Eales Racing
Laurence Eales had a lot of early success with buying horses, but also quickly learned a valuable lesson – about value itself.
“The expensive ones don’t go any faster than the cheap ones,” he says. In fact, I’ve had a lot more luck with the less expensive ones.”
The story of the Melbourne-based former Cairns boy is very much one of the self-made man.
He was a tradie with an excavator, and built that up into one of the largest digging and tunnelling concerns in the country, landing on the BRW Young Rich List at 37.
He took what he’d gleaned from his father Mick, a butcher who bred Arabians as a hobby alongside stock horses, and headed off to buy some young thoroughbreds.
In 2007, he went to a sale in an appropriate price range – Inglis Classic – and parted with all of $19,500 for a colt from the second Australian crop of a shuttle sire with a large question mark over him: Street Cry (Machievellian).
That colt, one of the first handful to sport Eales’s black with the orange checked sash and cap, became Whobegotyou, the eight-time stakes-winner – including two Group 1s – of more than $3.2 million.
Later in 2007, Eales went a bit further – in fact way above his budget but still only $64,000 – for another son of Street Cry at a Magic Millions two-year-old Ready To Run sale. He named him Shocking and he won the 2009 Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) and the 2011 Australian Cup (Gr 1, 2000m).
After that, in a feeling most punters will know all too well, with a bit of wind in his sails Eales decided to loosen the fiscal shackles and swing bigger.
“I did go a bit berserk after winning the Melbourne Cup and bought a few expensive ones,” says Eales, recalling some half a dozen six-figure buys ranging up to around $250,000. “I learned the price you pay doesn’t make them any better. And that a good horse can come from anywhere.”
In the years since, which have included him setting up syndicator-with-a-difference Eales Racing in 2015, the now 52-year-old has discovered something else: despite how easy it seemed early on, Group 1s don’t drop out of trees.
Thirteen years after his last one, Eales was able to savour another last Saturday when the Jason Warren-trained Benedetta (Hellbent) took out The Goodwood (Gr 1, 1200m) at Morphettville.
The difference this time was he could celebrate with the mare’s ten co-owners who’d bought in through Eales Racing. These include the four-year-old’s breeder Brenton Parker, who happily bought back in months after her yearling sale on noticing on the syndicator’s website some shares in the late-blooming filly still hadn’t been sold.
Eales’s syndication operation was borne of his two loves – thoroughbreds and starting a business.
“I really like going to the sales and picking my own stock, and I thought it’d be great to get other people involved and build a bit of a business out of it,” he tells It’s In The Blood. “The costs with horses can get significant, so if you can share those with others, then reap the benefits of it and share in it, it’s a great feeling.”
Like his 2013 purchase Bondeiger (War Pass) – a $60,000 yearling who won two Group 3s and $726,000 – Benedetta is straight from the Eales business model.
She’s now won eight from 15 and $1.7 million after being bought from another second-tier sale – Inglis Premier – for $75,000. That’s far more than Whobegotyou’s price, but still fits with a buying philosophy that has rewarded Eales and his clients well.
“She was a narrow filly at the time. The sale was probably a bit early for her,” Eales said. “She was a bit behind where the other yearlings were and had quite a bit of maturing to do.”
Thankfully, a band of like-minded owners had been drawn together at Eales Racing. The boutique operation, which has around a dozen racing stock, some 100 clients and four staff, clearly operates without the pressure for quick returns seen elsewhere.
“A lot of syndicators are keen to have two-year-olds who get up and running early,” he says. “Our owners are pretty patient. If horses need to go out and take time and have a couple of extra preps to mature, we’ll do that.
“The thing with patience is, it pays you back in the long run. If you’re patient with your horse up front, generally they reward that patience tenfold down the track.”
Eales Racing now buys up to half a dozen yearlings each year, with Eales usually keeping 20 to 40 per cent of each, and sticking to his favoured price bracket.
“I’ve been down that pressure track. When I bought those expensive ones things tightened up a bit,” he said.
“So now, I like to buy at an average of around $70,000. This year we’ve bought them from around $18,000, to $40,000 to $100,000, so it averages out.
“Not only does a higher price not make them go faster, it’s easier to sell them if they’re not too expensive. Money is probably starting to tighten up a bit in the economy. I certainly don’t want to take risks on horses who cost a lot more and don’t even give you any guarantee they’re going to get to the races.”
Back when starting out, Eales was ahead of the curve in buying five young horses – headed by the Mark Kavanagh-trained Whobegotyou and Shocking – from the second Australian crop of Street Cry. His son Street Sense had won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (Gr 1, 1700m) at Churchill Downs, but the Darley shuttler wasn’t quite hitting the headlines.
He’d stood in Australia for $16,500 through seasons 2004-06. He didn’t return for the next two years, but when he came back in 2009 it was at a fee of $110,000 – boosted by his American wonder-daughter Zenyatta, and Whobegotyou. He needed no more proving, but from the second crop of his second coming, Street Cry went and sired Winx.
