If you live on the internet - you’re reading the blog, obviously you do – and use it as your means of keeping up with racing and breeding info, you are probably a victim of the plethora of stallion PR which bombards our email every day.
How easy it must be to make money on the internet when there are so many news bulletins and alerts landing in our mail boxes each day, essentially peddling the same information. Stallion and stud advertising props them up, led by the deep budgets of the multinationals engaged in their war for market share. Perhaps one of them would like to sponsor my blog - why not? they advertise in Indian Charlie.
So every time Flying Spur farts, or Encosta exhales or Snitzel sneezes or Quality gets one of his Elusive winners, it’s news on no fewer than four or five advertorial services on the same day. Frankly, I was under the impression that it was the job of the stallion to beget winners, especially when you pay megadollars to obtain their semen without any assurance of success. To me, the real news is when they don’t get the winners commensurate to their cost and opportunity. When will someone in charge of the databases be game enough to publish a sires' comparative index?
Here are a bunch of bush stallions which had runners in the eastern states over the weekend which you’ll never read about, and rightly so. But they illustrate what a vast, diverse enterprise Australian racing and breeding is, how it’s populated by people who devote their time and money to the most unlikely scenarios in order to get their fun and pleasure out of the noble animal. In brackets is the number of live foals these stallions have left.
Amundsen ’99 Getting Closer-Captundra (40)
Baanya Boy ’88 Grand Rocky-Hailia (50)
Bright Treble ’77 Brightlights-Treble Choice (57)
Bull Demus ’98 Demus-Fleeting Miss (16)
Coincidence ’96 Snaadee-Momentaire (23)
Colour The Wind ’92 Zephyr Bay-Sophie (49)
Cooky Tikit ’96 Canny Lad-Tikitiboo (27)
Declarations ’96 Brief Truce-Loyal Lyric (42)
Fernside ’91 Our Paddy Boy-Pretend (10)
Golden Aura ’91 Aurealis-Ramonita (12)
Kristel Pistol ’93 Western Gun-Splendid Companion (31)
Premier Slot ’95 In The Slot-Lilith (31)
Red Chevalier ’86 Niebo-Nicole’s Dream (32)
Ridge Top ’91 Forever Regal-Cheswart Castle (2)
Ring Star ’92 Monarch Star-Leading Attraction (21)
Sirtatt ’91 Tattenham-Natalie Star (43)
Smart Alex ’92 Drawn-Pika Bella (18)
Some Charm ’80 Handsomne Harry-Leila’s Lass (37)
Swift Duke ’96 Alannon-Ideally (7)
Tuscan Artist ’89 Ahonoora-Lotka’s Star (60)
Under A Spell ’89 Bletchingly-Khaptivaan (113)
.....................................................................................
When the EI tests out of Eastern Creek last week came back negative, the biggest audible sigh of relief surely came from Canberra.
Were I a cynic (who, me?) I could draw an association between the announcement of the scare and the EI summit set down for the same week.
I'm sure the quarantine incident was fair dinkum. But I must admit the words Wag The Dog went screaming through my skull instinctively!
To Their Owners, It's Like Winning The Cox Plate
I trust you took the tip for the Come By Chance picnics on Saturday (see article below).
Bloodsport won by 5.8 lengths and Glenorchy won her race, too.
Up at Atherton, on the tablelands inland from Cairns, two I sold to Tom Hedley also saluted: Gaelic Lad (6g O'Reilly-Swanette, by Danzero) won the open sprint, his seventh win in 10 starts since I sold him to Tom. Berate (5g Diatribe-Danelle Smytzer, by Danewin) prevailed at his second start up there after being wiped out at barrier rise at his first attempt.
From the slit my wrists and bleed to death department comes news that my pin-up girl Ortensia gave herself an injury requiring treatment during last week which has put her out for the rest of the Melbourne spring. Her assignation with Samantha Miss will have to wait.
It's tough being an owner.
Bloodsport won by 5.8 lengths and Glenorchy won her race, too.
Up at Atherton, on the tablelands inland from Cairns, two I sold to Tom Hedley also saluted: Gaelic Lad (6g O'Reilly-Swanette, by Danzero) won the open sprint, his seventh win in 10 starts since I sold him to Tom. Berate (5g Diatribe-Danelle Smytzer, by Danewin) prevailed at his second start up there after being wiped out at barrier rise at his first attempt.
From the slit my wrists and bleed to death department comes news that my pin-up girl Ortensia gave herself an injury requiring treatment during last week which has put her out for the rest of the Melbourne spring. Her assignation with Samantha Miss will have to wait.
It's tough being an owner.
Come By Any Means You Like, Except Boat
Another great Aussie institution, the Come By Chance picnic races, happens this Saturday.
Come By Chance is stuck in the middle of a triangle formed by the towns of Coonamble, Walgett and Wee Waa in NSW, a pleasant 607 km drive north-west of Sydney.
Here’s a pen portrait about Come By Chance from the Walgett Shire Council’s website (with their numerous spelling mistakes corrected):
This pleasantly named village on the Baradine Creek (known locally as the Bungle Gully Creek) was pioneered by early settlers around the 1850's. The name Come by Chance originated when the sons of William Colless selected land in his name - previously informed, all lands in the area had been selected - hence the name of his property "Come by Chance Station". Mr Colless later owned the Post Office, Hotel, Police Station, Blacksmith Shop, Cemetery and other building blocks. Reputedly, the only privately owned village in the Southern Hemisphere.
Cattle were grazed in early days, then predominately wool and since the late 1960's cereal crops have been grown. In the early days, people didn’t need as much land to make a living. In those days, 2560 acres of land was considered as a living area. Today at least 10,000 acres of land are needed to earn a living. The development of artesian bore water early this (last) century was a terrific boost to primary production. It meant that properties could graze both cattle and sheep.
The annual Come By Chance Picnic Races have been held since 1947, with the first meeting concerning the idea held in 1946. The original race course was built behind the village, over towards the artesian bore. It was part of the stock route for years, until Dan. W. Atkinson fenced the land for W.D. Colless, it then became the Bore Paddock. The races are still held today and bring thousands of people out to the tiny village. The racecourse is now located at Gleneda, owned by the Allerton Family.
(There’s at least one other place named Come By Chance – it’s on the eastern extremity of Newfoundland in Canada, which looks and sounds far more remote than the Aussie version).
There are six races at Come By Chance on Saturday featuring 30 runners. Incredible how far so many people will travel to look at a horse and have a beer.
To prove that my reach knows no bounds, I bought one of the 30 as a yearling and sold another as a slow tried horse.
I selected Bloodsport (7g Foxhound (USA)-Make Haste, by Zoffany (USA)) as a yearling at the Classic Sale for a New Zealand friend. He could gallop. Unluckily beaten second at his first start, he then bolted in by 2.3 and 5.5 lengths respectively in his next two races at Hawkesbury. He looked like he could go all the way. Given a spell, he returned in a very hot race at Warwick Farm (won by Snippetson) but had a touch of “the virus” and ran below expectation ($3.80 starting price). Then, a niggling leg issue surfaced and the decision was taken to sell him. Almost a year later Bloodsport appeared for new connections and in the three years since he has travelled from Gosford to Townsville and back to Come By Chance. His 14 starts in that period have reaped a win at Newcastle and seconds at Carinda and Warren. He’s in the 1000m open trophy race at CBC, against four others, and will be first or second favourite. His breeders, the Gadsbys, have a share in the promising Waterhouse two-year-old filly Horizons (by Choisir).
Bloodsport’s trainer Philip Ayoub is also starting Glenorchy (5m Shinko King (Ire)-Aloisa, by Success Express (USA)) in the Class 4 1400m, one of four going to post. Glenorchy couldn’t keep up in a half pace track gallop when trained in Victoria. She’s had four wins and four placings in 20 starts in the bush for Philip who also trained the remarkable bush horse Velsontas (NZ) (Star Way (GB)-Merry Maiden, by Crested Wave (GB)).
Come By Chance is stuck in the middle of a triangle formed by the towns of Coonamble, Walgett and Wee Waa in NSW, a pleasant 607 km drive north-west of Sydney.
Here’s a pen portrait about Come By Chance from the Walgett Shire Council’s website (with their numerous spelling mistakes corrected):
This pleasantly named village on the Baradine Creek (known locally as the Bungle Gully Creek) was pioneered by early settlers around the 1850's. The name Come by Chance originated when the sons of William Colless selected land in his name - previously informed, all lands in the area had been selected - hence the name of his property "Come by Chance Station". Mr Colless later owned the Post Office, Hotel, Police Station, Blacksmith Shop, Cemetery and other building blocks. Reputedly, the only privately owned village in the Southern Hemisphere.
Cattle were grazed in early days, then predominately wool and since the late 1960's cereal crops have been grown. In the early days, people didn’t need as much land to make a living. In those days, 2560 acres of land was considered as a living area. Today at least 10,000 acres of land are needed to earn a living. The development of artesian bore water early this (last) century was a terrific boost to primary production. It meant that properties could graze both cattle and sheep.
The annual Come By Chance Picnic Races have been held since 1947, with the first meeting concerning the idea held in 1946. The original race course was built behind the village, over towards the artesian bore. It was part of the stock route for years, until Dan. W. Atkinson fenced the land for W.D. Colless, it then became the Bore Paddock. The races are still held today and bring thousands of people out to the tiny village. The racecourse is now located at Gleneda, owned by the Allerton Family.
(There’s at least one other place named Come By Chance – it’s on the eastern extremity of Newfoundland in Canada, which looks and sounds far more remote than the Aussie version).
There are six races at Come By Chance on Saturday featuring 30 runners. Incredible how far so many people will travel to look at a horse and have a beer.
To prove that my reach knows no bounds, I bought one of the 30 as a yearling and sold another as a slow tried horse.
I selected Bloodsport (7g Foxhound (USA)-Make Haste, by Zoffany (USA)) as a yearling at the Classic Sale for a New Zealand friend. He could gallop. Unluckily beaten second at his first start, he then bolted in by 2.3 and 5.5 lengths respectively in his next two races at Hawkesbury. He looked like he could go all the way. Given a spell, he returned in a very hot race at Warwick Farm (won by Snippetson) but had a touch of “the virus” and ran below expectation ($3.80 starting price). Then, a niggling leg issue surfaced and the decision was taken to sell him. Almost a year later Bloodsport appeared for new connections and in the three years since he has travelled from Gosford to Townsville and back to Come By Chance. His 14 starts in that period have reaped a win at Newcastle and seconds at Carinda and Warren. He’s in the 1000m open trophy race at CBC, against four others, and will be first or second favourite. His breeders, the Gadsbys, have a share in the promising Waterhouse two-year-old filly Horizons (by Choisir).
Bloodsport’s trainer Philip Ayoub is also starting Glenorchy (5m Shinko King (Ire)-Aloisa, by Success Express (USA)) in the Class 4 1400m, one of four going to post. Glenorchy couldn’t keep up in a half pace track gallop when trained in Victoria. She’s had four wins and four placings in 20 starts in the bush for Philip who also trained the remarkable bush horse Velsontas (NZ) (Star Way (GB)-Merry Maiden, by Crested Wave (GB)).
The Day Of The Triffids, The War Of The Worlds, The Martians Are Coming ............. The Bogongs Are Here
Famed American baseballer Willie Stargell, the only player to ever hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium twice, said “I love September, especially when we’re in it.”
I agree. September is always a big month for me. With only a few days to go before it’s gone, let me reflect on that.
My first-born son arrived in September. My only surviving brother has his birthday in September. The two women I’ve loved most in my life were both born in September, one day apart, four years apart. If Kerry happens to read this down in Melbourne, here’s lookin’ at you, babe. I’d send roses but I remember you once told me you didn’t like flowers because flowers always die.
It was on a September day that I decided to come to Australia.
The two-year-old trials and the opening of the serving barns in September herald the arrival of spring.
But most important of all, the bogong moths arrive in Sydney in September. Set your clock by them.
Last year I swore I would be out of this godforsaken apartment before another bogong invasion, but it hasn’t happened. Before the end of the month these pests will sweep into the nearby trees and wait until nightfall when, attracted by the lights, they will attack the building, getting in no matter how hermetically sealed the place might be. And don’t say “turn out the lights” – that doesn’t deter them. I reckon they can see the LCD light on the microwave from a thousand metres through a brick wall. If you took no precautions there would be a thousand a night, pinging and boinging, dive-bombing your face, leaving their dust all over your walls and ceilings and settling in every crevice.
I’m ready to do battle. I’ve got netting which I tape over the outside aluminium window and door frames. This is 70% effective, the blighters still squeeze through impossibly small gaps to invade your space. However, this also means I can’t open any of the doors or windows to get fresh air for at least a fortnight until they decide to migrate elsewhere. My initial armoury of four full cans of spray is at the ready – the spray only seems to encourage them and makes them fly in even greater frenzy - and I’ve got three fly swats which I place in the lounge, office and bedroom for quick access. You can tell I don’t like these buggers, they make life a misery just at the time spring is happening. If anyone's got a better suggestion as to how to keep these things out of one's house, please let me know! ‘Bogong’ is said to be the translation of the word ‘Canberra’ in the language of the local indigenous. More rubbish from out of the capital.
Fist Of Fury (3c Hussonet (USA)-Venticello, by Chimes Square) was foaled in September, on the 15th which also happens to be my brother’s birthday. He has been probably the most impressive Sydney winner this week. A good old-fashioned masterstroke by John O’Shea to keep this colt covered up so that his legion of well-known owners were able to get big odds when he made his debut at Canterbury on Tuesday.
Fist Of Fury was a much-admired yearling at Magic Millions 2007 where his $470,000 price tag was more a reflection of his physique than his catalogue page. Breeder Mike van Gestel wouldn't let anyone walk by the box without making them have a look at this guy. Mike’s a hard seller at the best of times, with the persistence of the Dutch to boot, but in this colt he had the goods to produce a bonanza in the sale ring. The pedigree gurus knew it had a special elixir in its veins (take it out to seven generations, it’s interesting). I have a theory that when they are ‘properly’ bred they usually look like runners, and Fist Of Fury was one of those. Hussonet needs another good horse, I hope this one trains on.
Another of Hugh Bowman’s winners at Randwick, Roman Emperor (NZ)(3c Montjeu (Ire)-Gussy Godiva (NZ), by Last Tycoon (Ire)) was also impressive, a stayer of potential. He wasn’t cheap at Karaka, costing $240,000. He and Fist Of Fury won in similar fashion, cutting through the field in the home straight and going strongest at the line.
The Astronomer (3c Galileo (Ire)-Foxy, by Canny Lad) was good enough to triumph over adversity in running when winning his debut at Canterbury. Guy Walter’s had a lean patch but with winners on consecutive days perhaps this good trainer's stable has turned the corner. The Astronomer’s family can be described, at best, as workmanlike; it will be interesting to see how far he can go. There is only one Listed winner produced by his first three dams or any of their descendants.
Joku (4g Xaar (GB)-Biru Lang (USA), by Pine Bluff) won his fourth race from six starts, yet another advertisement for Gooree Stud's guile. As a sire, Xaar (GB) was a despised commodity by the time Joku hit the ground but the 3f x 5f Best In Show must have been what Gooree wanted to experiment with (the highest auction price for any Xaar conceived that year was just $40,000). Pine Bluff, by the way, is also the damsire of G1 winner Absolut Glam.
A birdie whispered to me that Joku, Lorne Dancer and Bianca, three gallopers currently in rare form in the Waterhouse yard, were all designated ‘potential realised, move on’ not so many weeks ago. Just shows what the threat of eviction can do to a horse.
I agree. September is always a big month for me. With only a few days to go before it’s gone, let me reflect on that.
My first-born son arrived in September. My only surviving brother has his birthday in September. The two women I’ve loved most in my life were both born in September, one day apart, four years apart. If Kerry happens to read this down in Melbourne, here’s lookin’ at you, babe. I’d send roses but I remember you once told me you didn’t like flowers because flowers always die.
It was on a September day that I decided to come to Australia.
The two-year-old trials and the opening of the serving barns in September herald the arrival of spring.
But most important of all, the bogong moths arrive in Sydney in September. Set your clock by them.
