Every year as the Melbourne Cup rolls around there's rumblings about overseas visiting horses taking up places in the field which might otherwise be filled by locals. Bart, who has won the race so often it should be called the Cummings Cup by now, makes it his cause celebre. It must be a while since he's won it. Of course he and others know full well that the second-rate imports basically have our measure barring accidents.
So I ask the question, what locals are they depriving of starts?
Imagine the quality of this year's Cup field if the 8 or 9 visitors going to the post were replaced by 8 or 9 locals who thus far haven't proved good enough to get in on merit?
Thank heaven for overseas participation (and that's even without the Japanese). "Australia's greatest race" would be descending into utter mediocrity without them. Those who espouse restrictions are thinking of themselves rather than having the quality of the race at heart.
It's just a handicap. Resist any attempts to restrict free and fair access to the field. Let overseas interests cart off the lion's share of the prizemoney every year until we locals get so fed up we change the distance to 2000m. Either that or we put greater emphasis long-term into programming which positively promotes the preservation of stamina in this part of the world. There's no chance of that happening, incidentally, if commercial breeders run racing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Four three-year-olds compete for 70 grand at Rosehill on Saturday. Hard to believe, isn't it?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wanted in the two-year-old race. By how far?
Hit The Self-Destruct Button
Because I seldom get anything right I have few opportunities to say "I told you so". But if you read my blog of 15 July, Conspiracy Theories Are Generally Just That, then you won't be dismayed by the unedifying demise of the process put in place via a parliamentary bill to appoint a new Board of RacingNSW.
It was a flawed, not to mention costly, process, unlikely to succeed virtually from the start. It is an indictment that in a critical hour of need the industry couldn't negotiate an outcome without fear or favour.
So now the peak body will be run by a Board foisted upon the industry by a politician. Like it or lump it. With a serious reduction in the flow of funds to NSW racing appearing a strong likelihood, not to mention macro-economic conditions, we are in very challenging times.
It was a flawed, not to mention costly, process, unlikely to succeed virtually from the start. It is an indictment that in a critical hour of need the industry couldn't negotiate an outcome without fear or favour.
So now the peak body will be run by a Board foisted upon the industry by a politician. Like it or lump it. With a serious reduction in the flow of funds to NSW racing appearing a strong likelihood, not to mention macro-economic conditions, we are in very challenging times.
Another Barrier Broken
I don’t read newspapers often enough unless I’m killing time at McDonald’s, in which case it’s the Daily Telegraph which is about as informative as the table napkin, only better illustrated. So my news may have hit the press but excuse me if I didn’t see it.
Not that it’s anywhere near as important as where Sarah Palin’s panties and bras are purchased and how much they cost, and other world-shaping events like that, but in the tiny, insignificant world of horse racing and breeding it’s important enough.
The first repatriation of horses from Macau to Australia occurred just a few weeks ago.
Quarantine protocols and plain obstinate human unhelpfulness deemed in the past that once your horse hit Macau it had arrived at the ultimate equine black hole. However, necessity has once again proven the mother of invention.
A Victorian breeder was persuaded some years ago to allow her useful racemare to go to Macau for easier racing opportunities. Coming off fair Sydney form, the mare unfortunately proved legless in eight starts up there, not adjusting to the conditions. In the cause of animal compassion, attempts to bring the mare back to a good home in Australia proved fruitless for two years.
The cause became even more worthy when, all of a sudden, said mare became a half-sister to a sexy young G1 winner, now standing its first season at stud in Australia.
With some introductions to the right people etc etc etc ... get the picture? ... some shoulder was applied to the wheel during winter and, wouldn’t you know it, a way was found to accommodate the will. A pallet was put together to bring the mare and two others back home, at much expense let it be said. The mare is now visiting Rock Of Gibraltar (Ire).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A breeder colleague became a proud ‘father’ a couple of days ago (a colt foal) and exercised his bragging rights by emailing me a 55 second video of the newlyborn, asking for my comments. The captioned and musically enhanced video is part of client service provided by Eliza Park and I think it’s an impressive touch, using today’s technology to good advantage.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The results from the Inglis Breeze Up & Racehorse Sale in Melbourne look a bit chilling. But the real test will come at the Gold Coast this week. There are some big numbers trying to be recouped up there. Hold your breath.
Northern Dancer Done And Dusted
The expanded two-day Breeders’ Cup extravaganza at Santa Anita has come and gone.
There was controversy over the synthetic Pro-Ride track surface which Curlin’s trainer asserted was tantamount to turf and contributed to his champion's disappointing, modest fourth in the Classic. And there was a very positive showing by the European based runners.
The two Breeders’ Cup championship days now embrace 14 events worth US$25.5 million, broken down into just about every division imaginable; silly really. It’s no more a world championship than I am Harry Houdini but John Gaines’s brainchild has stood the test of time for a quarter-century as a showcase of many of the greatest horses of our era.
The most dramatic outcome of the meeting this year was the obliteration of the Northern Dancer male line from the winners’ circle.
It was responsible for just two of the 14 winners. The Mr Prospector line, on the other hand, came up with eight.
Is this the beginning of the end up north?
The remaining four winners came from the Mill Reef, Tudor Minstrel, Seattle Slew and Ribot male lines.
Here’s a brief summary:.
Breeders’ Cup Classic, 2000m: Raven’s Pass, English-based 3c by Elusive Quality (USA) out of a Lord At War mare. Darley’s shuttler Elusive Quality has been an expensive failure in Australia so far. Three stakeswinners in his first local crop (now 4YO), total progeny earnings just under $2 million, or equivalent to about 20 of his first year service fees. Still has time to redeem himself, perhaps; may be just a dirt sire or too old when he first got here. They asked US$75,000 for him this year at Darley Kentucky and probably got it; hands up if you're paying $82,500 at Darley Aberdeen this season. I can't see any hands.
Breeders’ Cup Turf, 2400m: Conduit, English-based 3c by Dalakhani out of a Sadler’s Wells mare. The high quality English St Leger winner transferred his form to the USA. From the first crop of his Aga Khan bred and owned sire, a champion by Darshaan (Shirley Heights-Mill Reef). This sire looks highly promising; he also has an Oaks winner in his first crop. I've written about him previously on the blog.
Breeders’ Cup Mile, 1600m: French-based Goldikova, 3f by Anabaa (USA) out of a Blushing Groom mare. One-time wobbler and champion sprinter, ageing Anabaa finished his shuttle run to Widden last year but he has been one of the more consistent successes in the role with 19 Australian-bred stakeswinners so far and a 70% winners-to-runners strike. None of the stakeswinners are out of Blushing Groom-line mares. Seeing out his days in France after strangely doing a season in the USA.
Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, 1600m: Midshipman, 2c by Unbridled’s Song (USA) out of an Avenue Of Flags (Seattle Slew) mare. Winner of this race himself after famously failing the yearling sale x-rays, Unbridled’s Song, a big son of Unbridled, shuttled to Arrowfield for three seasons up to 1999, serving an average book of 75 mares. Got a passable 10 stakeswinners from those crops and 78% winners-to-runners, but not a lot of class amongst them. Being a big, strong grey, there should be some nice clerks-of-the-course horses by him. Stood for US$150,000 in 2008.
Breeders’ Cup Sprint, 1200m: Midnight Lute, 4h by Real Quiet (USA) (pictured above) out of a Dehere (USA) mare. The first back-to-back winner of this race. Another to shuttle for three seasons, to Vinery, Real Quiet was a fabulous racehorse but a poor specimen – he wasn’t called ‘The Fish’ for nothing. Look at him front-on. Under 50% winners-to-runners and three little stakeswinners, he was despised by Australian breeders, his biggest book being 70 mares. These days you find him in Pennsylvania at US$10,000, where he has some cred. His main Australian earner Tommifrancs is his ninth highest earner worldwide. Well named.
Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic, 1800m: Zenyatta, 4m by Street Cry (USA) out of a Kris S. mare. An unbeaten champion mare, perhaps as good as any horse in North America. Sire Street Cry shuttled for four years to Darley but hasn’t returned since 2006. His plainish stock looked like horses which would take time (and they do) and although he averaged just over 100 mares a season whilst here the declining local enthusiasm level versus the northern hemisphere demand saw him stay stateside where he stood for US$100,000 in 2008. Has a growing list of truly superior horses and obviously is a serious sire. Had an unlikely background himself for a dirt performer and was possibly being stigmatised as “another dirt sire” at the end of his shuttle duty here. I’ve always maintained Machiavellian would make a big contribution eventually. (Street Cry's fee raised to US$150,000 for 2009).
Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, 1300m: Desert Code, 4h by E Dubai (USA) from a Lost Code mare. Ye gods! E Dubai! Another who came on a Darley shuttle: not a single stakesplacegetter in Australia so far in his first two crops (oldest 4YO) and only one horse which has earned more than $30,000 - his progeny may have been held up by EI?. Served an average of 85 mares a season (which seems regrettable at this point) but was a lost cause and not foisted upon us again this season. US$15,000 at Darley, Kentucky.
Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, 1600m: Donativum, 2g by Cadeaux Genereux from a Warning mare. An English invader by a never-shuttled old timer who got this gelding when he was 20 years old. Represents a dying branch of the Tudor Minstrel line of Hyperion. Cadeaux Genereux has had 58 stakeswinners.
Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, 1700m: Stardom Bound, 2f by Tapit (grandson of A P Indy, out of an Unbridled three-quarter sister to the disappointing sire Rubiano). Stardom Bound’s dam is by the very obscure Tarr Road, by Grey Dawn II. A G1 winner at three, Tapit is quite an attractive-looking grey son of Pulpit standing for US$12,500 at Gainesway and Stardom Bound belongs to his first crop. Another of his fillies was third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. Maybe one to watch.
Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, 1600m: Maram, 2f by Sahm (Mr Prospector-Salsabil) out of a mare by Quest For Fame (GB). Sahm stood at Shadwell Farm in Kentucky. He was a US$5,000 fee stallion in 2007 but died in March of that year aged 13. Modestly patronized, he has sired 13 stakeswinners to this point.
Breeders’ Cup Marathon, 2400m: Muhannak, 4g by Chester House out of a Forzando mare.
Breeders’ Cup Fillies & Mares Sprint, 1400m: Ventura, 4m by Chester House out of a Be My Guest mare.
A feature double for this prematurely deceased son of Mr Prospector-Toussaud, by El Gran Senor, thus a half-brother to Empire Maker. Muhannak was bred in Ireland and is raced by Australian Richard Pegum. Ventura is American-bred. The majority of Chester House’s progeny raced in North America with reasonably good turf aptitude; he left 25 stakeswinners in three crops so his early demise is shaping as quite a blow.
Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, 1600m: Albertus Maximus, 4h by Albert The Great, the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup winning son of Kentucky Derby winner Go For Gin, out of a mare by Forty Niner. Albert The Great stands in Pennsylvania at just US$4,000 but that may be on the way north as he is also responsible for one other very capable horse in Nobiz Like Shobiz, winner of $1.5 million. Albert The Great is 11 years old and represents the declining Ribot male line through His Majesty.
Breeders’ Cup Fillies & Mares Turf, 2000m: Forever Together, 4m by Belong To Me (USA) from a Relaunch mare. Now 19, Belong To Me rose from humble New York origins to do a steady but unspectacular job on both sides of the equator. He shuttled to Widden for seven seasons (missed 1999) but was never screamingly popular, averaging around 75 mares a season. He has left 10 stakeswinners from his Australian seasons, the best of them Bon Hoffa, Beauty Watch, Proprietor and Bulla Borghese. He’s seeing out his days at Lane’s End in Kentucky, currently standing at US$12,500.
The Breeders' Cup Inc. is not an organisation which lets the grass grow under its feet. On its website already it has a clock widget counting down the days, hours and minutes to the 2009 Breeders' Cup meeting at Santa Anita (6 & 7 November).
A Few Moments Of Fame
Though he’s not a big wheez in the sire business, Quest For Fame (GB) nevertheless notched a significant achievement on Saturday.
He is the sire of Sea Battle (pictured), winner of the G2 Crystal Mile at Moonee Valley, damsire of Hollows (by Thorn Park), winner of NZ’s first two-year-old stakes of the season, the Wellesley Stakes, and damsire of Maram (by Sahm, son of Mr Prospector), winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita.
The one-time Juddmonte/Woodlands shuttler, now Darley senior citizen at their Cootamundra property, 21-year-old Quest For Fame has sired 38 stakeswinners worldwide, 31 of them in Australia. As a broodmare sire his figures are promising if not extraordinary, with 14 stakeswinners out of his daughters, representing 3.7% of starters to date. The horse is these days a tiny cog in the massive Dubai machine which experienced a few moments to savour at the Breeders’ Cup meeting at Santa Anita over the weekend. I wonder if Sheikh Mohammed knows he owns him?
The English Derby winner of 1990 and twice Breeders’ Cup Turf third placegetter, Quest For Fame has never been the height of fashion. His stout turf form on top of a dodgy set of front legs saw him enter stud in 1993 at a face value generous fee of $10,000. No one in Australia, of course, really wanted to breed to a marathon runner who mightn’t produce picture-perfect sale yearlings. His career peak fee grew to around $30,000 and he’s back down to $10,000 today for those who are interested.
In his first three seasons at Woodlands QFF served 67, 44 and 49. Ouch. Then when his first results started to roll, out came the risk-averse breeders, solidly backed by Woodlands’s numbers, giving the horse between 100 to 130 mares for the next seven seasons. Over that mid-career hump, his support in the last five years has dwindled to the point where he got only 22 in 2007 (possibly affected by EI restrictions).
I’ve always considered Quest For Fame a prepotent influence for poor front leg conformation, frequently light of bone and offset. There’s even a noticeable incidence in his second generation stock. This goes to explain his relatively modest career yearling sale average of about $55,000. By far and away the highest price ever paid for a QFF yearling was NZ$750,000 at Karaka in 2004, generated by the Pencarrow Stud/vendor – Rob McAnulty/purchaser combination, the horse in question becoming De Beers, winner of two from 21 including the G1 Rosehill Guineas.
As he went through a two-year-old sale which I did not attend, for just $15,000, Sea Battle doesn’t read like a sale ring standout. He was catalogued in Melbourne Premier as a yearling but didn’t make it. He is one of six stakeswinners bred on the QFF/Danehill cross, the first and most fondly remembered being the G1 filly Unworldly. The first half of Sea Battle’s career was spent in Sydney with Guy Walter but as he has matured he has grown a leg with Mark Kavanagh. Significantly, he is still an entire so somewhere, sometime a stud career beckons.
Sea Battle’s part-owner Peter Parker, an Australian, was a near-neighbour of mine in Matamata during the ‘80s but he is back on this side of the ditch these days. His involvement in breeding in NZ was not without controversy. He has raced some good horses in the past – Saxon Slew and Runyon are two I seem to recall.
All Over In The Blinkering Of An Eye
Take your pick, call it yin and yang, feng shui, karma or just plain coincidence. There are some strong connecting lines between the main players in today’s W S Cox Plate result.
Maldivian (NZ) and his connections reaped sweet reward for the cruel circumstances which forced his withdrawal at the barrier in the 2007 Caulfield Cup for which he was a raging hot favourite.
After his second start this preparation, I wrote in my blog of 13 September: 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.
I should have added, “and when they put blinkers on a Zabeel, double your money”.
I lost some faith after Maldivian’s so-so run in the Caulfield Cup on 18 October, but on went the shades and out popped the real horse at Moonee Valley. Zabeels have always had a love affair with blinkers and with their help, at start number 26, Maldivian achieves his enduring place in history.
And as per my system I should have backed Maldivian – he's the only Zabeel in the race, and it’s over 2040m.
Maldivian is Zabeel’s fourth Cox Plate winner, after Savabeel, Might And Power and Octagonal. This surely won’t be the final chapter in the Zabeel saga, even though he’s now 22 years old – there are lots of little Zabeels going through the maturing process, waiting to write their own page in history. How much will we miss him when he’s gone! And what will replace him as the most reliable progenitor of class stamina in the southern hemisphere? Probably bloody nothing.
Zabeel himself ran in the Cox Plate of 1989, as it happens as three-year-old. He ran 28.3 lengths last behind the import Almaraad (GB). So here’s a little coincidence: his grand-daughter Samantha Miss endeavoured to be only the second three-year-old filly to win the Cox Plate. With her excellent third placing, she did much better than granddad. Zabeel has stood his career at Cambridge Stud whose proprietors Sir Patrick and Justine, Lady Hogan, bred Maldivian. And the only three-year-old filly to win the Cox Plate: Surround (by Sovereign Edition (Ire)). And who was the co-breeder and owner of Surround? Patrick Hogan.
Now consider Lloyd Williams. For the last decade Australia’s best unlicensed trainer has single-mindedly collected yearlings by Zabeel in his quest to win major Australian staying races. There was a huge payoff in 2007 when Efficient (NZ) won the Melbourne Cup. In 2008, Efficient again looks one of the few capable of footing it with the visitors.
Lloyd’s own horse Zipping (by Danehill (USA)) finishes second in the Cox Plate, looking up the backside of Maldivian, a Zabeel which slipped through Lloyd’s net, but only just.
The year before Maldivian went through the yearling sales ($195,000), Lloyd had bought his full brother ($200,000). Named Briefing (NZ), this horse won a maiden at the Gold Coast and a Class 1 at Bendigo in five starts before Lloyd culled him at a Melbourne auction, the then four-year-old gelding fetching $72,500. For the Zapellis at Colac, Briefing has raced 14 times for wins at Geelong and Hamilton (Victoria). He won his last start on 18 October and will take his celebrity pedigree to the Terang meeting on Sunday for an assault on the 1850m Ratings 68 handicap. After the Cox Plate, he may touch false odds!
The Lloyd Williams-Cambridge Stud connection was further played out at Moonee Valley via Millbank (NZ), winner of the Gr 3 1200m for three-year-olds, his third win in four starts.
Lloyd raced Millbank’s sire Keeper (by Danehill (USA)) who went to stud at Cambridge. Via his one-time trainer Graeme Rogerson, he acquired Millbank for NZ$64,000 at the select session of the Karaka yearling sales in 2007. He seems to have gone perilously close to quitting him because Millbank was catalogued for sale as a two-year-old in Melbourne just last autumn, only to be withdrawn. He must have put in a good gallop and saved his bacon!
Keeper is no Zabeel but he’s not a complete disaster, either. Millbank is his seventh individual stakeswinner in three mature crops. Keeper was placed in useful company as a two-year-old but went on to win seven of his 10 starts at three including Adelaide’s Gr 1 Goodwood Handicap over 1200m. Unusually distinguished by a pedigree containing His Majesty 3f x 3m, Keeper doesn’t get much precocity considering he’s a sprinting son of Danehill, but that’s likely due to his maternal grandsire Pleasant Colony, and probably explains why Australians haven’t been scrambling to buy his stock.