“Street Cry was a bit on the nose around 2007,” Eales says. “But I ended up buying five Street Crys from the same crop.
“I really liked the look of Whobegotyou at the Classic sale. He was passed in, so I got him later. I didn’t x-ray him – I didn’t x-ray Shocking when I bought him, either.
“Whobegotyou turned out to be a really lazy trackworker, so when he won on debut at Geelong it was a big surprise,” he says of the gelding, who would exceed early expectations further with three Group wins in his second preparation, including the 2008 Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m). That preceded a brave second in his only try beyond 2040m in Rebel Raider’s (Reset) VRC Derby (Gr 1, 2500m).
“Shocking was different in that he was a bit of a hard case early on. But we found out he had an allergy to sawdust. Once we changed to a paper-base in his box, he started kicking goals,” he says of the most recent horse to win the Hotham-Melbourne Cup double, when four.
Whobegotyou possessed a powerfully direct duplication of the great Mr. Prospector, as his third sire and as father of his third dam. He also had one of Eales’s favourite influential stallions – the British-bred Kris (Sharpen Up) – as his second damsire.
Shocking – in whom Eales has retained a share for his successful siring career with New Zealand’s Rich Hill Stud – had no Kris, but had another of Eales’s pin-ups Roberto (Hail To Reason) in a reasonably strong spot, as father of his second damsire.
Enticingly for Eales, Benedetta – who’s now the second Group 1 winner from just three crops racing for Hellbent (I Am Invincible) – had both, and in useful proximity. Kris is the damsire of Hellbent’s grandsire Invincible Spirit (Green Desert, by Danzig), while Benedetta’s dam Whatalovelyday (Domesday) has Roberto as her third sire.
With Whatazlovelyday’s damsire being another Melbourne spring hero from this century’s first decade in Elvstroem (Danehill), Benedetta also has a 5m, 5m x 5m triplication of Danzig (Northern Dancer).
“At yearling sales, I like looking for anything that’s got Roberto lines in the mare’s side,” Eales said. “And with Hellbent, I’ve always taken a punt on first season sires, or at least sires who haven’t been out too long, like Street Cry early on.
“And I just thought, with Hellbent being by I Am Invincible, who’s from that Danzig line, that was attractive, but Invincible Spirit’s dam was by Kris, who I like seeing in a horse’s dam side.”
Benedetta was named by Eales’s wife and racing partner Prue for a 17th century Italian nun, depicted in a 2021 film, famed for her visions and for having a spicy personality, a little like the filly. Despite this, Benedetta the horse was, as expected, a slow maturer.
Her first two preparations with Warren yielded just four barrier trials, but she was giving all the right signs that Eales’s own vision might come to fruition.
“I went and saw her in the spelling paddock after her first prep and I couldn’t believe how well she’s furnished out,” Eales says. “Jason said she was doing everything right, and looked like she had some ability.”
That was more than borne out when – after debuting as a December three-year-old – Benedetta won four of her first five starts, culminating in Flemington’s lucrative Inglis Sprint (1200m).
With six wins and three placings through 10 outings, hopes were high for her graduation to the top level this autumn.
But she gave Eales cause to wonder if his third top-tier winner might ever emerge through three agonising top tier runs – fourths in the Oakleigh Plate (Gr 1, 1100m) and VRC Newmarket Handicap (Gr 1, 1200m), and a third in Morphettville’s Robert Sangster Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) – around a victory at the same track in the Irwin Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m).
Last Saturday, however, Benedetta stood up to claim her deserved elite title, and in reasonably trouble-free style.
Eales is hopeful that after his long drought, two might come at once. Benedetta is now an $8 equal second-favourite for Eagle Farm’s Stradbroke Handicap (Gr 1, 1400m) on June 15 – her first try beyond two comfortable Sandown 1300 metre wins early last year.
“We think she’s ready for 1400 metres now, since she’s kept getting stronger,” says Eales of Benedetta, who shares her line in Stradbroke betting with the burgeoning Hellbent’s other Group 1 winner, Magic Time.
Having hit the pinnacle in 2009 with a stayer, Eales is now enjoying success with sprinters. Benedetta’s “teammates” include the Matt Laurie-trained dual Flemington straight winner Midtown Boss – a son of Street Cry’s son Street Boss who was an $80,000 buy at Adelaide Magic Millions. There’s also Marbilla (Lonhro), a $40,000 Premier buy who won on debut as a three-year-old over 1000 metres at Mornington for Warren last Monday.
Meanwhile, Whatalovelyday is back in foal to Hellbent. Eales has already declared Benedetta’s full sibling well out of his price range, but is happy for its breeder, who’s also an Eales Racing client.
“Good on Brenton – he’s a lovely fella,” he says. “I hope it sells for a lot of money.”