Last year I swore I would be out of this godforsaken apartment before another bogong invasion, but it hasn’t happened. Before the end of the month these pests will sweep into the nearby trees and wait until nightfall when, attracted by the lights, they will attack the building, getting in no matter how hermetically sealed the place might be. And don’t say “turn out the lights” – that doesn’t deter them. I reckon they can see the LCD light on the microwave from a thousand metres through a brick wall. If you took no precautions there would be a thousand a night, pinging and boinging, dive-bombing your face, leaving their dust all over your walls and ceilings and settling in every crevice.
I’m ready to do battle. I’ve got netting which I tape over the outside aluminium window and door frames. This is 70% effective, the blighters still squeeze through impossibly small gaps to invade your space. However, this also means I can’t open any of the doors or windows to get fresh air for at least a fortnight until they decide to migrate elsewhere. My initial armoury of four full cans of spray is at the ready – the spray only seems to encourage them and makes them fly in even greater frenzy - and I’ve got three fly swats which I place in the lounge, office and bedroom for quick access. You can tell I don’t like these buggers, they make life a misery just at the time spring is happening. If anyone's got a better suggestion as to how to keep these things out of one's house, please let me know! ‘Bogong’ is said to be the translation of the word ‘Canberra’ in the language of the local indigenous. More rubbish from out of the capital.
Fist Of Fury (3c Hussonet (USA)-Venticello, by Chimes Square) was foaled in September, on the 15th which also happens to be my brother’s birthday. He has been probably the most impressive Sydney winner this week. A good old-fashioned masterstroke by John O’Shea to keep this colt covered up so that his legion of well-known owners were able to get big odds when he made his debut at Canterbury on Tuesday.
Fist Of Fury was a much-admired yearling at Magic Millions 2007 where his $470,000 price tag was more a reflection of his physique than his catalogue page. Breeder Mike van Gestel wouldn't let anyone walk by the box without making them have a look at this guy. Mike’s a hard seller at the best of times, with the persistence of the Dutch to boot, but in this colt he had the goods to produce a bonanza in the sale ring. The pedigree gurus knew it had a special elixir in its veins (take it out to seven generations, it’s interesting). I have a theory that when they are ‘properly’ bred they usually look like runners, and Fist Of Fury was one of those. Hussonet needs another good horse, I hope this one trains on.
Another of Hugh Bowman’s winners at Randwick, Roman Emperor (NZ)(3c Montjeu (Ire)-Gussy Godiva (NZ), by Last Tycoon (Ire)) was also impressive, a stayer of potential. He wasn’t cheap at Karaka, costing $240,000. He and Fist Of Fury won in similar fashion, cutting through the field in the home straight and going strongest at the line.
The Astronomer (3c Galileo (Ire)-Foxy, by Canny Lad) was good enough to triumph over adversity in running when winning his debut at Canterbury. Guy Walter’s had a lean patch but with winners on consecutive days perhaps this good trainer's stable has turned the corner. The Astronomer’s family can be described, at best, as workmanlike; it will be interesting to see how far he can go. There is only one Listed winner produced by his first three dams or any of their descendants.
Joku (4g Xaar (GB)-Biru Lang (USA), by Pine Bluff) won his fourth race from six starts, yet another advertisement for Gooree Stud's guile. As a sire, Xaar (GB) was a despised commodity by the time Joku hit the ground but the 3f x 5f Best In Show must have been what Gooree wanted to experiment with (the highest auction price for any Xaar conceived that year was just $40,000). Pine Bluff, by the way, is also the damsire of G1 winner Absolut Glam.
A birdie whispered to me that Joku, Lorne Dancer and Bianca, three gallopers currently in rare form in the Waterhouse yard, were all designated ‘potential realised, move on’ not so many weeks ago. Just shows what the threat of eviction can do to a horse.
Juice's Blood Worth Bottling
Tang, Lucozade, Seagers, Schenley, Schnapps, Gordon’s – to this liquid line of related thoroughbreds now add Juice, winner of Saturday’s G3 Gold Trail Stakes for three-year-old fillies at Hastings.
It was fitting that Juice (Bertolini-Call Minder) should annex this early-season feature, the first race in the NZ Bloodstock Filly Of The Year Series, as her family is steeped in Hawkes Bay tradition. Her fourth dam, Tang, actually ran second in the Gold Trail Stakes of 1978 when it was 1400m rather than the 1200m of today. The winner that year, Springtide (by Karayar (Ire)) was another brilliant filly who was later exported to the United States but became a failed producer there.
Before going any further, credit to Hawkes Bay Racing, and the sponsor, for reinstating the traditional name of this event. For the past 10 years it has become very well known as the Highview Stakes, and compliments to Brent Gillovic for maintaining the sponsorship for so long. The new sponsor has allowed his name to be tacked on to the race’s traditional name and it was run as the Gold Trail Stakes, in association with Hutchinsons.
Gold Trail perpetuates the 1929 grand-daughter of Desert Gold, bred by T H Lowry. A son, T C Lowry, bred Lapse, the seventh dam of Juice. The Lowrys are, of course, Hawkes Bay’s Okawa Stud clan who gave short, elegant, one-word names to many of their good horses. How times have changed since the glory era of the great Hawkes Bay breeders who along with the First Four Shippers of Canterbury were the closest thing New Zealand had to transplanted English squatocracy.
Juice’s fourth dam, Tang (Taipan II (USA)-Agricolet, by Agricola (GB)), was an exceptional filly bred in Hawkes Bay, by the Curtis brothers of Clear View Stud, Otane. Champion filly at two and three, she raced 30 times for 10 wins and 13 placings, her wins including the Thousand Guineas, NZ Oaks, Royal Stakes, Ladies Mile, Lowland Stakes, Great Britain-New Zealand Stakes and the Wakefield Stakes. Taipan II stood in Auckland and was probably the first sire to successfully overcome the anti-USA-bred stigma.
Tang had a tragic stud career, producing just two filly foals, and her blood survives through just one of them, Dash (by Sovereign Edition), the third dam of Juice. The other daughter, a full sister named Thrive, had atrocious luck. In 11 years at stud she produced one live foal, an unraced filly Juniper (by Star Way (GB)) who has produced just one named filly in 13 years at stud and that filly, Fairjet (by Jetball), had no progeny - the end of the line.
The foaling season is happening all around us but if we ever needed a reminder that it isn’t all beer and skittles, there it is.
It was fitting that Juice (Bertolini-Call Minder) should annex this early-season feature, the first race in the NZ Bloodstock Filly Of The Year Series, as her family is steeped in Hawkes Bay tradition. Her fourth dam, Tang, actually ran second in the Gold Trail Stakes of 1978 when it was 1400m rather than the 1200m of today. The winner that year, Springtide (by Karayar (Ire)) was another brilliant filly who was later exported to the United States but became a failed producer there.
Before going any further, credit to Hawkes Bay Racing, and the sponsor, for reinstating the traditional name of this event. For the past 10 years it has become very well known as the Highview Stakes, and compliments to Brent Gillovic for maintaining the sponsorship for so long. The new sponsor has allowed his name to be tacked on to the race’s traditional name and it was run as the Gold Trail Stakes, in association with Hutchinsons.
Gold Trail perpetuates the 1929 grand-daughter of Desert Gold, bred by T H Lowry. A son, T C Lowry, bred Lapse, the seventh dam of Juice. The Lowrys are, of course, Hawkes Bay’s Okawa Stud clan who gave short, elegant, one-word names to many of their good horses. How times have changed since the glory era of the great Hawkes Bay breeders who along with the First Four Shippers of Canterbury were the closest thing New Zealand had to transplanted English squatocracy.
Juice’s fourth dam, Tang (Taipan II (USA)-Agricolet, by Agricola (GB)), was an exceptional filly bred in Hawkes Bay, by the Curtis brothers of Clear View Stud, Otane. Champion filly at two and three, she raced 30 times for 10 wins and 13 placings, her wins including the Thousand Guineas, NZ Oaks, Royal Stakes, Ladies Mile, Lowland Stakes, Great Britain-New Zealand Stakes and the Wakefield Stakes. Taipan II stood in Auckland and was probably the first sire to successfully overcome the anti-USA-bred stigma.
Tang had a tragic stud career, producing just two filly foals, and her blood survives through just one of them, Dash (by Sovereign Edition), the third dam of Juice. The other daughter, a full sister named Thrive, had atrocious luck. In 11 years at stud she produced one live foal, an unraced filly Juniper (by Star Way (GB)) who has produced just one named filly in 13 years at stud and that filly, Fairjet (by Jetball), had no progeny - the end of the line.
The foaling season is happening all around us but if we ever needed a reminder that it isn’t all beer and skittles, there it is.
Weekend Hussler Is A Powder Puff
Now that I’ve got your undivided attention - and in response to the plethora of cards, letters and blog comments received – let me introduce you to the hero of last weekend’s racing: Freedom Tower (7g Peintre Celebre-Burst, by Marauding).
As foreshadowed in my pre-weekend post (see Lest We Forget. A Tribute To Survival Skills, below) the former $300,000 yearling Freedom Tower graced the track at WA’s remote Leonora, 235 kms north of Kalgoorlie on the Goldfields Highway.
In the hands of Ben So, Freedom Tower first won the Rating 67 1400m event then backed up three races later to win the $12,000 Leonora Cup 1600m (Rating 73) by a comfortable two lengths returning $4.00.
Freedom Tower is still part-owned by Victoria Samba/Nikolic. Given those surnames, I imagine the bookies needed blood transfusions. Prior to Leonora, he was a distant 13th of 15 in a Ratings 62 at Kalgoorlie on 10 September. Though Freedom Tower began his career around Melbourne where he was placed twice in four starts, he has been in WA since mid-2005. Since mid-2007 he raced 20 times consecutively in Kalgoorlie for three wins, prior to his northern odyssey to Leonora for easier pickings.
I’m pleased for Freedom Tower’s sake. After Leonora, there's only Laverton left, which is 120 kms further into the desert to the east of Leonora. Only winners return home from there.
Leonora has a fascinating history, like so much of outback Australia. Two things amongst the many I didn’t know is that it’s host to Australia richest foot-race, The Golden Gift, and that it was once home to Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States who was a miner and one of the founders of Zinc Corporation which later became part of Rio Tinto.
Other results from my Bushies Honour Roll of last weekend: Call A Friend 6th, Let’s Bat 2nd, Nehemiah 2nd last, Optic Fit 4th and Winning Express 4th.
Oh, let’s not forget King Sapphire. Last at Lismore, for the 43rd time.
As foreshadowed in my pre-weekend post (see Lest We Forget. A Tribute To Survival Skills, below) the former $300,000 yearling Freedom Tower graced the track at WA’s remote Leonora, 235 kms north of Kalgoorlie on the Goldfields Highway.
In the hands of Ben So, Freedom Tower first won the Rating 67 1400m event then backed up three races later to win the $12,000 Leonora Cup 1600m (Rating 73) by a comfortable two lengths returning $4.00.
Freedom Tower is still part-owned by Victoria Samba/Nikolic. Given those surnames, I imagine the bookies needed blood transfusions. Prior to Leonora, he was a distant 13th of 15 in a Ratings 62 at Kalgoorlie on 10 September. Though Freedom Tower began his career around Melbourne where he was placed twice in four starts, he has been in WA since mid-2005. Since mid-2007 he raced 20 times consecutively in Kalgoorlie for three wins, prior to his northern odyssey to Leonora for easier pickings.
I’m pleased for Freedom Tower’s sake. After Leonora, there's only Laverton left, which is 120 kms further into the desert to the east of Leonora. Only winners return home from there.
Leonora has a fascinating history, like so much of outback Australia. Two things amongst the many I didn’t know is that it’s host to Australia richest foot-race, The Golden Gift, and that it was once home to Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States who was a miner and one of the founders of Zinc Corporation which later became part of Rio Tinto.
Other results from my Bushies Honour Roll of last weekend: Call A Friend 6th, Let’s Bat 2nd, Nehemiah 2nd last, Optic Fit 4th and Winning Express 4th.
Oh, let’s not forget King Sapphire. Last at Lismore, for the 43rd time.
81 Group Ones - The Bloke Can Ride
Winning the G1 Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes (registered name the Invitation Stakes) for the sixth time, Damian Oliver recounted afterwards that the race had given him the first of his 81 G1 winners, Submariner (NZ), 19 years ago.
In my former life as general manager of Haunui Farm, I sold Submariner (Sea Anchor (Ire)-Deep Amber, by Deep Diver (Ire)) to syndicator Harry Lawton (for $25,000) at a sale which has probably been forgotten by most – the Gilt Edged Sale at Belmont Park, North Richmond. Belmont Park is the former Woodlands, now Darley, pre-training property.
I cannot remember the circumstances which gave rise to the creation of this sale, or who ran it, but it was a one-off. Doubtless some dissention in the ranks of NSW breeders; usual story. However, we brought a consignment over for it. We were marketing so many horses back then that every opportunity to spread them across the market was usually taken. We may have been the only NZ vendors.
I dispensed with the Gilt Edged Sale catalogue many years back so I don’t have reference to it any longer. I have a feeling the sale wasn’t for yearlings only, Submariner might have been a two-year-old at the time? He was foaled in 1986 but another horse I seem to recall taking to Belmont Park was a small filly subsequently named Bas Bleu (Bassenthwaite (GB)-Princess Dan, by Mr Dan) who became the dam of the good gallopers King Lotto, Lady Of Letters and Pugad Lawin. However she wasn’t foaled until 1988, so I may have my wires well and truly crossed - my mind is becoming enfeebled. Someone’s bound to know.
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Ortensia (3f Testa Rossa-Aerate’s Pick, by Picknicker) got her reward with a tactically superior victory in the G3 Thousand Guineas Prelude at Caulfield on Saturday. Last week, from the outside barrier at the Valley, she came from last in running, this time she led all the way. Really, she should be unbeaten in all five starts. I have bought enough slow ones – who hasn’t? – but in selecting perhaps the best three-year-old filly in Melbourne as well as perhaps the best four-year-old mare (Absolut Glam) I am allowing myself some bragging rights. It’s not as if I have dozens of orders! These two cost $200,000 the pair, have already won a million and must be worth two or three times that. The people for whom I chose those fillies gave me a free hand operationally. As an agent, you appreciate that. Incidentally, Ortensia’s second cousin twice removed, the bonny little filly Romneya (Red Ransom-Mannington, by Danehill), was runner-up.
Of the black-type winners from Saturday which were auctioned as yearlings, Ortensia was the cheapest, $50,000. The others were Orange County (G1) $70,000, Weekend Hustler (G1) $80,000, My Vegas $110,000, Bhutane Dane $360,000, Fiumicino $425,000, Samantha Miss $1,500,000 and Musket $2,500,000. One for all price ranges. Surely Patinack can’t buy them all?
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There are four heats for two-year-olds being held on the course proper at the Warwick Farm barrier trials on Monday. First season sires with representation, at acceptance time, are Charge Forward, Fastnet Rock, Not A Single Doubt and Shamardal (USA) (2).
In my former life as general manager of Haunui Farm, I sold Submariner (Sea Anchor (Ire)-Deep Amber, by Deep Diver (Ire)) to syndicator Harry Lawton (for $25,000) at a sale which has probably been forgotten by most – the Gilt Edged Sale at Belmont Park, North Richmond. Belmont Park is the former Woodlands, now Darley, pre-training property.
I cannot remember the circumstances which gave rise to the creation of this sale, or who ran it, but it was a one-off. Doubtless some dissention in the ranks of NSW breeders; usual story. However, we brought a consignment over for it. We were marketing so many horses back then that every opportunity to spread them across the market was usually taken. We may have been the only NZ vendors.
I dispensed with the Gilt Edged Sale catalogue many years back so I don’t have reference to it any longer. I have a feeling the sale wasn’t for yearlings only, Submariner might have been a two-year-old at the time? He was foaled in 1986 but another horse I seem to recall taking to Belmont Park was a small filly subsequently named Bas Bleu (Bassenthwaite (GB)-Princess Dan, by Mr Dan) who became the dam of the good gallopers King Lotto, Lady Of Letters and Pugad Lawin. However she wasn’t foaled until 1988, so I may have my wires well and truly crossed - my mind is becoming enfeebled. Someone’s bound to know.
