We all know the value of meticulous planning in breeding but also of its apparent antithesis – luck. Sometimes those two powerful forces combine. Sometimes one blows the other out of the water.  It was lucky Pierro took ill in his third season of 2015. Not for Coolmore and his shareholders of course, but, six... Read More

It’s a fine line between pleasure and pain. So, too, between madman and genius.  When Rick Jamieson watched Masked Crusader win the Group 3 The Heath so effortlessly at Caulfield last Saturday, hanging over the pride in another cracking piece of breeding was a large cloud of melancholy.  It was the Gilgai Farm maven who... Read More

Even by its own lofty standards, Waikato Stud had a day to remember at Randwick on Saturday.  Not only did New Zealand’s famous farm claim the credit in Australia’s first Group 1 of the season when Mo’unga took the Winx Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m), two races later the Waikato-bred mare Atishu claimed her second win... Read More

We love the bargain basement stories, like the Takeover Targets, or the one about the passed-in mare snapped up the next day for $1,000 while in foal with this year’s Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Stay Inside.  But sometimes we’re dazzled as well by the big hitters, the whales who swim in a league... Read More

There are cascades of class in the pedigree of Saturday’s Flemington three-year-old winner Sunfall, including the dam of a Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m)-winning cult hero, and a mare who played a large role in two other intriguing chapters of Australian racing folklore. The Mick Price-trained Sunfall is by Widden’s flagbearer Zoustar, who’s just finished... Read More