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.