Bustler/Zipaway
Three-year-old Zipaway took the WA Guineas (Gr 2, 1600m) and then Bustler claimed the big one in the Railway Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m).
Both are gelded sons, born a year apart, of the state’s pre-eminent stallion Playing God (Blackfriars), who’s well on his way to backing last season’s WA champion sire title with another one this term.
Both are trained by Neville Parnham, he of the record 14 Perth trainers’ premierships, and now five top-tier wins, and were steered by one of his three jockey sons, 38-year-old Steve, who now also has five Group 1 victories.
Both are bred on a very similar cross, their damsires being WA-bred half-brothers. Zipaway is from the Parnham-trained Boutique, who’s by Discorsi (Galileo). His dam Express A Smile (Success Express) also threw the well-performed galloper and later top stallion Oratorio (Stravinsky), sire of Bustler’s mum Cosmah Domination.
For extra fortification, Cosmah Domination is also the dam of the colt who ran a neck second to Zipaway on Saturday, A Lot Of Good Men (A Lot).
Parnham not only trained Zipaway but along with his wife and ‘rock’ Carolyn he bred him as well, having bought Boutique for $40,000 at the Perth Magic Millions yearling sale of 2013, then training and co-owning her.
And now, just to pull the threads still closer, Bustler and Zipaway will race against each other for the first time in the WFA Northerly Stakes (Gr 1, 1800m) on Saturday week.
The race could bring another Group 1 Parnham-a-thon. Neville last night said Steve was likely to ride Zipaway with his featherweight 52 kilograms – aiming to extend the strong record for three-year-olds in the race. One of his brothers Chris or Brad will go onto Bustler, a matter decided in the usual manner of WA racing’s first family.
“They’re tossing a coin for it as we speak, I think,” said Neville, counting his blessings not only to have sired three top-quality riders, but a trio with “different strengths”.
“Sometimes it’s just me making a decision that a horse might suit a particular rider,” Parnham told ANZ Bloodstock News. “Bradley’s very strong. Steve’s very tactical. Chris is the youngest and has a lot of natural talent in any area, and he’s strong but very effective [with the whip] in the left hand, and is very patient. They all have their good aspects about them.”
Bookmakers currently rate Zipaway the better chance – at $8 to Bustler’s $11 – as he attempts to become the fourth three-year-old in six runnings to take the former Kingston Town Classic.
One of those was the filly Kay Cee (Playing God), trained by Parnham, in 2019. And further down the honour roll you’ll see Playing God himself – first as a three-year-old to earn his trainer’s breakthrough Group 1 success in 2010, and again a year later for good measure.
And thus the WA Hall of Fame member was particularly well versed in Playing God when he began the stud career that has lately gone a little ballistic in the west.
Like his son Zipaway, Playing God’s first Group win came in the WA Guineas – a race Parnham’s now won five times – and with three weeks back then until the Kingston Town, there was time for a Listed win in between.
Playing God went on to record a further five Group 1 placings, four in Melbourne including in Shocking’s (Street Cry) Australian Cup (Gr 1, 2000m) as a three-year-old in 2011 – before commencing stud duties in WA at seven.
When Boutique retired in 2017, Parnham had no hesitation sending her to his old favourite entire. A sizeable mare and a good fit on physicals for Playing God, Boutique had been, Parnham believed, on the cusp of far more than her 2000-metre maiden win when a bowed tendon ended her racing career. His faith in the family – all bred by Korilya Stud’s Ellie Giles out of her dual Perth-winning mare Brocky’s Ace (Surtee) – was soon vindicated.
Half-sister Quilista (Scandal Keeper) had already won a Listed event at Bunbury but, sent east, she won a Rosehill Group 3 and a Randwick Group 2 back-to-back in the autumn of 2018, later adding a second Listed win at Doomben.
Next emerged another half-sibling in Red Can Man (Gingerbread Man), who’s so far won three Perth Listed races – the latest one last month – and a Group 3 at Caulfield.
Parnham sent Boutique to Playing God for her first four matings. The filly, Fashion Stakes, has so far won one of 13 for his stable, next came Zipaway – winner of three from seven – before a two-year-old filly, Mainshow, who’s set to debut in the new year, and a yearling colt. Boutique was this season covered by Playing God’s second-year studmate at Darling View Thoroughbreds, Splintex (Snitzel), but Parnham plans a return to Playing God next year.
“Boutique with Playing God is a great match-up,” Parnham said. “Having trained Playing God, I know he was a lovely horse with a really good temperament, and he certainly got to levels I never thought he’d get to.
