Anamoe
It’s taken 12 years, three countries and some of the best sires in the world, but Darley’s former Group 1-winning mare Anamato appears to have an out-and-out superstar on her hands in Anamoe.
And in claiming his “when-not-if” Group 1 in Saturday’s Sires Produce Stakes at Randwick, the exhilarating colt also provided more power for the gathering storm that is his sire Street Boss, who continues to reward Darley chiefs – by their admission a touch slow to recognise his capabilities – for an improved selection of mares in the past few seasons.
Anamato, now a much-travelled 17-year-old, fits many people’s image of the ideal type to have in your breeding barn, perhaps a “Goldilocks” mare by some reckoning.
For starters, she’s impressively bred.
She’s by that great son of Danehill, Redoute’s Choice, Australia’s champion broodmare sire of the past two seasons (Arcadia Queen, Regal Power, Extra Brut, etc), and locked in a tight battle with old rival Encosta de Lago again this term.
And Anamato’s female line features some illustrious names indeed.
Her dam, Voltage (Whiskey Road) threw as a first foal Port Watch (Star Watch), a Melbourne black type winner of the mid-90s. Second out came Drum (Marauding), who brought Group 1 success in the 1996 Oakleigh Plate.
Third foal was a sister to Drum, named Tambour. She won only one of 15 but was Group 1-placed when a neck second in Eagle Farm’s Castlemaine Stakes, also in 1996. Tambour’s greatest triumph, however, was to come at stud, when a cross with Hennessy (Storm Cat) produced as a first named foal the outstanding seven-time Group 1 winner Grand Armee.
Going back another generation uncovers Voltage’s dam – Anamoe’s third-dam – Electric Belle (Sovereign Edition), who like Voltage was bred by Newhaven Park. She produced a dual Randwick Listed winner in Roanoke Boy (Ideal Planet). And Electric Belle’s granddam, Belle Time, produced four stakes winners: the topliner Asgard – winner of six black-type races including the Australasian Champion Stakes (now the Group 1 Spring Champion Stakes) of 1974 – and other multiple stakes winners in Honey Belle, Chiming and Son Of Cyrus.
While Voltage left some quality offspring, there were none finer than Anamato, who brought her bloodlines to the track in superb style for David Hayes.
She won the South Australian Sires’ Produce Stakes at her fifth start, before showing her staying credentials when third to the top notch Miss Finland and Tuesday Joy in the VRC Oaks of 2006. Anamato broke into Group 2 territory the following autumn in taking the Moonee Valley Classic and the Kewney Stakes, before hitting a crescendo in winning the Group 1 Schweppes Oaks at Morphettville.
This led to a rare excursion, with Anamato taken to the US to compete in the Oaks Invite (Gr 1, 10f) at Hollywood Park in July, 2007, where she flew the flag with distinction in placing third of nine.
She never quite hit the heights again after that brief switch of hemispheres – typically a tougher ordeal to absorb for mares than males. At her second run back home she was third in the Group 1 Caulfield Stakes, to Maldivian and Miss Finland, but then came eight more runs without a placing.
She may have lost interest on the track but Darley, drawn to her bloodlines and the ability shown earlier, swooped with a private purchase of around $1 million to add to their breeding stock, seven months after buying out the Woodlands empire.
The very best racemares of recent times have shown little at stud. Theories suggest different reasons: high testosterone – which helped achieve racetrack greatness but may compromise the requirements of motherhood; or an innate competitiveness, a will to be first, which can see them push others around at the feed bin, as Black Caviar used to, but also make them not the most caring of dams.
Perhaps Anamato might have been “just right” for the breeding barn – given a start by rich bloodlines, and blessed with enough ability to win a Group 1 without quite being touched in a way that made her an all-time great.
In any case, she wouldn’t be put to the test in Australia. Darley shipped her to their US base, Gainsborough Farm in January, 2009, where she was covered by Street Boss’ sire, Street Cry. Anamato conceived but lost the foal mid-term. She was soon on her way again, to Darley’s Ireland operation.
“She was part of a programme we were trying where we were sending high class mares like her to England and Ireland, with a view to providing alternative bloodlines,” Alastair Pulford, Darley’s head of sales in Australia, says. “It was quite a good programme. We didn’t do it in big enough numbers to make a huge impact, but we certainly had some successful horses out of it.”
One was Monterosso – by Dubawi out of Darley’s Group 1 Coolmore Classic winner Porto Roca (Barathea) – who won the 2012 Dubai World Cup. Anamato’s offspring didn’t quite hit that level. A colt and a filly by Dubawi were unraced, a New Approach filly named Amuletum won one of seven, but her third foal Anamba, a filly by Shamardal, did win in Listed class in Ireland.
“Anamato wasn’t one of the great success stories over there but did throw a stakes-winner in Anamba, who’s still in our system and would be a very valuable broodmare right now, seeing what Anamoe has done out here,” Pulford says.
“Still, Anamato was obviously a very valuable mare so we wanted to keep her, and it was decided she should come back to Australia.”
Anamato then went to Darley’s Lonhro three successive times, losing the first foal at birth, then throwing city midweek winner Amitto, and the underwhelming Outline. Darley then felt it was time to head up a new street.
In his first few years of shuttling to Australia, Street Boss had been covering some moderate mares. A serious hock injury in his first stud season compromised his breeding potential, to the extent that Darley rested him from his second season. Eventually, though, Street Boss started gaining results from his limited books of mares, such as 2016 Newmarket Handicap winner The Quarterback, prompting a change of heart for his owners.
“In about 2016, we started cranking up our support of Street Boss,” Pulford says. “He’d shown enough, so we started sending decent mares. We just took a little while to realise how good he was.”
The first wave of this new thinking produced the likes of Blue Diamond runner-up Hanseatic. The “second-coming” crop seems even better, with Anamoe and Blue Diamond Prelude winner Arcaded flying the flag.
In Anamoe’s case, Darley were guided by Street Boss’ past success covering Danehill-line mares, with crossing with daughters of Exceed And Excel having been shown to be particularly effective (Winterbottom Stakes winner Elite Street, Hanseatic, and dual stakes-winner Petits Filous among them). Anamato had also had her Irish stakes-winner Anamba by Shamardal, whose dam was a sister to Street Cry.
“Street Boss had worked very well with other Danehill line horses, at that stage through not a lot of opportunity,” Pulford says. “And the mare herself had crossed well with Shamardal, and since he’s a close relative of Street Cry, there was definitely no reason to doubt sending Anamato to Street Boss.”
While Anamato now has a yearling in the Godolphin system by Shooting To Win, and is in foal to Darley’s former champion sprinter Blue Point, it is the prospects of Anamoe’s burgeoning sire Street Boss that is generating quite some excitement ahead of his return to Australia this spring.
“He’s becoming a very high-profile stallion now,” Pulford says. “We’ve got people knocking on the door to get to him, and he deserves every good mare he can get, because he’s done it the hard way. He’s had to do it from a very low base over a long period.
“He throws great sorts; he’s always been a good sales horse, for the quality of mare he’s covered. But most excitingly now he’s demonstrating that he can really get a superstar.”
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Trevor Marshallsea is the best-selling author of Makybe Diva and Winx – Biography of a Champion. Click on the links to purchase yours.