To prove no one really takes any notice of what I think, who recalled what I wrote about Falbrav way back on April 6, as follows:
Amongst his first crop, however, were a handful of impressive individuals, in my book none moreso than the colt out of Angelic Smile bred by Ron Gilbert and sold last Easter to Woodlands for $550,000, Falbrav’s top price. He was as a good a type as you’d ever see. He’s named Fravashi and presumably he’ll be one of the new Darley tidal wave. I saw him trial in January; he’ll be worth waiting for.
Out popped Fravashi at Canterbury today and he brained them at $7.50. Thanks for coming.
I Can't Do Two Things At Once - I'm A Man
OK all you blogaholics - you doubtless understand that there's nothing new on the blog because I'm bogged (not blogged) down with the Sydney "Easter" Yearling Sale at present. Probably won't get my name on the sheets. All hell is going to let loose on some horses, believe me. Hopefully when it's all over I'll be able to put something up which might either entertain, inform or scandalise you - take your pick.
But two things before I sign off:
(1) This coming week's most important event: my first grandchild's first birthday on the 21st - lovely Mathilda (Tilly) Elliot Brem, born in London, now resident of Auckland. I'll see if I can organise a pic for the blog. She's prettier than any filly at Newmarket.
(2) Rumour of the week: a Magic Millions proprietor is selling his stakeholding to Tinkler's Patinack Farm.
Good bidding if you're going to the sales.
But two things before I sign off:
(1) This coming week's most important event: my first grandchild's first birthday on the 21st - lovely Mathilda (Tilly) Elliot Brem, born in London, now resident of Auckland. I'll see if I can organise a pic for the blog. She's prettier than any filly at Newmarket.
(2) Rumour of the week: a Magic Millions proprietor is selling his stakeholding to Tinkler's Patinack Farm.
Good bidding if you're going to the sales.
The Making Of Dance Hero
My piece on Dance Hero’s retirement (see below, April 1), has been a popular read, I’ve been surprised how many have mentioned that they’ve read and enjoyed it. Which is great – I dashed it off quickly and don’t regard it as Pulitzer Prize material!
There’s no doubt these superior horses develop an ardent fan base. No matter how we dress up racing, horses have always been and always will be the stars of the show. Behind every horse – fast or slow – there is a story. Melburnian Danny Power read my blog and got in touch to recount his personal involvement in Dance Hero’s genesis. Danny’s background is not unlike mine in several respects with stints in the media, in racing management and agency work. I asked Danny if I could run his yarn on the blog and he’s agreed. Read and enjoy ….
I immensely enjoyed your piece on Dance Hero – not only for the insight into this wonderful and underrated horse but also for the fact I have a personal involvement.
I bought Dance Hero’s mother Gypsy Dancer as a yearling in 1997 at the Karaka Select Sale. It was my first foray into yearling buying after leaving the Freedmans’ employ as Racing Manager the year before. I decided to try my luck in the bloodstock game rather than return to journalism.
I bought three yearlings at that sale. Gypsy Dancer for $15,000, a colt by Oregon (later named Millswyn, and a very smart multiple city winner before he broke down) for $35,000 and a colt by Stylish Century (for $18,000) from a couple of fledgling vendors in the backblocks of the complex, Bruce and Maureen Harvey. That colt, named Runaway, went on to be beaten a nose by Mossman in the AAMI Vase and finish fifth to Arena in the Victoria Derby. Unfortunately, a shoulder injury restricted his career, but Bart Cummings rated him very highly.
I went to the sale with a plan. I couldn’t afford to buy a Sir Tristram, so I sought out all the yearlings in the Select Sale that possessed an influence of Sir T through their female line. The three I bought were the only ones I bid on.
Runaway looked nothing like Stylish Century but threw to his tough five-times winning dam Lady Tristana (by Sir Tristram). Millswyn was a cracking sort from the Sir Tristram mare Windrift, while Gypsy Dancer was a sister to a smart Melbourne horse at the time ,Racy Dancer, but also she had the influence of her grandam Tristabelle, one of the few Australian stakeswinning two-year-olds by Sir Tristram. She was also out of the Belle family, which appealed to me.
Gypsy Dancer was smallish, lightly framed, immature, but athletic and a good walker. A time job.
I remember Barrie Griffiths wondering at this thin-boned, insignificant filly when she arrived at his Northwood Park property, Nagambie – her home for the next 12 months.
A close friend of mine, Terry Dickson from Adelaide, bought the filly and I stayed in the ownership. David Hall gave her a try as a late two-year-old. He assessed her as having some ability but suggested she be better served trained out of an Adelaide stable. So off to Adelaide she went. Her first trainer was Jeremy Gask, who was just starting out, but he had trouble keeping condition on her so we moved her to Ray Taylor, on the beach at Goolwa. The outdoor lifestyle suited Gypsy. She trained out of a sandy yard and rarely went to the track. Taylor transformed her – along with a helpful dose of maturity.
She only won twice but her record should have been better. She certainly, with any luck, should have won the Oakbank Country Cup. She retired a winner at Victoria Park and Balaklava.
Terry was just starting out in the breeding game. He had bought a couple of off-the-track fillies, and his quota was full. It was decided Gypsy Dancer might have to go to the sales. Around the same time, another friend/client of mine, Tony Akkari, sought my advice to replace a mare who had died at stud while in the early stages of carrying a Danzero foal (his first dabble into breeding). I offered him Gypsy Dancer. He studied her videos and photos, and agreed to buy her. Arrowfield offered him a return to Danzero, so that is where Gypsy went.
Tony kept me informed about his Danzero colt and I still have those photos of him as a foal and weanling. He was an upstanding, strong, independent fellow from the start. An incredible first foal, even with his roman nose (Lee Freedman says that comes from Danzero’s maternal grandsire, Kaoru Star). Danzero had a significant roman nose as a yearling but his head improved as his body grew into itself.
Like you and George, I was in awe of him when he paraded as a yearling for me at Goodwood Farm. I remember going to Arrowfield after that for a parade and telling (fellow agent) Kieran Moore that he should take the time to go to Goodwood to see the Danzero colt because Arrowfield had nothing to match him. I think he thought I was just an upstart!
Terry and I have often pondered what made a mare like Gypsy Dancer leave a horse like Dance Hero.
Certainly family has something to do with it. The Belle family consistently leaves great horses: Belle du Jour, Grand Armee, Absolute Champion in recent years. Obviously Danzero has something to do with it. The mating produced a wonderful athlete (but two subsequent matings to Danzero for Gypsy Dancer have been unsuccessful. A filly didn’t make it to the races while a colt [small and compact] has won a minor race at Moe). I believe Bart Cummings has a two-year-old full sister named Batroun that is much more like Dance Hero in type than the others – and I believe he has an opinion of her.
Another point worth making is that Gypsy Dancer had natural talent. She may not have had a great desire to be competitive, but there was hardly a race in her 28 starts that at one stage approaching the home turn she didn’t look the winner. She had a cruising speed that allowed her to be “traveling” no matter what the tempo, but she lacked the will to exploit it under pressure. I see some of that come out in Dance Hero when he didn’t get his own way in front.
I hope this hasn’t bored you. It’s a story I haven’t told before.
