Cythera a tribute to Highgrove’s Secret
Cythera’s impressive debut win in yesterday’s Lonhro Plate (Listed, 1000m) at Randwick was another feather in the cap for Highgrove Stud breeder Ron Gilbert, if perhaps tinged with sadness.
Team Snowden’s two-year-old daughter of I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) extended an ultra-impressive record for the American-bred mare Gilbert bought from Keeneland in 2012, Helena’s Secret (Five Star Day).
A daughter of Mount Helena (Danzig), and granddaughter of the Blue Hen Helen Street (dam of Street Cry and granddam of Shamardal), Helena’s Secret was imported two years after Gilbert had bought her half-sister Tears I Cry (Chester House).
Tears I Cry not only shared the name of an Australian Group 1-winning gelding who’d claimed the Emirates Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) of 2007, she was a stakes-winner herself, having taken a Listed event in Texas.
Helena’s Secret, by contrast, had raced five times in Canada for just the one win. But she would substantially eclipse her big half-sister in the formidable breeding barn of Gilbert, the man who kicked off the ultra-successful family of the mare Decidity (Last Tycoon) that bore the likes of Legally Bay (Snippets) and Group 1 winners Merchant Navy (Fastnet Rock) and Bonaria (Redoute’s Choice).
For her first trick, Helena’s Secret threw Thronum (Snitzel), who won at Group 2 and Listed level before a half-length second in Hellbent’s (I Am Invincible) William Reid Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
Thronum’s efforts helped Helena’s Secret’s third foal Secretly (Sebring) fetch $400,000 at Easter in 2018. A colt by Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) netted Highgrove $450,000 a year later and has become Rule Of Law, who’s just won his fourth from four this preparation, up to Benchmark 88 class, since being transferred from the Snowdens to Bjorn Baker and gelded.
Rule Of Law’s younger full brother Verne, a $300,000 Easter yearling, won the past two of his three starts in Sydney last winter before an injury-enforced spell, but is back in work with Annabel Neasham.
And now Cythera, bought for $420,000 last Easter, scored a debut win at stakes level as the first Australian runner for John Moore’s IRON syndicate.
All in all, Helena’s Secret’s offspring have made her a star broodmare. The tinge of regret, however, comes in the fact she was found dead in her paddock in August, 2020, aged just 13 and in foal with Cythera’s younger full sibling.
“It was just natural causes, I’m afraid,” Gilbert says. “Just her day to leave this world. Breeding can be like that. But I’m very happy for the owners of Cythera. It was a very good win. She was a queen as a yearling and now she looks like a queen of a racehorse.
“I’d bought Helena’s Secret because she was a half to Tears I Cry. I loved the family, because it’s Shamardal and Street Cry’s family.
“Helena’s Secret was really an Australian-looking mare. She was more close-coupled than Tears I Cry, and ultimately turned out to be the best producer of the two, even though she didn’t win a stakes race and Tears I Cry did.”
Given what’s happened with Rule Of Law and Verne, Cythera would fetch a far higher price as a yearling today, possibly more like the figure Gilbert had in mind last Easter.
“I know they paid a lot of money, but I actually thought she might make more,” he says. “The Vinnie fillies were making $800,000 or a million. I put a reserve on her of $400,000, and I thought she’d have made a bit more than $420,000, given she was an outstanding type.”
Still, Gilbert’s not complaining. He has Secretly’s first foal, a filly by Written Tycoon (Iglesia), on the ground, and she’s now in foal to Street Boss (Street Cry), bringing a 3×4 double-up of Helen Street on which Gilbert is very keen.
And he could also claim partial credit for the winner of another of Randwick’s features yesterday.
The Eskimo Prince Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) was won by Paulele, who’s out of Chatoyant (Flying Spur), a daughter of the mare Gilbert saved in 1999 when a colic attack had vets recommending euthanasia, Decidity.