The Meek Do Not Inherit The Earth

If you live on the internet - you’re reading the blog, obviously you do – and use it as your means of keeping up with racing and breeding info, you are probably a victim of the plethora of stallion PR which bombards our email every day.

How easy it must be to make money on the internet when there are so many news bulletins and alerts landing in our mail boxes each day, essentially peddling the same information. Stallion and stud advertising props them up, led by the deep budgets of the multinationals engaged in their war for market share. Perhaps one of them would like to sponsor my blog - why not? they advertise in Indian Charlie.

So every time Flying Spur farts, or Encosta exhales or Snitzel sneezes or Quality gets one of his Elusive winners, it’s news on no fewer than four or five advertorial services on the same day. Frankly, I was under the impression that it was the job of the stallion to beget winners, especially when you pay megadollars to obtain their semen without any assurance of success. To me, the real news is when they don’t get the winners commensurate to their cost and opportunity. When will someone in charge of the databases be game enough to publish a sires' comparative index?

Here are a bunch of bush stallions which had runners in the eastern states over the weekend which you’ll never read about, and rightly so. But they illustrate what a vast, diverse enterprise Australian racing and breeding is, how it’s populated by people who devote their time and money to the most unlikely scenarios in order to get their fun and pleasure out of the noble animal. In brackets is the number of live foals these stallions have left.

Amundsen ’99 Getting Closer-Captundra (40)
Baanya Boy ’88 Grand Rocky-Hailia (50)
Bright Treble ’77 Brightlights-Treble Choice (57)
Bull Demus ’98 Demus-Fleeting Miss (16)
Coincidence ’96 Snaadee-Momentaire (23)
Colour The Wind ’92 Zephyr Bay-Sophie (49)
Cooky Tikit ’96 Canny Lad-Tikitiboo (27)
Declarations ’96 Brief Truce-Loyal Lyric (42)
Fernside ’91 Our Paddy Boy-Pretend (10)
Golden Aura ’91 Aurealis-Ramonita (12)
Kristel Pistol ’93 Western Gun-Splendid Companion (31)
Premier Slot ’95 In The Slot-Lilith (31)
Red Chevalier ’86 Niebo-Nicole’s Dream (32)
Ridge Top ’91 Forever Regal-Cheswart Castle (2)
Ring Star ’92 Monarch Star-Leading Attraction (21)
Sirtatt ’91 Tattenham-Natalie Star (43)
Smart Alex ’92 Drawn-Pika Bella (18)
Some Charm ’80 Handsomne Harry-Leila’s Lass (37)
Swift Duke ’96 Alannon-Ideally (7)
Tuscan Artist ’89 Ahonoora-Lotka’s Star (60)
Under A Spell ’89 Bletchingly-Khaptivaan (113)

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When the EI tests out of Eastern Creek last week came back negative, the biggest audible sigh of relief surely came from Canberra.

Were I a cynic (who, me?) I could draw an association between the announcement of the scare and the EI summit set down for the same week.

I'm sure the quarantine incident was fair dinkum. But I must admit the words Wag The Dog went screaming through my skull instinctively!