Danny Power
Senior editor, racing
Geoff Slattery Publishing Pty Ltd
There’s no doubt these superior horses develop an ardent fan base. No matter how we dress up racing, horses have always been and always will be the stars of the show. Behind every horse – fast or slow – there is a story. Melburnian Danny Power read my blog and got in touch to recount his personal involvement in Dance Hero’s genesis. Danny’s background is not unlike mine in several respects with stints in the media, in racing management and agency work. I asked Danny if I could run his yarn on the blog and he’s agreed. Read and enjoy ….
I immensely enjoyed your piece on Dance Hero – not only for the insight into this wonderful and underrated horse but also for the fact I have a personal involvement.
I bought Dance Hero’s mother Gypsy Dancer as a yearling in 1997 at the Karaka Select Sale. It was my first foray into yearling buying after leaving the Freedmans’ employ as Racing Manager the year before. I decided to try my luck in the bloodstock game rather than return to journalism.
I bought three yearlings at that sale. Gypsy Dancer for $15,000, a colt by Oregon (later named Millswyn, and a very smart multiple city winner before he broke down) for $35,000 and a colt by Stylish Century (for $18,000) from a couple of fledgling vendors in the backblocks of the complex, Bruce and Maureen Harvey. That colt, named Runaway, went on to be beaten a nose by Mossman in the AAMI Vase and finish fifth to Arena in the Victoria Derby. Unfortunately, a shoulder injury restricted his career, but Bart Cummings rated him very highly.
I went to the sale with a plan. I couldn’t afford to buy a Sir Tristram, so I sought out all the yearlings in the Select Sale that possessed an influence of Sir T through their female line. The three I bought were the only ones I bid on.
Runaway looked nothing like Stylish Century but threw to his tough five-times winning dam Lady Tristana (by Sir Tristram). Millswyn was a cracking sort from the Sir Tristram mare Windrift, while Gypsy Dancer was a sister to a smart Melbourne horse at the time ,Racy Dancer, but also she had the influence of her grandam Tristabelle, one of the few Australian stakeswinning two-year-olds by Sir Tristram. She was also out of the Belle family, which appealed to me.
Gypsy Dancer was smallish, lightly framed, immature, but athletic and a good walker. A time job.
I remember Barrie Griffiths wondering at this thin-boned, insignificant filly when she arrived at his Northwood Park property, Nagambie – her home for the next 12 months.
A close friend of mine, Terry Dickson from Adelaide, bought the filly and I stayed in the ownership. David Hall gave her a try as a late two-year-old. He assessed her as having some ability but suggested she be better served trained out of an Adelaide stable. So off to Adelaide she went. Her first trainer was Jeremy Gask, who was just starting out, but he had trouble keeping condition on her so we moved her to Ray Taylor, on the beach at Goolwa. The outdoor lifestyle suited Gypsy. She trained out of a sandy yard and rarely went to the track. Taylor transformed her – along with a helpful dose of maturity.
She only won twice but her record should have been better. She certainly, with any luck, should have won the Oakbank Country Cup. She retired a winner at Victoria Park and Balaklava.
Terry was just starting out in the breeding game. He had bought a couple of off-the-track fillies, and his quota was full. It was decided Gypsy Dancer might have to go to the sales. Around the same time, another friend/client of mine, Tony Akkari, sought my advice to replace a mare who had died at stud while in the early stages of carrying a Danzero foal (his first dabble into breeding). I offered him Gypsy Dancer. He studied her videos and photos, and agreed to buy her. Arrowfield offered him a return to Danzero, so that is where Gypsy went.
Tony kept me informed about his Danzero colt and I still have those photos of him as a foal and weanling. He was an upstanding, strong, independent fellow from the start. An incredible first foal, even with his roman nose (Lee Freedman says that comes from Danzero’s maternal grandsire, Kaoru Star). Danzero had a significant roman nose as a yearling but his head improved as his body grew into itself.
Like you and George, I was in awe of him when he paraded as a yearling for me at Goodwood Farm. I remember going to Arrowfield after that for a parade and telling (fellow agent) Kieran Moore that he should take the time to go to Goodwood to see the Danzero colt because Arrowfield had nothing to match him. I think he thought I was just an upstart!
Terry and I have often pondered what made a mare like Gypsy Dancer leave a horse like Dance Hero.
Certainly family has something to do with it. The Belle family consistently leaves great horses: Belle du Jour, Grand Armee, Absolute Champion in recent years. Obviously Danzero has something to do with it. The mating produced a wonderful athlete (but two subsequent matings to Danzero for Gypsy Dancer have been unsuccessful. A filly didn’t make it to the races while a colt [small and compact] has won a minor race at Moe). I believe Bart Cummings has a two-year-old full sister named Batroun that is much more like Dance Hero in type than the others – and I believe he has an opinion of her.
Another point worth making is that Gypsy Dancer had natural talent. She may not have had a great desire to be competitive, but there was hardly a race in her 28 starts that at one stage approaching the home turn she didn’t look the winner. She had a cruising speed that allowed her to be “traveling” no matter what the tempo, but she lacked the will to exploit it under pressure. I see some of that come out in Dance Hero when he didn’t get his own way in front.
I hope this hasn’t bored you. It’s a story I haven’t told before.
Danny Power
Senior editor, racing
Geoff Slattery Publishing Pty Ltd
The Long Distance Curse
Perth’s Karrakatta Plate (Gr 2) is not exactly the Golden Slipper but Sunday’s result was significant inasmuch as it provided ex-Arrowfield sire Falbrav (Ire) with his first black-type success per courtesy of the filly Brava Fortune. She’s the second first-crop winner from seven to run by the sire, a near-champion middle distance performer in anyone’s language.
Breeders were very lukewarm over Falbrav and in three seasons at Arrowfield he covered only 215 mares – about as many as his paternal half-brother Encosta de Lago serves in one season – and understandably he remained in Japan last year rather than return to severely test the formidable Arrowfield marketing skills once again.
Poor Falbrav committed the mortal commercial sin of winning over 2400m. In fact all his 13 wins were 1600m or longer, in exotic places like Italy, Hong Kong and Japan as well as England and France. Yet he gets a Karrakatta Plate winner.
When his first yearlings came to the market in 2007 (Brava Fortune was a buy-back at $80,000 in Perth) the reception was also mixed. Fifty-four averaged $110,435 with the median price less than $100,000. Breeders were obviously keen to quit them: only three were passed in, breeders taking as little as $5,000 for them.
Falbrav regularly passes on a fault, long and sloping pasterns, deemed pretty undesirable in a country of predominantly firm-track racing (how will the artificial tracks affect the paradigm?).
Amongst his first crop, however, were a handful of impressive individuals, in my book none moreso than the colt out of Angelic Smile bred by Ron Gilbert and sold last Easter to Woodlands for $550,000, Falbrav’s top price. He was as a good a type as you’d ever see. He’s named Fravashi and presumably he’ll be one of the new Darley tidal wave. I saw him trial in January; he’ll be worth waiting for.