“And now he’s become an outstanding sire. He’s had the Guineas and Railway winners last Saturday, and every week we’re seeing Playing Gods going super. His stakes-winners-to-runners ratio is terrific,” he said of a figure currently at 10.06 per cent, with 16 from 159 runners, which includes 108 winners.
“I thought Boutique would go well with him because he was a good miler to 1800 metres, and she was good over a bit of distance. And she only won one race but she had a couple of good half-siblings, plus one of my sons used to ride her and said she was a good, tough mare in her races.
“And that cross of Playing God over Oratorio mares has worked well, and so Zipaway’s cross is Playing God over a half-brother to Oratorio.”
Oratorio is by far and away Playing God’s best cross. That mightn’t be surprising, given numbers in the WA gene pool, but still it’s yielded 26 winners from 37 runners including three stakes winners, Bustler the best among them.
Playing God over Discorsi is off to a flying start, with two from two, including the stakes-winning Zipaway.
Apart from jockeys, Neville and Carolyn Parnham have also done well breeding thoroughbreds. Owning a handful of mares outright, they’ve produced what Neville says are “about three or four” stakes winners. Aside from Zipaway, there’s also Perth Listed winner Flying Missile, who has the distinction of being one of just three black type victors by the once-vaunted, now India-based Cable Bay (Invincible Spirit), whose outstanding outlier being Group 1 winner Uncommon James.
“We’ve just got a few mares I muck around with,” says Parnham, who keeps them mostly at Claire Williamson’s Willaview Park, where Zipaway was born and raised.
The Parnhams have also been co-breeders in several other stakes-winners, and that’s a different sort of thrill for Neville than training them.
“Yeah, I got a bit of a kick out of it,” he said. “Bob Peters came up to me after Zipaway won the Guineas and congratulated me for being the winning breeder, and I said, ‘You do get a good feeling out of it, don’t you?’
“Obviously Bob’s a big breeder who’s used to winning big Group 1s. But yeah it is quite satisfying having a horse all the way from birth. I’m just a figurehead really, since the horse was reared down at Willaview, and they do all the hard work, but it’s nice to know you can breed one and it goes pretty good. Hopefully there’s a few others to come.”
The funny thing is, despite the high quality of Parnham pair Bustler and Zipaway, their pedigrees are remarkably, and similarly, plain at first glance.
Both have just the one same duplication in their first five generations – that of the ubiquitous Northern Dancer, starting the sirelines of both their parents.
Playing God’s top line runs Northern Dancer-Danzig-Danehill and Blackfriars. Bustler’s dam Cosmah Domination descends from Northern Dancer-Nureyev-Stravinsky-Oratorio, while Zipaway’s mum Boutique has Northern Dancer-Sadler’s Wells-Galileo-Discorsi.
Cosmah Domination won three from 20, all in the bush, but does have great strength in her female line. Bustler’s ninth dam, the taproot mare of his family, was British mare Joan Alone (Lally).
Leaving war-torn Europe for NSW, like a lot of things in 1916, Joan Alone became a significant name in the Australian stud book.
Her daughter Aulone (Claro) had four stakes winners including Civic Pride (Ajax), who became a star broodmare. She bore Bustler’s sixth dam Amneris (Nilo), who won three stakes races – including the modern Group 1 Flight Stakes – and threw two notable black–type horses herself: 1971 Canterbury Guineas winner Egyptian (Convamore), and Bustler’s fifth dam, Anemone (Duvidal).
Aside from Amneris, Civic Pride also threw her brother, the superb Pride Of Egypt. He won seven stakes races in the 1950s, including three modern Group 1s in what was then a spring three-year-old treble of the Canterbury and Rosehill Guineas, and the VRC Derby.
Between those two stars, Civic Pride also left their sister in Ptolemy. She didn’t win a stakes race, although she was a multiple Brisbane city winner, but at stud she served her bloodlines proud by throwing four stakes winners. Three of them were by the great Wilkes, highlighted by Foresight, a nine-time black–type winner in the 1960s who took today’s top-level All Aged and Rawson Stakes.
One of Ptolemy’s Wilkes fillies, Queen Farida, threw Qubeau (Beau Brummel), winner of modern Group 1s in the Orr and William Reid Stakes.
Closer to home, Bustler’s fourth dam Mia Lisa (Denizen) kept the family tradition going by throwing three stakes winners including Kate’s Myth (Kaoru Star). She went to New Zealand to win five stakes races, and bore Mythical Play (Defensive Play), who won two Group 1s in South Africa.
With Bustler still only four, there should be further black type ahead to enhance his female line’s proud history.
And with Parnham reckoning there’s “not a lot between” Bustler and Zipaway, that’s likely to mean more handsome rewards from Playing God’s nick with half-brothers Oratorio and Discorsi as well.