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Ortensia (3f Testa Rossa-Aerate’s Pick, by Picknicker) got her reward with a tactically superior victory in the G3 Thousand Guineas Prelude at Caulfield on Saturday. Last week, from the outside barrier at the Valley, she came from last in running, this time she led all the way. Really, she should be unbeaten in all five starts. I have bought enough slow ones – who hasn’t? – but in selecting perhaps the best three-year-old filly in Melbourne as well as perhaps the best four-year-old mare (Absolut Glam) I am allowing myself some bragging rights. It’s not as if I have dozens of orders! These two cost $200,000 the pair, have already won a million and must be worth two or three times that. The people for whom I chose those fillies gave me a free hand operationally. As an agent, you appreciate that. Incidentally, Ortensia’s second cousin twice removed, the bonny little filly Romneya (Red Ransom-Mannington, by Danehill), was runner-up.
Of the black-type winners from Saturday which were auctioned as yearlings, Ortensia was the cheapest, $50,000. The others were Orange County (G1) $70,000, Weekend Hustler (G1) $80,000, My Vegas $110,000, Bhutane Dane $360,000, Fiumicino $425,000, Samantha Miss $1,500,000 and Musket $2,500,000. One for all price ranges. Surely Patinack can’t buy them all?
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There are four heats for two-year-olds being held on the course proper at the Warwick Farm barrier trials on Monday. First season sires with representation, at acceptance time, are Charge Forward, Fastnet Rock, Not A Single Doubt and Shamardal (USA) (2).
The Wellington Hiccup
I’ve written about it long and often enough on this blog and the prophecy continues fulfilling itself. The Wellington Cup, once THE great race of New Zealand, has been reduced in distance from 3200m to 2400m.
It’s called ‘moving with the times’, a euphemism for ‘inevitable weakening of the breed’.
Those of you planning on living another 50 years, bone up on your quarter horse pedigrees, you’ll need them.
There is nothing sacrosanct about 3200m but as a recognised extreme test for a flat racing thoroughbred, if you don’t count the longer races in England and France, it has its place. I don’t see the marathon being expunged from the Olympic programme any time soon.
The problem in all this, in my opinion, is that the Group race system (or the Pattern Races as they should be more properly described) has become a device by which racing clubs advertise their idea of their own prestige rather than as a pure servant of the breed. It was devised in order to lay down a logical pathway of competition in which horses could be tested through which breeders and buyers would have a ready means of understanding racing merit. I have some knowledge of this, I led the introduction of the system into NZ in 1979.
Because the races ‘belonged’ to the clubs, inevitably they wanted to take ownership of the process as much as they could as their ‘prestige’ was at stake. When Stakes Subsidy Fund monies were then attached to the Groupings the process became highly politicised. Where the money goes is where the breed goes.
I’ve read that a justification for reducing the Wellington Cup distance from 3200m to 2400m is to try and regain its Group 1 status (it has been relegated to Group 2). That ought not to be an end in itself and illustrates how the system gets perverted.
Since the gulf between spring NZ and Australian prizemoney became so marked post-1990, retaining high quality older horses, especially stayers, to compete in NZ through the late spring and summer became problematic. This caused a gradual reduction in the numbers of proven superior horses available for the Wellington Cup (which is the second, not the first, 3200m race at Trentham to have its distance reduced).
I have the greatest reservation about ANY handicap being a Group 1 race. I also think racing clubs as we know them should be abolished (that’s a yarn for another day but every time I look at those Gestapo-guarded empty seats at Randwick opposite the winning post my opinion becomes even more entrenched). Before I left NZ I recall a survey in Auckland which showed members attended their race meetings on average 2.5 times per year. It’s probably not even that at Randwick and certainly not at Warwick Farm. What a waste of resources. But don’t get me going on that.
One of the most competitive and publicly-appreciated races in Britain is the Ebor Handicap over 2800m at York, the richest handicap in Europe. The fact that it is Group Nothing doesn't matter.
In the days when TAB betting closed 30 minutes before the off, when TAB tickets were handwritten by an agent behind a grille with carbon paper used to produce a copy, when the amounts bet had to be rung through to TAB headquarters so dividends could be calculated, that was when the Wellington Cup was the great race of NZ, its history saturated with the deeds of the great and immortal.
This was a time before the socio-economic drift to the north became pronounced, when the prizemoney at the Wellington summer carnival was so compelling you had to travel from anywhere in either island if you had a horse with half a chance. They were the days when the National Yearling Sale was held at the northern end of the Trentham track during Cup Week. If you were selling a relative of the Oaks, Derby or even the Cup winner, you could double your reserve and get it.
With the senility that comes with advancing years, my sense now is that those were pretty good days. In some respects its a pity the younger people of today will never experience those more sedate, more innocent times when all we had to worry about was obliteration by the H-bomb and not to forget to take The Pill.
The last two runnings of the Wellington Cup have attracted capacity fields of 18 runners. The recent roll call of winners – Cyclades, Oarsman, Cluden Creek, Zabeat, Envoy, Willie Smith and Young Centaur – is a Who’s That? rather than a Who’s Who or racing but that really doesn’t matter. The club should have continued carding the race at 3200m as the field fills easily enough, fund the race to the best of its ability and continue to promote it innovatively because by its very nature it’s not a run-of-the-mill race. The club’s pride might be hurt in ‘losing’ a Group 1 but that’s not the end-all-and-be-all.
It’s called ‘moving with the times’, a euphemism for ‘inevitable weakening of the breed’.
Those of you planning on living another 50 years, bone up on your quarter horse pedigrees, you’ll need them.
There is nothing sacrosanct about 3200m but as a recognised extreme test for a flat racing thoroughbred, if you don’t count the longer races in England and France, it has its place. I don’t see the marathon being expunged from the Olympic programme any time soon.
The problem in all this, in my opinion, is that the Group race system (or the Pattern Races as they should be more properly described) has become a device by which racing clubs advertise their idea of their own prestige rather than as a pure servant of the breed. It was devised in order to lay down a logical pathway of competition in which horses could be tested through which breeders and buyers would have a ready means of understanding racing merit. I have some knowledge of this, I led the introduction of the system into NZ in 1979.
Because the races ‘belonged’ to the clubs, inevitably they wanted to take ownership of the process as much as they could as their ‘prestige’ was at stake. When Stakes Subsidy Fund monies were then attached to the Groupings the process became highly politicised. Where the money goes is where the breed goes.
I’ve read that a justification for reducing the Wellington Cup distance from 3200m to 2400m is to try and regain its Group 1 status (it has been relegated to Group 2). That ought not to be an end in itself and illustrates how the system gets perverted.
Since the gulf between spring NZ and Australian prizemoney became so marked post-1990, retaining high quality older horses, especially stayers, to compete in NZ through the late spring and summer became problematic. This caused a gradual reduction in the numbers of proven superior horses available for the Wellington Cup (which is the second, not the first, 3200m race at Trentham to have its distance reduced).
I have the greatest reservation about ANY handicap being a Group 1 race. I also think racing clubs as we know them should be abolished (that’s a yarn for another day but every time I look at those Gestapo-guarded empty seats at Randwick opposite the winning post my opinion becomes even more entrenched). Before I left NZ I recall a survey in Auckland which showed members attended their race meetings on average 2.5 times per year. It’s probably not even that at Randwick and certainly not at Warwick Farm. What a waste of resources. But don’t get me going on that.
One of the most competitive and publicly-appreciated races in Britain is the Ebor Handicap over 2800m at York, the richest handicap in Europe. The fact that it is Group Nothing doesn't matter.
In the days when TAB betting closed 30 minutes before the off, when TAB tickets were handwritten by an agent behind a grille with carbon paper used to produce a copy, when the amounts bet had to be rung through to TAB headquarters so dividends could be calculated, that was when the Wellington Cup was the great race of NZ, its history saturated with the deeds of the great and immortal.
This was a time before the socio-economic drift to the north became pronounced, when the prizemoney at the Wellington summer carnival was so compelling you had to travel from anywhere in either island if you had a horse with half a chance. They were the days when the National Yearling Sale was held at the northern end of the Trentham track during Cup Week. If you were selling a relative of the Oaks, Derby or even the Cup winner, you could double your reserve and get it.
With the senility that comes with advancing years, my sense now is that those were pretty good days. In some respects its a pity the younger people of today will never experience those more sedate, more innocent times when all we had to worry about was obliteration by the H-bomb and not to forget to take The Pill.
The last two runnings of the Wellington Cup have attracted capacity fields of 18 runners. The recent roll call of winners – Cyclades, Oarsman, Cluden Creek, Zabeat, Envoy, Willie Smith and Young Centaur – is a Who’s That? rather than a Who’s Who or racing but that really doesn’t matter. The club should have continued carding the race at 3200m as the field fills easily enough, fund the race to the best of its ability and continue to promote it innovatively because by its very nature it’s not a run-of-the-mill race. The club’s pride might be hurt in ‘losing’ a Group 1 but that’s not the end-all-and-be-all.
Lest We Forget. A Tribute To Survival Skills
Weekend Hussler, Light Fantastic and Co. Rivetting stuff coming up at Caulfield. But still giving pleasure in remote corners of Australia, my ‘Bushies Honour Roll’ for this weekend:
Call A Friend (7g Zabeel-Call A Queen) 24: 1-8-1, $29,200. Gooree-bred ex-Waterhouse half-brother to Call Me Henry, in race 2, Collarenebri, NSW.
Freedom Tower (7g Peintre Celebre-Burst) $300,000 yearling, dam won a Golden Slipper, 28:4-5-1, $41,208, in race 3 at Leonora, WA, and if he goes well in that he might line up in race 6 too.
Let’s Bat (4g Encosta de Lago-Clowning) $175,000 yearling, half brother to Chuckle, 9: 0-3-1, $6,550, gracing the track in race 3 at Betoota, Queensland.
Nehemiah (6g Fusaichi Pegasus-Trouble Woman), Gooree-bred ex-Freedman trainee, one-time dual Sandown winner, 26: 6-0-3, $70,000, in race 2 at Surat, Queensland.
Optic Fit (9g Snippets-Century Pike) $220,000 yearling, one of 13 foals (only 3 city winners) of multiple SW, 49: 2-3-2, $24,172, in race 4 at Alice Springs, NT, on Sunday.
Winning Express (7g Deputy Governor-Domino) $120,000 yearling, dam won the NZ and AJC Oaks and produced dual G1 winner Hero, 33: 3-3-8, $21,635, in race 4 at Surat in Queensland.
And the daddy of them all:
King Sapphire (11g Silver Magnum-Queen Sapphire) the pride and joy of Frank Dichiera of Mullumbimby: race 2 at Lismore on Sunday will be his 67th start. He has finished third, once, on 2 July 2005. His total career earnings are $400. He has finished last, officially, 42 times. Some people think this is funny but it is actually a blight on racing which clearly isn’t interested in standards.
P.S. Back in January, I commented on a NZ trotting mare by the name of Invasion Of Privacy who that week was having her 148th start with a record of 1-2-3 and $10,313. Wonder what happened to this now 14-year-old?
Call A Friend (7g Zabeel-Call A Queen) 24: 1-8-1, $29,200. Gooree-bred ex-Waterhouse half-brother to Call Me Henry, in race 2, Collarenebri, NSW.
Freedom Tower (7g Peintre Celebre-Burst) $300,000 yearling, dam won a Golden Slipper, 28:4-5-1, $41,208, in race 3 at Leonora, WA, and if he goes well in that he might line up in race 6 too.
Let’s Bat (4g Encosta de Lago-Clowning) $175,000 yearling, half brother to Chuckle, 9: 0-3-1, $6,550, gracing the track in race 3 at Betoota, Queensland.
Nehemiah (6g Fusaichi Pegasus-Trouble Woman), Gooree-bred ex-Freedman trainee, one-time dual Sandown winner, 26: 6-0-3, $70,000, in race 2 at Surat, Queensland.
Optic Fit (9g Snippets-Century Pike) $220,000 yearling, one of 13 foals (only 3 city winners) of multiple SW, 49: 2-3-2, $24,172, in race 4 at Alice Springs, NT, on Sunday.
Winning Express (7g Deputy Governor-Domino) $120,000 yearling, dam won the NZ and AJC Oaks and produced dual G1 winner Hero, 33: 3-3-8, $21,635, in race 4 at Surat in Queensland.
And the daddy of them all:
King Sapphire (11g Silver Magnum-Queen Sapphire) the pride and joy of Frank Dichiera of Mullumbimby: race 2 at Lismore on Sunday will be his 67th start. He has finished third, once, on 2 July 2005. His total career earnings are $400. He has finished last, officially, 42 times. Some people think this is funny but it is actually a blight on racing which clearly isn’t interested in standards.
P.S. Back in January, I commented on a NZ trotting mare by the name of Invasion Of Privacy who that week was having her 148th start with a record of 1-2-3 and $10,313. Wonder what happened to this now 14-year-old?
Babes On Show
Only forty two-year-olds went around in the first ‘official’ trials at Randwick on Friday, a far cry from days of yore. There were a handful of eye-catching performances.
The 40 juveniles came from 13 stables. The biggest representation came from Graeme Rogerson with 9, Clarry Conners 6, Maryann Thexton (from the Gold Coast) 4, Paul Perry 4, Gai and Anthony Cummings 3 apiece.
Amongst first season sires, only four had runners: Savabeel a surprising 4, Charge Forward 2, Dane Shadow and Al Maher one each (no Fastnet Rocks).
There are four more heats at the Warwick Farm trials on Monday.
I was impressed by Real Saga (2c Tale Of The Cat-Windy Kate, by Air Express – not offered as a yearling) from the Hawkes stable which won heat two. He’s the first foal of his dam who was smart, winning three races at two. A good sort, this colt. And, believe it or not, he traces to Volifox as does Bianca and Samantha Miss (see Jim And Veda’s Work Lives On, below).
You couldn’t miss Gai’s/Star Thoroughbreds’ Horizons (2f Choisir-Ubiquity, by Hurricane Sky - $120,000 Magic Millions) who cleared out in heat one to record the fastest time. But she looked already very well drilled, drew the rail and had the blinkers on, so if it were a betting race she’d be $1.04. The dam is a sister to Continuum.
Gaston (2c Charge Forward-Capto, by Octagonal - $230,000 Easter) from the Rogerson yard was a strong closer to finish second in his heat. He had no idea what he was doing early but showed maturity beyond his years to dash home. He was nice at the yearling sales and still looks nice.
Onemorenomore (2c Red Ransom-Palia, by Last Tycoon - $800,000 Easter) had a soft win and this Patinack colour-bearer will be worth watching, too.
The 40 juveniles came from 13 stables. The biggest representation came from Graeme Rogerson with 9, Clarry Conners 6, Maryann Thexton (from the Gold Coast) 4, Paul Perry 4, Gai and Anthony Cummings 3 apiece.
Amongst first season sires, only four had runners: Savabeel a surprising 4, Charge Forward 2, Dane Shadow and Al Maher one each (no Fastnet Rocks).
There are four more heats at the Warwick Farm trials on Monday.
I was impressed by Real Saga (2c Tale Of The Cat-Windy Kate, by Air Express – not offered as a yearling) from the Hawkes stable which won heat two. He’s the first foal of his dam who was smart, winning three races at two. A good sort, this colt. And, believe it or not, he traces to Volifox as does Bianca and Samantha Miss (see Jim And Veda’s Work Lives On, below).
You couldn’t miss Gai’s/Star Thoroughbreds’ Horizons (2f Choisir-Ubiquity, by Hurricane Sky - $120,000 Magic Millions) who cleared out in heat one to record the fastest time. But she looked already very well drilled, drew the rail and had the blinkers on, so if it were a betting race she’d be $1.04. The dam is a sister to Continuum.
Gaston (2c Charge Forward-Capto, by Octagonal - $230,000 Easter) from the Rogerson yard was a strong closer to finish second in his heat. He had no idea what he was doing early but showed maturity beyond his years to dash home. He was nice at the yearling sales and still looks nice.
Onemorenomore (2c Red Ransom-Palia, by Last Tycoon - $800,000 Easter) had a soft win and this Patinack colour-bearer will be worth watching, too.
