Perhaps best known as Classic-winning owners, Martin and Lee Taylor now head to Sandown on Saturday with serious designs on entering the realm of Group 1-winning breeders, an ambition nearly two decades in the making for the brothers behind leading Coral-Eclipse contender Gethin (Ghaiyyath).Trained by Owen Burrows, Gethin still carried the green and red silks forever synonymous with Dancing Rain (Danehill Dancer), the Oaks heroine of 2011, up until his penultimate appearance on a racecourse, when he was an impressive winner of the Listed Magnolia Stakes at Kempton.So impressive was Gethin on that occasion that the growing superpower that is Wathnan Racing soon came calling. According to Wathnan's chief talent scout, Richard Brown, the scopey son of Ghaiyyath had been on their radar for at least 18 months at that stage, but only a few weeks ago did an offer appear on the table that was too good for the Taylors to refuse.“It was difficult but, with all the risk involved with horses, you just have to do it at some stage,” Martin says of the decision to part with their prized colt. “It reaches a point where the risk starts to outweigh the reward. It's bittersweet, but we're still invested in the family, so we still have a big interest in him running well on Saturday.”Indeed, the Taylors can take solace in the fact that Gethin's dam, the Dalakhani mare Aniseed, is still going strong at the age of 17. A former stablemate of Dancing Rain at William Haggas's Somerville Lodge, Aniseed reached a BHA rating of 98 and was twice placed at Listed level, having been sourced for 60,000gns at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale.“We bought Gethin's dam as a yearling in 2010,” says Martin, picking up the story. “Liam Norris and I did that together. She was a lovely filly, actually. She was small – and she still is – but she was very athletic as a yearling. I loved Dalakhani as a broodmare sire, so we bought her with a view to being a broodmare.“We couldn't believe that we got her for 60 grand. She was a snip and everything that she has produced has been good. Global Giant was her first foal, by Shamardal, and he was a good horse. He won three Listed races and probably should have won the big race in Bahrain when he was second one year.”He adds, “Aniseed is an alternate year breeder, so she's never had two foals in consecutive years. Even though she's 17, I think she's only had six foals. We never expect to have two in a row. She is in foal to Ghaiyyath at the moment but, given that we have a foal on the ground that is Gethin's full-sister, we're not going to get our hopes up.”The foal in question is the third produced by Aniseed from her dalliances with Ghaiyyath, who won the Eclipse himself on his way to being crowned Longines World's Best Racehorse for 2020. Gethin was the first, while her two-year-old by the Darley stallion headed to the Far East after changing hands for 200,000gns at the Tattersalls December Foal Sale.“We sold him to Darley Japan,” says Martin. “He didn't look like Gethin as a foal. I don't know what he looks like now, although I have seen a photograph of him recently in Japan. They seem to be happy with him.“The filly is very much like him [Gethin]. She's an absolute cracker, which he was too as a foal. He was a great-looking yearling as well. We took him to [Tattersalls] Book 1 and we put a reserve of 150,000gns on his head, which we thought he'd go for easily. But nobody wanted him, not at that price anyway, so we kept him.”The decision to stand firm didn't take long to pay dividends, with Gethin immediately looking a colt with a bright future when he ploughed through testing conditions to win a Nottingham maiden by six lengths on his debut in October 2024.He then returned in April the following year for another novice event at Newbury where his rivals included a certain Saddadd (Pinatubo), who will be among Gethin's rivals in the Eclipse following a third-place finish in the G1 Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh last time.Certainly, Newbury novices don't come much hotter than that, but there was only one winner on the day as Gethin scooted clear to register an emphatic victory and leave his owners harbouring Classic dreams before fate intervened.“We always liked him, but we didn't know how good he was until he went to Nottingham,” Martin explains. “He won easily by six lengths there and we knew then that we had a good horse on our hands.