Another thread linking the Cox Plate principals is John Messara and Arrowfield Stud. Zabeel (bred by the late Robert Sangster) carries the Arrowfield brand slapped on him at Auckland's Ra Ora Stud when Arrowfield was in control of that nursery in the ‘80s. John Messara imported Zipping’s sire Danehill and stood him at the ‘original’ Arrowfield (now Coolmore) before the famous bust-up. And, of course, the ‘new’ Arrowfield is the home of Samantha Miss’ sire Redoute’s Choice, thus completing the trifecta.
This result proves stockbrokers can still make a positive contribution to humanity.
Maldivian’s dam Shynzi (USA) is an unraced daughter of Danzig and the very good Californian racemare Shywing, by Wing Out. After producing a foal in Ireland, she was imported to NZ by a partnership which included auctioneer and now NZ Bloodstock Ltd chairman Joe Walls. One year later (after producing a Last Tycoon (Ire) colt which must have been a spastic - it sold for NZ$1,250 as a two-year-old) Shynzi went through the ring at Karaka where Sir Patrick paid $250,000 for her, in foal to Tale Of The Cat (USA). The wheels fell off after Maldivian was foaled in 2002. The next four seasons saw two dead foals and two not serveds so she officially exited the Cambridge Stud fold and transferred to Rogie’s Dormello Stud where she got back on track in 2007 with a colt by Duelled.
The recent family form is almost exclusively West Coast USA, with a smattering of New Mexico thrown in for good measure. But dig deeper and there’s real gold – his eighth dam is Myrtlewood (Blue Larkspur-Frizeur), through her champion two-year-old daughter Durazna (by Bull Lea). Such luminaries as Seattle Slew, Mr Prospector and Typecast are amongst Myrtlewood’s descendants.
Myrtlewood was a distaff champion, winning 15 of her 22 races. Edward L Bowen wrote in his book Matriarchs that Myrtlewood “thrilled her fans with front-running flash”.
Does that have a familiar ring to it?
(Maldivian photo credit: John Donegan, The Age)
Where Is Lion Hunter When We Need Him?
Saturday’s Caulfield Cup continued the inexorable decline of the Australian-bred stayer, soon to be as commonplace as the mammoth.
We were routed by barely G3 standard Europeans and a good Kiwi. The best Aussie-bred was despised outsider Barbaricus – and I take nothing away from his gallant performance – by Danehill’s deceased sprinting son Lion Hunter (pictured). Only 12 of Lion Hunter’s 369 individual winners (3.25%) have won a race of any description beyond 1600m. Naturally enough, Barbaricus has some stamina on his female side and in fact belongs to the same extended family as Holy Orders (Ire) whose one unplaced run in Australia was 17th of 23 in the Melbourne Cup of 2003, the first of Makybe Diva’s three-peat.
In the 28 years since Ming Dynasty’s victory in 1980, only 10 Australian-breds have won the Caulfield Cup, and one of those was by default – Railings (by Zabeel) arrived here in utero.
It’s even worse, of course, in the Melbourne Cup. Just five Australian-breds have won in the same time period, the most recent being Bart’s last winner, Rogan Josh, in 1999.
For how long will Australian racing and breeding interests be content to see the lion’s share of $8 million worth of prizemoney go offshore annually, basically unchallenged.
Bring the races back to a mile!!
The Melbourne Cup 3200m record of 3:16.3 was set way back in 1990 by American-bred Kingston Rule and only Media Puzzle (USA) has remotely threatened the time since and nothing probably ever will now we are in the era of doctored tracks.
I got the shock of my life when talking this morning to Nom du Jeu’s trainer Murray Baker, already back home in NZ.
He tells me that an edict has recently been brought in over there whereby no barrier trial in future will be longer than 1200m.
So that’s what happens when the CEO of NZ Racing and the Chief Steward are both Australian!
They’re losing the plot over there – they may as well bring all their horses over to Sydney where the racing is becoming so homogeneous (especially with the one-way fast lane at Randwick on Saturday) that the city tracks bear an uncanny resemblance to Ruidoso Downs.
Longer barrier trials – some for jumpers as long as 2200m – have been available in NZ on a fairly regular basis for as long as I can remember and I’ve bemoaned the fact that there is never one in Sydney. As Murray said to me, what assistance and encouragement is there in the training of a stayer, where teaching horses to relax and breathe properly is paramount?
Murray Baker, now training in partnership with his son Bjorn (whose mother is Swedish), understands the calibre of horse required to compete in Australia and when he occasionally finds one in his care he’s not frightened to have a go. Over the years he’s been noticeably successful and in Nom du Jeu he has a top class staying colt who is one of the few with any chance of stemming the import tide in the Melbourne Cup. His Caulfield performance was fantastic. Frighteningly, Murray says Nom du Jeu will be better next year. He might be one stayer worthy of taking on a wider international jaunt, getting back to the days when Balmerino, Strawberry Road, Ring The Bell, Sir Silver Lad etc. strutted their stuff in Europe.
Around 1979-80, I had an interest in a filly which the partners placed in training with Murray. He hadn’t been training very long at that stage and his stables were in godforsaken Woodville, a damp place God never wanted anyone to make into a training centre as you had to wind your way through a tortuous gorge from Palmerston North just to find it. The filly was by an evil sire named Barcas (USA), son of Sailor. She was a dud.
Maybe the only Australians pleased about All The Good’s Caulfield Cup win, apart from bookmakers and the McEvoy family, were the crew at Blue Gum Farm in Victoria. Their first season sire Strategic Prince (GB) (by Dansili) is out of a three-quarter sister to All The Good. I wouldn’t mind betting Blue Gum will be sending out all-points bulletins reminding people that, unlike All The Good, Strategic Prince isn’t tainted with so much as an ounce of stamina in his body, that seven furlongs (1400m) was as far as he liked to go. Which is a surprise: his sire was a miler, his dam won an Oaks Trial and her sister won the English, Irish and Yorkshire Oaks and was second in the St Leger.
Like a Lion Hunter in the Caulfield Cup, you never can tell with breeding. That’s what keeps sucking us in.
Done Enough Already
Right now, the Encosta de Lago three-year-old Northern Meteor (pictured) must be the most serious stallion prospect in Australia. Ahead of even the likes of Sebring, Von Costa de Hero, Time Thief et al.
How many good horses down the years have trodden the turf at Randwick over 1200m and at Canterbury over 1250m? Northern Meteor has now run faster than any of them in what is essentially a two start career since he got on top of the ground and had blinkers applied.
He has beaten no champions on either occasion, that's for sure (my little buy Geared Up was best of the others today at Randwick) but the times are in the book.
His career could stop right now and that would scarcely lessen his credentials (Danzig and Red Ransom (USA) only had three starts each, winning five of the six). His speed should be bottled.
He’s a big, imposing individual as you might expect from a horse bred on his cross. Oozes power and masculinity. And what about the pedigree? First two dams by Fappiano and Forli, the grandam Scuff being a blood sister to Special (think Nureyev, Sadler’s Wells etc), the colt being linebred to these genetic siblings. Hard to knock that package, I’d take a chance with him!
Andrew Baddock’s phone at Gooree Park Stud will be ringing off the wall.
I draw some similarities with O’Reilly (NZ) who had just a six-start career. Like Northern Meteor unraced at two, he won his first four straight including 1000m in 56.32 secs, a G1 3YO 1600m at his third start and a G1 all-age 1200m at his fourth start in 1:07.36, by 2.8 lengths. A month later he was at Flemington where he finished second to Mouawad in the G1 Australian Guineas (Gooree Stud-bred King Ivor was fourth) then he broke down and failed to finish as favourite in the G1 Newmarket Handicap.
P.S. In a small touch of irony, it was a John Hawkes trainee Ab Initio (by Spectacular Spy) whose name Northern Meteor erased from the Randwick record book. John trained Northern Meteor for his first two starts before his transfer, along with all the Gooree horses, to Gai Waterhouse.
You Asked For It
It’s never been the intention to turn the blog into a form guide but to requests from my readers in Tashkent, Hanoi, Madrid, Dusseldorf and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, I give my impressions of this Saturday's Caulfield Cup (this post will be removed after the running of the race so that I am not embarrassed in perpetuity) –
Weekend Hussler (by Hussonet): love him as we do, but still hard for me to come into him after a six lengths tiring defeat at WFA at his most recent start. Can get the trip on his dam’s side and if he is a champion he will overcome the Hussonet distance limitation and the weight turnaround. The moderate pace may help him but he doesn’t give me any confidence.
Maldivian (NZ) (by Zabeel): the golden rule is ‘back every Zabeel in races 2000m and longer’, so on that basis alone you can’t dismiss him. He hasn’t found the line in any of his five races this preparation and a couple of gear changes have been made to help him – or in desperation. In last year’s EI Group 1-Restricted Caulfield Cup he went to the barrier almost even money and we shouldn’t forget that. He’s not going as well, and his wide gate forces his hand tactically, but I think at Caulfield his running style puts him in the picture and he will beat more than beat him.
Master O’Reilly (NZ) (by O’Reilly) (pictured): The key fact is his near-perfect record at the 2400m+ distance range. Won the race last year with 1 kg above the minimum, this year he carries 5 kgs above, and let's face it, last year's edition was a total farce. His preparation has a sense of timing about it, he’s third-up here and this breed is happiest when their racing diet is light. Hard to imagine him out of the frame, wieght and all.
Fiumicino (NZ) (by Zabeel): being by Zabeel he goes into the multiples automatically but other than that there isn’t a form reference to recommend him. Doesn’t look particularly well weighted. Has a fine ‘Cups’ heritage but I have to risk him.
