Brutal’s fee set for first season at Newgate
Brutal (O’Reilly), the lightest-raced winner of the Doncaster Mile (Gr 1, 1600m) in the race’s 154-year history, will serve his first mares at Newgate Farm next season at a fee of $27,500 (inc GST).
Described as an “absolute Adonis – big, black and powerful” by Newgate’s director of stallions Bruce Slade, Brutal was acquired by the farm last year, weeks after that Doncaster triumph at just his seventh start. Rupert Legh, who bought the colt at the 2017 New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Premier Yearling Sale for $220,000 from the draft of Mapperley Stud, sold 50 per cent to Newgate on the condition that he raced on as a four-year-old.
The Newgate Farm team, led by Slade and managing director Henry Field, have made ratings a key element in their identification of new stallion prospects, as was the case with recently announced acquisition Tassort (Brazen Beau). On ratings, Brutal’s racetrack efforts stamped him as elite from the moment he debuted as a late two-year-old at Caulfield.
“For us, we believe that elite performance is the key factor among all leading stallions that make an impact in Australia,” Slade told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday. “They have elite athleticism, elite ability and those are horses that are your best chance of passing that on.
“It’s vital and it’s important to us to communicate just how elite Brutal really was. We don’t feel that he had the opportunity in the end to show that. He did some pretty incredible things along the way that just tag him as elite and as high-class as any other stallion going to stud this year.
“For Brutal, he was flagged as a potentially elite prospect when he won on debut by five lengths as a two-year-old. He beat Mystic Journey and a few other handy horses and he posted a big rating through our system. This is why our ratings have become so important to us; it is because of horses like this who post these ratings early on and then they go on and deliver.”
The Michael, Wayne and John Hawkes-trained Brutal won his first three starts, taking the McKenzie Stakes (Listed, 1200m) at Moonee Valley and the Exford Plate (Listed, 1400m) at Flemington in addition to his two-year-old victory before a minor cut to a hock ruled him out of the spring’s traditional stallion-making races, the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and the Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
Returning in the 2019 autumn, he finished third in the Southern Cross Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) and second in the George Ryder Stakes (Gr 1, 1500m) behind champion Winx (Street Cry) at her penultimate start, with this year’s George Ryder winner Dreamforce (Fastnet Rock) back in third.
He then progressed to the Doncaster Mile at just his seventh start. Tackling a capacity field of 20 runners over the gruelling Randwick mile, among his rivals were nine Group 1 winners. Lightly weighted but drawn wide, he was given a tremendous ride from Glen Boss, settling handy one off the rail. He won by a length, but it was as comfortable a Doncaster win as can be.
“He won the Doncaster at his seventh start, and that hasn’t been done in the history of the Doncaster, a time-honoured race,” Slade said. “No horse in that time has won the race within seven starts. When you think of all the top horses that have lined up in a Doncaster, from a historical perspective, it tells you just how good this horse was.”
He was spelled soon afterwards, with Newgate joining the ownership group while he was in the paddock. It was a conversation between Field and John Hawkes that initiated the process of Brutal joining Newgate’s team ahead of a spring campaign.
Slade said: “John sat down with Henry, just like he did with Deep Field, and said, ‘Henry, this horse is elite. I’ve trained a lot of good horses and, I’m telling you, this horse is the real deal. You really should be buying this horse to stand at Newgate.’ That conversation was crucial, with John’s absolute conviction that this horse was the real deal.
“We bought him and he came back and won the Premiere Stakes very well, it’s a Group 2 weight-for-age sprint that is the best lead-up to the Everest given it’s only two weeks before.”
The Everest (1200m) was considered, with slot-holders chasing Brutal for the $14 million Randwick feature. However, the Hawkes team decided to head to the Sydney Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) on the Everest undercard as an easier lead-up to his main target – and what would in time be his final start – the $7.5 million Golden Eagle (1500m) at Rosehill for four-year-olds. He finished third as favourite in the Sydney Stakes behind Deprive (Denman) before he was injured in running when 11th in the Golden Eagle to Kolding (Ocean Park).
“We were offered slots in the Everest with this horse and Mr Hawkes advised us that he didn’t want to give him a gutbuster with the Golden Eagle his main aim,” Slade said. “Then in the Golden Eagle, he chipped a joint after getting a terrible run in transit. He pulled up with an injury after that race and he had to have it cleaned up.