I was involved with the original importation of Carnegie (Ire) to New Zealand in 1997. This guy won all his races at 2000m and 2400m and there was great scepticism amongst Kiwi breeders that he would be too stout for Australian buyers to stomach so we really struggled to get mares to him, only 59 in the first season. It was a battle again in the second season then financially unviable to bring him back for his third season so he was absent in 1999. In the event, the scepticism was unfounded; Carnegie was easily the leading first-season sire on averages at Karaka in 2000. From his 37 New Zealand-born first crop foals he got four stakeswinners including Carnegie Express and VRC Derby winner Amalfi. While Carnegie’s pedigree screams stamina – Sadler's Wells ex same taproot as Zabeel and Le Filou (Fr) - my appraisal of his racing convinced me he was not a dour stayer. If you ever see his Arc de Triomphe run, he has the softest passage in history; he only has to exert himself for the last 200m, and he only just gets home.
Few stallions which make their name initially in New Zealand subsequently live up to expectations when transferred to Australia. One of the few who did was Success Express (USA). From his first two Australian-conceived crops (now 4YO and 3YO) Carnegie has sired three stakeswinners. One of these, Tuesday Joy, is officially New Zealand-bred as Joie Denise foaled her there whilst visiting Zabeel. These three stakeswinners are from a two-crop output of 179 live foals, compared with 229 live foals and seven stakeswinners produced from Carnegie’s four New Zealand seasons.
I saw Tuesday Joy at Tulloch Lodge on Sunday, the day after her Canterbury Gr 1 Ranvet score. She is a queen, a big mare, narrow in the chest but with a huge depth of girth. Her neck appears a bit weak and she wears the shadow roll to reduce its angle whilst racing. There is nothing butch about her at all and she has the most beautiful big eye. She may not be a champion but this is one very precious individual.
Another result out of Western Australia on Sunday was also significant for Arrowfield – what’s going on here, am I writing their press releases? – as Grand Journey’s success in the Gr 1 W.A. Derby credited uberstallion Flying Spur with his first Gr 1 winner as a broodmare sire. He’s also broodmare sire of Sebring.
Victorian-trained Grand Journey took six races to clear maidens then another six before she won again but she has found Perth’s Mediterranean climate and lack of stayers most agreeable, completing the Natasha/Oaks/Derby triple and taking her earnings to more than $600,000. She is out of an unplaced sister to the good mare Joy Of Flight.
Grand Journey has three lines of Northern Dancer and her third and fourth dams are by the English St Leger winner Boucher and the excellent source of stamina Busted, respectively.
How good a sire Good Journey (USA) might have been we’ll never know but the early evidence suggests this Best In Show descendant was an inspired importation. Pity he was locked up in the weird Written Bloodstock scenario. Good Journey has a maximum 23 three-year-olds; 13 have raced, nine have won and in addition to Gr 1 winner Grand Journey there’s the super-smart Gr 2 winning colt Sound Journey.
It’s a record Good Journey’s much-vaunted Mr Prospector half-brother Aldebaran would covet. He’s proving one of the more stellar failures in Kentucky at the present time. Interestingly, both horses were late bloomers. Good Journey did all his winning from four to six years (and put US$1.7 million in the bank) while Aldebaran won five of his six stakes races as a five-year-old in which year he was the Eclipse Award winning sprinter.
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I was pleased to see Raise (Arena-Boisterous Lady, by Rivotious) race so well and earn black-type in Sunday’s Keith F Nolan Classic at Kembla Grange. She was a filly I recommended to the Kelly family at the 2006 Inglis Classic Sale and they purchased her for $72,500. A couple of months later her then-unheralded sister Rena’s Lady won the Gr 1 AJC Oaks.
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Just to prove I’m not a black-type snob, I got a great kick reading Sunday’s results from Coonamble where the old warrior Velsontas (11yo by Star Way-Merry Maiden, by Crested Wave) bobbed up again, win number 23.
This old guy began his racing life at Tulloch Lodge and looked a serious horse, winning five races fairly quickly. I recall he had feet trouble. After 16 starts he changed hands cheaply and was taken over by the one and only Malcolm Ayoub and appeared in Perth where the best he could do was one distant fourth from six starts.
Malcolm must have shares in a horse transport company because he sacked Velsontas from Perth and trekked him all the way to Baradine in outback NSW to be trained by his cousin Philip who first produced him at the Tamworth races 64 weeks after his last Perth race.
Philip has coddled the one-time Randwick rising star for a further 70 starts resulting in 18 wins. Velsontas has won more cups than you’ll find in Dolly Parton’s bra collection. He has saluted in Binnaway, Carinda, Collarenibri, Come-By-Chance, Coonabarabran, Coonamble, Gilgandra, Gulargambone, Lightning Ridge, Moree, Narrabri, Narromine, Scone and Warren. There's no romance like that of the Australian turf.
They’ve tried retiring him but the horse doesn’t like it. Even if Patinack wanted to buy him they wouldn’t let him go.
Breeders were very lukewarm over Falbrav and in three seasons at Arrowfield he covered only 215 mares – about as many as his paternal half-brother Encosta de Lago serves in one season – and understandably he remained in Japan last year rather than return to severely test the formidable Arrowfield marketing skills once again.
Poor Falbrav committed the mortal commercial sin of winning over 2400m. In fact all his 13 wins were 1600m or longer, in exotic places like Italy, Hong Kong and Japan as well as England and France. Yet he gets a Karrakatta Plate winner.
When his first yearlings came to the market in 2007 (Brava Fortune was a buy-back at $80,000 in Perth) the reception was also mixed. Fifty-four averaged $110,435 with the median price less than $100,000. Breeders were obviously keen to quit them: only three were passed in, breeders taking as little as $5,000 for them.
Falbrav regularly passes on a fault, long and sloping pasterns, deemed pretty undesirable in a country of predominantly firm-track racing (how will the artificial tracks affect the paradigm?).
Amongst his first crop, however, were a handful of impressive individuals, in my book none moreso than the colt out of Angelic Smile bred by Ron Gilbert and sold last Easter to Woodlands for $550,000, Falbrav’s top price. He was as a good a type as you’d ever see. He’s named Fravashi and presumably he’ll be one of the new Darley tidal wave. I saw him trial in January; he’ll be worth waiting for.
I was involved with the original importation of Carnegie (Ire) to New Zealand in 1997. This guy won all his races at 2000m and 2400m and there was great scepticism amongst Kiwi breeders that he would be too stout for Australian buyers to stomach so we really struggled to get mares to him, only 59 in the first season. It was a battle again in the second season then financially unviable to bring him back for his third season so he was absent in 1999. In the event, the scepticism was unfounded; Carnegie was easily the leading first-season sire on averages at Karaka in 2000. From his 37 New Zealand-born first crop foals he got four stakeswinners including Carnegie Express and VRC Derby winner Amalfi. While Carnegie’s pedigree screams stamina – Sadler's Wells ex same taproot as Zabeel and Le Filou (Fr) - my appraisal of his racing convinced me he was not a dour stayer. If you ever see his Arc de Triomphe run, he has the softest passage in history; he only has to exert himself for the last 200m, and he only just gets home.
Few stallions which make their name initially in New Zealand subsequently live up to expectations when transferred to Australia. One of the few who did was Success Express (USA). From his first two Australian-conceived crops (now 4YO and 3YO) Carnegie has sired three stakeswinners. One of these, Tuesday Joy, is officially New Zealand-bred as Joie Denise foaled her there whilst visiting Zabeel. These three stakeswinners are from a two-crop output of 179 live foals, compared with 229 live foals and seven stakeswinners produced from Carnegie’s four New Zealand seasons.
