Donovan’s lifelong ambition fulfilled
The thoroughbred marketplace – the breeders, owners, agents and trainers – can often make brutal judgement calls on horses, particularly the merits of a stallion, based on a small sample size and in the absence of compelling evidence pointing to either their success or otherwise.
We see it at the weanling sales and, more so, at the yearling sales where buyers show their hand regarding who they believe will make it and who won’t at stud and they aren’t afraid to make their views known.
ANZ Bloodstock News regularly seeks the opinions of the industry players, the ones staking their reputations (and money) on the horses they buy or the stallions they breed to, and sometimes there is consensus but quite often there’s not.
As an example, the first-crop yearlings by Widden’s Written By, the Blue Diamond Stakes-winning son of Written Tycoon, found favour with buyers this year. His stock across the board averaged $131,480 and arguably sold for more than what his first season service fee ($24,750) indicated would may be the case when he was retired to stud, such was the perceived maturity and strength of his yearlings presented at the sales.
We could throw Darley shuttler Harry Angel (Dark Angel) ($16,500) (averaged $119,699 from 59 yearlings sold) into that bracket as well.
The market’s endorsement of those stallions also needs to be considered when you factor in that they could have been overshadowed by the “Big Three” of Trapeze Artist (Snitzel), The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) and Justify (Scat Daddy), the trio also retired to stud in 2019.
Speaking to Seymour trainer David “Butch” Bourne this week, a well-known face at the sales who has made a career out of buying and selling horses, he said this when asked how he forms a view on the likelihood of which young stallions are going to make the grade.
“We all understand why weanlings are sold, but I am more likely to go, ‘I’ve seen the weanlings, I’ve seen the yearlings’ and I go back and see the weanlings a second time, so I have three samples, then I am quite happy to make judgments on horses after that,” said Bourne, who has talented filly Ojosan (Mikki Isle) running in tomorrow’s SAJC Lightning Stakes (Listed, 1050m) in Adelaide.
“It is a small sample size, but it’s like Toronado, once I’d seen those three crops – weanlings, yearlings, weanlings – there were too many nice horses out there by him (for him not to make it).
“I bought one in his second weanling crop and that horse actually won a stakes race. I thought I was a genius because I made $60,000 pinhooking him and then he won a stakes race and I thought, ‘there’s a million to Hong Kong straight away’. A real genius, I am!”
The horse was Shelby Cobra, a $70,000 Great Southern weanling purchase by Bourne in 2018 who on-sold him for $130,000 to agent Paul Moroney and his brother, trainer Mike Moroney, at the following year’s Inglis Melbourne Premier sale. He won the Springtime Stakes (Listed, 1400m) on day four of the 2020 Flemington spring carnival as a three-year-old.
The upcoming season promises to be fascinating to watch unfold. Will the Written Bys jump and run? How early will The Autumn Suns be? And Bert Vieira, the owner of Trapeze Artist, has already shown his hand by putting up $2 million (over four years) to the owners of any of the stallion’s progeny who can win an Australian two-year-old Group 1 race.
No matter what side of the industry you come from – owner, trainer, agent or punter – you have to take positions on horses without all the evidence being available and it’s not until they reach the racecourse, which is the ultimate arbiter, are we closer to finding out the answer.
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It’s the same premise for the young stallions entering the second season sire title race when the new season starts on Monday.
Newgate Farm’s Russian Revolution (Snitzel) is assured of claiming first season sire honours, but how he and his contemporaries follow up in their second season will be equally as important.
There will be a lot of anticipation towards New Zealand’s Cambridge Stud with its shuttler Almanzor (Wootton Bassett) who will take out the country’s first season sire title but with the expectation his progeny will come into their own at three.
He sired seven individual winners, three in New Zealand and four in Australia, including Te Akau’s Karaka Million (RL, 1200m) winner Dynastic and promising Victorian-trained juveniles Grinzinger Bishop and Virtuous Circle.