Kibbutz (NZ) (by Golan): scratched
Nom du Jeu (NZ) (by Montjeu): High class animal having to contend with gate 20 minus scratchings. Appears to have come back well at four though reportedly knocked by the effects of vaccination en route to Melbourne. Stays every step of the distance. Will go back and be ridden for luck, a bit harder to get at Caulfield than at Randwick. I feel he has a class edge on most of these and I will be keeping him very safe.
Mad Rush (USA) (by Lemon Drop Kid): How do you measure these horses? By the sex appeal of their assistant trainers? Other than the professional respect his connections undoubtedly deserve, it’s hard to make a cogent case for him other than D Oliver has climbed aboard, he comes down in weight, and in the past some pretty moderate imports have stood up in these races. I don’t know why the Caulfield Cup has to be his first stakes win, so I have to let him run against me.
All The Good (Ire) (by Diesis): most of my comments from the above apply. His win in the modified Ebor Handicap (the Newburgh run over 2700m this year at Newbury) suggests Melbourne Cup to me. As a three-quarter brother to triple Oaks champion Ramruma he has the pedigree, but what Godolphin horse hasn’t?
Douro Valley (by Encosta de Lago): Fit, in form, well drawn and second last year. Persuasive factors. He also carries considerably less weight than in any of his past five starts. Undoubtedly, he will be the horse pouring on the pressure from the 800m trying to put his rivals to the sword. He is a terrific example of all-too-rare durability and longevity and there’s little between him and Maldivian on form. My only wish is that the Caulfield Cup isn’t won by a horse having its 49th start with just eight wins but I don’t know how you can keep him out of the dogfight.
Ice Chariot (by Chariot): This is a very good horse, just unfashionable. His lead-up form has been fine; in fact his third placing in the Shannon Quality two starts back saw him return one of the highest ratings of his career. His last win was on this track 13 months ago but he is probably best remembered for his complete no-shows in the Caulfield Cup-Saab-Melbourne Cup races of 2006. A horse that cannot make its own luck but nonetheless he is entitled to much better than a bolter’s chance on a good track; he’s stout-hearted.
Viewed (by Scenic): Goes in with just two runs under his belt. Routed his rivals in the G2 Brisbane Cup on a heavy track back in June, but Fulmonti, Sky Biscuit and Scenic Shot were the ones chasing him home. I’m aware he has a certain aura about him and he has looked good in lower grades but I’m not in his corner.
Littorio (by Bellotto): The reasons he has won only 2 of his 14 starts are that he has to lump around his maturing 17.2 hands frame and cannot make any of his own luck in running. But he’s a terrific grinding stayer with the right form lines. Has to weigh in somewhere.
Red Ruler (NZ) (by Viking Ruler): Good class four-year-old whose second placings in the AJC Derby and Kelt Capital Stakes (two weeks ago) give him legitimate credentials. Some contention that the 1 gate won’t suit him but Corey Brown is at the top of his game and he’ll be looking for an out early in the piece. As long as the track is in the good-dead range he can act effectively. May have traffic issues but good enough to run into it.
Boundless (NZ) (by Van Nistelrooy): Figures to get the perfect run and is fourth-up. Nom du Jeu and Red Ruler ran her down narrowly in the Kelt but she is good at this trip, Caulfield suits, and this team know how to travel a winner. To think a Van Nistelrooy could win a Caulfield Cup you’d have to have rocks in your head but she gets everything from her mother’s side – Star Way, Sir Tristram, Zamazaan. Historical oddity: shares the same name as the Group-winning full brother to the outstanding NZ-bred Cadiz (Targui-Infinity) winner of the Hollywood Gold Cup in 1963. The former Boundless’ best win came at 2400m.
Dolphin Jo (by Dolphin Street): Breeding oddity inasmuch as his five wins have been from 2200m to 2800m, yet he is by a sprinter-miler out of a grand-daughter of Without Fear. But he has Sobig and Better Boy lurking in the depths of his pedigree and shares the same fourth dam as Miss Badoura who upset the applecart at Caulfield last week. An admirable campaigner in career-best form but just misses out on a class basis.
Riva San (by Any Given Sunday): Last season’s Queensland Oaks and Derby winner who also won twice as a two-year-old. One of those horses that pops out of nowhere – by an unraced son of Sunday Silence and she’s the only stakes performer in the first four removes of her family – commercial breeders just love those G1 winners but they would tell you that as it’s over 2400m it doesn’t matter anyway, unless it's one of theirs! Should have won her last start at Randwick over 2000m and looks to be peaking. I have great respect for this yard.
Zagreb (by Zabeel): By Zabeel, so include. Glen Boss, so include. David Hayes, so include. Young stayer on his way to something really significant and there’s been money to suggest this could be the start of it, though he didn’t fire in the Turnbull. May need some luck in running but has a miracle-worker on board whose lust for G1 wins is legendary. People aren’t buying so many flatscreen TVs these days so Gerry needs the money and it wouldn’t surprise me if he gets some here.
Guillotine (NZ) (by Montjeu): Four-year-old half-brother to Melbourne Cup winner Efficient and highly capable in his own right though he’s got the Montjeu fizziness which needs harnessing and he’s yet to win beyond 1900m. I thought his win over 1600m three starts back was absolutely outstanding. The horse was always going to mature into something which has been fortuitous for David Hayes who has had him for just this preparation. The big question is, where will he be in the run from his outside gate? I just question whether he’s got the mental tractability for a race of this pressure; he has the physical ability.
Barbaricus (by Lion Hunter): If he wins, they should make the race Group 3. Can’t think of any reason why he should.
Newport (by Encosta de Lago): As a Brisbane Cup and Metropolitan winner he looks unlucky not to have made the field. Has an excellent record at 2400m but needs a scratching to get in.
Red Lord (by Redoute’s Choice): Has gone like a bomb in Sydney this spring but this is a big step up in class even if he did get a start.
My selections:
1. Boundless (NZ)
2. Master O’Reilly (NZ)
3. Nom du Jeu (NZ)
4. Douro Valley
Best bolter: Ice Chariot.
There’s no bias evident, is there?
A Breeding Machine
Might this be some sort of record?
Club Liquid, winner of the Listed Murray Bridge Gold Cup in South Australia yesterday, is the 17th foal of his dam Dame Ivor (USA).
Now, the Murray Bridge Gold Cup is not exactly the Caulfield Cup, but has there ever been a stakeswinner in this part of the world who was a 17th foal?
I recall Malcolm (Snippets-Finneto) was a 15th foal? But a 17th foal? Credit must go to his breeder, Mr J Lejejs of South Australia.
Club Liquid, a five-year-old gelding by Fasliyev (USA), also won the Darwin Cup earlier in the season.
He has a pedigree deeper than the Mariana Trench. His unraced dam Dame Ivor (USA) bred two stakeswinners prior to her arrival in Australia in 1996. She is a three-quarter sister to Bates Motel, Optimistic Gal and Super Asset as well as a half-sister to four stakeswinners. Contemporary international members of the family include Magna Graduate (US$2.5 million earner, pictured above), Exciting Story (G1), Aries Diamond (G1) and Our Faye (G3 in 2008).
Dame Ivor (USA) was retired as a 23-year-old after producing Club Liquid in 2003. She produced her first 15 foals without missing a year.
A House Of Cards
A cheeky little email received the other day from Emma Candy in England gave me cause to notice that her trainer father, Henry, has another smart galloper on his hands in the form of Amour Propre (2c Paris House (GB)-Miss Prim, by Case Law).
Just to set the scene for those of you who may be unfamiliar, Emma Candy came out from England to be Gai Waterhouse’s assistant trainer for two years, prior to the incumbent Tania Rouse. Like most guys who cross her path, I’m in love with Emma, so let's get that off my chest here and now and move on with the rest of the story.
Henry Candy has been training for decades and I can’t catalogue all the good horses he might have had, but the outstanding mare Time Charter (the only good horse sired by Saritamer) was a wonderful performer in the first half of the ‘80s, earning a 131 Timeform. This decade, he has sent out the brilliant filly Airwave (Choisir’s rival by little-remembered shuttler Air Express (Ire), sire of the dam of recent Breeders’ Plate winner Real Saga) and the G1 sprinter Kyllachy (by Pivotal) who has made a good start at stud in England.
When Emma’s time was up at Gai’s she returned to England and for a time assisted her father but then moved to the Newmarket yard of James Fanshawe where she has put the polish on many a good one.
While on holiday in England a few years ago I was kindly invited to visit the Candy stables near the market town of Wantage (pictured) in bucolic Oxfordshire. With a population of about 10,000, Wantage is just down the road from the famous White Horse of the Vale and is claimed as the birthplace of King Alfred The Great and is also where Lester Piggott did his schooling. It’s horse country supreme. The Candy gallops appeared to be set in about 4,000 acres of farmland, much of it used for cropping. The gallops seemed to begin over the horizon then the horses would appear as dots about five furlongs in the distance and gallop straight towards us as we stood at the top of the gallop. A lasting memory is the sight of Henry Candy on a clear English summer’s morning, surrounded by his five magnificent, doting black Labradors, clocking his gallopers in at this majestic spot. Oh, Emma was there, too.
Back to Amour Propre, the two-year-old which has won three of his four career starts including the G3 Ascot Cornwallis Stakes at his most recent start, 11 October. Incredibly, Henry Candy plucked him out of a Doncaster yearling sale in 2007 for just 1,500 guineas. There were only four yearlings by his sire sold last year, and the dearest was 2,200 guineas! Amour Propre has a reasonably close relationship to the top flight sprinter Cape Of Good Hope (GB) who won the G1 William Reid Stakes at Moonee Valley on one of his three visits to Australia.