I saw Tuesday Joy at Tulloch Lodge on Sunday, the day after her Canterbury Gr 1 Ranvet score. She is a queen, a big mare, narrow in the chest but with a huge depth of girth. Her neck appears a bit weak and she wears the shadow roll to reduce its angle whilst racing. There is nothing butch about her at all and she has the most beautiful big eye. She may not be a champion but this is one very precious individual.
Another result out of Western Australia on Sunday was also significant for Arrowfield – what’s going on here, am I writing their press releases? – as Grand Journey’s success in the Gr 1 W.A. Derby credited uberstallion Flying Spur with his first Gr 1 winner as a broodmare sire. He’s also broodmare sire of Sebring.
Victorian-trained Grand Journey took six races to clear maidens then another six before she won again but she has found Perth’s Mediterranean climate and lack of stayers most agreeable, completing the Natasha/Oaks/Derby triple and taking her earnings to more than $600,000. She is out of an unplaced sister to the good mare Joy Of Flight.
Grand Journey has three lines of Northern Dancer and her third and fourth dams are by the English St Leger winner Boucher and the excellent source of stamina Busted, respectively.
How good a sire Good Journey (USA) might have been we’ll never know but the early evidence suggests this Best In Show descendant was an inspired importation. Pity he was locked up in the weird Written Bloodstock scenario. Good Journey has a maximum 23 three-year-olds; 13 have raced, nine have won and in addition to Gr 1 winner Grand Journey there’s the super-smart Gr 2 winning colt Sound Journey.
It’s a record Good Journey’s much-vaunted Mr Prospector half-brother Aldebaran would covet. He’s proving one of the more stellar failures in Kentucky at the present time. Interestingly, both horses were late bloomers. Good Journey did all his winning from four to six years (and put US$1.7 million in the bank) while Aldebaran won five of his six stakes races as a five-year-old in which year he was the Eclipse Award winning sprinter.
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I was pleased to see Raise (Arena-Boisterous Lady, by Rivotious) race so well and earn black-type in Sunday’s Keith F Nolan Classic at Kembla Grange. She was a filly I recommended to the Kelly family at the 2006 Inglis Classic Sale and they purchased her for $72,500. A couple of months later her then-unheralded sister Rena’s Lady won the Gr 1 AJC Oaks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just to prove I’m not a black-type snob, I got a great kick reading Sunday’s results from Coonamble where the old warrior Velsontas (11yo by Star Way-Merry Maiden, by Crested Wave) bobbed up again, win number 23.
This old guy began his racing life at Tulloch Lodge and looked a serious horse, winning five races fairly quickly. I recall he had feet trouble. After 16 starts he changed hands cheaply and was taken over by the one and only Malcolm Ayoub and appeared in Perth where the best he could do was one distant fourth from six starts.
Malcolm must have shares in a horse transport company because he sacked Velsontas from Perth and trekked him all the way to Baradine in outback NSW to be trained by his cousin Philip who first produced him at the Tamworth races 64 weeks after his last Perth race.
Philip has coddled the one-time Randwick rising star for a further 70 starts resulting in 18 wins. Velsontas has won more cups than you’ll find in Dolly Parton’s bra collection. He has saluted in Binnaway, Carinda, Collarenibri, Come-By-Chance, Coonabarabran, Coonamble, Gilgandra, Gulargambone, Lightning Ridge, Moree, Narrabri, Narromine, Scone and Warren. There's no romance like that of the Australian turf.
They’ve tried retiring him but the horse doesn’t like it. Even if Patinack wanted to buy him they wouldn’t let him go.
Musings From a Glorious Day At Canterbury
Hard to see any colt which ran in Saturday’s Todman Stakes, other than Related, having much chance in the Golden Slipper unless the race falls away unexpectedly. Related (Elusive Quality-Cousins, by Danehill) should have won by three lengths. If he had, he would have become only the second stakeswinner in his family in four generations. He’s the eighth foal of his dam and the fifth to earn minor black-type – but on this debut performance it’ll be capital letters for him soon.
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The Todman winner Krupt has an interesting pedigree. He is 3f x 3f Grand Luxe. A former smart two-year-old, the tiny filly French Braids, was 4f x 3f to Grand Luxe’s dam Fanfreluche. With the crossing of Encosta de Lago and Flying Spur common enough now, we'll see what strike rate this pattern comes up with. Almost all the Fanfreluche family must be in the southern hemisphere by now.
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Beadman is a freak.
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Am I right in thinking Hips Don’t Lie (Stravinsky-Procure, by Centaine) is the first New Zealand-bred winner of the Reisling Stakes in 36 years? I remember her full-sister going through Sydney Easter in 2004, in the Trelawney draft. She was a 'talking horse' and made what seemed a staggering sum, $625,000. Named Luna Belle, she never got to the races and was sent to the USA as a three-year-old. James Bester picked up the younger, faster, version for $200,000.
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If you knock two zeros off the amount paid for Hips Don’t Lie you get the amount paid for Acey Ducey as a yearling at the Magic Millions Winter Sale in 2006. Goodwood Farm’s Kerrie Tibbey, who reared Dance Hero and who consigned Acey Ducey (Xaar-Deduce, by Known Fact), couldn’t get a bid for him so she and her partner stumped up the two grand. Moral of the story: don’t let Patinack, Darley, Inghams et al throw you off your game.
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Krupt, Mentality and Acey Ducey, three of the first four winners at Canterbury, are all out of USA-bred mares.
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Gelding Hoystar last year has made a racehorse out of him. He and Hips Don’t Lie are out of Centaine mares. How good are they! With four stakeswinners by four different sires, Professionelle (NZ) may be the best of them. She did the impossible – she left a triple Gr 2 winner to Supremo. Centaine, yet another non-Group 1 winner to make a decent sire.
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The Fuzz was a horse I quoted to two leading Sydney trainers, supposedly on the lookout for a good potential stayer from New Zealand, when he had raced just four times over there in 2006. They didn’t bite so he ended up at Lindsay Park where they are having a lot of fun with him with now more than half a million in earnings. He should pay his way in Sydney. His NZ breeder/owners are still in him. I won't dob in the two Sydney trainers but Gai and Anthony are clues.
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In the next few weeks we are going to see some ridiculously over-valued mares go through sales rings in Sydney, the Gold Coast and Melbourne. Pull the pedigree out and have a think what Tuesday Joy or her half-sister Sunday Joy might be worth. Including themselves, 10 Group 1 winners in the first two dams.
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Forensics’ finishing speed is awesome. At track record pace, she put that field away in a matter of strides at Canterbury, continuing a banner day for her sire Flying Spur – where has he been all these years? – and Arrowfield sires in general. The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to believe that Darley have got an absolute bargain in Woodlands and all it embraces. Selling it off lock-stock-and-Lonhro averted the Ingham family from having to confront inevitable future issues but when the Forensics presentation was taking place, the poignancy of the moment was palpable. I’ll be able to tell my grand-daughter that I was there when the cerise legend was dismantled, like when Jack Kennedy was shot. It’ll take a while to feel the same way about the maroon. One person whose stature has grown a thousandfold is Peter Snowden, a class act.
