yellowribbon to Hilborough Stud in Norfolk and, having not gone in foal to Mohaather in her first season, she had better luck with the stallion next time around. The filly she produced ended up with a slot in Book 3 at the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale – a venue with which Garrad is very familiar, though not through his links in racing. His company Garrad Brothers has had the contract to clean Park Paddocks for three decades, and over that time he has listened and learned. “I've been 31 years at Tattersalls, doing the cleaning behind the scenes. That's how long it took me to get into this stage of breeding,” he says.Conversations over those years with Michael O'Hagan and Chris Murray led to Garrad becoming a client at Murray's Hilborough Stud, where Tie A Yellowribbon, who reportedly has “quite an attitude”, conducts a reign of light terror.“If you take her into any field she becomes the leader of that field within 24 hours,” Garrad says. When her Mohaather filly was led out of the ring unsold, the youngster returned to Hilborough, her breeder somewhat dejected but clearly not ready to give up on his new-found project. “When I used to go over with Chris and we'd sit and watch the horses, she was the one that the other horses gravitated around, and she was the orchestrator of when they run left or when they run right in that field,” he says. Tie A Yellowribbon with Tie A Navyribbon as a foal | David Garrad At the suggestion of his group of friends, Garrad decided to put together a syndicate named The Ribbons and, with the Mohaather filly now named Tie A Navyribbon to honour both his mother's suggestion and the favourite colour of Garrad's late sister, off she went into training with William Stone at West Wickham, not far from Newmarket.“Will was the only trainer that looked at her at Tattersalls,” Garrad recalls. “No one wanted to look at a Mohaather, but she looked fantastic.“She wasn't broken in until February because we didn't want to go for the six-furlong races and Will slowly brought her along and nurtured her.”By mid-July she was ready to make a debut at her local track of Newmarket and, despite being sent off the outsider of the field, which included two Godolphin runners, at odds of 100-1, she was far from disgraced when taking third place. Pitched into lofty company three weeks later for the G3 Sweet Solera Stakes, Tie A Navyribbon still did her connections proud to finish sixth. Greater happiness was to come for The Ribbons, however, when their pride and joy returned to the July Course for her third start to win a fillies' novice stakes over a mile, holding off the favourite Missouri Waltz by a length and a half, with the rest of the field some five lengths behind the runner-up.Garrad says, “I don't believe in fate really but it's just madness how it has all happened.“It's like a book or a film. You wouldn't think it could happen to a normal person. One minute I'm cleaning toilets at Tattersalls and the next I'm at Newmarket in the winner's enclosure. It's just unbelievable.”He continues, “I didn't want mega-dough for her as a yearling – we were thinking it would be great if we could get 10 grand. I came out of the sales and I was quite deflated but then a group of guys basically persuaded me to race her and got involved. “We were thinking a while ago that to run in a Class 3 was a dream, then to compete in a Group 3 was a dream. But I did jokingly say to the guys the other day, that if the ground stays the same as this summer – and bear in mind that the ground was good to firm this year in the Guineas when Bow Echo won – why not dream? People will laugh at me, and I totally understand that. I've had people laugh at me through the whole scenario. But the key is to surround yourself with better people, like John Morrey at Tattersalls, and Chris and Denise at the stud, and Will Stone.“Although she was sixth [in the Sweet Solera], she was 1.75 seconds quicker than she was the time before, which equates to 10.5 lengths. So when people say to me, 'Oh, unlucky', I don't think it was unlucky. I think she ran a really great race. It was a Group 3 at the end of the day.“And then when she won, not only did she win against a horse that has a great turn of foot, but she came up that hill really well. I remember standing there with Michael Prosser years ago, because we used to do the cleaning at Newmarket as well, and I know how steep it is in the finish.”With a rating of 82 after her win, Tie A Navyribbon is likely soon to be sent back into stakes company.“We were so happy coming sixth in the Group 3 – like ecstatically happy. I was happy that Will allowed us to go into that race. I was happy that Josephine Gordon gave some great feedback and has worked very well with the horse, helping at home and riding her in all her races,” Garrad says. “There are so many jockeys out there that are desperate for any scrap of work, that are really committed. I thought if I can just have a jockey that gives me honest feedback because she's riding the horse all the time, and I can then relate it to all the guys that are in the syndicate. I get so much from it, and we can all talk about it on the group chat, and it becomes slightly more than just racing a horse.” Tie A Navyribbon and Josephine Gordon after winning at the July Course He continues, “I was in tears when Tie A Yellowribbon won the first time because my mum had just died. Now her daughter is rated 82 and we think that she is a black-type horse. In every race she's progressed and I think that she has more to give. She's a galloping horse – she loves to extend. She's got just a real way about her.“When we started, I knew absolutely nothing about horses. But I feel that I can actually have a conversation with someone about it now. I am trying to keep the guys grounded, but there is no reason that she shouldn't take a big step forward. Everything that she's done on the track, she's done quite well. I spent hours looking at her in Chris's fields, and she was quite dominant there.”Even better, that dominant filly appears to be thriving on her races. “Will says to me after she's run, 'We'll see how she is tomorrow', and then I get a call from him saying, 'You wouldn't believe it, she was really tired last night and she's really full of herself today, screaming and shouting.' So she's enjoying herself, which is what you want for the horse, isn't it, at the end of the day?”Tie A Navyribbon is enjoying herself and so too, after a dash of disappointment, is her owner-breeder and his friends. And that, at the end of the day, is really what racing is all about. The post ‘One Minute I’m Cleaning Toilets, the Next I’m in the Winner’s Enclosure’: David Garrad Living the Dream with Homebred Tie A Navyribbon appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.