Jim and Veda's Work Lives On
If recent races are anything to judge by, stayers in New South Wales are a woeful mob. But in saying that you can’t take anything away from G3 Newcastle Cup winner Bianca who added this trophy to the Wyong and Ipswich Cups won recently. She's a tough cookie.
Just because she can stay and is trained by the past-master at making them stay, Bianca has already won a staggering $451,400 (gross) for the Cloros family who have enjoyed much success with mares Gai has sourced out of New Zealand, such as Coca Cobanna, In Joyment, Altiero and Pop’s Dream.
Yesterday Bianca showed a new dimension: ability to win on top of the ground. All her previous wins were on affected tracks, including the race off the back of which she was bought: the Great Northern Foal Stakes for two-year-olds at Ellerslie just over two years ago. The track was a swamp that day and Bianca won by 9.8 lengths, running the 1400m in 1:33.89 (not a misprint). Many people might have dismissed this, from an Australian point of view, as irrelevant NZ bog form, but here’s Bianca now with $451,400 already in the bank.
Bianca’s form pattern fits that of the majority of NZ tried horses with which Gai has had so much success, although, Bianca apart, it’s been lean pickings for her in that department for a while. Gai soon found horses coming from a NZ training environment took a long time to adjust to the different ways in Sydney. She was never too despondent if their first preparation was unrewarding; she knew they would improve through their second and even third preparations and invariably they did. This is Bianca’s fourth Sydney preparation – a helluva long one as it started back in February and the mare has raced every month since except July.
Kiwis can ask pretty much what they like for their up-and-comers and there’s a good chance they’ll get it. Tried buying a nice young horse out of a Sydney or Melbourne stable lately? Gai is as much to blame for that situation as anyone. As the number one NZ tried horse buyer through the 90s and early 2000s, she met the outrageous valuations placed on a few likely sorts; everyone got wind of this and upped the ante accordingly. For a while sales virtually ground to a halt; even Gai was priced out of the market. A few that she did secure in the early 2000s might have won a NZ maiden race impressively but they came from families thinner than Nicole Richie and after a win or two around Sydney they had delivered everything they had to offer.
Not so Bianca who has great depth to her female family though her sire Painted Black (JPN) flies below the radar. Painted Black is a Shadai Farm product, a Japanese G2 winner over 3600m and a G3 winner over 2400m, by Sunday Silence. Despite his name, he’s a chestnut – obviously they’re colour blind in Japan. With such an arresting background, and standing these days in the South Island where there can’t be many mares left, it’s little wonder he has served just 116 mares in six stud seasons. He’s had only 15 runners and Bianca is the only one to win a city race.
Quite how a mare like Blanche Amelia (by Grosvenor (NZ)) gets to Painted Black is a cause for wonder as she is a daughter of a top class mare, Cariere, winner of the G1 Avondale Cup when that race was almost as hard to win as the Caulfield Cup. The breeder is no longer alive to tell us but I suspect it was because of the relationship they had with the studmaster standing Painted Black who had once worked for them – probably no more than a token of support (however, I’m sure Bianca has a A+++ Werk nick rating and is 110 on Brain!).
The breeder was the late Mrs Veda Morris whose husband Jim predeceased her by many years. The Morrises had Rodmor Stud on the main road between Hamilton and Cambridge, distinguished by its neat hedgerows and the white cap rail, and were breeders of the old school, people of the land and stock. I recall Robert Sangster's mares used to board there. The Morrises developed this branch of what is known as the Volifox family for 40 years, producing a slew of good horses from it. From Fleetmistress, a daughter of Volifox (by Foxbridge (GB)), Jim bred one foal in 1965 by his own stallion Gold Sovereign (GB), a filly by the name of Gold Fleet. She in turn went to his own stallion, the moderately successful Rocky Mountain (FR), to produce the stakeswinner Ascending who in turn went to another Rodmor stallion, the disappointing Funny Fellow (GB), to produce a real gem, the G1 winner Cariere.
Gold Fleet is Bianca’s fourth dam. It just so happens she’s Samantha Miss’ fourth dam also.
That would make the Morrises very happy.
Just because she can stay and is trained by the past-master at making them stay, Bianca has already won a staggering $451,400 (gross) for the Cloros family who have enjoyed much success with mares Gai has sourced out of New Zealand, such as Coca Cobanna, In Joyment, Altiero and Pop’s Dream.
Yesterday Bianca showed a new dimension: ability to win on top of the ground. All her previous wins were on affected tracks, including the race off the back of which she was bought: the Great Northern Foal Stakes for two-year-olds at Ellerslie just over two years ago. The track was a swamp that day and Bianca won by 9.8 lengths, running the 1400m in 1:33.89 (not a misprint). Many people might have dismissed this, from an Australian point of view, as irrelevant NZ bog form, but here’s Bianca now with $451,400 already in the bank.
Bianca’s form pattern fits that of the majority of NZ tried horses with which Gai has had so much success, although, Bianca apart, it’s been lean pickings for her in that department for a while. Gai soon found horses coming from a NZ training environment took a long time to adjust to the different ways in Sydney. She was never too despondent if their first preparation was unrewarding; she knew they would improve through their second and even third preparations and invariably they did. This is Bianca’s fourth Sydney preparation – a helluva long one as it started back in February and the mare has raced every month since except July.
Kiwis can ask pretty much what they like for their up-and-comers and there’s a good chance they’ll get it. Tried buying a nice young horse out of a Sydney or Melbourne stable lately? Gai is as much to blame for that situation as anyone. As the number one NZ tried horse buyer through the 90s and early 2000s, she met the outrageous valuations placed on a few likely sorts; everyone got wind of this and upped the ante accordingly. For a while sales virtually ground to a halt; even Gai was priced out of the market. A few that she did secure in the early 2000s might have won a NZ maiden race impressively but they came from families thinner than Nicole Richie and after a win or two around Sydney they had delivered everything they had to offer.
Not so Bianca who has great depth to her female family though her sire Painted Black (JPN) flies below the radar. Painted Black is a Shadai Farm product, a Japanese G2 winner over 3600m and a G3 winner over 2400m, by Sunday Silence. Despite his name, he’s a chestnut – obviously they’re colour blind in Japan. With such an arresting background, and standing these days in the South Island where there can’t be many mares left, it’s little wonder he has served just 116 mares in six stud seasons. He’s had only 15 runners and Bianca is the only one to win a city race.
Quite how a mare like Blanche Amelia (by Grosvenor (NZ)) gets to Painted Black is a cause for wonder as she is a daughter of a top class mare, Cariere, winner of the G1 Avondale Cup when that race was almost as hard to win as the Caulfield Cup. The breeder is no longer alive to tell us but I suspect it was because of the relationship they had with the studmaster standing Painted Black who had once worked for them – probably no more than a token of support (however, I’m sure Bianca has a A+++ Werk nick rating and is 110 on Brain!).
The breeder was the late Mrs Veda Morris whose husband Jim predeceased her by many years. The Morrises had Rodmor Stud on the main road between Hamilton and Cambridge, distinguished by its neat hedgerows and the white cap rail, and were breeders of the old school, people of the land and stock. I recall Robert Sangster's mares used to board there. The Morrises developed this branch of what is known as the Volifox family for 40 years, producing a slew of good horses from it. From Fleetmistress, a daughter of Volifox (by Foxbridge (GB)), Jim bred one foal in 1965 by his own stallion Gold Sovereign (GB), a filly by the name of Gold Fleet. She in turn went to his own stallion, the moderately successful Rocky Mountain (FR), to produce the stakeswinner Ascending who in turn went to another Rodmor stallion, the disappointing Funny Fellow (GB), to produce a real gem, the G1 winner Cariere.
Gold Fleet is Bianca’s fourth dam. It just so happens she’s Samantha Miss’ fourth dam also.
That would make the Morrises very happy.
Better Than Bank Interest (Especially Today)
It hasn’t taken Nathan Tinkler long to get a meaningful return on investment with Raheeb hacking up in the G3 Cameron Handicap at Newcastle, a race he sponsored.
Get used to it – the massive Patinack stable bristles with class.
According to TVN, Tinkler paid $850,000 for Raheeb (5h Royal Academy-Gatana). Former owner Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum has been a huge benefactor to Australian breeders for much the last decade; he must have thought at long last he’d found one himself when Tinkler relieved him of Raheeb, a colt which at his second race start had won at Port Macquarie, where the Tinkler family have a base. Tinkler of course now also owns Murtajill (4h Rock Of Gibraltar-Skating), the best horse to have carried the Sheikh’s colours during his expensive foray into Australian racing. Murtajill, almost ready to race again, is a top class individual and needs just a G1 or G2 win to frank his stud credentials. He’s up to it.
Chestnut colts by Royal Academy were never the height of fashion, and Raheeb had difficulty selling as a yearling when Vinery offered him at Easter in 2005. He had all the size you’d expect from the Royal Academy/Marauding cross. His shoulder and girth were impressive as were his hindquarters but he was fairly flat through the knee. As I recall, he had a bump on his near hind fetlock which might have been an issue; he was passed in initially but sold afterwards for $90,000.
Raheeb’s G3 success supplants his previous four stakes placings and he looks capable of taking higher honours. He’ll have to, because a win in an ordinary race like the Cameron doesn’t clinch a sure-fire commercial stud career. The 2006 winner Collate stands for $5,500 in Queensland where he served 30 mares in his first season last year after a lateish start. Ability apart, Raheeb has two things going for him – a fashionable Danehill-free pedigree and his relationship to Fastnet Rock on whose coat-tails he can ride in the meantime.
They must be flat out building stallion boxes at Patinack.
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As far as I can see, Darley haven’t bought a Coolmore-sired yearling in Australia since 2004.
That's a long time to hold a grudge but if you’ve got that much money you can please yourself, even if it does cut you off from many successful bloodlines.
But Darley have come in through the back door via their purchase of Woodlands earlier this year, that operation being well stocked with progeny of some of the best Coolmore sires, as well as digging deep for the likes of Von Costa de Hero, by Encosta de Lago, ironically bred by the Sheikh’s cousin.
Sousa (3c Galileo-Liberty Song, by Last Tycoon), narrow winner of the G3 Spring Stakes at Newcastle, is one such Woodlands-sourced, Coolmore-sired progeny.
Whilst doing due diligence for the sales, I found I could predict, with a fair degree of certainty, which horses the (then) Woodlands team of Hawkes and Lobb were going to bid on. Our tastes were apparently very similar, though our budgets were several light years apart. New Zealand-bred Sousa was one such yearling, well developed and almost impossible to fault, a lofty 8.0+ on my scoresheet.
Sousa was bred by Lars Pearson who might have thought he was doing well when he got NZ$150,000 for him as a weanling. On behalf of the Cambridge couple who bought him, Trelawney Stud then marketed him into a A$420,000 yearling, by far and away the highest price for a Galileo yearling in 2007 by which time the Australian buying bench had pronounced him dead. As a matter of record, Galileo’s 59 yearlings in 2007 averaged just over $78,000; 34 of them sold for less than the $55,000 advertised fee Galileo stood for in his final Australian season, 2006. (23 others went through the ring and couldn’t find a home). Galileo’s emergence in Australia has been painfully slow compared with his northern hemisphere career. At this point in time, just 16 of his 146 starters in this part of the world have won as much in prizemoney as that final service fee – and two of them, Mahler and Purple Moon, came all the way from Europe to do it. So make that number 14.
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I wrote a blog on January 8 this year describing how I secured Justice Prevails (Proud Knight-Innocent Lady) for stud duty in New Zealand. Someone had to do it! I note he sired four winners on the eight race card at Gore on Wednesday where the track was a heavy 10 (2:16.25 for 2000m, a fair time for 2200m on the dry). Irrespective of where the race meeting is or the class of horse, such a feat is always noteworthy. Gore is in Southland, next stop the Ross Ice Shelf. Justice Prevails has been standing for many years in the deep south. He’s 18 now. How time flies.
Get used to it – the massive Patinack stable bristles with class.
According to TVN, Tinkler paid $850,000 for Raheeb (5h Royal Academy-Gatana). Former owner Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum has been a huge benefactor to Australian breeders for much the last decade; he must have thought at long last he’d found one himself when Tinkler relieved him of Raheeb, a colt which at his second race start had won at Port Macquarie, where the Tinkler family have a base. Tinkler of course now also owns Murtajill (4h Rock Of Gibraltar-Skating), the best horse to have carried the Sheikh’s colours during his expensive foray into Australian racing. Murtajill, almost ready to race again, is a top class individual and needs just a G1 or G2 win to frank his stud credentials. He’s up to it.
Chestnut colts by Royal Academy were never the height of fashion, and Raheeb had difficulty selling as a yearling when Vinery offered him at Easter in 2005. He had all the size you’d expect from the Royal Academy/Marauding cross. His shoulder and girth were impressive as were his hindquarters but he was fairly flat through the knee. As I recall, he had a bump on his near hind fetlock which might have been an issue; he was passed in initially but sold afterwards for $90,000.
Raheeb’s G3 success supplants his previous four stakes placings and he looks capable of taking higher honours. He’ll have to, because a win in an ordinary race like the Cameron doesn’t clinch a sure-fire commercial stud career. The 2006 winner Collate stands for $5,500 in Queensland where he served 30 mares in his first season last year after a lateish start. Ability apart, Raheeb has two things going for him – a fashionable Danehill-free pedigree and his relationship to Fastnet Rock on whose coat-tails he can ride in the meantime.
They must be flat out building stallion boxes at Patinack.
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As far as I can see, Darley haven’t bought a Coolmore-sired yearling in Australia since 2004.
That's a long time to hold a grudge but if you’ve got that much money you can please yourself, even if it does cut you off from many successful bloodlines.
But Darley have come in through the back door via their purchase of Woodlands earlier this year, that operation being well stocked with progeny of some of the best Coolmore sires, as well as digging deep for the likes of Von Costa de Hero, by Encosta de Lago, ironically bred by the Sheikh’s cousin.
Sousa (3c Galileo-Liberty Song, by Last Tycoon), narrow winner of the G3 Spring Stakes at Newcastle, is one such Woodlands-sourced, Coolmore-sired progeny.
Whilst doing due diligence for the sales, I found I could predict, with a fair degree of certainty, which horses the (then) Woodlands team of Hawkes and Lobb were going to bid on. Our tastes were apparently very similar, though our budgets were several light years apart. New Zealand-bred Sousa was one such yearling, well developed and almost impossible to fault, a lofty 8.0+ on my scoresheet.
Sousa was bred by Lars Pearson who might have thought he was doing well when he got NZ$150,000 for him as a weanling. On behalf of the Cambridge couple who bought him, Trelawney Stud then marketed him into a A$420,000 yearling, by far and away the highest price for a Galileo yearling in 2007 by which time the Australian buying bench had pronounced him dead. As a matter of record, Galileo’s 59 yearlings in 2007 averaged just over $78,000; 34 of them sold for less than the $55,000 advertised fee Galileo stood for in his final Australian season, 2006. (23 others went through the ring and couldn’t find a home). Galileo’s emergence in Australia has been painfully slow compared with his northern hemisphere career. At this point in time, just 16 of his 146 starters in this part of the world have won as much in prizemoney as that final service fee – and two of them, Mahler and Purple Moon, came all the way from Europe to do it. So make that number 14.
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I wrote a blog on January 8 this year describing how I secured Justice Prevails (Proud Knight-Innocent Lady) for stud duty in New Zealand. Someone had to do it! I note he sired four winners on the eight race card at Gore on Wednesday where the track was a heavy 10 (2:16.25 for 2000m, a fair time for 2200m on the dry). Irrespective of where the race meeting is or the class of horse, such a feat is always noteworthy. Gore is in Southland, next stop the Ross Ice Shelf. Justice Prevails has been standing for many years in the deep south. He’s 18 now. How time flies.
The Aga Sure Khan
One of the most enduringly successful influences in thoroughbred breeding and racing has been that of the Aga Khan, and his predecessors.
The current Aga has a homebred three-year-old filly in France named Zarkava (pictured) which, so far, is proving exceptional. On Sunday she won the G1 Prix Vermeille at Longchamp to remain unbeaten in six starts and become the first since Allez France in 1973 to complete the French fillies' triple crown, the 1000 Guineas-Oaks-Vermeille. She has the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in her sights - Allez France was second as a three-year-old, beaten by Rheingold.
