Better Than Bank Interest (Especially Today)

It hasn’t taken Nathan Tinkler long to get a meaningful return on investment with Raheeb hacking up in the G3 Cameron Handicap at Newcastle, a race he sponsored.

Get used to it – the massive Patinack stable bristles with class.

According to TVN, Tinkler paid $850,000 for Raheeb (5h Royal Academy-Gatana). Former owner Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum has been a huge benefactor to Australian breeders for much the last decade; he must have thought at long last he’d found one himself when Tinkler relieved him of Raheeb, a colt which at his second race start had won at Port Macquarie, where the Tinkler family have a base. Tinkler of course now also owns Murtajill (4h Rock Of Gibraltar-Skating), the best horse to have carried the Sheikh’s colours during his expensive foray into Australian racing. Murtajill, almost ready to race again, is a top class individual and needs just a G1 or G2 win to frank his stud credentials. He’s up to it.

Chestnut colts by Royal Academy were never the height of fashion, and Raheeb had difficulty selling as a yearling when Vinery offered him at Easter in 2005. He had all the size you’d expect from the Royal Academy/Marauding cross. His shoulder and girth were impressive as were his hindquarters but he was fairly flat through the knee. As I recall, he had a bump on his near hind fetlock which might have been an issue; he was passed in initially but sold afterwards for $90,000.

Raheeb’s G3 success supplants his previous four stakes placings and he looks capable of taking higher honours. He’ll have to, because a win in an ordinary race like the Cameron doesn’t clinch a sure-fire commercial stud career. The 2006 winner Collate stands for $5,500 in Queensland where he served 30 mares in his first season last year after a lateish start. Ability apart, Raheeb has two things going for him – a fashionable Danehill-free pedigree and his relationship to Fastnet Rock on whose coat-tails he can ride in the meantime.

They must be flat out building stallion boxes at Patinack.

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As far as I can see, Darley haven’t bought a Coolmore-sired yearling in Australia since 2004.

That's a long time to hold a grudge but if you’ve got that much money you can please yourself, even if it does cut you off from many successful bloodlines.

But Darley have come in through the back door via their purchase of Woodlands earlier this year, that operation being well stocked with progeny of some of the best Coolmore sires, as well as digging deep for the likes of Von Costa de Hero, by Encosta de Lago, ironically bred by the Sheikh’s cousin.

Sousa (3c Galileo-Liberty Song, by Last Tycoon), narrow winner of the G3 Spring Stakes at Newcastle, is one such Woodlands-sourced, Coolmore-sired progeny.

Whilst doing due diligence for the sales, I found I could predict, with a fair degree of certainty, which horses the (then) Woodlands team of Hawkes and Lobb were going to bid on. Our tastes were apparently very similar, though our budgets were several light years apart. New Zealand-bred Sousa was one such yearling, well developed and almost impossible to fault, a lofty 8.0+ on my scoresheet.

Sousa was bred by Lars Pearson who might have thought he was doing well when he got NZ$150,000 for him as a weanling. On behalf of the Cambridge couple who bought him, Trelawney Stud then marketed him into a A$420,000 yearling, by far and away the highest price for a Galileo yearling in 2007 by which time the Australian buying bench had pronounced him dead. As a matter of record, Galileo’s 59 yearlings in 2007 averaged just over $78,000; 34 of them sold for less than the $55,000 advertised fee Galileo stood for in his final Australian season, 2006. (23 others went through the ring and couldn’t find a home). Galileo’s emergence in Australia has been painfully slow compared with his northern hemisphere career. At this point in time, just 16 of his 146 starters in this part of the world have won as much in prizemoney as that final service fee – and two of them, Mahler and Purple Moon, came all the way from Europe to do it. So make that number 14.

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I wrote a blog on January 8 this year describing how I secured Justice Prevails (Proud Knight-Innocent Lady) for stud duty in New Zealand. Someone had to do it! I note he sired four winners on the eight race card at Gore on Wednesday where the track was a heavy 10 (2:16.25 for 2000m, a fair time for 2200m on the dry). Irrespective of where the race meeting is or the class of horse, such a feat is always noteworthy. Gore is in Southland, next stop the Ross Ice Shelf. Justice Prevails has been standing for many years in the deep south. He’s 18 now. How time flies.