Antino
The James Brown song says this is a man’s world, but it’d be nothing without a woman, and the same can be said for the family of burgeoning Queensland star Antino (Redwood).
The Tony Gollan-trained five-year-old, who made it 10 wins from 15 starts with his third black type success in Saturday’s BRC Victory Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) at Eagle Farm, is from a family dominated by males.
Fitting that description is his New Zealand-based sire Redwood (High Chaparral), Westbury Stud’s 17-year-old who’s built a strong and intriguing profile with eight crops racing. There can’t be many stallions boasting key race winners from 1200 metres up the Flemington straight to the 4600 metres but Redwood has done it, with Romancer taking the VRC Straight Six (Listed, 1200m) and High Mode winning Australia’s longest flat race, Warrnambool’s Jericho Cup (4600m).
Throw in that Redwood is the sire of New Zealand’s reigning Horse of the Year Sharp ’N’ Smart – winner of three Group 1s and successful from 1400 metres to 2400 metres – and Platinum Invader, who’s scored from 1600 metres to the 3200 metres of the Group 2 Auckland Cup, and you see a vibrant pattern of versatility emerge.
There’s another factor that comes through strongly in his stats. Of his 14 stakes-winners, 11 – including the four named above – have been males. They’ve won 21 stakes races, and his three female black type winners have won just the three.
Redwood has had more male runners than female, at 194 to 144. His winners-to-runner ratio for each is similar, at 59.79 per cent to 59.03 per cent – but the black type imbalance is plain to see.
Similar male dominance has been the way in terms of performers in Antino’s maternal half.
His second dam Shock Attack (Inviting) went to the moderately successful import Bahhare (Woodman) five times in all. The three fillies of that mating were unraced, unraced and unplaced (from four pretty poor starts in rural Victoria). Before that trio, the mating produced two colts: Carlisle Bay, who went to Hong Kong (as Best Gift) to win a Listed event and be twice Group 1 placed in 2005-06; and Hurrah, one of Bahhare’s only two Group 1 winners, who also took Rosehill’s Kingston Town Stakes (Gr 3, 2000m) of 2008 among three stakes victories.
One of the unraced Bahhare-Shock Attack fillies was named Mahamaya. Foaled in 2008, she was bought out of the paddock at Wellfield Lodge, Palmerston North, by hobby breeder Craig Dawson. A businessman of varied interests, he’s a man who wouldn’t have become involved in horses without a woman – his mother June.
“I sold a business and partially retired about 20 years ago, and started getting into horses then,” he tells It’s In The Blood.
“My mum grew up on farm and had a horse, but then when she got older and more immobile, she didn’t really have an interest. She loved her horses, so I used to take her to the races, and then I thought as a matter of interest I’d buy one.
“Then of course I got that terrible disease which is all things thoroughbred, and it went from there.”
It was another female who inspired Dawson’s idea to buy Mahamaya – her dam Shock Attack, who’d been owned by his cousin and her husband.
“I was keen because she was a full sister to those two stakes-winners in Hurrah and Carlisle Bay, and there was my family connection to her dam,” he said. “I had to track her down but I found her at Wellfield, in-foal to Alamosa.”
Dawson sold the result – another colt – who became Sayonaramosa, a triple country winner for Ciaron Maher. The next foal was another colt who also won three country races, Reliable Magic (Reliable Man).
Mahamaya then bore Dawson a filly by Reliable Man (Dalakhani) named June Rose – placed once from 15 starts – before this long tale of female mediocrity continued with two fillies by Redwood who didn’t get a name.
Dawson sent Mahamaya for a third cover from Redwood – in whom he’s a shareholder. At last, she had a colt, but by that stage she was no longer Dawson’s. With his thoroughbred interests starting to stretch the bounds of “hobby”, in 2018 he’d sold her in-foal, for all of $3,000, to Hong Kong breeder George Ma.
Of course the resultant foal was Antino, who’s already the latest star male from this wider family, and in great shape to become its next Group 1 winner.
He was bought from Karaka’s 2020 Ready to Run Sale as a two-year-old for $27,000 by New Balance Racing, and started his career with trainer Adam Campton for a three-length Sunshine Coast maiden win over 1200 metres, before his transfer to Gollan. Seven wins from his next eight starts – culminating in another three-length stroll for a first stakes success in the Wayne Wilson (Listed, 1600m) last June, triggered a Melbourne spring campaign.
“Is it bittersweet? Yes and no,” Dawson says of his sale of the now-15-year-old Mahamaya. “I’d say I haven’t missed out on a lot commercially, and you can’t keep them all.
“Most of all, I’m just delighted to see that the mating has worked, especially since I’m a shareholder in Redwood. If you look at his stats, he’s going great. He’s a very good stallion.”
Furthermore, Dawson doesn’t appear to have missed out on much with Mahamaya so far. Since the sale, she’s been to Westbury’s Tarzino (Tavistock) four times, for two misses, a deceased foal, and now a weanling filly.