The Aga is one of those people responsible for developing female families in which all the horse names have the same starting letter, in this case a Z family. Usually these names have Persian/Arabic derivations and are often very similar to each other. Annoying to the unsophisticated Anglo-Saxons amongst us who can’t differentiate.
The Aga inherited and further developed a rich thoroughbred heritage and has since made some highly strategic acquisitions, in sometimes controversial circumstances which reached the courts, notably the Boussac and Legardere bloodstock legacies.
Zarkava’s sire is Zamindar, Juddmonte’s lesser sibling of Zafonic but proving a useful sire. Her first four dams all begin with Z (zzzzz…zzzzz) but the fifth dam is one of the supreme race fillies, Petite Etoile (Petition-Star Of Iran) who was a tragedy at stud herself, producing just three foals in 14 seasons. Petite Etoile’s fourth dam was Mumtaz Mahal. Zarkava’s pedigree features 3m x 4m to the three-quarter brothers The Minstrel and Nijinsky.
In a blog like this, where readers don’t figure to have an attention span longer than five minutes, it would be impossible to paint a pen-portrait of the Aga Khan dynasty’s profound role in shaping the modern thoroughbred, and I’d have to take a year off to research it properly in any case. Not long ago, John Messara, Arrowfield, announced a breeding arrangement with a handful of the Aga’s mares which, as he said at the time, was quite a development for this part of the world.
Not that there isn't plenty of the Aga Khan bloodlines here in the gene pool already, acquired primarily at northern hemisphere clearing sales. Arrowfield’s near-neighbour, Kia Ora Stud, for example, owns half a dozen choicely-bred young Aga Khan mares including Zarinia (Ire), by Intikhab (USA), a mare whose third dam is the fourth dam of Zarkava. Later this week a Kia Ora bred and owned filly, Davala, will make her racetrack debut from the Guy Walter stable and she is 100% Aga Khan. Conceived in Ireland to southern time, she is by the Aga’s champion Dalakhani (Darshaan-Daltawa) out of Shashzaya (Ire), an S family mare by Ashkalani (Ire)-Shashna. Ten days ago, Davala’s three-year-old three-quarter sister Shemima won the G3 Prix de Lutece at Longchamp over 3000m. As Dalakhani is proving a significant early success at stud with this year’s G1 Irish Oaks winner Moonstone and G1 English St Leger winner Conduit leading the way, it will be interesting to see if Davala develops into anything. Next autumn perhaps? Interestingly, earlier this year Kia Ora imported a Danehill half-sister to Moonstone (also a half-sister to G1 winner Cerulean Sky, the dam of Melbourne Cup possible Honolulu).
As an owner-breeder, the Aga Khan has been able to steadfastly breed the way he’s wanted to and assiduously develop those marvelous, mainly classic-oriented, families. He and the likes of Prince Khaled Abdullah, Juddmonte, are colossuses (or colossusi?) of European breeding, churning out high quality winners year after year. The Aga Khan has studs in Ireland and France and currently stands his homebreds Dalakhani, Sinndar and Azamour.
The present Aga Khan (Prince Karim al-Husseini) is the fourth to carry this honorific title which first came into being in the 1830s and roughly translated means ‘Commanding Chief’. For 51 years (he is in his 72nd year) he has been the Imam of the Ismaili Muslim sect, the 49th Imam in a line which goes all the way back to Ali, the cousin of the prophet Muhammad. That's a pedigree.
Coincidentally, on the same Longchamp racecard on Sunday, a three-year-old colt maintained his unbeaten six-for-six career tally. Vision d’Etat won the G2 Prix Niel over 2400m, his first race since winning the French Derby, a 2100m race these days, on June 1.
Zarkava and Vision d’Etat, who are set to clash in the Arc, come from opposite sides of the tracks.
Vision d’Etat is by a grey stallion named Chichicastenango, to whom you got a free service if you could pronounce the name without hesitating first time of asking. (It’s a small city in Guatemala, so Guatemalans weren’t eligible for free services). A 1998 product, Chichicastenango is bred on the world famous Smadoun/Antheus cross. Smadoun (grandson of Caro) sired two stakeswinners. Chichicastenango was one of them, a decent dual G1 winner who was also second in the French Derby when it was run over the proper distance. He’s from the 2-s family; his seventh dam is Somethingroyal (fourth dam of Typhoon Zed). In another coincidence, there’s a grey 2-s family sire in Australia, the little-used Dyslexia. Young Chichicastenango is probably already doing better than his sire ever did. His last advertised service fee was 3,500 euros with a live foal guarantee. He stands at the historic Haras de Victot, about 30 kms south of Deauville.
There’s nothing particularly modern or sexy about Vision d’Etat’s pedigree. His dam, who traces to Illuminata, was 19 when she produced the colt. But lurking in the pedigree is my favourite genetic atom bomb, Mill Reef, sire of Vision d’Etat’s broodmare sire Garde Royale. French racing has this propensity to throw up G1 horses from the most modest backgrounds, I think moreso than Britain which is almost totally in the grip of the Irish and Arabs. One I recall is Millkom, a sensation of French racing in the mid-90s, a son of Cyrano de Bergerac (it’s an oldie but a goodie – he always won by a nose).
It’s easy to become dispirited watching the swathe being cut through the ranks of quality Australian bloodstock by the likes of Darley, Patinack and Coolmore. Try competing with them! I shudder at the prospect of all the good races in Australia being contested only by jockeys wearing maroon and purple (and occasionally navy and cerise). But the Vision d’Etats of this world remind me that no one’s got a total lock on winning.
Watch Channel Four Instead
The bastardization of Group race names received another boost in England on Sunday with a Group 3 contest at Glorious Goodwood: the Select Racing UK On Sky 432 Stakes. Run over the common distance of 1 mile 1 furlong and 192 yards. Imagine winning and recounting the thrill to the fellows at The Club as you sink into the button-back leather armchair with your fifth gin in hand, “I say chaps, did you see my filly win the Select Racing UK On Sky 432 Stakes at Goodwood, what-what?” Just trips off the tongue, doesn't it? Race names like this are a con to fill out space in a catalogue pedigree. I think there should be a restriction on the number of letters and spaces, as with horse names. The race’s registered name is the Select Stakes, and Sunday’s running was the 42nd renewal. The winner, Lady Gloria, a previous G3 winner by Diktat from a Pivotal mare, was the rank outsider at 33 to 1. Serves them jolly well right.
As an aside, Great Leighs, in Essex, is the first new racecourse opened in Britain in 80 years. I noticed on an American blog recently a list of USA tracks which had closed in the last four decades and there were 40 of them. The latest, Bay Meadows, near San Francisco, closed its doors a couple of weeks back. People laugh when I tell them racing is a sunset industry. I have a memory of Bay Meadows. There was no live racing happening but I watched the 1998 Stradbroke/Queensland Derby via simulcast satellite at that track. Generously, I tipped Toledo to all and sundry - he was back on a fast track and I thought he was a good thing (he broke the race record!). Paid US$18 which helped pay for the trip. Russell Cameron must wonder why I smile every time I go by.
Managing Your Own Luck
Successful people always insist that you make your own luck, and they’re probably right.
If your punting career has been structured around backing horses for a place – that’s any of the first three, for my American readers – and you become the world champion of fourth placegetters in photo-finishes, you’re entitled to think perhaps you weren’t born lucky.
I’ve always thought I wasn’t born lucky. Lucky to be born, yes, but not born lucky.
This depressing train of thought was only reinforced today when two of my recent sales selections Ortensia (3f Testa Rossa-Aerate’s Pick, by Picknicker) and Absolut Glam (4m Snowland-Pine Away, by Pine Bluff) were the biggest certainties beaten all day in Australia: photo-finish seconds, after horror runs, in G3 and G1 races at Moonee Valley. Naturally, the owners of said horses have more reason to feel aggrieved than I do, but when you only buy/select a handful each year, and usually on very limited budgets, as the intellectual resource behind such decisions you tend to regard the horses as your own, taking it personally however they perform. I sincerely hope both horses stay on their feet and get their just desserts during the spring to help make me famous.
I don’t know how good Ortensia is but her performance was extraordinary. Her managing owner rang me after the race and I couldn’t believe his equilibrium in the circumstances; he is happy to have a Group-placed filly after just four starts for what was a modest outlay. Every horse has a story and the story behind her purchase might interest you. I have to thank the late Dr Gerry Rose. I had decided to have a crack at a particular filly at the Inglis Classic Sale for my client. Bidding away, we had already outstripped the budget when I put my hand up at $62,500, only to be topped off with a $65,000 bid. I daren't go any further so had to let the filly go. I was very surprised to see Gerry sign the docket, he was someone I usually associated with Magic Millions sales, not lesser sales at Inglis, but was interested nonetheless because Gerry was a great judge. That filly turned out to be Estancia Rios (Hussonet-Eleanor’s Pride, by Barathea) which ran third at Rosehill on Saturday. Because I’d missed her I had to continue searching at the subsequent Melbourne Premier Sale where I managed to get Ortensia, on budget.
The person for whom Absolut Glam was originally purchased but who doesn’t race her owing to circumstances which I won’t go into here, also rang after her race. She has been backing the mare all through her career and even though some of the collects have been lucrative she is a long, long way behind, and drifting badly.
For my part on Saturday, I went to Royal Kembla where a horse I manage was performing. He ran well, perhaps the best race of his life, but the jockey set him a ridiculous task. You know you weren’t born lucky when (a) your horse is ridden like that, and (b) your horse finishes fifth – they only pay prizemoney down to fourth at Kembla.
Last time I was at Kembla, in August, I saw Takeover Target’s half-brother Predatory Pricer (3c Street Cry-Shady Stream, by Archregent) win his maiden and couldn’t help but be impressed by what a decent cut of a horse he is. Two starts later he has bridged the gap to stakes company, winning the Ming Dynasty Quality at Rosehill.
At Kembla, Gai was on fire – the course announcer said, accurately, she’s always on fire! – with a double including first-up-for-15-months Ditas (4m Don Eduardo-Zembu, by Fuji Kiseki), another Gooree Park Stud homebred. I’ve mentioned this before, but this outfit’s strike rate of breeding worthwhile horses over the last decade is mind-boggling and definitely not achieved simply by putting the best to the best and hoping for the best. Their Dreamscape (3c Choisir-Faith In Dreams, by Ferdinand) did a Magellan act in the Ming Dynasty and should have won (gave Predatory Pricer 4.5 kgs); meantime a horse they sold as a yearling (they are now selling a handful each year) won a G1 at Moonee Valley: Typhoon Zed (Zeditave-Royal Diploma, by Honor Grades). Gooree manager Andrew Baddock obviously had confidence in Typhoon Zed’s future, he got me to buy its then 2YO half-sister by Fusaichi Pegasus at the Gold Coast in June for what seems now a very reasonable $45,000. Typhoon Zed’s fourth dam is a mare named Somethingroyal. I have to say I am in awe of what Gooree have done this decade: ‘Danding’ Cojuangco might be a very rich man but that in itself guarantees nothing (come on down Wadham Park). If anyone thinks it is easy to breed good horses consistently then I invite them to have a go. It’s not. As well as that, Gooree have a great system of rearing, developing and managing their horses and working in concert with their trainers, primarily Gai these days. Hard to think of anyone doing it better.
While on the subject of awe, did you see Tuesday Joy (5m Carnegie-Joie Denise, by Danehill) win at Moonee Valley? She may not be Sunline or Makybe Diva and may have won only five of her 20 starts, but they have been five of the right ones. Such a regal mare, a distillation of what class pedigree stands for, she’s a legend. If I had the pick of all the mares in Australia ….. I would love to see Patinack, Deborah Ho, Sheikh Mo, Coolmore and any other billionaires you care to mention have a scrap in the sale ring trying to buy her. It will never happen: in Tuesday Joy, Singo has at last found his perfect partner and they will never divorce.
Mention of Singo allows me to tell a tale of how the G2 Theo Marks winner Hurried Choice (by Choisir) came to be. Her dam is an unraced mare, Hustle Bustle, by Catrail, bred by Arrowfield. Arrowfield sold her as a weanling for $17,000 to Tarcoola Park who reoffered her as a Classic Sale yearling, Gai giving $130,000 for her – a nice twist. Gai specked her thinking it would be not too difficult to sell her on as at the time she trained the very good half-sister Miss Bussell. But the Catrail poison was putting everyone off. Around this time, Singo had bought a filly by Danehill out of Cult Figure which he wanted to name Gai, as only he would. Out of courtesy, he asked Gai’s permission. Bad move. Not one to let a chance go by, Gai said OK, but there was a price – he had to buy the Catrail filly to get her goodwill and consent. Big-hearted Singo came to the party. Unfortunately, Hustle Bustle sustained a serious injury not long after and couldn’t get to the races (while the filly Gai was proving a disappointment). Singo probably couldn’t bear to look at Hustle Bustle by this time as she represented a double disaster, so he banged a service to Choisir inside her, took her to his Magic Millions winter sale and got shot of her for $110,000. The buyer? None other than Arrowfield who had let her go for $17,000 as a weanling. So Arrowfield get the credit as the breeder of Hurried Choice, benefiting from Singo’s genius. It’s all a matter of timing. After selling Hustle Bustle’s first three foals for a total $800,000 – not bad work if you can get it – Arrowfield put Hustle Bustle through the Magic Millions ring as a supplementary entry last June, in foal to Hussonet, with a $600,000 valuation but on the day there were no takers.
Hartmann (USA) (5g El Corredor-Fearless Wildcat, by Forest Wildcat) was one of a number of horses-in-training Chris Waller bought at the Tattersalls sale in England last October. No world-beater, Hartmann is nevertheless giving his new Aussie owners lots of pleasure and has put more than $40,000 in the bank already in only his first proper preparation. He cost just 3,500 guineas – about half the airfare to get him to Sydney. I wonder if Chris bought him by mistake?
Guillotine (4h Montjeu-Refused The Dance, by Defensive Play) showed great potential as a Sydney youngster for one of his breed but always figured to improve with maturity. Whatever he’s getting for breakfast since shifting to South Australia/Victoria is certainly agreeing with him. Midway through the 1600m G2 Dato Tan Chin Nam Stakes at Moonee Valley you could have loaded the entire sub-prime mortgage shortfall onto him, he was traveling that well. But I can’t help being impressed also by Maldivian (6g Zabeel-Shynzi, by Danzig). I’m aware he was only fourth as an odds-on favourite but he has raced with plenty of vim and vigour. Fact remains that at distances of 2000m and further, Big Mal has raced five times, winning four and being defeated a half-neck in the other. I wish, at the start of his siring career, I had thought of the betting system of backing every Zabeel in every race of 2000m and longer … a licence to print money. But I wasn’t that clever or born that lucky. Zabeel himself raced five times at 2000m or further and only won once, and even then by a mere half a head.
A fair effort by Capecover (6g Cape Cross-Set Up, by Zabeel) to land the Listed Tokyo City Cup in Adelaide having last raced in NZ just 2 weeks ago. This NZ G3 winner stays well; he has a magnificent pedigree with a heavy stamina emphasis, though a branch of the family produced the sprinter-milers Scintillation and Shania Dane – but they were by Danehill who broke all the rules. Capecover is trained by one Alexander Fieldes, a horseman who won’t be well known in Australia. Alexander did a stint in the racing media in the 80s and 90s, mostly TV/race calling, and he was, ahem, colourful. In an industry renowned for its conservatism and backside licking, I recall Alexander as a cross between Murray Bell, Richard Callander and John Clarke – opinions, with colour and humour. It's a hazy memory now but I think they had to get him off, he was too close to the bone. We all mellow with age; I look forward to seeing an interview with him.
P.S. They're keeping tabs on me in The Gulf. An analysis of where my blog's hits come from shows my second largest readership, after Australia, is in the United Arab Emirates! I imagine they're compiling a dossier on me. And I did the decent thing. I flew Emirates to NZ last week. Seriously, would you go any other way?
If your punting career has been structured around backing horses for a place – that’s any of the first three, for my American readers – and you become the world champion of fourth placegetters in photo-finishes, you’re entitled to think perhaps you weren’t born lucky.
I’ve always thought I wasn’t born lucky. Lucky to be born, yes, but not born lucky.