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Forensics (bred by Vinery) is out of the Dehere mare Prove It, from the family of Snippets. Sean Buckley got a rare bargain when he bought Prove It in 2005, in foal to Flying Spur, for $380,000. But after producing a colt that October she died six weeks later. The colt was earmarked for the yearling sales – he would have been offered at Easter last year, just a couple of weeks after Forensics had won the Slipper – but he had an injury on the near side rump and hock early on and never underwent a sales prep. Now named Anton Pillar, the colt has been over with David Hayes but is yet to race. The colt’s name is apt. According to Wikipedia, in British and British-derived legal systems, an Anton Piller order (frequently misspelt Anton Pillar order) is a court order which provides for the right to search premises and seize evidence without prior warning. This is used in order to prevent the destruction of incriminating evidence, particularly in cases of alleged trademark, copyright or patent infringements. Sean’s latest South African recruit, the four-year-old mare Dane Julia (by Caesour, the same sire as his other South African Gr 1 winner Perfect Promise), was unleashed at Caulfield yesterday and was a mightily impressive first-up third. If we think the Dubai World Cup meeting is all it’s cracked up to be, then recent results suggest the standard of the better South African horses is very high indeed. They have been knocking off good races internationally for a few years now.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Zealand’s only Gr 1 race for fillies and mares, the New Zealand Bloodstock Breeders Stakes, 1600m, was won Saturday by three-year-old filly Special Mission, a 16-to-1 shot. Previously a dual Listed winner, Special Mission is by Tracy’s Element’s brother (and Danasinga’s half-brother) Towkay. She’s the third Gr 1 winner for the sire who started off in 1999 as an el-cheapo at $3,000 fee, inching his way up to $10,000 in 2007. He currently has 5.4% stakeswinners-to-runners. He’s only had 18 career runners in Australia and 11 of them have won. Special Mission is from the family of Chris Waller’s durable gelding Double Dare.
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A couple of horses whose names are kind of familiar went around at meetings on Saturday. Lloyd Williams has a colt named Meld whose earlier incarnation was a filly of 1952 by Alycidon from Daily Double and regarded as one of the best fillies ever to race in England. Unbeaten at three, she won the Thousand Guineas, Oaks, St Leger and Coronation Stakes. Five of her sons were imported to Australia and New Zealand with one standout: Mellay (by Never Say Die) a marvelous sire based in the deep south of the South Island of New Zealand. I recall some years after Mellay’s death visiting the Anderton home at White Robe Lodge, Mosgiel, only to find that Mellay was still there – his head was mounted on the living room wall!
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The other name to catch my eye was Mainbrace, a three-year-old colt by Principality who sneaked into third place at Ararat on Saturday. His earlier incarnation is rated one of the greatest New Zealand thoroughbreds in history. A 1947 chestnut colt by Admiral’s Luck-Maneroo, the earlier Mainbrace wiped the board in 23 of his 25 starts including 15 of 16 as a three-year-old. He never set hoof in Australia. Just as well, as he belonged in the league of Carbine, Phar Lap, Desert Gold, Kindergarten and Tulloch and it would have needed arsenic to stop him. (Apollo Eleven?). Legendary American jockey John Longden came out to New Zealand to test drive the colt pending his sale to the USA but the sale fell through. Put to stud, Mainbrace was a failure though it’s fair to say ‘colonial’ horses even as great as Mainbrace weren’t joyfully embraced by breeders in those days. He had a sod of a temperament and hated the starting gates. In all but one of his starts he was positioned actually outside the widest gate – being ‘sent to the outer’ was a common enough practice with rogues until the seventies – or in a special double-space gate within the structure. It’s fortunate he lived when he did – a horse like him would be on the scrap heap today in the name of fair play for the punter.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Though I only listened with one ear, I thought I heard at least two of the three finalists in the Myer Fashions On The Field at Canterbury say their winning outfits were inspired by the '40s look. I must admit they looked a whole lot snazzier than the usual gargoyles paraded on these occasions. Here's a thought: if the '40s are back in fashion, is there a chance for me?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Todman winner Krupt has an interesting pedigree. He is 3f x 3f Grand Luxe. A former smart two-year-old, the tiny filly French Braids, was 4f x 3f to Grand Luxe’s dam Fanfreluche. With the crossing of Encosta de Lago and Flying Spur common enough now, we'll see what strike rate this pattern comes up with. Almost all the Fanfreluche family must be in the southern hemisphere by now.
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Beadman is a freak.
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Am I right in thinking Hips Don’t Lie (Stravinsky-Procure, by Centaine) is the first New Zealand-bred winner of the Reisling Stakes in 36 years? I remember her full-sister going through Sydney Easter in 2004, in the Trelawney draft. She was a 'talking horse' and made what seemed a staggering sum, $625,000. Named Luna Belle, she never got to the races and was sent to the USA as a three-year-old. James Bester picked up the younger, faster, version for $200,000.
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If you knock two zeros off the amount paid for Hips Don’t Lie you get the amount paid for Acey Ducey as a yearling at the Magic Millions Winter Sale in 2006. Goodwood Farm’s Kerrie Tibbey, who reared Dance Hero and who consigned Acey Ducey (Xaar-Deduce, by Known Fact), couldn’t get a bid for him so she and her partner stumped up the two grand. Moral of the story: don’t let Patinack, Darley, Inghams et al throw you off your game.
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Krupt, Mentality and Acey Ducey, three of the first four winners at Canterbury, are all out of USA-bred mares.
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Gelding Hoystar last year has made a racehorse out of him. He and Hips Don’t Lie are out of Centaine mares. How good are they! With four stakeswinners by four different sires, Professionelle (NZ) may be the best of them. She did the impossible – she left a triple Gr 2 winner to Supremo. Centaine, yet another non-Group 1 winner to make a decent sire.
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The Fuzz was a horse I quoted to two leading Sydney trainers, supposedly on the lookout for a good potential stayer from New Zealand, when he had raced just four times over there in 2006. They didn’t bite so he ended up at Lindsay Park where they are having a lot of fun with him with now more than half a million in earnings. He should pay his way in Sydney. His NZ breeder/owners are still in him. I won't dob in the two Sydney trainers but Gai and Anthony are clues.
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In the next few weeks we are going to see some ridiculously over-valued mares go through sales rings in Sydney, the Gold Coast and Melbourne. Pull the pedigree out and have a think what Tuesday Joy or her half-sister Sunday Joy might be worth. Including themselves, 10 Group 1 winners in the first two dams.