Amour Propre is by Paris House (GB), foaled in 1989, who I thought I’d never hear of again and I really don’t know whether he’s still alive. But I have to take the brunt of the blame for shuttling him to NZ for three seasons, 1994 to 1996, at Haunui Farm; it was basically my idea. Because he had an offbeat pedigree, the sireline especially, he was never popular, leaving just 134 live foals from those three seasons.
Just as well he wasn’t more popular as he turned out to be a poor sire and we don’t need them watering down the breed. Although 55 of his 87 starters won, there was just one stakeswinner and one stakes-placegetter amongst them. Only four of his progeny won $50,000 or more. A disaster.
Oddly, he has performed much better as a broodmare sire which is hard to fathom because he’s not even a well-bred failure. His NZ daughters have left six stakeswinners including Paris Petard, Moodometer, Ticklish and Solvini.
Named for a famous restaurant in Woburn Park in Bedfordshire, the grey Paris House (GB) was a slick 1000-1200m performer which is what he has almost exclusively sired in Europe, albeit with not much class amongst them. The most ever paid for one of his yearlings was 32,400 guineas and that was by red-shirted Jack Berry who trained him – obviously a sentimentalist – way back in 1996.
A multiple Group winner from two to four years and twice second (once as a two-year-old) in the G1 Nunthorpe, Paris House (GB) raced when there were some super sprinters in England, holding his own against the likes of Lochsong, Elbio, Sheikh Albadou and Wolfhound. His sprinting class more than justified a chance at stud and shuttling him from Sean Collins’s Corbally Stud in Ireland on an NZ$8,500 fee, he looked a gimmee to be popular.
But breeders had misgivings about his male line, and they were right. His sire Petong was a cheap speed sire with seven lifetime stakeswinners and he was a son of a Listed winner, Mansingh who actually ran second in the Cornwallis Stakes which his great-grandson Amour Propre has just won. Mansingh was American-bred, by Nasrullah’s son Jaipur. Hardly a threat to Northern Dancer.
Wanted. You Can Say That Again.
There may only have been 17 two-year-olds who trialled at Rosehill this morning but there were a few good ones amongst them.
My interest in particular was in Wanted (2c Fastnet Rock-Fragmentation, by Snippets) which won the first of the heats.
Wanted is rather a prophetic name for the colt. I had the displeasure of being the underbidder on him at the Easter Sale last April.
He went for $800,000. Little doubt in my mind that he was the most imposing colt in the sale. Got knocked off by John Hawkes who it turns out bought him for the quixotic Eddie Hayson. Well done, Eddie, at last you’ve got yourself a proper horse. He trialled like a machine.
Wanted was bred by Ron and Deb Gilbert at Highgrove on the Darling Downs. Ron builds houses but he also builds beautiful horses (only one letter different). The previous Easter I thought his Falbrav colt was the standout horse on offer and said so in this blog, before he raced as Fravashi (see The Long Distance Curse, April 6).
If you’ve been looking at my sidebar photos, you’ll see I bought another Fastnet Rock colt for $800,000, out of Rare Insight (NZ), (by O’Reilly (NZ)), the equal top priced yearling by the sire along with Wanted. I had to knock off John Hawkes to get him.
If you’d have asked me before the sale if I was going to be all over Fastnet Rock (pictured above) I would have scoffed at you. I don’t get hung up on stallions, especially unproven ones. But that was the way things worked out. Whilst he had some clunkers, I was vastly impressed with the best of them. Their temperaments were superb.
I’ve written before that after inspecting the offerings I could usually forecast which horses Woodlands were going to buy when J Hawkes was in the chair. John wanted to buy both these colts, just as my client and I did.
Instead of opening our shoulders, shutting our eyes and bidding until there was no tomorrow on the Fragmentation colt (Wanted), we were doing mental gymnastics about how much to buy the pair etc, instead of concentrating on getting the first job done.
The Fragmentation and Rare Insight colts were quite different types of horses. They were with different vendors but were in the same little alleyway at the sales. Anyway, we determined we weren’t going to miss him, and didn’t. He’s grown about three inches in the last few months. He has a lot of the characteristics of his female line, plenty of quality and scope, but a later-maturing type than Wanted who is very ready-made which is the type of horse my client usually likes to buy. Such a horse was Fist Of Fury (Hussonet (USA)-Venticello, by Chimes Square) at the 2007 Magic Millions. Beautifully balanced and developed, he scored an 8.5 with me which means he’s an honourary member of the Holy Trinity, and, presciently, as a kind of wish-list, I even wrote my client’s name on the catalogue page. However, he was overseas at the time and didn’t take part but I doubt I would have been brave enough to top the $470,000 that was given for the colt. That looked serious money. Telepathic that my client should ask me about him later.
The other two-year-old which trialled at Rosehill with plenty in reserve was Little Surfer Girl (2f Encosta de Lago-Special Harmony, by Spinning World (USA)) which we have seen go around on a previous occasion. She may be one of the first of the new wave to wear cerise on raceday. She was second in her trial which was slowly run but she was barely out of idle. You don’t have to be a genius to buy a filly like her at the sales ($1.5 million), being by a champion sire out of such a terrific racemare, but it helps if you are a rich genius. Significantly she looked every bit as good as her page; she was another 8.5.
It may seem somewhat naive to be ramping up a couple of very expensive two-year-olds, especially after less than twenty-grander Whobegotyou has thumped the three-year-olds. But you can’t blame horses for the prices humans decide to pay for them and it just so happens that Wanted and Little Surfer Girl look the part – not just cosmetically but mechanically and athletically - cost heaps, and can run, evidently. Like Fist Of Fury, Samantha Miss, Time Thief, Wilander and a growing list of others of late. Sometimes you just get it right.
Let 'Em Eat Cake
The goings-on, or not goings-on, at RacingNSW re the appointment of the new Board have a depressingly familiar ring about them. I won't say I told you so. Refer Conspiracy Theories Are Generally Just That, July 15. The whole world is falling down around our ears so you would think there would be a sense of urgency to get one's house in order.
Whogeldedyou
Darley were all over the Caulfield Guineas result like a rash.
Their two colour-bearers Time Thief (Redoute’s Choice-Procrastinate) and Von Costa de Hero (Encosta de Lago-Piavonic) who cost something like $7 million between them were trounced by Whobegotyou. But Darley will still be the big winners out of the race as their two colts will eventually take their imposing physiques, pedigrees and race records to stud and return the investment many times over.
But, ironically, Darley is also 100% responsible for Whobegotyou, the unwanted yearling who, now gelded, is the Weekend Hussler of the 2008 three-year-olds and next-door-to-a-certainty for the G1 VRC Derby.
Way back on June 22 in this blog (It’s All Over Folks – Resume Normal Sleep Pattern) I looked at the intricate pedigree of Whobegotyou and wondered out loud whether he might be the horse everyone has been waiting for to give antipodean cred to his otherwise outstanding sire, the former shuttler Street Cry (Ire). (pictured). He sure is. Simultaneous with his emergence has been the rise of another Street Cry in Sydney, Predatory Pricer, Takeover Target’s good-looking and very capable half-brother.
Sheikh Mohammed/Godolphin/Darley – call it what you like – did the mating which produced Whobegotyou. They owned his sire and his dam Temple Of Peace, the Japanese-bred, French stakes-placed daughter of Carnegie (Ire), a horse Sheikh Moh won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with then sent to stud in Japan, shuttling him initially to New Zealand then to Australia when he ‘got good’.
For some reason, Darley decided to ditch Temple Of Peace after she produced two foals, by the failures Fantastic Light (USA) and King’s Best (USA), but before either of them were old enough to have proven themselves. They must have been skunks. In the autumn of 2005, the mare went up to auction carrying Whobegotyou and changed hands for $36,000 on the bid of Louis Mihalyka’s Laurel Oak Bloodstock acting for Canberra clients.
Whatever qualities Mark Kavanagh saw in Whobegotyou as a yearling he was in a minority of one, as bidding at the Classic Sale stopped at $17,500, shy of the $25,000 reserve. Mark negotiated a sale afterwards at a point between the two figures.
The next foal out of the mare is a now two-year-old colt by Octagonal and the mare’s new owners fared no better with him – they got $16,000 at the Classic Sale this year. So they weren’t even close to square after marketing two of her progeny. The next foal died. The folks in Canberra must have thrown their hands up in surrender, made some bad jokes about the Japanese, cursed the day they ever bought her and proceeded to get rid of this good-for-nothing ten-year-old mare at the Gold Coast sale back on 2 June. The price: a paltry $5,250, rotten to the end. However, there was a produce record update – the mare’s two-year-old named Whobegotyou had won his debut at Geelong on the ThoroughTrack just 12 days previously, on 21 May. The lucky purchaser: Bill Benson of Emerald Thoroughbreds who has been known to sweep through a broodmare sale like a vacuum cleaner and come up with some real bargains. He’s done it again.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alamosa (NZ) (4h O’Reilly (NZ)-Lodore Mystic, by Centaine) got the required Australian Group 1 result with a strong win in the G1 Toorak Handicap at Caulfield, Saturday. The Kiwi syndicate who will put him to stud at Wellfield next year will be chuffed. He’s a very good horse, it’s just important that Australians know that.
Watching Alamosa come up through the ranks, in 2007 I bought, pretty cheaply, a maiden three-quarter sister to his dam in a Melbourne sale. My client decided to do the obvious thing and send her to New Zealand, to O’Reilly who was standing at the ludicrous fee of NZ$20,000 (stallions half as good were standing for three times as much in the Hunter Valley) and has been rewarded with a colt foal, a three-quarter brother in blood to Alamosa.