This depressing train of thought was only reinforced today when two of my recent sales selections Ortensia (3f Testa Rossa-Aerate’s Pick, by Picknicker) and Absolut Glam (4m Snowland-Pine Away, by Pine Bluff) were the biggest certainties beaten all day in Australia: photo-finish seconds, after horror runs, in G3 and G1 races at Moonee Valley. Naturally, the owners of said horses have more reason to feel aggrieved than I do, but when you only buy/select a handful each year, and usually on very limited budgets, as the intellectual resource behind such decisions you tend to regard the horses as your own, taking it personally however they perform. I sincerely hope both horses stay on their feet and get their just desserts during the spring to help make me famous.
I don’t know how good Ortensia is but her performance was extraordinary. Her managing owner rang me after the race and I couldn’t believe his equilibrium in the circumstances; he is happy to have a Group-placed filly after just four starts for what was a modest outlay. Every horse has a story and the story behind her purchase might interest you. I have to thank the late Dr Gerry Rose. I had decided to have a crack at a particular filly at the Inglis Classic Sale for my client. Bidding away, we had already outstripped the budget when I put my hand up at $62,500, only to be topped off with a $65,000 bid. I daren't go any further so had to let the filly go. I was very surprised to see Gerry sign the docket, he was someone I usually associated with Magic Millions sales, not lesser sales at Inglis, but was interested nonetheless because Gerry was a great judge. That filly turned out to be Estancia Rios (Hussonet-Eleanor’s Pride, by Barathea) which ran third at Rosehill on Saturday. Because I’d missed her I had to continue searching at the subsequent Melbourne Premier Sale where I managed to get Ortensia, on budget.
The person for whom Absolut Glam was originally purchased but who doesn’t race her owing to circumstances which I won’t go into here, also rang after her race. She has been backing the mare all through her career and even though some of the collects have been lucrative she is a long, long way behind, and drifting badly.
For my part on Saturday, I went to Royal Kembla where a horse I manage was performing. He ran well, perhaps the best race of his life, but the jockey set him a ridiculous task. You know you weren’t born lucky when (a) your horse is ridden like that, and (b) your horse finishes fifth – they only pay prizemoney down to fourth at Kembla.
Last time I was at Kembla, in August, I saw Takeover Target’s half-brother Predatory Pricer (3c Street Cry-Shady Stream, by Archregent) win his maiden and couldn’t help but be impressed by what a decent cut of a horse he is. Two starts later he has bridged the gap to stakes company, winning the Ming Dynasty Quality at Rosehill.
At Kembla, Gai was on fire – the course announcer said, accurately, she’s always on fire! – with a double including first-up-for-15-months Ditas (4m Don Eduardo-Zembu, by Fuji Kiseki), another Gooree Park Stud homebred. I’ve mentioned this before, but this outfit’s strike rate of breeding worthwhile horses over the last decade is mind-boggling and definitely not achieved simply by putting the best to the best and hoping for the best. Their Dreamscape (3c Choisir-Faith In Dreams, by Ferdinand) did a Magellan act in the Ming Dynasty and should have won (gave Predatory Pricer 4.5 kgs); meantime a horse they sold as a yearling (they are now selling a handful each year) won a G1 at Moonee Valley: Typhoon Zed (Zeditave-Royal Diploma, by Honor Grades). Gooree manager Andrew Baddock obviously had confidence in Typhoon Zed’s future, he got me to buy its then 2YO half-sister by Fusaichi Pegasus at the Gold Coast in June for what seems now a very reasonable $45,000. Typhoon Zed’s fourth dam is a mare named Somethingroyal. I have to say I am in awe of what Gooree have done this decade: ‘Danding’ Cojuangco might be a very rich man but that in itself guarantees nothing (come on down Wadham Park). If anyone thinks it is easy to breed good horses consistently then I invite them to have a go. It’s not. As well as that, Gooree have a great system of rearing, developing and managing their horses and working in concert with their trainers, primarily Gai these days. Hard to think of anyone doing it better.
While on the subject of awe, did you see Tuesday Joy (5m Carnegie-Joie Denise, by Danehill) win at Moonee Valley? She may not be Sunline or Makybe Diva and may have won only five of her 20 starts, but they have been five of the right ones. Such a regal mare, a distillation of what class pedigree stands for, she’s a legend. If I had the pick of all the mares in Australia ….. I would love to see Patinack, Deborah Ho, Sheikh Mo, Coolmore and any other billionaires you care to mention have a scrap in the sale ring trying to buy her. It will never happen: in Tuesday Joy, Singo has at last found his perfect partner and they will never divorce.
Mention of Singo allows me to tell a tale of how the G2 Theo Marks winner Hurried Choice (by Choisir) came to be. Her dam is an unraced mare, Hustle Bustle, by Catrail, bred by Arrowfield. Arrowfield sold her as a weanling for $17,000 to Tarcoola Park who reoffered her as a Classic Sale yearling, Gai giving $130,000 for her – a nice twist. Gai specked her thinking it would be not too difficult to sell her on as at the time she trained the very good half-sister Miss Bussell. But the Catrail poison was putting everyone off. Around this time, Singo had bought a filly by Danehill out of Cult Figure which he wanted to name Gai, as only he would. Out of courtesy, he asked Gai’s permission. Bad move. Not one to let a chance go by, Gai said OK, but there was a price – he had to buy the Catrail filly to get her goodwill and consent. Big-hearted Singo came to the party. Unfortunately, Hustle Bustle sustained a serious injury not long after and couldn’t get to the races (while the filly Gai was proving a disappointment). Singo probably couldn’t bear to look at Hustle Bustle by this time as she represented a double disaster, so he banged a service to Choisir inside her, took her to his Magic Millions winter sale and got shot of her for $110,000. The buyer? None other than Arrowfield who had let her go for $17,000 as a weanling. So Arrowfield get the credit as the breeder of Hurried Choice, benefiting from Singo’s genius. It’s all a matter of timing. After selling Hustle Bustle’s first three foals for a total $800,000 – not bad work if you can get it – Arrowfield put Hustle Bustle through the Magic Millions ring as a supplementary entry last June, in foal to Hussonet, with a $600,000 valuation but on the day there were no takers.
Hartmann (USA) (5g El Corredor-Fearless Wildcat, by Forest Wildcat) was one of a number of horses-in-training Chris Waller bought at the Tattersalls sale in England last October. No world-beater, Hartmann is nevertheless giving his new Aussie owners lots of pleasure and has put more than $40,000 in the bank already in only his first proper preparation. He cost just 3,500 guineas – about half the airfare to get him to Sydney. I wonder if Chris bought him by mistake?
Guillotine (4h Montjeu-Refused The Dance, by Defensive Play) showed great potential as a Sydney youngster for one of his breed but always figured to improve with maturity. Whatever he’s getting for breakfast since shifting to South Australia/Victoria is certainly agreeing with him. Midway through the 1600m G2 Dato Tan Chin Nam Stakes at Moonee Valley you could have loaded the entire sub-prime mortgage shortfall onto him, he was traveling that well. But I can’t help being impressed also by Maldivian (6g Zabeel-Shynzi, by Danzig). I’m aware he was only fourth as an odds-on favourite but he has raced with plenty of vim and vigour. Fact remains that at distances of 2000m and further, Big Mal has raced five times, winning four and being defeated a half-neck in the other. I wish, at the start of his siring career, I had thought of the betting system of backing every Zabeel in every race of 2000m and longer … a licence to print money. But I wasn’t that clever or born that lucky. Zabeel himself raced five times at 2000m or further and only won once, and even then by a mere half a head.
A fair effort by Capecover (6g Cape Cross-Set Up, by Zabeel) to land the Listed Tokyo City Cup in Adelaide having last raced in NZ just 2 weeks ago. This NZ G3 winner stays well; he has a magnificent pedigree with a heavy stamina emphasis, though a branch of the family produced the sprinter-milers Scintillation and Shania Dane – but they were by Danehill who broke all the rules. Capecover is trained by one Alexander Fieldes, a horseman who won’t be well known in Australia. Alexander did a stint in the racing media in the 80s and 90s, mostly TV/race calling, and he was, ahem, colourful. In an industry renowned for its conservatism and backside licking, I recall Alexander as a cross between Murray Bell, Richard Callander and John Clarke – opinions, with colour and humour. It's a hazy memory now but I think they had to get him off, he was too close to the bone. We all mellow with age; I look forward to seeing an interview with him.
P.S. They're keeping tabs on me in The Gulf. An analysis of where my blog's hits come from shows my second largest readership, after Australia, is in the United Arab Emirates! I imagine they're compiling a dossier on me. And I did the decent thing. I flew Emirates to NZ last week. Seriously, would you go any other way?
It's All In The Fine Print
As if the disappointment or even the embarrassment of riding a million dollar colt which started odds-on but failed to fill a place wasn’t enough, the $1,000 penalty handed down to Hugh Bowman for his ride on Lonhroson at Hawkesbury on Thursday must have rubbed salt into his wounds.
Briefly, Bowman thought Lonhroson (racing with blinkers for the first time) had burst through the barrier an instant before the field was released and assumed he had ‘false started’, immediately checking the colt’s forward momentum. As a result, after half a dozen strides, he was in third last place instead of being on the speed as intended (ironically, Lonhroson had been a back-runner at both his previous starts, finishing fourth and sixth), having to make the best of it from there.
In the split second involved, Bowman made a mistake assuming a false start would be declared. He should have continued going forward whilst remaining alert for the normal false start signal which of course was not activated as the starter had no reason to doubt he had made a fair despatch.
In a field of maidens no better than country standard, Lonhroson was given a ground-saving ride thereafter to improve his position and was taken to the outer before the home turn for a clear run but was struggling and failed to finish the race off.
It’s the Stewards’ exacting job to administer the rules which exist for the protection of all, foremost the punters who dived in on this hot-pot.
Bowman was charged under rule AR175(k) which says ‘the Stewards may punish any person who has committed any breach of the Rules or whose conduct or negligence has led or could have led to a breach of the Rules’.
Justifying this, the Stewards cited rule AR135(b) as being the rule which Bowman’s conduct or negligence led or could have led to a breach thereof. That rule states ‘The rider of every horse shall take all reasonable and permissible measures throughout the race to ensure that his horse is given full opportunity to win or to obtain the best possible place in the field’.
In the next sentence of their report, the Stewards say they were not able to make a judgment (in their words ‘comfortably determine’) whether Bowman’s ride had cost Lonhroson a place.
Seems to me they are saying that the colt might well have run as well as it could which is the obligation placed on a jockey to ensure. They offer no opinion whether Lonhroson ‘obtain(ed) the best possible place in the field’ so if that’s the case, how would AR135(b) have held water and if it can’t doesn't AR175(k) fall down too?
I'm not even a bush lawyer but it seems an interesting call, and I wonder if Bowman will appeal.
Bowman’s interpretation of the start was incorrect but was innocently arrived at. We are talking a split-second judgment call which he was not entitled to make but which he nevertheless did.
Though the motivation is different, every meeting we see one jockey or another neck their mounts from a wide barrier and give away ground and momentum at the start so as to conserve the horse’s energy. This is done on the prior assumption that the race is going to pan out a certain way and that the horse cannot initially overcome the perceived disadvantage. They end up in the same place as Lonhroson did. Normally, that passes without comment. An exception was at Randwick on Tuesday when Dan Nikolic, riding Mangala (NZ), was reminded not to set his mounts too stiff a task.
Most days we will see one jockey or another make an injudicious tactical decision which mitigates against his horse’s chance. I’m sure supporters of those horses would love to see some AR135(b)s getting thrown around. But there is premeditation on one hand and there is error of judgment in the midst of battle on the other. Unless the Stewards are implying the former, I reckon Bowman's indiscretion comes under the latter, unpalatable as that may be to those who did their dough.
I have to declare my interest here inasmuch as I am a friend of the owner of Lonhroson and attended the meeting with him. The poor bloke went to the races hoping to have a few questions answered but came away with a whole bunch more. As for Hugh Bowman, I don’t hold a candle for him, having nothing other than a nodding professional acquaintance; strange, you might think, given the years I spent in the centre of the Waterhouse operation (as an apprentice, Hugh won a maiden race on a mare in which I had a racing interest, Regal Touch).
As a pressman in New Zealand for seven years, as a director of the Apprentice Jockey School, as a manager of horses and during my decade in Sydney, I've never become familiar with jockeys outside what was expected and required in the mounting yard. I respect them professionally and call me anti-social if you like, but I have never regarded the cushy relationships which often exist between journos, other functionaries and jockeys as particularly healthy. In 40 years, I can only recall going to the races with jockeys twice; both were here in Sydney and they saved my life – my car had broken down!
.....................................................................................
The newcomer which impressed me most this week has been Tobique, a first-start winner at Canterbury on Wednesday.
In a nice field of three-year-olds, this colt stood out like a beacon in the mounting yard and raced accordingly, albeit at big odds. Bred and raced by the White family, he’s by Redoute’s Choice-Mammoth, by Marscay.
The Whites had him in Yarraman Stud’s draft at the 2007 Sydney Easter Sale. I’d seen him at Yarraman beforehand and was very taken with him. He was a 17 November foal and at that stage a bit on the lighter-framed side, just immaturity, but I noted he had “excellent rein and length, very correct, good head and jowl and a loose mover”. I was surprised when he didn’t make what appeared to be a reasonable $200,000 reserve; perhaps there were some issues or perhaps buyers thought the Whites don’t put their nice horses in the sales (after a short period of retaining their homebreds). Whatever, he’s a lovely colt now and surely hasn’t had his last win. Yet another in the long line of quality Redoutes being unleashed this year.
Briefly, Bowman thought Lonhroson (racing with blinkers for the first time) had burst through the barrier an instant before the field was released and assumed he had ‘false started’, immediately checking the colt’s forward momentum. As a result, after half a dozen strides, he was in third last place instead of being on the speed as intended (ironically, Lonhroson had been a back-runner at both his previous starts, finishing fourth and sixth), having to make the best of it from there.
In the split second involved, Bowman made a mistake assuming a false start would be declared. He should have continued going forward whilst remaining alert for the normal false start signal which of course was not activated as the starter had no reason to doubt he had made a fair despatch.
In a field of maidens no better than country standard, Lonhroson was given a ground-saving ride thereafter to improve his position and was taken to the outer before the home turn for a clear run but was struggling and failed to finish the race off.
It’s the Stewards’ exacting job to administer the rules which exist for the protection of all, foremost the punters who dived in on this hot-pot.
Bowman was charged under rule AR175(k) which says ‘the Stewards may punish any person who has committed any breach of the Rules or whose conduct or negligence has led or could have led to a breach of the Rules’.
Justifying this, the Stewards cited rule AR135(b) as being the rule which Bowman’s conduct or negligence led or could have led to a breach thereof. That rule states ‘The rider of every horse shall take all reasonable and permissible measures throughout the race to ensure that his horse is given full opportunity to win or to obtain the best possible place in the field’.
In the next sentence of their report, the Stewards say they were not able to make a judgment (in their words ‘comfortably determine’) whether Bowman’s ride had cost Lonhroson a place.
Seems to me they are saying that the colt might well have run as well as it could which is the obligation placed on a jockey to ensure. They offer no opinion whether Lonhroson ‘obtain(ed) the best possible place in the field’ so if that’s the case, how would AR135(b) have held water and if it can’t doesn't AR175(k) fall down too?
I'm not even a bush lawyer but it seems an interesting call, and I wonder if Bowman will appeal.
Bowman’s interpretation of the start was incorrect but was innocently arrived at. We are talking a split-second judgment call which he was not entitled to make but which he nevertheless did.
Though the motivation is different, every meeting we see one jockey or another neck their mounts from a wide barrier and give away ground and momentum at the start so as to conserve the horse’s energy. This is done on the prior assumption that the race is going to pan out a certain way and that the horse cannot initially overcome the perceived disadvantage. They end up in the same place as Lonhroson did. Normally, that passes without comment. An exception was at Randwick on Tuesday when Dan Nikolic, riding Mangala (NZ), was reminded not to set his mounts too stiff a task.
Most days we will see one jockey or another make an injudicious tactical decision which mitigates against his horse’s chance. I’m sure supporters of those horses would love to see some AR135(b)s getting thrown around. But there is premeditation on one hand and there is error of judgment in the midst of battle on the other. Unless the Stewards are implying the former, I reckon Bowman's indiscretion comes under the latter, unpalatable as that may be to those who did their dough.