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Forensics’ finishing speed is awesome. At track record pace, she put that field away in a matter of strides at Canterbury, continuing a banner day for her sire Flying Spur – where has he been all these years? – and Arrowfield sires in general. The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to believe that Darley have got an absolute bargain in Woodlands and all it embraces. Selling it off lock-stock-and-Lonhro averted the Ingham family from having to confront inevitable future issues but when the Forensics presentation was taking place, the poignancy of the moment was palpable. I’ll be able to tell my grand-daughter that I was there when the cerise legend was dismantled, like when Jack Kennedy was shot. It’ll take a while to feel the same way about the maroon. One person whose stature has grown a thousandfold is Peter Snowden, a class act.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forensics (bred by Vinery) is out of the Dehere mare Prove It, from the family of Snippets. Sean Buckley got a rare bargain when he bought Prove It in 2005, in foal to Flying Spur, for $380,000. But after producing a colt that October she died six weeks later. The colt was earmarked for the yearling sales – he would have been offered at Easter last year, just a couple of weeks after Forensics had won the Slipper – but he had an injury on the near side rump and hock early on and never underwent a sales prep. Now named Anton Pillar, the colt has been over with David Hayes but is yet to race. The colt’s name is apt. According to Wikipedia, in British and British-derived legal systems, an Anton Piller order (frequently misspelt Anton Pillar order) is a court order which provides for the right to search premises and seize evidence without prior warning. This is used in order to prevent the destruction of incriminating evidence, particularly in cases of alleged trademark, copyright or patent infringements. Sean’s latest South African recruit, the four-year-old mare Dane Julia (by Caesour, the same sire as his other South African Gr 1 winner Perfect Promise), was unleashed at Caulfield yesterday and was a mightily impressive first-up third. If we think the Dubai World Cup meeting is all it’s cracked up to be, then recent results suggest the standard of the better South African horses is very high indeed. They have been knocking off good races internationally for a few years now.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Zealand’s only Gr 1 race for fillies and mares, the New Zealand Bloodstock Breeders Stakes, 1600m, was won Saturday by three-year-old filly Special Mission, a 16-to-1 shot. Previously a dual Listed winner, Special Mission is by Tracy’s Element’s brother (and Danasinga’s half-brother) Towkay. She’s the third Gr 1 winner for the sire who started off in 1999 as an el-cheapo at $3,000 fee, inching his way up to $10,000 in 2007. He currently has 5.4% stakeswinners-to-runners. He’s only had 18 career runners in Australia and 11 of them have won. Special Mission is from the family of Chris Waller’s durable gelding Double Dare.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A couple of horses whose names are kind of familiar went around at meetings on Saturday. Lloyd Williams has a colt named Meld whose earlier incarnation was a filly of 1952 by Alycidon from Daily Double and regarded as one of the best fillies ever to race in England. Unbeaten at three, she won the Thousand Guineas, Oaks, St Leger and Coronation Stakes. Five of her sons were imported to Australia and New Zealand with one standout: Mellay (by Never Say Die) a marvelous sire based in the deep south of the South Island of New Zealand. I recall some years after Mellay’s death visiting the Anderton home at White Robe Lodge, Mosgiel, only to find that Mellay was still there – his head was mounted on the living room wall!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The other name to catch my eye was Mainbrace, a three-year-old colt by Principality who sneaked into third place at Ararat on Saturday. His earlier incarnation is rated one of the greatest New Zealand thoroughbreds in history. A 1947 chestnut colt by Admiral’s Luck-Maneroo, the earlier Mainbrace wiped the board in 23 of his 25 starts including 15 of 16 as a three-year-old. He never set hoof in Australia. Just as well, as he belonged in the league of Carbine, Phar Lap, Desert Gold, Kindergarten and Tulloch and it would have needed arsenic to stop him. (Apollo Eleven?). Legendary American jockey John Longden came out to New Zealand to test drive the colt pending his sale to the USA but the sale fell through. Put to stud, Mainbrace was a failure though it’s fair to say ‘colonial’ horses even as great as Mainbrace weren’t joyfully embraced by breeders in those days. He had a sod of a temperament and hated the starting gates. In all but one of his starts he was positioned actually outside the widest gate – being ‘sent to the outer’ was a common enough practice with rogues until the seventies – or in a special double-space gate within the structure. It’s fortunate he lived when he did – a horse like him would be on the scrap heap today in the name of fair play for the punter.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Though I only listened with one ear, I thought I heard at least two of the three finalists in the Myer Fashions On The Field at Canterbury say their winning outfits were inspired by the '40s look. I must admit they looked a whole lot snazzier than the usual gargoyles paraded on these occasions. Here's a thought: if the '40s are back in fashion, is there a chance for me?
The Last Great Magic Millions Winner
Dance Hero has been retired. Fantastic news.
It’s possible that this horse’s patchy record over the last couple of seasons has taken the shine off his overall achievements, which is a pity if it has. I think he’s entitled to be regarded as the best Australian two-year-old of the past 15 years.
He raced seven times at that age. His only defeat came at his first start, in the AJC Breeders’ Plate in which he started $2.10 favourite. Under Len Beasley, he blundered badly at the start, didn’t get the lead and finished third behind Charge Forward, the colt who was to run second to him in the Golden Slipper six months later. Splitting this fine pair was Wenceslas Square who finished up winning only three little races from 38 career starts. Use that one at your next trivia night.
Dance Hero’s six-race picket fence included the Magic Millions in race record time, the Golden Slipper in race record time, the AJC Champagne Stakes in race record time and the AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes.
It’ll be a long while till we see that feat equaled. Perhaps never. And Dance Hero raced in a vintage year, a class headed by the likes of Charge Forward, Alinghi, Fastnet Rock, Wager and Genius And Evil, the horse who became known in Hong Kong as Absolute Champion.
Dance Hero never won a race he didn’t totally dominate with his crazy brand of speed. Basically, he was never headed in any of the 10 races he won. If he couldn’t get the lead then you could rip up your tickets. No point in laying into him with the whip - he was always going full speed, that's why he'd swish his tail when he received a smack, he was already in overdrive. He coped with a dead track but nothing worse.
He was a fantastic sight in full cry. He got straight into the bridle and his legs seemed barely to touch the ground. It sent a chill up my spine.
A horse which has dragged its guts through such a grueling two-year-old campaign could be forgiven for not turning up later in his career. But Dance Hero had his moments: the Gr 2 Royal Sovereign Stakes (beating Eremein), the Gr 2 Canterbury Stakes (from Falkirk and Ike’s Dream), the Gr 3 Missile Stakes (over Snippetson and Spark Of Life) and his crowning glory as an older horse, the 2006 Gr 1 Salinger Stakes down the Flemington straight six, with Miss Andretti third and last year’s winner Swick fourth. I saw him in the mounting yard that day; he had never looked better. I'm sure his win went down like a lead balloon with the Victorians who've never forgiven him for beating their darling Alinghi in the Slipper.
Forget Dance Hero's inevitable defeats; that’s a marvelous CV for any horse.
I was fortunate enough to have played a part in the purchase of Dance Hero, a $90,000 colt who went on to win $3,940,440. On face value dollars, he is the highest-earning pure sprinter to have raced exclusively in Australia.
In those days I was one of the team helping Gai Waterhouse with the massive task of sorting through all the sale yearlings. George Smith, the renowned selector from Melbourne, and I were inspecting Magic Millions yearlings in the Hunter Valley during December. At the time I think Gai was overseas on her annual northern winter holiday.
We saw the colt at Kerrie Tibbey’s Goodwood Farm, Murrurundi. George and I hardly ever spoke while we looked at the yearlings. We’d each make our own notes – George didn’t even bring the catalogue – and give them a rating which, eventually, would be put into the database from which Gai would work the sale. Thirty seconds is a long time for George to look at a yearling, he has a sensational eye.
This big colt was brought out. I’m not even sure he had a bit in his mouth, just controlled by a rope head collar.
George was standing about 5 metres opposite me and the Danzero colt was stood up between us. He then walked away, walked back and was stood up again. Fatefully, George and I looked up at the same time, caught each other’s eye across the horse’s back and gave a knowing wink, as much as to say, “This one’s all right!”.