Second in the Toorak to Alamosa was the baby of the field, Rockwood (4g Rock Of Gibraltar (Ire)-Foxwood (NZ), by Centaine), a horse I tipped my clients into after Gai had bought him as a yearling, one of the nicest yearlings at Sydney Easter that year. People were already starting to bag his dam who was a brilliant filly in New Zealand but never brought the same form to Australia where she had the last six starts of her career, including a 12th placing behind Sunline in the G1 Doncaster. But Rockwood was only her fourth foal and as the Toorak showed yet again, you dismiss a Centaine mare at your peril.
I recall visiting Garry Chittick in Palmerston North (his Thornton Park Stud was at Longburn on the outskirts of town) on the night he tied up the deal to buy Centaine. The races had been at nearby Awapuni that day. It was a life-changing moment for him as a breeder, acquiring this son of Century who Australians thought had missed the big time and, patronisingly as usual, “would be ideal for New Zealand”. When you look back on his form and translate it to today with our heightened appreciation of the Group race system and all it stands for, he was a most competitive colt. As a three-year-old, with wins behind him at 1000m and 1200m, he was taken all the way through to the VRC Derby (2500m, 5th behind Bounty Hawk) via the Caulfield Guineas (5th to Beechcraft) and The Herald Vase (1st). Yet when he came back after a brief layoff, he was kept exclusively to sprints, winning the Autumn Stakes at Sandown and placing or racing with credit in such races as the Futurity (3rd), Newmarket (8th of 24), George Ryder (3rd), Manikato (2nd), Bobbie Lewis (2nd) and Marlboro Cup (4th), his last start.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oratorio. He’s at stud in Western Australia and sired Gold Rocks, winner of the two-year-old race at Belmont Park, Perth, on Saturday.
Oratorio. She produced a pretty smart horse named Agamemnon who won the Listed Matamata Cup in New Zealand on Saturday.
Oratorio. He stands at Coolmore.
Say a prayer for pedigree nuts.
NB: When G1 winner Crest Of The Wave (USA)(born 1976) was imported for stud duty in New Zealand, there had already been a Crest Of The Wave (GB) (born 1961) before him. The much later arrival was required to change his name to Crested Wave (USA). Somehow I don't think we'll see that happen in Australia, because you-know-who owns you-know-who. But it probably should.
NBB: Ironically, the Oratorio standing in WA, the son of Stravinsky (USA), wears the big C brand of Coolmore.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Movie’s win in the two-year-old event at Rosehill, Saturday, brings to mind her dam, Strawberry Storm (Thunder Gulch (USA)-Wheatland Lady (USA), by Strawberry Road).
This Singo-bred and owned filly started her career in Gai’s stable and raced twice for a seventh and second placing in the days leading up to the start of the Magic Millions Sale.
Just after the sale she was pulled from the stable. The school of thought was, shall we say, that Singo was unimpressed which vendors had either been, or not been, favoured with Gai’s buying power at the sale.
Strawberry Storm crossed the road to Rogie from whose stable after a short let up the filly won at Canterbury then the Listed Keith MacKay Quality at Randwick. Singo later sold Strawberry Storm to John Cornish’s Torrryburn Stud, for $180,000. Movie (by Red Ransom (USA)) is her first foal but unfortunately she died last year almost two months after producing a full brother.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was underbidder on upset Caulfield winner Bonded (Danewin-Betta Fortune, by Luskin Star) at the 2006 Magic Millions Yearling Sale. I’d been trying to buy a filly for a Melbourne client. Late in the sale, Bonded was my last throw of the dice. I had been outbid on the earlier two I had selected which turned out to be Diana’s Secret (stakes-placed winner of two) and Mimi Lebrock (winner of $911,095)! But the $175,000 given by Melbourne’s Shannon brothers for Bonded was one bid too many for me.
After the Magic Millions I went on to Karaka and managed finally to buy a filly for the client. It’s four years old, and still unraced, but there’s hope yet it will make the track. Sometime next year.
This can be an unkind business at times! Like watching the fillies in Melbourne since Ortensia went out with her injury. I've little doubt she would have handled them.
Knocking Heads Once More
Given Arrowfield’s good strike rate in the last decade with their stallion selection, the Sydney debut of runners by Charge Forward (Red Ransom (USA)-Sydney’s Dream, by Bletchingly) at Rosehill today has interest.
Not that in any way the result of an early-season 1100m juvenile is going to define a stallion’s career for all time. But Charge Forward was a very superior and precocious colt in probably the strongest year of two-year-old racing in Sydney in a quarter century and we have been accustomed to looking in that direction for our future breed-shapers.
I thought the trial three weeks ago at Randwick of Gaston (2c Charge Forward-Capto, by Octagonal (NZ)) was a real eye-catcher but as he seems friendless in the betting I either looked at the wrong horse or the figures out of the trial were rubbish. Capto is also represented on the Rosehill programme by Rendzina (by Testa Rossa) a mare who in my opinion is better than her record might indicate. Charge Forward is also represented by Engulf (out of Absolute Lure (USA), by Lure) who has also trialled OK, giving him a numerically strong hand in a nine horse field.
Gaston was one of the best types by the stallion offered at the sales, fetching $230,000, bred in partnership by controversial industry figure Phillip Esplin who was also co-breeder of Charge Forward.
There was a price beyond which punters weren’t prepared to go on the first crop Charge Forward yearlings which I put down to the Red Ransom (USA) factor (top price $350,000, average $90,989).
Red Ransom has always been a hit-and-miss sire for front leg conformation; he's not perfect himself and you see it coming through in his descendants. With Bletchingly close up in the pedigree, Charge Forward has a double whammy and I think his prices fairly accurately reflected the degree of conformation neatness in his various yearlings.
But, by and large, the winning post pays little heed to what the textbook says as far as conformation is concerned – if it did we’d never have had the likes of Seachange, Veandercross, Might And Power and a thousand other good ones including a potential champion I once sold, on a one and only bid of $20,000, named Golden King (he’s a story for another day). Legs are wheels, not motors, and it’s the motor that counts most. Ultimately, yearling buyers also take on board the lessons of the winning post though it can be a painful learning curve for a helluva lot of them who are addicted to optimism instead of realism.
I bought one yearling by Charge Forward, a little filly out of Zerlina, a Zeditave mare, after having a crack at one or two at a higher level. Fastnet Rock, Not A Single Doubt, Dane Shadow, Savabeel and Oratorio were amongst the other very fast colts in Charge Forward’s generation and they, too, have first runners this season. It was a season in which the gelded Dance Hero dominated, running records in order to beat his high class rivals, and included fillies like Alinghi and Wager.
The racetrack rivalries of 2003-2004 are set to continue anew.
P.S. here's one for the trivia evening: which horse separated Charge Forward and Dance Hero at the end of the AJC Breeders' Plate of 2003? Answer: Wenceslas Square.
I Want One Of Those For Christmas
I was intrigued to read in Thoroughbred Daily News (Oct. 7) quotes attributed to Zarkava’s trainer Alain de Royer-Dupre on sober reflection after the filly’s stunning win in last Sunday’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
The article said (de Royer-Dupre) refused to be drawn into comparisons to his 2003 Arc hero Dalakhani. “He was a great horse because he had two accelerations,” he said. “He could quicken, and then quicken again. The filly is different because she has only the one acceleration, but that is a very strong one.”
On The Aga Khan Studs’ website, de Royer-Dupre is quoted as saying "Of all the greats I have trained for His Highness, Dalakhani is the most complete racehorse. He has all the qualities - he has speed, he stays and he always relaxes perfectly."
Dalakhani’s pedigree is free from Northern Dancer. He is a great-grandson of Mill Reef who I never saw in the flesh but I suspect the descriptions made of Dalakhani applied equally well to him. Put down in 1986, Mill Reef was said to be suffering at the end from a heart complaint.
Too big.
The article said (de Royer-Dupre) refused to be drawn into comparisons to his 2003 Arc hero Dalakhani. “He was a great horse because he had two accelerations,” he said. “He could quicken, and then quicken again. The filly is different because she has only the one acceleration, but that is a very strong one.”
On The Aga Khan Studs’ website, de Royer-Dupre is quoted as saying "Of all the greats I have trained for His Highness, Dalakhani is the most complete racehorse. He has all the qualities - he has speed, he stays and he always relaxes perfectly."
Dalakhani’s pedigree is free from Northern Dancer. He is a great-grandson of Mill Reef who I never saw in the flesh but I suspect the descriptions made of Dalakhani applied equally well to him. Put down in 1986, Mill Reef was said to be suffering at the end from a heart complaint.
Too big.
Geared Up? No Way, Just Hay, Oats and Water
He only had four rivals but he got the job done nicely in the first at Warwick Farm - Geared Up (3g Testa Rossa-Certain, by Rory's Jester).
This showy little bloke, rated an 8.0, was bought by yours truly at Magic Millions 2007 ($100,000). He mightn't be Mr Tiz but he has cruising speed and a short, sharp turbo boost which so far has enabled him to win two city races and half his purchase price. I'm two-for-two with Testa Rossa , the other to race being G3 winner Ortensia (ex Aerate's Pick, by Picknicker).
Certain is one of those mares which seems capable of leaving a winner by anything: Sri Pekan (USA), Orpen (USA), Monashee Mountain (USA) (twice) and Testa Rossa so far.