“We were going to try and bring him back for the Stradbroke, but that didn’t eventuate with the coronavirus situation. Unfortunately, injury and then coronavirus stopped him from showing just how elite he was this season so he’s only been a very lightly-raced horse.
“He was a very, very special racehorse. We saw glimpses of it, but if we had the opportunity to race him on, things could look very different. He’s a horse coming in at that $25,000 bracket this year who I believe is as talented as any other racehorse going to stud this year. I say that with total conviction and total belief.”
Slade is already looking forward to the types of yearlings that Brutal will be able to produce, particularly given the impression he leaves as a physical type.
“He’s a very safe bet from a commercial point of view,” Slade said. “He’s a very good-looking horse, he’s a John Hawkes physical in that John picked him out at the sales and paid a lot of money for him. He’s by O’Reilly and he’s an absolute Adonis – he’s big, black and powerful, he’s very much in that sprinter-miler mould.
“O’Reilly can get different types. He has the bigger, scopey sorts that can get a bit of a trip, horses like Master O’Reilly who have won Caulfield Cups. He’s also had top sprinters and sprinter-milers and Brutal is very much one of those. You’d expect him to leave that nice, square, big, powerful yearling that’s very physically forward. We look forward to showing him to people, he’s available for inspection now.
Slade also points to the fact that Brutal is completely free of Danzig blood, making him a valuable prospect to those with Danehill-line mares. His dam Alberton Princess (Golan) was stakes-placed at two, while others in the family include stakes winners Te Akau Rose (Thorn Park), Testarhythm (Testa Rossa), Cavalry Rose (Charge Forward), Sir Alberton (Red Tempo), Alberton Star (Stylish Century) and Wyndspelle (Iffraaj).
“He offers you total outcross to Danzig and Danehill, being by O’Reilly,” Slade said. “We all know how well the Last Tycoon blood has done with Danehill and particularly Redoute’s Choice. All those Redoute’s Choice-line mares, all those Danehill-line mares, are really going to suit this horse physically and genetically.
“We get a lot of confidence out of Brutal’s pedigree. He’s out of a family that’s been owned by the same family, the Kerr-Taylors, in New Zealand for 30 years. If you look at his pedigree page, it’s just bustling with black type. It’s a family that, for the last three decades, has churned out black type horses each and every year. It’s never been a family that’s been mated up but it’s been a family closely held in New Zealand. They’ve always gone to those $10,000 to $20,000 stallions for the most part.
“The family has produced a lot of two-year-old stakes winners, it’s been one of the leading two-year-old families in New Zealand and obviously that transpired in Australia too through the likes of Cavalry Rose. It’s superb to have him, from that family and offering the total outcross.”
The Newgate team takes heart from the support of stakeholders who have invested in Brutal already, as well as the confidence of his racetrack connections, and they believe that he looks a safe commercial bet for breeders at $27,500.
“A very strong group of shareholders have come on board here,” Slade said. “Many of them have high-end mares, so, between ourselves and the shareholders, he’ll be getting super support from great breeders and with some lovely mares.
“Certainly breeders using him in 2020 won’t be alone and no doubt that will keep the horse at the forefront of people’s minds through his first few crops until he has runners on the track.
“I really think, in the current environment, he’s a great safe play for breeders, but he’s more than just safe – he’s a great commercial prospect and he’s a great play in terms of trying to breed a racehorse.
“You’re going to get a lot of nice genetic match-ups, a lot of nice physical match-ups, and you’re really breeding to a horse that had elite, elite ability. And that, for us, is paramount for what we are looking for in a stallion.
“I can see this horse rolling out a median across the board – all horses sold, all told – of $100,000, based on where we look historically with these sorts of horses.”
He continued: “If you think about the people that knew this horse best and those who knew just how supremely talented he was … it is his trainers John, Michael and Wayne, it is Rupert Legh and his group of owners, it is Newgate Farm and some terrific shareholders on our side.
“When you combine all those people, you essentially combine the biggest yearling buyers in the market. The people I mentioned, they probably make three of the top five or top 10 buyers in the market.
“When these Brutals roll into the sales the first time around, all those people will have no worries whatsoever putting their hand up trying to buy a Brutal that they like on a physical. He’ll get horses into Magic Millions, he’ll get horses into Easter, he’ll get horses into all those key sales as well. So I think he’s really well priced outside all those factors.”
Fees for the rest of Newgate’s roster will be released in the coming weeks.