They do things big in Western Australia. A few years ago, south coast boutique breeder Craig Thompson bought a boat and named it after his wife – Rosemary. That sounds very lovely, but it’s the kind of boat – not that he’d want to try this – that wouldn’t fit into the MCG. Thompson, the... Read More

Luck is extremely important quite often in the making of a thoroughbred, and veteran South Australian hobby breeder Brenton Parker has had his share of both kinds. In 2002, he and wife Liz bought a rising two-year-old out of a paddock who became Madame Flurry (Perugino). She wasn’t up to much on the track, winning... Read More

Gerry Harvey’s been at the breeding game for a good few decades now, but still talks about it like a kid who discovered it last week. Every sentence ends with an exclamation mark. They rise in tone as if to end in astonishment and wonder. He speaks with a boyish enthusiasm, which probably explains why... Read More

Emotions ran high, amid remembrances of people and horses past, when Silent Sovereign (Dalakhani) stormed home to take Saturday’s Queen Of The South Stakes (Gr 2, 1600m) at Morphettville. And they’ll run even higher if she can win the Caulfield Cup (Gr 1, 2400m) this spring. The five-year-old mare owes her existence to a giant... Read More

It’s well known how success in breeding hinges on family connections. And now some such linkages – of the human kind – have led over several decades to a new stakes winner, in Adelaide last weekend. Around 1980, then-emerging breeder David Hains looked north, way north, and imported the Danish Oaks winner Love Song (Warpath),... Read More