Of the colt with a head only its mother could love (we all came to love it later), I wrote in my book: “Good/big size, plain head, good rein and hindquarters, tracks well, powerful type”. I rated him ‘Nice’, in those days the terminology we used to describe our top raters.
The rest is history. We were all in agreement; Gai specked him and took him home from the sale.
Do you think we could sell him! He sat partially unsold for three months. At one point I even considered taking half of him with one of my mates in Auckland, just so I could erase the amount owing on the whiteboard in my office which served as the motivational centrepiece for selling down the yearlings - and get Gai off my back. I had missed out on Choisir, then a three-year-old, two years previously and was probably still gunshy.
I sent out a mass of faxes and emails prospecting the colt to potential clients. I know a couple of them still have those faxes, a distant reminder of one that got away. In my sales pitch I mentioned, naturally, what a grouse type we thought he was. Because the early expectation level amongst owners in the Waterhouse stable can be rather high, especially since Gai found the clue to training her two-year-olds, I felt I should cover my backside and included words to the effect that whilst the Danzero colt was a super type I couldn’t be confident he’d make a two-year-old. I was never more wrong.
About April the ownership was finally put to bed. Several of the new owners had raced some very good horses from the Waterhouse yard and they were about to be spoilt again.
Dance Hero was broken in by Darryl Leigh in Rouchel in the Upper Hunter. Gai and I saw him on the morning of the Scone Cup that year as Darryl was putting the finishing touches on him. Darryl declared the horse at that point.
The now gelded Dance Hero had his first barrier trial at Canterbury on 5 September, 2003. In attendance that morning was Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum and his retinue, there to watch their expensive Danehill colts strut their stuff. This far down the track I’m not sure if any of the Sheikh’s sooky, soft colts were in the same heat as Dance Hero but I vividly remember the Sheikh’s reaction when Dance Hero whizzed by like a comet, streeting the opposition.
Able to tell in an instant that his Danehills would be eating Dance Hero’s dust all their lives, the Sheikh exclaimed: “How come you didn’t show me this horse!?”
The answer simply was that you couldn’t get the Sheikh and his people to even consider a colt which had the type of catalogue page Dance Hero possessed at the time – just two city winners in the first two dams – so it wouldn’t have mattered if we’d hit him over the head with Dance Hero, his people would never have entertained him, they were headhunting potential stallions. You had to go back to the third dam, Tristabelle, bred and raced by my New Zealand near-neighbours, Don and Rochelle McLaren, to find the first horse of consequence. She was a hulking great Sir Tristram filly who won four races as a two-year-old. I had seen a lot of this family in my New Zealand years as the core “Belle Family” mares lived at Haunui Farm and I sold their yearlings each year. I wouldn’t say that Dance Hero reminded me of any in particular but it is a tribe which can throw up a very serious animal. It’s an amazing fact but the three best older horses racing at one time in the Waterhouse stable in the early 2000s were all Belle family members: Grand Armee, Dance Hero and Winning Belle.
As we know, Dance Hero will never sire a foal; it’s left principally to Charge Forward and Fastnet Rock to carry the flame of that generation.
Impossible as it is to see into the future, Dance Hero might be the last great winner of the Magic Millions 2YO Classic which has had a fairly illustrious roll call down the years.
He stands as the only horse to win the Magic Millions-Golden Slipper double. He’s a gelding. I detect a trend whereby owners of serious colts might continue to give the race a wide berth as they concentrate on trying to win the Golden Slipper. Fillies might give it a crack as they still enjoy a weight advantage in the Slipper.
With the change of date this year owing to EI the chances of a colt doing the double were less as their autumn programmes would have been set some time back. Sebring, for example, a colt for which I believe $7 million was offered, was not about to go north, the stable electing to send their good filly She’s Meaner. All American could have been there but wasn't.
Last year I recall Murtajill, (raced by the Sheikh), after his crushing win the Breeders’ Plate, was set specifically for the Golden Slipper with the Magic Millions factored out.
With the greater intrusion of foreign owners and powerful breeding blocs into the upper echelons of horse ownership in Australia, it seems they are happy to take the big gamble that their colts are up to winning the Slipper rather than chase the Millions cash for which their horse would be required to peak mid-season.
The stallion-making difference between the two races is graphically illustrated if you take the cases of Bradbury’s Luck and Stratum, two-year-olds of 2004-05.
Both colts were stunning individuals by Redoute’s Choice. Bradbury’s Luck is out of a brilliant racemare, Skating, who has become a blue hen. Stratum is out of the unraced Bourgeois.
In an early season barrier trial, there was nothing between these two colts, a head in Bradbury’s Luck’s favour to be precise.
Stratum won the Golden Slipper at his fourth start, not the greatest win you’ve ever seen as Fashions Afield might have beaten him if she hadn’t missed the jump. Stratum couldn’t win a race in any of his remaining 14 starts and in the majority of them he was comprehensively beaten.
Bradbury’s Luck won the Magic Millions at his third start per courtesy of his own ability and some poor rides in the race. Snitzel dead-heated for third. Bradbury’s Luck couldn’t win any of his remaining three starts.
These very good-looking colts by the supersire were consigned to stud when they turned four. Bradbury’s Luck stood his first season in Queensland for $12,500, Stratum in the Hunter Valley for $27,500. Is there that much difference between them, or is it the race that makes the difference?
Dance Hero cost $90,000. He was cared for like a king throughout his career by his devoted handlers who, I'm sure, will miss him terribly.
I wonder if his three-quarter brother who cost $2,200,000, can be any better?
It’s possible that this horse’s patchy record over the last couple of seasons has taken the shine off his overall achievements, which is a pity if it has. I think he’s entitled to be regarded as the best Australian two-year-old of the past 15 years.
He raced seven times at that age. His only defeat came at his first start, in the AJC Breeders’ Plate in which he started $2.10 favourite. Under Len Beasley, he blundered badly at the start, didn’t get the lead and finished third behind Charge Forward, the colt who was to run second to him in the Golden Slipper six months later. Splitting this fine pair was Wenceslas Square who finished up winning only three little races from 38 career starts. Use that one at your next trivia night.
Dance Hero’s six-race picket fence included the Magic Millions in race record time, the Golden Slipper in race record time, the AJC Champagne Stakes in race record time and the AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes.
It’ll be a long while till we see that feat equaled. Perhaps never. And Dance Hero raced in a vintage year, a class headed by the likes of Charge Forward, Alinghi, Fastnet Rock, Wager and Genius And Evil, the horse who became known in Hong Kong as Absolute Champion.
Dance Hero never won a race he didn’t totally dominate with his crazy brand of speed. Basically, he was never headed in any of the 10 races he won. If he couldn’t get the lead then you could rip up your tickets. No point in laying into him with the whip - he was always going full speed, that's why he'd swish his tail when he received a smack, he was already in overdrive. He coped with a dead track but nothing worse.
He was a fantastic sight in full cry. He got straight into the bridle and his legs seemed barely to touch the ground. It sent a chill up my spine.