The first thing that grabs the eye about Antino’s pedigree is that with Bahhare at least bringing his sire Woodman (Mr. Prospector) to the table, there’s a gender-balanced 3f x 3m duplication of that influential sire. Woodman, the first son of Mr. Prospector to sire 100 stakes winners, who fathered the Canadian G1-winning Redwood’s dam Arum Lily.
While Bahhare has had a little success as a broodmare sire – with three New Zealand stakes winners and two in Australia from a combined 111 runners – Westbury has been able to tap into the close double-Woodman nick more powerfully through the many daughters of More Than Ready (Southern Halo), who has Woodman as his damsire.
“Antino’s pedigree comes up really well genetically,” says Westbury’s Russell Warwick.
“Bahhare got a few good horses but didn’t set the world alight, but when you’ve duplicated Woodman, you’ll have some affinities there that would’ve helped make Antino a good racehorse for sure.
“We’ve sent a fair few More Than Ready mares to Redwood, to achieve that duplication. Most of the results are young horses coming through, but we’re definitely aware of the nick and we’re definitely doing it. The aim now is to find another Antino.
“There’s a couple of similarities that have done really well for Redwood. The Woodman aspect of why he can get a speed horse. Woodman was a very good two-year-old himself and a good two-year-old sire. He’s got Mumtaz Begum in his family, which is that Mumtaz Mahal line, so when you duplicate that you can get a faster horse.
“Other parts of Redwood’s family have stouter lines, and when you duplicate those, that’s how you can get his stouter progeny.”
Antino also has a 6m x 4m duplication of British mare Hardiemma (Hardicanute), through her English and Irish Derby-winning son Shirley Heights (Mill Reef) in High Chaparral’s (Sadler’s Wells) female side, and via Shock Attack’s Irish-bred sire Inviting (Be My Guest).
“Inviting didn’t do much down here, but some of his mares have done well,” Warwick says. “Shirley Heights was a star horse of his time and has been a good sires of sires, and some of his mares have done well. You’d imagine duplicating Hardiemma would enhance your stamina.”
Antino scored over his shortest winning distance of 1200 metres on Saturday. He will now seek his first Group 1 in the Kingsford Smith Cup (Gr 1, 1300m), also at Eagle Farm, with Brisbane’s feature race, the Stradbroke Handicap (Gr 1, 1400m), next on his radar.
With versatility in his form and pedigree, Gollan maintains 1600 metres is his ideal distance – despite the fact he took the lead but rescinded it late on over that trip in his only Group 1 attempt to date, last October’s Toorak Handicap (Gr 1, 1600m) at Caulfield.
In his first four-run preparation for his stable, Gollan worked the gelding up from 1200 metres, to 1350 metres, 1400 metres and 1615 metres, and says his win in the last of those convinced him he had a good one.
“He was still going up through his grades, but in that mile race at Doomben, he missed the kick, had a big weight [59kg], and had to make a really long sustained run with the rail out [four metres the circumference],” Gollan told It’s In The Blood.
“That was only a benchmark 72, and I’ve had a lot of horses win benchmark races, but not with that sort of run. That’s when I thought we had a pretty nice horse on our hands. Just the way he ran showed he had a big motor in him and he can sustain a long run.”
Four more wins in a row in his next prep green-lit a Melbourne spring, started by Antino’s infamous fourth as favourite when hopelessly blocked in Flemington’s Tontonan Stakes (Listed, 1400m). He atoned in clear running next start to win the Sandown Stakes (Gr 3, 1500m) before the Toorak. As second-favourite that day, he did collar no less a leader than Pride Of Jenni (Pride Of Dubai), but after he put his head in front of Attrition (Churchill) late on, that galloper fought back to win by a nose.
Antino was foiled by cruel fate again next start when second to outstanding Kiwi mare Prowess (Proisir) in Moonee Valley’s Crystal Mile (Gr 2, 1600m) on Cox Plate day, before a campaign-ending 10th in the longest race of his 15, Rosehill’s Five Diamonds (1800m).
His charge up the inside to win the Victory Stakes on Saturday, over a 1200m trip many might have felt too short for him, showed he’d come back at his best, after being held up for the Brisbane winter.
“He’s right up with the best I’ve trained,” says Gollan, who’s won Group 1s with Jonker (Spirit Of Boom), Vega One (Lope De Vega), Krone (Eurozone) and half-brothers Temple Of Boom (Piccolo) and Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo).
“He hasn’t won a Group 1 yet, but hopefully it’s only a matter of time.
“I think he’s come back better than in spring, and he was really good there. In the Toorak, he got caught back a few pairs and had to sustain a really long run, and the winner was able to kick through on his inside.
“We were going to go with him for the autumn, but instead we’ve backed him off a bit and have really set our sights on the winter.”
Antino is also the first Redwood Gollan has trained. He’s unlikely to be the last.
“I don’t know much about the Redwoods,” he says, “but if they were all like Antino it’d be easy.”