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?