I have to declare my interest here inasmuch as I am a friend of the owner of Lonhroson and attended the meeting with him. The poor bloke went to the races hoping to have a few questions answered but came away with a whole bunch more. As for Hugh Bowman, I don’t hold a candle for him, having nothing other than a nodding professional acquaintance; strange, you might think, given the years I spent in the centre of the Waterhouse operation (as an apprentice, Hugh won a maiden race on a mare in which I had a racing interest, Regal Touch).
As a pressman in New Zealand for seven years, as a director of the Apprentice Jockey School, as a manager of horses and during my decade in Sydney, I've never become familiar with jockeys outside what was expected and required in the mounting yard. I respect them professionally and call me anti-social if you like, but I have never regarded the cushy relationships which often exist between journos, other functionaries and jockeys as particularly healthy. In 40 years, I can only recall going to the races with jockeys twice; both were here in Sydney and they saved my life – my car had broken down!
.....................................................................................
The newcomer which impressed me most this week has been Tobique, a first-start winner at Canterbury on Wednesday.
In a nice field of three-year-olds, this colt stood out like a beacon in the mounting yard and raced accordingly, albeit at big odds. Bred and raced by the White family, he’s by Redoute’s Choice-Mammoth, by Marscay.
The Whites had him in Yarraman Stud’s draft at the 2007 Sydney Easter Sale. I’d seen him at Yarraman beforehand and was very taken with him. He was a 17 November foal and at that stage a bit on the lighter-framed side, just immaturity, but I noted he had “excellent rein and length, very correct, good head and jowl and a loose mover”. I was surprised when he didn’t make what appeared to be a reasonable $200,000 reserve; perhaps there were some issues or perhaps buyers thought the Whites don’t put their nice horses in the sales (after a short period of retaining their homebreds). Whatever, he’s a lovely colt now and surely hasn’t had his last win. Yet another in the long line of quality Redoutes being unleashed this year.
Rearranging The Deck Chairs
I’m out of the country five minutes (five days, actually) and what do I find when I return?
The longest running soap opera on the planet – American politics – has taken a dramatic turn with the appointment of the quintessential MILF for Republican VeePee, Governor Sarah Palin. She will keep the good ol’ boys hoopin' and a-hollerin' up till election day.
Reportedly, Mrs Palin has owned a US passport for just a brief time so maybe her knowledge of the outside world isn’t very extensive which is a bit frightening when she could end up being second-in-charge of The Button.
She’s not alone. The Keeneland September Yearling Sale has just started which reminds me of the typical Kentuckian one meets in the malls and at McDonalds in Lexington. Once they have established where you come from – “oh, Noo Zeeland, that’s up near Norway” or “Osstralia, don’t you mean Osstria?” – they proceed to tell you more than you know yourself about your own country, whose backside it should be kissing and why, and what’s wrong with the rest of the world in general. Unfortunately, when you dig a little deeper, you find that most of these terribly knowledgeable and opinionated people have never set foot across their state line, let alone have a passport to go outside continental USA.
Backside kissing must be an important part of New South Wales politics. All of a sudden, on my arrival home, there’s no Iemma, no Costa, no Meagher, no Sartor … a coup of monumental proportions by Labour’s apparatchiks, and I was only just getting used to their names. Not a drop of blood shed, just tears, mostly by the long-suffering citizens of this fair state. Now we have yet another unelected premier, a Mr Rees, whose bio notes include stints as a green-keeper and garbage collector which is in keeping with his portfolio of Arts Minister (sorry, I keep thinking about Rod Menzies’s Picasso). Graham the racing minister has gone west and from this week it’s Kevin Greene, a former teacher. Hopefully he will be able to get all the stakeholders to put their hands on their heads and pay attention.
Olly’s gone, too, or going. Aussie boy made good, Olly Tait, that is. Darley have rearranged the deck chairs on their unsinkable Titanic. Olly’s off to plug the gap left by Dan Pride who exits Darley USA to help run the auction house with which Darley now has links, Fasig-Tipton.
A scion of a renowned NSW racing and breeding family, Olly is being replaced in Darley’s Australian managing directorship by The Honourable Henry Plumptre whose pedigree I venture to say has more black type than even the Sheikh’s mares. I can’t find it on Arion or Bloodhound but my guess is that The Hon Henry is a scion of the Barony of FitzWalter, created in 1295, which precedes The General Stud Book by 500 years. It’s a peerage of noble distinction which has, at various stages in history, lapsed or gone into abeyance as they say, only to be revived again, most recently in 1953. On a remote branch of the pedigree sits the likes of Lord Louis Mountbatten.
Historically, Plumptres were prominent landowners, one of their manorial seats being the prosaically named Fredville in Kent to which Jane Austen was a sometimes visitor in the early 1800s. Much of Fredville was lost to fire shortly after WW2, during which time it had been occupied by men of the Canadian Army; I wonder whether the two ghosts it is said to shelter still visit: one a faithful hound and the other a white horse (the one Singo doesn't own)? Conjecture aside, it would be interesting to know what makes Henry Honourable. Aussies and Kiwis have an abiding interest in the social trends of the upper classes of their former colonial masters. I suspect Hello!, Tatler and Country Life have their highest circulations per capita in the Antipodes. Amongst the upper echelons of Darley and (especially) Coolmore, one doesn't hear too many Australian accents these days, so Olly will be missed. Patinack seems to be largely local, but give them time.
The mare goes to Spinning World in the morning. I don’t care if he neighs or whinnies in Gaelic or Urdu, just get her in foal please.
The longest running soap opera on the planet – American politics – has taken a dramatic turn with the appointment of the quintessential MILF for Republican VeePee, Governor Sarah Palin. She will keep the good ol’ boys hoopin' and a-hollerin' up till election day.
Reportedly, Mrs Palin has owned a US passport for just a brief time so maybe her knowledge of the outside world isn’t very extensive which is a bit frightening when she could end up being second-in-charge of The Button.
She’s not alone. The Keeneland September Yearling Sale has just started which reminds me of the typical Kentuckian one meets in the malls and at McDonalds in Lexington. Once they have established where you come from – “oh, Noo Zeeland, that’s up near Norway” or “Osstralia, don’t you mean Osstria?” – they proceed to tell you more than you know yourself about your own country, whose backside it should be kissing and why, and what’s wrong with the rest of the world in general. Unfortunately, when you dig a little deeper, you find that most of these terribly knowledgeable and opinionated people have never set foot across their state line, let alone have a passport to go outside continental USA.
Backside kissing must be an important part of New South Wales politics. All of a sudden, on my arrival home, there’s no Iemma, no Costa, no Meagher, no Sartor … a coup of monumental proportions by Labour’s apparatchiks, and I was only just getting used to their names. Not a drop of blood shed, just tears, mostly by the long-suffering citizens of this fair state. Now we have yet another unelected premier, a Mr Rees, whose bio notes include stints as a green-keeper and garbage collector which is in keeping with his portfolio of Arts Minister (sorry, I keep thinking about Rod Menzies’s Picasso). Graham the racing minister has gone west and from this week it’s Kevin Greene, a former teacher. Hopefully he will be able to get all the stakeholders to put their hands on their heads and pay attention.
Olly’s gone, too, or going. Aussie boy made good, Olly Tait, that is. Darley have rearranged the deck chairs on their unsinkable Titanic. Olly’s off to plug the gap left by Dan Pride who exits Darley USA to help run the auction house with which Darley now has links, Fasig-Tipton.
A scion of a renowned NSW racing and breeding family, Olly is being replaced in Darley’s Australian managing directorship by The Honourable Henry Plumptre whose pedigree I venture to say has more black type than even the Sheikh’s mares. I can’t find it on Arion or Bloodhound but my guess is that The Hon Henry is a scion of the Barony of FitzWalter, created in 1295, which precedes The General Stud Book by 500 years. It’s a peerage of noble distinction which has, at various stages in history, lapsed or gone into abeyance as they say, only to be revived again, most recently in 1953. On a remote branch of the pedigree sits the likes of Lord Louis Mountbatten.
Historically, Plumptres were prominent landowners, one of their manorial seats being the prosaically named Fredville in Kent to which Jane Austen was a sometimes visitor in the early 1800s. Much of Fredville was lost to fire shortly after WW2, during which time it had been occupied by men of the Canadian Army; I wonder whether the two ghosts it is said to shelter still visit: one a faithful hound and the other a white horse (the one Singo doesn't own)? Conjecture aside, it would be interesting to know what makes Henry Honourable. Aussies and Kiwis have an abiding interest in the social trends of the upper classes of their former colonial masters. I suspect Hello!, Tatler and Country Life have their highest circulations per capita in the Antipodes. Amongst the upper echelons of Darley and (especially) Coolmore, one doesn't hear too many Australian accents these days, so Olly will be missed. Patinack seems to be largely local, but give them time.
The mare goes to Spinning World in the morning. I don’t care if he neighs or whinnies in Gaelic or Urdu, just get her in foal please.
When Less Can Be More
I’m taking a bigger punt than usual in selecting only a moderately fertile stallion for one of my mares this year – Coolmore Stud’s Spinning World (USA).
In my former life I had a bit to do with a couple of sub-fertile stallions and it’s no fun standing them.
Spinning World’s fertility, or lack of it, is no secret. He has averaged 64.5% in eight Australian stud seasons, and he achieved just 57.7% in his lone New Zealand season in 2000. He’s now 15 years old.
Naturally, it’s the blood and the physicals which appeal to me about using Spinning World otherwise I wouldn’t be running the risk, but apart from that where else on this vast sandy continent can you find a stallion which has sired seven individual Group 1 winners standing for a listed $10,000 fee? Only Quest For Fame (GB), as far as I can see, and he’s a lot older (21) and isn’t appropriate for my mare.
Spinning World seems to be a filly sire with 11 of his 16 southern hemisphere-conceived stakeswinners being female, the latest being the good sorts Heavenly Glow and Kishkat. With the exception of Thorn Park, the black-type males have been a notch below the females, so maybe the sex bias is real. It would need a better mathematician than I to figure out how much the numbers are skewed by the fact that a significantly large chunk of stakes races are for fillies and mares only - though thinking out loud, it’s the same for all stallions so maybe I’ve already answered my own question! But Spinning World has an overall 68.3% winners-to-runners figure and 10% of his individual winners are stakeswinners,figures which indicate a good achiever to me. There should be no argument that he delivers more per spermatozoa than many stallions standing at multiples of his fee.
Danewin is another moderately fertile stallion whose figures almost mirror Spinning World’s. He is a very good sire and it is one of the great quirks of history that this horse was one of the cheapest Danehill yearlings ever sold - $20,000. He must have looked like Belsen. Spinning World has been more rigorously used at stud than Danewin, averaging 48.3 live foals per season (seven seasons, 3YOs and older) against Danewin’s substantially lower 38.4 live foals per season (nine seasons). One could quote statistics endlessly, and I’m mindful of the quotation I ran on this blog last week, but last season’s leading sire Encosta de Lago, for example, has had an average of 126.7 live foals per crop in his eight crops 3YO and older. To his great credit, his stats are much on a par with Spinning World’s and Danewin’s but a bit behind Redoute’s Choice who is probably the current benchmark: an average of 116.2 live foals per crop with 70% winners-to-runners and an impressive 15.7% of his winners being stakeswinners.
The two sub-fertile stallions I encountered close up in my working career were Zephyr Bay and Tights (USA). I still regard Zephyr Bay, by Biscay, as possibly the most handsome horse I’ve ever seen and the equal of any sire. He was majestic. There is a magnificent photo of him being ridden in his Waikato Stud paddock, as a stallion, on page 91 of Peter Taylor’s Thoroughbred Studs of Australia and New Zealand (published 1986).
Arion Pedigrees attribute these figures to Zephyr Bay from his 12-season stud career in New Zealand: 147 named foals (that’s an average of just 12.2 per crop for those of you having difficulty working it out), 117 runners, 97 winners (83%), 20 individual stakeswinners of which seven were then classified Group 1. In his later NZ seasons, only the home stud supported him with mares of much quality, the others sent up by his shareholders were more like jersey cows, understandable as they didn't want their prize mares going empty every year. Yet he could still leave a dasher. His transfer to Australia in 1987 (removed from the property with great subterfuge whilst I was holidaying overseas) was an ill-starred act of virtual criminality which ought to make a great movie – the main roles could be played by the real people, they’re still alive). The poor bugger was flogged at stud over here to produce a further 116 live foals in his final five seasons – almost double his New Zealand average seasonal output – but the result was a vindictive, measly two stakeswinners, the best being a Gr 3 and the other in Tasmania. Go figure. He was one Aussie who after tasting the delights of life in NZ didn't want repatriation! A handful of his Australian-bred daughters have subsequently featured in the pedigrees of worthwhile stakeswinners.
Zephyr Bay was a character. He would fall in love with the same mares every year. Grey mares were his Viagra. We even got to placing one in the serving barn while he was doing the business with a girl of another colour. There was a correlation between the vigour of his service and impregnations; his range of problems, some physical, some psychological, often reduced him to a reluctant coverer or one just going through the motions, fakin’ it.
Tights (USA) (Nijinsky-Dancealot, by Round Table), who went to stud with a lot of commercial fanfare, was not as impaired as Zephyr Bay. His output over 9 seasons was 318 named foals with fertility averaging around 60%. His winners-to-runners rate was a more mortal 63% but a strong 12% of his winners were stakeswinners and, extraordinarily, 14 of the 18 stakeswinners were fillies.
Are sub-fertile stallions outputters of higher quality? A question for our age. Bel Esprit covered 266 mares last year alone. Zephyr Bay would have had cardiac arrest and definitely phallic failure!
Though he didn’t suffer from any form of infertility that I know of, Pakistan II (GB) who died in his prime, is, for mine, the greatest local sire in my lifetime. This non-stakeswinner achieved 81% winners-to-starters (264/326) with 16.2% of his winners being stakeswinners. I know you think I've lost my marbles as I’ve lived through Star Kingdom, Sir Tristram, Danehill, Zabeel, Redoute’s Choice et al, but none of them except perhaps Sir Tristram had such a humble background and none was stood by a family of potato farmers.
.....................................................................................
It's been announced Miss Andretti is to visit Exceed And Excel in her maiden year. That is something to conjure. What a wonderful sprinter she was and what far-sightedness on Sean Buckley's part to identify her ultimate greatness while she was running a million miles away in Perth. The lasting image I will have of Miss Andretti is the way she always attacked the line, ears back, teeth gritted, giving her all. You could see in her face she knew exactly what she was meant to do. From a pedigree page full of white space, she made a bigger transformation than Eliza Doolittle.
P.S. Former trainer Dave Mueller is a 25% partner in Miss Andretti. I wonder what he's going to do now the mare is retired. Will he stay in as a partner? Will he want to cash up and want Sean to buy him out? Will Sean be happy to do that and how will a value be arrived at? Will Dave sell his leg to someone new if they can't agree on a value? Will the mare go to auction perhaps to see if Sheikh Moh and Patinack have any money left?
.....................................................................................
I wonder if there's any basis to the story I've heard that Dreamscape only started in the Up And Coming Stakes after he'd been missed from the acceptances for the maiden at Wyong two days previously? If that's true then either no one realised how good he was or, alternately, he's only just a good maiden winner and the other three-year-olds so far aren't much better!
In my former life I had a bit to do with a couple of sub-fertile stallions and it’s no fun standing them.
Spinning World’s fertility, or lack of it, is no secret. He has averaged 64.5% in eight Australian stud seasons, and he achieved just 57.7% in his lone New Zealand season in 2000. He’s now 15 years old.
Naturally, it’s the blood and the physicals which appeal to me about using Spinning World otherwise I wouldn’t be running the risk, but apart from that where else on this vast sandy continent can you find a stallion which has sired seven individual Group 1 winners standing for a listed $10,000 fee? Only Quest For Fame (GB), as far as I can see, and he’s a lot older (21) and isn’t appropriate for my mare.