I well recall her dam, Silver Tip (One Pound Sterling (GB)-Sun Wing, by Sallust), a Dave O'Sullivan trainee at Matamata. A nifty little sprinter (Geared Up isn't the biggest horse either), she won the 1986 G1 ARC Railway Handicap with a postage stamp on her back - Lance O'Sullivan, weighing all of 48 kgs. Ah, there's G1 form and G1 form. A couple of years later when she was retiring to stud I was involved in her purchase in a package with another, better, G1 winner, Eastern Joy (Three Legs (GB)-Diatrelic (Fr), by Diatome).
Unless you were supporting Kerrin McEvoy, the only thing harder to find than a winner at Warwick Farm was the racebook. Being an old hand, I know you can always buy a racebook from the ladies in the cloakroom. It's the first place you think of, naturally. So I'm wandering around the rails betting ring, on the public side, with my racebook in hand and desperados are rushing up to me, asking, "Where did you find it, where did you find it?" like it was the holy grail. People have to be desperate to talk to me, and they were. Like, even with free entry to soften the blow of the rapacious $40 charged at Randwick last Saturday, you'd expect to be able to buy a racebook somewhere near your point of entry or at a prominently placed kiosk. But not where I and hundreds of others came in at Warwick Farm, that's for sure.
Samantha Miss, Here's What You Have To Do
I discussed the background of French filly Zarkava (3f Zamindar-Zarkasha, by Kahyasi) in my post The Aga Sure Khan on 16 September. If you saw last night’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe you’d be convinced you were seeing a champion in action.
Making her first attempt at open weight-for-age, all her earlier six unbeaten performances coming against her own age and sex at 1600m-plus, Zarkava was electrifying, no other word for it. At this point in her career she is up there with the Allez Frances, Dahlias, Ruffians and Surrounds, or even Petite Etoile from whom she is a direct female line descendant.
Comparisons will no doubt be made in this part of the world with Sydney/Newcastle three-year-old queen Samantha Miss (3f Redoute’s Choice-Milliyet (NZ), by Zabeel (NZ)) who to quite a degree shares Zarkava’s blinding turn of foot. Samantha Miss is not unbeaten, but that’s irrelevant really. In nine starts her cumulative margin of defeat has been just three lengths and she has already beaten males once in three attempts, in the G1 AJC Champagne Stakes, which Zarkava hadn’t been required to do until the Arc.
The main difference between the two at this stage is their age. Zarkava has had her supreme moment as a late three-year-old whereas Samantha Miss has just completed the first quarter of her three-year-old season. However, she would have to win a W.S. Cox Plate, every bit as rare and difficult to do for a three-year-old filly in Australia as it is for a three-year-old filly in the Arc, for her to earn true comparison. Or should she not run in the Cox Plate, come back in the autumn and win something like the G1 Australian Cup, 2000m.
Zarkava has a link to last Saturday’s racing at Flemington via Light Vision, winner of the Listed Bart Cummings Handicap over 2520m. His sire, Zerpour (Ire) is a 1994 Aga Khan product by Darshaan. His fourth dam Zahra is the third dam of Zarkava.
Committing those mortal sins of winning over staying journeys, Zerpour (Ire) developed good form when imported to Australia, winning the G2 VRC Queen Elizabeth Stakes, 2500m (beating Samantha Miss' uncle, Cronus, 3rd), and the Werribee Cup, 2000m. Installed at (a euphemism for ‘banished to’) Auckland’s Westbury Stud, he proved sensationally unpopular, struggling to attract mares and leaving 158 live foals in seven seasons of use, many of them to Westbury’s own mares. He was down to nine mares covered in 2005 and just four in 2006 at an advertised fee of ‘on application’ (a euphemism for ‘we’ll give you a thousand bucks’). Though his numbers have been low, probably matched by the quality of mares served, Zerpour has been a modest achiever with four stakeswinners from 74 starters. He departed New Zealand in January 2007 and I seem to recall him being advertised as standing somewhere in Australia, possibly Victoria, though he's not listed as such yet on the Australian Stud Book website.
While her staying capacity has yet to be tested, Samantha Miss is probably relying on the French if she is to be effective in that area. Her stamina source will undoubtedly be the female line of her broodmare sire Zabeel who traces to Diseuse, dam of Le Filou (Fr), and from whom the likes of Arc de Triomphe winners Detroit and Carnegie (Ire) descend. The two outstanding fillies share a similarity inasmuch as their sires were essentially sprinter-milers: Zarkava’s sire, Gone West’s son Zamindar, pictured above, was not placed beyond 1400m, and Redoute’s Choice won only up to 1600m though he was fifth in a strong W.S. Cox Plate, 2040m, behind Sunline and Tie The Knot.
John Messara shuttled Zamindar's superior racing brother Zafonic (USA) to Arrowfield in 2002, only to have the horse die via accident after coverng four mares. With his new-found bosom buddy the Aga, might he be able to arrange a match race between the two super fillies some time next year?
Incidentally, Zamindar’s previous best galloper until the emergence of Zarkava, the Princess Zahra Aga Khan’s triple G1 winning filly Darjina, was retired after finishing second on Saturday in the G1 Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket, incredibly her sixth consecutive G1 second placing. You’d want to retire her just to stop ripping your hair out.
P.S. Add to the match race the fabulous unbeaten American filly Zenyatta (by Street Cry). Jockey Mike Smith has said she is probably the best horse he has sat on, and that's a big, big call.
Epsom? What Epsom?
Pointed out to me by a fellow racegoer ... taking Saturday's Randwick racebook as the example, why is the Breeder of races other than 2 and 3YO Group races omitted from the racebook? Is it less meritorious to breed the winner of the G1 Epsom as opposed to the Gimcrack?
(Excuse me as I roll around on the floor splitting my sides with laughter. Where have you been?).
The answer looks simple - it shows where our current racing mentality is at.
Perhaps it is a condition of Thoroughbred Breeders' NSW sponsorship of the Breeders' Plate?
Next thing you know they'll be dropping the breedings of runners in races beyond 2000m as no one would want to profess their guilt.
I will do my bit to redress the balance and herewith list the breeders of the winners of all the other Group races on the day:
Lorne Dancer - Yarraman Park Stud Pty Ltd and R W Vincent
Newport - DHK Investments Pty Ltd
Theseo - Emirates Park Pty Ltd
Fritz's Princess - Vinery Australia NSW Pty Ltd
Neroli - Woodlands Stud (only a Listed race but I couldn't leave her out).
(Excuse me as I roll around on the floor splitting my sides with laughter. Where have you been?).
The answer looks simple - it shows where our current racing mentality is at.
Perhaps it is a condition of Thoroughbred Breeders' NSW sponsorship of the Breeders' Plate?
Next thing you know they'll be dropping the breedings of runners in races beyond 2000m as no one would want to profess their guilt.
I will do my bit to redress the balance and herewith list the breeders of the winners of all the other Group races on the day:
Lorne Dancer - Yarraman Park Stud Pty Ltd and R W Vincent
Newport - DHK Investments Pty Ltd
Theseo - Emirates Park Pty Ltd
Fritz's Princess - Vinery Australia NSW Pty Ltd
Neroli - Woodlands Stud (only a Listed race but I couldn't leave her out).
One Of These May Be Your Daughter
A reprobate has drawn my attention to a worthy blog in the cybersphere, http://bloodstockhotties.blogspot.com/.
No self-respecting man of morals would waste time looking at it, but I only came to that conclusion after viewing it myself. X-rated, I recommend it only for males over 40.
It's very fertile subject matter. I cannot understand why there are not dozens more examples on this blog. It has the potential to be bigger than Facebook.
The blogger, Simon Thompson, is not unknown in this part of the world - I imagine there are lots of irate gals and parents trying to find him.
No self-respecting man of morals would waste time looking at it, but I only came to that conclusion after viewing it myself. X-rated, I recommend it only for males over 40.
It's very fertile subject matter. I cannot understand why there are not dozens more examples on this blog. It has the potential to be bigger than Facebook.
The blogger, Simon Thompson, is not unknown in this part of the world - I imagine there are lots of irate gals and parents trying to find him.
100% Of The Fun For A Fraction Of The Cost
Ever since Harry Lawton began syndicating racehorse prospects in Australia in 1971, syndication as a means of enabling low-cost involvement in racehorse ownership has become a well-entrenched part of the ownership mix.
The era of steadily increasing yearling prices witnessed over the past dozen years would have squeezed out many would-be owners if it wasn’t for the opportunities offered by syndication.
Syndication has also provided a valuable learning curve for many new owners before they stepped up their levels of investment and bought into
horses ‘wholsesale’.
It was rafferty’s rules for a long time, with syndication companies and lots of fly-by-night cowboys coming and going, but since 2003 the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has regulated licensing which has led to a more uniform set of standards and much more transparent disclosure.
Syndicated horses have won a slew of big races down the years, from Kensei’s Melbourne Cup in 1987 to Sebring’s Golden Slipper in 2008.
Saturday’s big programme at Randwick was yet another impressive advertisement for the syndication model and should strike hope into the hearts of all who hanker to be involved in ownership but don’t have a Darley or Patinack budget.
Star Thoroughbreds-syndicated Theseo (5g Danewin-Ozone Sand (USA), by L’Enjoleur) and Bank Robber (4g Dash For Cash-Saliah, by Salieri (USA)) ran the quinella in the G1 Epsom Handicap. Their sale purchase prices (their 'wholesale' prices) were $120,00 and $70,000 respectively. To date these relatively lightly raced geldings have won $1,322,680.