Having broached the subject previously with Newgate Farm’s Henry Field, he is confident Russian Revolution’s stock will train on at three (and four), just as the stallion did for trainers Peter and Paul Snowden. So, can Yarraman Park’s Hellbent (I Am Invincible) take up the challenge to him when his first-crop progeny turn three after closing the season strongly with eight individual winners (one in New Zealand) in July (so far)?
The first crop of Pariah (Redoute’s Choice) could also see improvement next season, fitting the consensus of many observers of his progeny as yearlings, that they would be better at three, as you’d expect the Churchills (Galileo) and Ribchesters (Iffraaj) to be.
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Coolmore Australia has a new racing manager in Charlie Spicer-Jenkins, an English veterinarian who has been Down Under for the past three years.
Spicer-Jenkins was at Randwick on Monday to watch Coolmore’s rising three-year-old colt Best Of Bordeaux (Snitzel) go through his paces in a barrier trial as he becomes accustomed in the new role, replacing Rob Archibald who has joined trainer Annabel Neasham as her racing manager.
“I’m still a vet on the farm at Coolmore, getting ready for the yearling drafts at the moment, so I’m being kept busy on both sides, which is good. From the racing manager’s perspective, I am still finding my feet, really,” Spicer-Jenkins, 30, told us.
It was Spicer-Jenkins’ wife Emily, also a vet, who led him to Australia, and a job at Randwick Equine.
“My first job was in racing as a vet at Rossdales (at Lambourn) in England, but my wife got a job at Coolmore (Australia) as a stud vet and that was about three years ago,” he said.
“My skill set is not really for that stud side, I’ve only ever really done horses in training and the sales side, so I went to Randwick Equine and she went to Coolmore.
“We’ve done the long distance (relationship) but we decided enough was enough and I came up to Coolmore and worked as a vet in the off season.
“I have been helping with the breakers, keeping it quite orthopaedic, rather than the breeding side of it. Rob Archibald moved out of the racing manager’s role, so it was a bit of ‘right place, right time’ and Tom (Magnier) asked if I wanted to do it.”
Spicer-Jenkins expects the racing manager’s role to take up the majority of his time and it is unlikely that you’ll see him on night watch during the breeding season.
“It’s such a speciality, it’s like asking a GP to go and do knee surgery. I wouldn’t be able to do it justice with this racing manager’s role,” he said.
“I am going to stick to the sales and the orthopaedic side of it and keep my hand in it that way. I’ve got the passion for racing, but I love being a vet as well, so it’s a nice balance. I won’t start doing foalings and that side of it.”
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Clint Donovan fulfilled a long-held ambition when auctioneering at this month’s Hong Kong International Sale, 13 years after the Jockey Club knocked back his request to act as a bid spotter at the sale.
With former New Zealand Bloodstock employee Danny Rolston at the helm of the Hong Kong sale, having also started with the Jockey Club this month, the Gold Coast-based Magic Millions auctioneer and real estate agent Donovan was behind the rostrum for the selling of 17 two-year-olds.
“Danny’s doing well and he’s got some new and sound ideas for the sale and he’ll take it to another level, I feel, and I am just grateful to be part of it,” Donovan said this week.
“I admitted to Winfried (Engelbrecht-Bresges, HKJC chief executive) that I begged, borrowed and stole and flew myself to Hong Kong to try and get myself a bid spotting job there 13 years ago to the day and I couldn’t for the life of me get a run, they wouldn’t let me, so now to be invited back as their auctioneer for the next number of years is a big thrill.”
Donovan undertook the mandatory seven days of hotel quarantine with a view of the Sha Tin racecourse prior to the sale, which had 17 horses go under the hammer.
“Until the door slammed behind me, I hadn’t really contemplated seven days without being able to open the door or the window,” he said.
“The Jockey Club, however, looked after me with views of the Sha Tin racecourse and I had some good friends up there, (new HKJC trainer) Jamie Richards and Danielle Johnson, who dropped me off some care packages, so I was well looked after.”