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.
13 comments:
On Racing Retro the lack of stayers was blaimed on Australian breeders.I feel that was an unfair comment.We have recently had access to some potentially very good staying sires,such as Galileo,Street Cry,Peintre Celebre,Refuse to Bend to name a few. These stallions deserve high quality mares and consistently so for at least four seasons. But most breeders realise that without early two year old winners it is a financial disaster trying to sell their yearlings in the second and third season.Therefore the quality and quantity of mare takes a dive and usually by the time these horses have proved themselves they either don't come back or the follow up crops are so weak they eventually fall by the wayside.
My point is that surely the blame should be placed on the buyers who want quick results and although every owner would love a top class stayer most of them are too impatient.
It will be very interesting to see how the likes of Starcraft and Dylan Thomas are accepted and if their progeny are given the time they deserve.These great horses are two that I would have liked to use and realise that the first crops will sell well but they may never be allowed to reach their true potential
A good comment. I personally think its kernel is in the sentence "but most breeders realise that without early 2YO winners it is a financial disaster trying to sell their yearlings..." Which goes to (as Kevin Rudd is wont to say ad nauseum) the fact that most significant breeders today are sellers of horses rather than exclusively breeder/owners. The commercial market has assumed greater and greater importance; the commercial market reflects society's mores which in the postmodern world enshrine things like planned obsolescence and instant gratification. Perhaps reluctantly, trainers, the largest distributors of young horses, who eke out a living from their successful labours, have recognised that the way to ensure their own financial stability is to encourage the people who want to buy horses to prefer the quick-result-quick-turnover variety. They feel there is nothing worse than going for the long haul on a horse only to be proved wrong at the end of it. So, like fast food and internet share trading, it's in quick, out quick. I, too, don't believe you can blame breeders in isolation. We HAVE had many wonderful staying horses to use but more than anything we are constantly shaping our racing system to discriminate against them because of commercial "imperatives". These horses are the right horses in the wrong place, until such time as racing programmes and breeders', owners' and trainers' expectations
change to incorporate long-term view - but I cannot foresee that ever happening again unless and until Sheikh Mohammed owns every horse on the planet.
Well I have one of those Lion Hunters that have won past 1600m so hopefully she will will be a good producer, her first foal I gave to a Newcastle trainer for nothing, couldn't see the point in paying noms for sales and com. so saved about $3000 in giving him away, her next is by Easy Rocking and a nice foal. this mares half sister is running in Brisbane saturday and is a chance. Cajun Moon for Pat Duff
Steve,
Blue Gum farm would have been over the Moon had Strategic Prince actually come out this year. He was in fact left on the back burner and not shuttled after all.
It's a pity for Victorian breeders but it seems thats the way it works sometimes
Well, there you go Ian B, this blog reaches into all the far corners! I reckon there could be a few others like you deciding to take a painless way out. Good luck with the relation, we'll watch. Fine bloke, Pat; sold him a nice horse 25 years ago named Rusty Sand (by Pevero).
Anonymous, re Strategic Prince - that explains why I haven't seen/heard any promo for the horse except in the Stallion 2008 book. Was it initial breeder disinterest in the horse which knocked the trip on the head?
I believe so, don't think they were knocked over in the rush to go to him. I know I had no interest but it seems I may have been wrong now.
Yes it was breeder disinterest that curtailed Strategic Prince's Australian Stud career,although,as expected the "company line" from Blue Gum and Coolmore was that he caught a respiratory virus just prior to entering quarantine.
The spin doctors at work again!
That's fine really, "market forces at work", as they say in Wall Street (who now cares what they say?!). He's just another yet-to-be-proven stallion in a minefield of same. There's not a man born who would stake his life on him being a good stallion.
Best way to start fixing the problem is to start changing the rules so that it becomes more commercial to breed and race stayers.
The easiest way to do that is to get each state based incentive scheme (VOBIS, QTIS etc) to gradually move the goalposts. At the moment all the schemes focus on 2yo and 3yo racing, generally below 1400m.
They need to change so that in 10 years time they focus on 3yo, 4yo & 5yo's and distances of 1600m to 2400m. This needs to be done slowly so that studmasters and broodmare owners have time to adapt. Ideally, by year five or so, the new schemes would not be paying bonuses on 2yo racing and the main distance range of the bonus races would be 1400m to 2000m.
There will always be a market for precocious 2yo's and sprinters. They offer quick returns and greater commercial appeal as stallion prospects.
We need to tip the balance a little, in favour of the slower maturing middle distance and staying types.
Hopefully a by product of a change like this would be that horses are given more time and therefore stay sounder for longer.
Makes a lot of sense, redgoat. I doubt, however, that the BOBS people (RacingNSW, remember that dysfunctional mob?) will impose a regime from the top down as they are basically captive of the stallion studs who provide the initial seed money for the scheme - and if most of the stallions have sprinter/miler profiles their owners may react against the spreading of the distance/maturity spectrum and decline to make some stallions eligible. Sounds far-fetched I know but I wouldn't put it past them. Already we have a situation where not all stallions contribute to the scheme on the same formula.
Good suggestions redgoat, but the Joint Venture agreements between TAB'S and the individual State Racing bodies will stop your logical idea's from ever seeing the light of day. Noticed lately the three greyhound meetings conducted daily (Vic). You see the TAB basically sets each states race programming through each states governing body, although they tell you it's the other way around. All focused around the mighty churn of punter dollars, short races, fields of 12, exposed form (rating races) etc, etc. What we end up with is mind numbing, horse lotto racing, but hey that's what funds the industry.
It boggles the mind that the Australisian industry looks at what has become of the American racing system & then insists on forging ahead & making all of the same mistakes. With the increase in unsoundness in the American broodmare band so sadly highlighted by the Eight Belles tradgedy New Zealand & Australian breeders should be looking to their wonderful staying bloodlines & playing to their strengths.
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