“We genuinely thought that he might win the Derby last year. When he won at Newbury, he beat Saddadd, interestingly, by three and a half lengths, and he did it easily. We knew Roger really liked Saddadd and he's been proven to be right. We really fancied him for the Derby but, unfortunately, he had a little niggle after Newbury and we had to put him away for a few months.”How frustrating was it having to sit idly by as the Derby came and went last summer with Gethin sat in his box at Burrows's Farncombe Down Stables in Lambourn?“Very,” Martin chuckles. “It's funny, the Derby gets a lot of bad press these days, but Lee and I are traditionalists and for us the Derby is still the race. We try to breed horses for the Classics, so that would have meant everything [to breed a Derby winner]. We were very lucky to win the Oaks with Dancing Rain in 2011 and those races are the pinnacle for us.“It was a shame that we couldn't run him, but he's come back and he's still only run six times. Ghaiyyath won the Eclipse when he was five, amongst other things. Hopefully, he's better than Ghaiyyath was when he was four, but I think, whatever he does this year, I think he'll be at least as good next year.”Martin does not hesitate to nominate Dancing Rain winning the Oaks as his greatest day in the sport to date, adding that it will be “very difficult to top”.However, he does concede that there would be an extra poignancy to the occasion should Gethin get the job done in the Eclipse, having warmed up for it with a narrow defeat to none other than Ombudsman (Night Of Thunder) when sporting the Wathnan colours for the first time in the G3 Brigadier Gerard Stakes over the same course and distance.“We obviously didn't breed Dancing Rain – Liam Norris bought her for us at the Goffs Orby,” says Martin who, along with brother Lee, is expecting to be in attendance at Sandown on Saturday.“So, if Gethin wins, he'd be the first horse that we've bred to win a Group 1. We've had Aniseed all of this time and just to have Gethin running in one of the biggest Group 1s of the year is fantastic. We've been at it for getting on 20 years now, so it would be amazing to breed a proper Group 1 winner. It would be huge for us.”The achievement would be even more notable when you consider that the Taylors are currently breeding from only two mares under the banner of Elysian Bloodstock Ltd, following a significant reduction in numbers since the sale of their Clairemont Stud in late 2015.“We only kept the two best broodmares that we've got and they have both produced multiple black-type horses,” Martin explains. “Azanara has produced Azano, who won a Group 3 for us in France and the [Listed] Guisborough Stakes up at Redcar. He was a good Listed/Group 3 horse and ran in the Guineas for us.“And then his half-sister, Azaniya, won two Listed races in France at the backend of last season. Her first run in France this year was a good run as well. She was fifth behind Sunly [in the G3 Prix Allez France] and that has turned out to be a strong race.“We then sent her to Carlisle for a Group 3 [Lester Piggott Fillies' Stakes], which was over a mile and three furlongs at a very stiff track. We thought that she would stay, but Kieran Shoemark got off her and said that she definitely didn't, so we'll drop her back to a mile and a quarter next time. We would love a bit of soft ground for her and might just wait for that.”The Taylor broodmare band is set to grow by one in number when Azaniya's racing days are done, Martin confirms, while the brothers also have her half-sister, a two-year-old by New Bay, in training with Burrows.“She's very nice and will hopefully be out around August,” he adds of the filly who failed to find a buyer at Tattersalls Book 1, leaving him to dream that her story will turn out to have as happy an ending as that of Gethin.Make no mistake, the Taylors are not for bending when it comes to the valuation of their stock, with a similarly staunch position set to be adopted when it comes to the future of the Ghaiyyath filly foal.“We're always happy to sell, but it has to be at the right price,” Martin sums up. “If somebody is happy to offer us enough money for her, we'll sell her. Otherwise, we'll keep her.”That “right price” could look rather different come Saturday evening, in the event that her elder brother has realised the long-held ambition of his breeders.Classic-winning owners they might already be, but Group 1-winning breeders certainly has a nice ring to it.The post ‘We Thought That He Might Win The Derby Last Year’ – Taylors Bidding For Eclipse Redemption With Gethin appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.