It’s a moot point whether horses carrying 51.5 kgs and 52 kgs in G1 races deserve too much kudos but the irrepressible Gai specialises in identifying potential milers and getting them into big races on light weights. Desert War won the Epsom with 50.5 kgs in 2004 and went on to be a first-rate weight-for-age commodity, and the outstanding Excellerator carried 53 kgs in 2002.
It’s been a very big year for the meticulous and consummately commercially-savvy Denise Martin who operates Star Thoroughbreds. One of Star’s best early colour-bearers, Kingsgate (Danzero-Vowed, by Without Fear (Fr)) was second in the Epsom in 2001 and 2002 so Saturday’s result was an emphatic get-square. The year 2008 has seen Star horses collect the Golden Slipper (Sebring)-Epsom (Theseo) double, providing a further vindication of Denise's determination to keep her business going. There was a prolonged period earlier in the decade when disappointing results made her question whether it was all worth it. For a while there, I thought she was in danger of hanging up her tack and becoming a marriage celebrant or real estate agent. A decision in about 2004 to lift her buying budget to a much higher level so she could keep pace with the rising prices of yearlings has been the key. It was a decision not without real risks as Denise was effectively doubling her debt burden and putting a lot of pressure on herself to market and move the new purchases. Of course she had an invaluable ally in Gai who selects the yearlings and trains exclusively for Star. Gai’s charisma and success is unrivalled in the sport and if you can keep saying no to Gai and get away with it you are George Cross material.
Theseo (pictured above, photo courtesy Lisa Grimm) was a Magic Millions purchase the last year I did the sales with Gai, 2005, from Emirates Park with whose horses Gai had enjoyed much success, though Emirates doesn’t seem to have anything like the racing profile these days. He was foal number five and quite a late foal, 29 October, but he was a stretchy, loose colt and had more quality than the average Danewin, a sire you can’t help but admire. As a gelded youngster Theseo was still very much on the leg and when he showed competitive ability as a two-year-old you just knew he would do good things as he grew into himself – but even when he turned four he didn’t look like he’d got there yet! But that’s just him, lanky with a well-oiled motor and totally genuine.
Theseo is a direct descendant of Grey Flight, the famous American daughter of Mahmoud bred in 1945. As a breeder, Emirates’ Nasser Lootah has had a bit of fun playing around with her genes. Ozone Sand, Theseo’s dam, is 2m x 3f to Buckpasser, one of turf history’s immortals (25 wins from 31 starts). Her sire, the modestly successful L’Enjoleur, is out of Fanfreluche so with his Northern Dancer-Danehill top line Theseo shares some of the same genetic ingredients as the likes of Flying Spur and Encosta de Lago (a great Emirates Park product).
The incomparable George Smith spotted Bank Robber for Denise at the Melbourne sale in 2006 which I didn’t attend, being instead at my son’s wedding. Bank Robber is also a fifth foal and though bred by a Tasmanian has an Emirates connection inasmuch as Nasser Lootah bred his sire, Dash For Cash.
At the start of the day at Randwick, syndicate groups banged heads in the Gimcrack Stakes, the first Sydney race of the season for two-year-old fillies, and a Listed event.
Star was there with the favourite, Horizons (2f Choisir-Ubiquity, by Hurricane Sky; $120,000 yearling) only to be knocked off by a $15,000 filly Our Joan Of Arc (2f Beautiful Crown (USA)-Bright Heroine, by Bluebird (USA)) carrying the logo of syndicators Darby Racing.
I can’t help myself, I have to say it – instead of burning at the stake this Joan Of Arc won the stake. I’ll never use that line again, I promise.
Mopping the brows of owners who have just had their odds-on fancy gallantly defeated is something Denise Martin is a past-master at. But I will excuse her a moment’s discomfort as she headed for the number two stall as Darby, the syndicator/part-owner of the winner, had its origins more or less in Star Thoroughbreds. (Take it as a compliment, Denise).
Scott and Renee Darby were shareholders in a 2003 Star Thoroughbred purchase Flaming (Beautiful Crown (USA)-Mahlin, by Mister C (USA)) who returned $390,975 on his $25,000 (wholesale) purchase price under Gai’s tutelage.
When you have exposure to the best you can learn a lot. In 2006, Scott Darby helped set up the Storm Thoroughbreds syndication outfit but about 18 months later there was a parting of the ways and he hung up his own shingle in late 2007. A photo of Scott with Flaming at the G3 Bill Ritchie Handicap presentation adorns the Darby Racing website.
Our Joan Of Arc, a 10th foal, was not the most prepossessing filly to parade for the Gimcrack, with lighter bone and a bit straight in front, all of which helps explain the giveaway price. But in this game handsome is as handsome does and that’s all there is to it. The winning post does not choose favourites. She is the third result of unions between Beautiful Crown and Bright Heroince, a non-winning but stakes-placed two-year-old who has a pure Australian speed/precocious pedigree with successive dams by Without Fear (Fr), Biscay and Wilkes (Fr). It’s the Fireside family established in New Zealand a century ago. It may have been her ‘short’ pedigree that attracted Darby’s attention as a fledgling syndication outfit needs early runners, and in view of that it’ll be interesting to see how much progress Our Joan Of Arc can make.
The Breeders’ Plate winner Real Saga (2c Tale Of The Cat (USA)-Windy Kate, by Air Express (Ire)) will undoubtedly make further progress. I declared him in my post of September 19, Babes On Show, so I trust my handful of readers (hi, Mum and Dad) copped the tip. He is a beautifully developed, strong colt which was retained by his breeder. As I pointed out in that post, he traces to the same female source as Samantha Miss and Bianca – what a day it would have been for the Volifox family if Bianca had held on the G1 Metropolitan, but who’s complaining?
From a future point of view, Onemorenomore (2c Red Ransom (USA)-Palia, by Last Tycoon (Ire)) caught the eye. He's a much different style of horse to Real Saga.
Liberating Landor
I manage horses which contest Group 1 and Group 2 races this Saturday so I’ll don the tin of fruit and and tot off to Randwick with hope in my heart and spend the day mingling with the Ray Bans-and-mousse set.
But do you know where the most remarkable racemeeting is being held this weekend? No, not Flemington, not Randwick, not even Longchamp.
Landor.
The Landor picnics, Western Australia’s answer to Birdsville.
I’ve never been to Landor. Who has? Shame on me, it’s more than 15 years since I’ve been to anywhere WA. My closest encounter has been watching Japanese Story which was set in the Pilbara, north of Landor. But I’ve just put Landor on my bucket list.
We are talking remote, we are talking spirit of the bush, we are talking real Australia (Pitt Street is not real Australia, it's Everywheresville).
Landor is a station (ranch in Yankee). Population about two. To the nearest town, Paraburdoo, it’s 230 kms. GPS says 760 kms north of Perth, 265 kms north-west of Meekatharra and 380 kms inland from Carnarvon on the WA coast. Red dirt country, remote as one thing.
It’s not far from reputedly the world’s biggest monolith, Mount Augustus. You thought it was Uluru, didn’t you? Apparently, there’s a rivalry between these two, a geological stare-down, but Mount Augustus wins hands down at 47.95 square kilometers in area.
But back to the Landor races. They began in 1921 after a lively discussion amongst stockmen about who had the fastest horse. Much the same as Derby and Bunbury, really, without the wigs and stiff upper lips.
The Landor picnics (the East Gascoyne Race Club) occur this weekend every year, two days of racing with a gymkhana squeezed in between. Something like a thousand people converge. Standing starts, amateur jockeys, bush-bred horses, a dirt track. They don’t suffer from small fields at Landor.
Seven races on Saturday with field sizes as follows: 9, 22, 28, 14, 25 (this the feature, the Margaret Dawson Memorial Ladies Bracelet over 1200m for a gross stake of $3,325), 24 and 21.
Then on Monday, Elders Landor Cup Day (1800m, $3,850), there are eight races of 25, 16, 28, 14, 9, 15, 27 and 29 !!
The only problem is, each horse seems to be down to run at least four times and very often in consecutive races ! I haven’t done a meticulous count-up to flesh out the above statement but one horse I can see, Howling (6g Ihtiram (Ire)-Minimoon, by El Moxie (USA)) has accepted eight times over the two days – and he’s just one of many! Howling hasn't raced since this meeting last year, when he ran a first and third. Presumably, in the meantime, he's been doing whatever it is horses do out there.
The Hammarquist family are one of several launching a Patinack-like assault on the meeting. Don is listed as training at via Meekatharra. His horses have been nominated and accepted (I think it’s actually a one-step process at Landor) a staggering 36 times. Brother – and I presume it’s brother – Graeme, from Walkaway, isn’t far behind him with 29! That's not 65 different horses, that's about five horses accepted 13 times.
Just how this all works I have no idea. The barrier draws have been done but I guess they just line up when and if they feel like it, or if the horse feels like it, to be exact.
This sounds like the most fun you can have out of bed. I feel compelled to switch off my computer for an hour or two and dive into Singer Of The Bush (book 2 of 'Banjo' Paterson’s complete works, one of my few treasured possessions) and transport myself spiritually if not physically all the way to Landor. It would be utterly liberating.
Photo credits: taken in 1991, sourced from the National Library Of Australia electronic files. Click on the top photo and see the cigarette advertising and see if you can spot Rob Waterhouse.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mention of Patinack – I see there’s a horse named Husson (3g Hussonet (USA)-Sultan’s Gift, by Radjhasi (USA)) going around in a maiden at Tamworth on Friday, hoping to improve on the 13th of 14 on his debut at Quirindi the other day.
Get out the cheque book, Nathan, and get him out of sight. Someone might get confused.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