A horse which has dragged its guts through such a grueling two-year-old campaign could be forgiven for not turning up later in his career. But Dance Hero had his moments: the Gr 2 Royal Sovereign Stakes (beating Eremein), the Gr 2 Canterbury Stakes (from Falkirk and Ike’s Dream), the Gr 3 Missile Stakes (over Snippetson and Spark Of Life) and his crowning glory as an older horse, the 2006 Gr 1 Salinger Stakes down the Flemington straight six, with Miss Andretti third and last year’s winner Swick fourth. I saw him in the mounting yard that day; he had never looked better. I'm sure his win went down like a lead balloon with the Victorians who've never forgiven him for beating their darling Alinghi in the Slipper.
Forget Dance Hero's inevitable defeats; that’s a marvelous CV for any horse.
I was fortunate enough to have played a part in the purchase of Dance Hero, a $90,000 colt who went on to win $3,940,440. On face value dollars, he is the highest-earning pure sprinter to have raced exclusively in Australia.
In those days I was one of the team helping Gai Waterhouse with the massive task of sorting through all the sale yearlings. George Smith, the renowned selector from Melbourne, and I were inspecting Magic Millions yearlings in the Hunter Valley during December. At the time I think Gai was overseas on her annual northern winter holiday.
We saw the colt at Kerrie Tibbey’s Goodwood Farm, Murrurundi. George and I hardly ever spoke while we looked at the yearlings. We’d each make our own notes – George didn’t even bring the catalogue – and give them a rating which, eventually, would be put into the database from which Gai would work the sale. Thirty seconds is a long time for George to look at a yearling, he has a sensational eye.
This big colt was brought out. I’m not even sure he had a bit in his mouth, just controlled by a rope head collar.
George was standing about 5 metres opposite me and the Danzero colt was stood up between us. He then walked away, walked back and was stood up again. Fatefully, George and I looked up at the same time, caught each other’s eye across the horse’s back and gave a knowing wink, as much as to say, “This one’s all right!”.
Of the colt with a head only its mother could love (we all came to love it later), I wrote in my book: “Good/big size, plain head, good rein and hindquarters, tracks well, powerful type”. I rated him ‘Nice’, in those days the terminology we used to describe our top raters.
The rest is history. We were all in agreement; Gai specked him and took him home from the sale.
Do you think we could sell him! He sat partially unsold for three months. At one point I even considered taking half of him with one of my mates in Auckland, just so I could erase the amount owing on the whiteboard in my office which served as the motivational centrepiece for selling down the yearlings - and get Gai off my back. I had missed out on Choisir, then a three-year-old, two years previously and was probably still gunshy.
I sent out a mass of faxes and emails prospecting the colt to potential clients. I know a couple of them still have those faxes, a distant reminder of one that got away. In my sales pitch I mentioned, naturally, what a grouse type we thought he was. Because the early expectation level amongst owners in the Waterhouse stable can be rather high, especially since Gai found the clue to training her two-year-olds, I felt I should cover my backside and included words to the effect that whilst the Danzero colt was a super type I couldn’t be confident he’d make a two-year-old. I was never more wrong.
About April the ownership was finally put to bed. Several of the new owners had raced some very good horses from the Waterhouse yard and they were about to be spoilt again.
Dance Hero was broken in by Darryl Leigh in Rouchel in the Upper Hunter. Gai and I saw him on the morning of the Scone Cup that year as Darryl was putting the finishing touches on him. Darryl declared the horse at that point.
The now gelded Dance Hero had his first barrier trial at Canterbury on 5 September, 2003. In attendance that morning was Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum and his retinue, there to watch their expensive Danehill colts strut their stuff. This far down the track I’m not sure if any of the Sheikh’s sooky, soft colts were in the same heat as Dance Hero but I vividly remember the Sheikh’s reaction when Dance Hero whizzed by like a comet, streeting the opposition.
Able to tell in an instant that his Danehills would be eating Dance Hero’s dust all their lives, the Sheikh exclaimed: “How come you didn’t show me this horse!?”
The answer simply was that you couldn’t get the Sheikh and his people to even consider a colt which had the type of catalogue page Dance Hero possessed at the time – just two city winners in the first two dams – so it wouldn’t have mattered if we’d hit him over the head with Dance Hero, his people would never have entertained him, they were headhunting potential stallions. You had to go back to the third dam, Tristabelle, bred and raced by my New Zealand near-neighbours, Don and Rochelle McLaren, to find the first horse of consequence. She was a hulking great Sir Tristram filly who won four races as a two-year-old. I had seen a lot of this family in my New Zealand years as the core “Belle Family” mares lived at Haunui Farm and I sold their yearlings each year. I wouldn’t say that Dance Hero reminded me of any in particular but it is a tribe which can throw up a very serious animal. It’s an amazing fact but the three best older horses racing at one time in the Waterhouse stable in the early 2000s were all Belle family members: Grand Armee, Dance Hero and Winning Belle.
As we know, Dance Hero will never sire a foal; it’s left principally to Charge Forward and Fastnet Rock to carry the flame of that generation.
Impossible as it is to see into the future, Dance Hero might be the last great winner of the Magic Millions 2YO Classic which has had a fairly illustrious roll call down the years.
He stands as the only horse to win the Magic Millions-Golden Slipper double. He’s a gelding. I detect a trend whereby owners of serious colts might continue to give the race a wide berth as they concentrate on trying to win the Golden Slipper. Fillies might give it a crack as they still enjoy a weight advantage in the Slipper.
With the change of date this year owing to EI the chances of a colt doing the double were less as their autumn programmes would have been set some time back. Sebring, for example, a colt for which I believe $7 million was offered, was not about to go north, the stable electing to send their good filly She’s Meaner. All American could have been there but wasn't.
Last year I recall Murtajill, (raced by the Sheikh), after his crushing win the Breeders’ Plate, was set specifically for the Golden Slipper with the Magic Millions factored out.
With the greater intrusion of foreign owners and powerful breeding blocs into the upper echelons of horse ownership in Australia, it seems they are happy to take the big gamble that their colts are up to winning the Slipper rather than chase the Millions cash for which their horse would be required to peak mid-season.
The stallion-making difference between the two races is graphically illustrated if you take the cases of Bradbury’s Luck and Stratum, two-year-olds of 2004-05.
Both colts were stunning individuals by Redoute’s Choice. Bradbury’s Luck is out of a brilliant racemare, Skating, who has become a blue hen. Stratum is out of the unraced Bourgeois.
In an early season barrier trial, there was nothing between these two colts, a head in Bradbury’s Luck’s favour to be precise.
Stratum won the Golden Slipper at his fourth start, not the greatest win you’ve ever seen as Fashions Afield might have beaten him if she hadn’t missed the jump. Stratum couldn’t win a race in any of his remaining 14 starts and in the majority of them he was comprehensively beaten.
Bradbury’s Luck won the Magic Millions at his third start per courtesy of his own ability and some poor rides in the race. Snitzel dead-heated for third. Bradbury’s Luck couldn’t win any of his remaining three starts.
These very good-looking colts by the supersire were consigned to stud when they turned four. Bradbury’s Luck stood his first season in Queensland for $12,500, Stratum in the Hunter Valley for $27,500. Is there that much difference between them, or is it the race that makes the difference?
Dance Hero cost $90,000. He was cared for like a king throughout his career by his devoted handlers who, I'm sure, will miss him terribly.
I wonder if his three-quarter brother who cost $2,200,000, can be any better?
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