Spinning World seems to be a filly sire with 11 of his 16 southern hemisphere-conceived stakeswinners being female, the latest being the good sorts Heavenly Glow and Kishkat. With the exception of Thorn Park, the black-type males have been a notch below the females, so maybe the sex bias is real. It would need a better mathematician than I to figure out how much the numbers are skewed by the fact that a significantly large chunk of stakes races are for fillies and mares only - though thinking out loud, it’s the same for all stallions so maybe I’ve already answered my own question! But Spinning World has an overall 68.3% winners-to-runners figure and 10% of his individual winners are stakeswinners,figures which indicate a good achiever to me. There should be no argument that he delivers more per spermatozoa than many stallions standing at multiples of his fee.
Danewin is another moderately fertile stallion whose figures almost mirror Spinning World’s. He is a very good sire and it is one of the great quirks of history that this horse was one of the cheapest Danehill yearlings ever sold - $20,000. He must have looked like Belsen. Spinning World has been more rigorously used at stud than Danewin, averaging 48.3 live foals per season (seven seasons, 3YOs and older) against Danewin’s substantially lower 38.4 live foals per season (nine seasons). One could quote statistics endlessly, and I’m mindful of the quotation I ran on this blog last week, but last season’s leading sire Encosta de Lago, for example, has had an average of 126.7 live foals per crop in his eight crops 3YO and older. To his great credit, his stats are much on a par with Spinning World’s and Danewin’s but a bit behind Redoute’s Choice who is probably the current benchmark: an average of 116.2 live foals per crop with 70% winners-to-runners and an impressive 15.7% of his winners being stakeswinners.
The two sub-fertile stallions I encountered close up in my working career were Zephyr Bay and Tights (USA). I still regard Zephyr Bay, by Biscay, as possibly the most handsome horse I’ve ever seen and the equal of any sire. He was majestic. There is a magnificent photo of him being ridden in his Waikato Stud paddock, as a stallion, on page 91 of Peter Taylor’s Thoroughbred Studs of Australia and New Zealand (published 1986).
Arion Pedigrees attribute these figures to Zephyr Bay from his 12-season stud career in New Zealand: 147 named foals (that’s an average of just 12.2 per crop for those of you having difficulty working it out), 117 runners, 97 winners (83%), 20 individual stakeswinners of which seven were then classified Group 1. In his later NZ seasons, only the home stud supported him with mares of much quality, the others sent up by his shareholders were more like jersey cows, understandable as they didn't want their prize mares going empty every year. Yet he could still leave a dasher. His transfer to Australia in 1987 (removed from the property with great subterfuge whilst I was holidaying overseas) was an ill-starred act of virtual criminality which ought to make a great movie – the main roles could be played by the real people, they’re still alive). The poor bugger was flogged at stud over here to produce a further 116 live foals in his final five seasons – almost double his New Zealand average seasonal output – but the result was a vindictive, measly two stakeswinners, the best being a Gr 3 and the other in Tasmania. Go figure. He was one Aussie who after tasting the delights of life in NZ didn't want repatriation! A handful of his Australian-bred daughters have subsequently featured in the pedigrees of worthwhile stakeswinners.
Zephyr Bay was a character. He would fall in love with the same mares every year. Grey mares were his Viagra. We even got to placing one in the serving barn while he was doing the business with a girl of another colour. There was a correlation between the vigour of his service and impregnations; his range of problems, some physical, some psychological, often reduced him to a reluctant coverer or one just going through the motions, fakin’ it.
Tights (USA) (Nijinsky-Dancealot, by Round Table), who went to stud with a lot of commercial fanfare, was not as impaired as Zephyr Bay. His output over 9 seasons was 318 named foals with fertility averaging around 60%. His winners-to-runners rate was a more mortal 63% but a strong 12% of his winners were stakeswinners and, extraordinarily, 14 of the 18 stakeswinners were fillies.
Are sub-fertile stallions outputters of higher quality? A question for our age. Bel Esprit covered 266 mares last year alone. Zephyr Bay would have had cardiac arrest and definitely phallic failure!
Though he didn’t suffer from any form of infertility that I know of, Pakistan II (GB) who died in his prime, is, for mine, the greatest local sire in my lifetime. This non-stakeswinner achieved 81% winners-to-starters (264/326) with 16.2% of his winners being stakeswinners. I know you think I've lost my marbles as I’ve lived through Star Kingdom, Sir Tristram, Danehill, Zabeel, Redoute’s Choice et al, but none of them except perhaps Sir Tristram had such a humble background and none was stood by a family of potato farmers.
.....................................................................................
It's been announced Miss Andretti is to visit Exceed And Excel in her maiden year. That is something to conjure. What a wonderful sprinter she was and what far-sightedness on Sean Buckley's part to identify her ultimate greatness while she was running a million miles away in Perth. The lasting image I will have of Miss Andretti is the way she always attacked the line, ears back, teeth gritted, giving her all. You could see in her face she knew exactly what she was meant to do. From a pedigree page full of white space, she made a bigger transformation than Eliza Doolittle.
P.S. Former trainer Dave Mueller is a 25% partner in Miss Andretti. I wonder what he's going to do now the mare is retired. Will he stay in as a partner? Will he want to cash up and want Sean to buy him out? Will Sean be happy to do that and how will a value be arrived at? Will Dave sell his leg to someone new if they can't agree on a value? Will the mare go to auction perhaps to see if Sheikh Moh and Patinack have any money left?
.....................................................................................
I wonder if there's any basis to the story I've heard that Dreamscape only started in the Up And Coming Stakes after he'd been missed from the acceptances for the maiden at Wyong two days previously? If that's true then either no one realised how good he was or, alternately, he's only just a good maiden winner and the other three-year-olds so far aren't much better!
Ronald Moves To Scone
The most rivetting news I heard all weekend is that McDonald’s is coming to Scone.
The local burghers have been salivating about the prospect since it was announced in June.
This is a momentous development not only for the locals but also for visitors. No longer will we have to endure the culinary catastrophe which has been Scone.
McDonald’s will give Scone’s existing premier eating spots, Subway and Eagle Boys, a run for their money.
Few villages in Australia are visited by people of such high net worth but try getting a decent nosh anywhere up the main street of Scone in the last 10 years, especially at 8 o’clock of an evening … it has been diabolical. Heaven knows how or why the local squatocracy have put up with it for so long.
At least McDonald’s tucker will be consistent, predictable, dependable, lukewarm, and priced the same as Sydney. Such qualities have been hard to find in Scone.
A welcome oasis of sophistication for some time now has been Kerv, the trendy little eatery and design/antiques gallery just over the railway line where you can get a decent cup of coffee or tea and some nibbles in the morning. It’s run by one-time Vinery honcho and sometime author Kiwa Fisher and his wife Merv who is a hot-shot in the catering business. Kerv is a bit like my local in Sydney, the Peters of Kensington café - minus the eastern suburbs yummy mummies, but with a good supply of Scone’s ex-boarding school gals with their faux English accents. In a town where one's very social survival absolutely depends on knowing everyone else’s business, I suspect much espionage is traded within its walls.
But back to McDonald’s. As a salute to the Horse Capital, I understand the Scone menu is going to have a distinctly local flavour. The expected best seller is the Equine Burger, but the ingredients will not be listed on the wrapper. In a special deal with Hungry Jack’s and the Australian Veterinary Association, equine reproduction branch, they will also offer The Big Whoppa. However, management quickly realized there would be no demand in Scone for soft serve so it’s not on the menu. Original plans called for a Darley Halal Beef Burger but this was abandoned for fear of an injunction from that Ken bloke up in Tenterfield. (Following his example, I believe there will be a class action against The Smith Family by everyone named Smith). For those upper-crust individuals wanting a superior dining experience, Maccas will have the Ramsey Burger, featuring 110% Australian beef sourced only from cattle which stupidly sprint to the head of the queue at the abattoir. Macca’s market research indicates the Ramsey Burger is a better than even chance of being a winner, though not surprisingly the customer will be asked to pay a premium for the quality. Vinery are said to be opening a wine shop right next door and the much-valued Ronald McDonald House to be set up in the district will be renamed the Messara McDonald House.
Local farms are concerned that the impending opening of McDonald’s will impact on the available pool of youth labour for the foaling and yearling prep seasons. Apparently the pay is better at McDonald’s. The same goes for Red Rooster which is also planning a presence in Scone despite the Ingham family’s sellout to Sheikh Mohammed. In recognition of coming to the breeding capital of the southern hemisphere the outfit is dropping the s out of its name.
Having now fixed up the food situation in Scone, I suggest the local patricians turn their attention to the motels.
………………………………………………………………………………
There must have been close to 1,500 people at Darley’s parade on Saturday. Full marks, they began proceedings immediately after the running of the Golden Rose. I can’t say whether or not Ollie Tait watched the race; if he did then he did a remarkable job of keeping his emotions in check when he addressed the crowd because if I owned Desuetude I would have been sick to my stomach.
I managed to see only the first eight of the 19 stallions paraded. No one could point me to a TV set at Darley so I had to depart for the pub in Aberdeen to watch Dorabella (NZ) run in the last at Caulfield. I don’t own Dorabella but I have a professional involvement in her career. No amount of my bellowing at the TV set helped the mare in the straight, she was a good thing beaten.
Wiser and generally younger people told me I could have watched the race on my mobile phone and therefore stayed at the parade. They’ve got to be kidding, I’m too old to cope with that technology and in any case Telstra’s coverage in and around the Hunter is pretty crappy and I don’t think I had a signal in Downtown Darley.
Saturday morning, Patinack unveiled their two new NSW stallions Husson and Casino Prince and laid on lovely food and refreshments for the guests. Had I known I would never have had that sausage and egg McMuffin in Muswellbrook on the way there. Spoiled it completely. Team Patinack were here, there and everywhere, so many familiar faces sporting the Patinack livery, lured away from other farms. Even the legendary Suni Carnes has been tempted away from William Inglis. I reckon she was there longer than Reg. One colt who wasn’t seen was Roger, word on the street being that’s likely to be a permanent arrangement.
The Valley was blessed with rain on Saturday night and throughout Sunday so those of you with mares up there rest assured there’s going to be a decent spring flush in the next few weeks. My first call was to see Murphy’s Blu Boy at Baerami, then on to Widden for their parade. Now it has been mentioned to me that it’s possible to interpret part of my previous post (see below) as suggesting that there may be a marital to-do between Antony and Katie Thompson at Widden – absolutely not the case! Antony and Katie bear no resemblance whatsoever to the subjects of that reference. They were in their usual good spirits and such was their hospitality, and the delayed effects of the 2005 Saltram Mambre Brook cab/sav, that I was late getting to Coolmore and missed their parade entirely! Sorry Coolmore, but I am surprised you started without me. Still, I was given a quick tour through the stallion barns so all was not lost.
On a serious note, I was unaware until Saturday that Scone breeder Ivan Woodford-Smith has been indisposed recently. Ivan and Senga and their Southern Cross circle have been good friends to me whenever I've been in Scone so if you happen to read this, Ivan, I hope you're back on deck soon. I will not partake of the Wednesday night flied lice ritual until you are!
The local burghers have been salivating about the prospect since it was announced in June.
This is a momentous development not only for the locals but also for visitors. No longer will we have to endure the culinary catastrophe which has been Scone.
McDonald’s will give Scone’s existing premier eating spots, Subway and Eagle Boys, a run for their money.
Few villages in Australia are visited by people of such high net worth but try getting a decent nosh anywhere up the main street of Scone in the last 10 years, especially at 8 o’clock of an evening … it has been diabolical. Heaven knows how or why the local squatocracy have put up with it for so long.
At least McDonald’s tucker will be consistent, predictable, dependable, lukewarm, and priced the same as Sydney. Such qualities have been hard to find in Scone.
A welcome oasis of sophistication for some time now has been Kerv, the trendy little eatery and design/antiques gallery just over the railway line where you can get a decent cup of coffee or tea and some nibbles in the morning. It’s run by one-time Vinery honcho and sometime author Kiwa Fisher and his wife Merv who is a hot-shot in the catering business. Kerv is a bit like my local in Sydney, the Peters of Kensington café - minus the eastern suburbs yummy mummies, but with a good supply of Scone’s ex-boarding school gals with their faux English accents. In a town where one's very social survival absolutely depends on knowing everyone else’s business, I suspect much espionage is traded within its walls.
But back to McDonald’s. As a salute to the Horse Capital, I understand the Scone menu is going to have a distinctly local flavour. The expected best seller is the Equine Burger, but the ingredients will not be listed on the wrapper. In a special deal with Hungry Jack’s and the Australian Veterinary Association, equine reproduction branch, they will also offer The Big Whoppa. However, management quickly realized there would be no demand in Scone for soft serve so it’s not on the menu. Original plans called for a Darley Halal Beef Burger but this was abandoned for fear of an injunction from that Ken bloke up in Tenterfield. (Following his example, I believe there will be a class action against The Smith Family by everyone named Smith). For those upper-crust individuals wanting a superior dining experience, Maccas will have the Ramsey Burger, featuring 110% Australian beef sourced only from cattle which stupidly sprint to the head of the queue at the abattoir. Macca’s market research indicates the Ramsey Burger is a better than even chance of being a winner, though not surprisingly the customer will be asked to pay a premium for the quality. Vinery are said to be opening a wine shop right next door and the much-valued Ronald McDonald House to be set up in the district will be renamed the Messara McDonald House.
Local farms are concerned that the impending opening of McDonald’s will impact on the available pool of youth labour for the foaling and yearling prep seasons. Apparently the pay is better at McDonald’s. The same goes for Red Rooster which is also planning a presence in Scone despite the Ingham family’s sellout to Sheikh Mohammed. In recognition of coming to the breeding capital of the southern hemisphere the outfit is dropping the s out of its name.
Having now fixed up the food situation in Scone, I suggest the local patricians turn their attention to the motels.
………………………………………………………………………………
There must have been close to 1,500 people at Darley’s parade on Saturday. Full marks, they began proceedings immediately after the running of the Golden Rose. I can’t say whether or not Ollie Tait watched the race; if he did then he did a remarkable job of keeping his emotions in check when he addressed the crowd because if I owned Desuetude I would have been sick to my stomach.
I managed to see only the first eight of the 19 stallions paraded. No one could point me to a TV set at Darley so I had to depart for the pub in Aberdeen to watch Dorabella (NZ) run in the last at Caulfield. I don’t own Dorabella but I have a professional involvement in her career. No amount of my bellowing at the TV set helped the mare in the straight, she was a good thing beaten.
Wiser and generally younger people told me I could have watched the race on my mobile phone and therefore stayed at the parade. They’ve got to be kidding, I’m too old to cope with that technology and in any case Telstra’s coverage in and around the Hunter is pretty crappy and I don’t think I had a signal in Downtown Darley.
Saturday morning, Patinack unveiled their two new NSW stallions Husson and Casino Prince and laid on lovely food and refreshments for the guests. Had I known I would never have had that sausage and egg McMuffin in Muswellbrook on the way there. Spoiled it completely. Team Patinack were here, there and everywhere, so many familiar faces sporting the Patinack livery, lured away from other farms. Even the legendary Suni Carnes has been tempted away from William Inglis. I reckon she was there longer than Reg. One colt who wasn’t seen was Roger, word on the street being that’s likely to be a permanent arrangement.
The Valley was blessed with rain on Saturday night and throughout Sunday so those of you with mares up there rest assured there’s going to be a decent spring flush in the next few weeks. My first call was to see Murphy’s Blu Boy at Baerami, then on to Widden for their parade. Now it has been mentioned to me that it’s possible to interpret part of my previous post (see below) as suggesting that there may be a marital to-do between Antony and Katie Thompson at Widden – absolutely not the case! Antony and Katie bear no resemblance whatsoever to the subjects of that reference. They were in their usual good spirits and such was their hospitality, and the delayed effects of the 2005 Saltram Mambre Brook cab/sav, that I was late getting to Coolmore and missed their parade entirely! Sorry Coolmore, but I am surprised you started without me. Still, I was given a quick tour through the stallion barns so all was not lost.
On a serious note, I was unaware until Saturday that Scone breeder Ivan Woodford-Smith has been indisposed recently. Ivan and Senga and their Southern Cross circle have been good friends to me whenever I've been in Scone so if you happen to read this, Ivan, I hope you're back on deck soon. I will not partake of the Wednesday night flied lice ritual until you are!
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