‘Everything we hoped would happen did happen’
Victoria’s Woodside Park had quadruple cause for celebration on Saturday as they look ahead to hopefully more success – and more patronage from breeders – with stallions Shalaa (Invincible Spirit) and Vancouver (Medaglia D’Oro).
First, Gerald Ryan and Sterling Alexiou’s Eagle Nest (Shalaa) won Rosehill’s Starlight Stakes (Listed, 1100m), becoming his sire’s third stakes winner for the season.
Fifty five minutes later came the stallion’s fourth, when Welwal (Shalaa) took Caulfield’s Kevin Heffernan Stakes (Gr 3, 1400m).
And three hours after that, Overpass (Vancouver) brought his second top-tier triumph, taking his fourth win from four Perth starts in the Winterbottom Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
All this was happening against the backdrop of another celebration – the wedding of Woodside owner Eddie Hirsch’s son Ben to his bride Aisha at a winery at Yarra Glen.
While the races at nearby Yarra Valley were abandoned midway through due to rain, there was no dampener on the party at the Hirsch wedding, and no shortage of liquid refreshment as Woodside’s sires enjoyed a day in the sun.
There may, however, have been a few disapproving looks over the number of guests attached to the farm who had their eyes down at their phones at certain junctures.
“Five minutes before the wedding, Eagle Nest wins a Listed race, so we were all pretty pleased about that. I’m not superstitious, but it felt like it was meant to be,” Woodside’s stallions nominations manager Mark Dodemaide told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“But then, halfway through the wedding, Welwal wins a Group 3. It wasn’t exactly during the vows, but it was pretty close. A few of us were getting in trouble from our wives at that point, let’s just say.
“And then we’re in the reception and Overpass wins a Group 1, so we were nice and merry by then. It was a brilliant day. Everything we hoped would happen did happen.”
It was a second Australian stakes success for the season for both Overpass and Vancouver, following the Bjorn Baker-trained gelding’s victory in Randwick’s Sydney Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) in October.
And the Corumbene Stud-bred Overpass is one of four stakes winners worldwide for Vancouver in calendar 2024. From his two seasons of shuttling to the US for his former owners Coolmore, Vancouver has also had a Listed winner in America, and has the rare distinction for an Australian stallion of having a superstar in Peru.
King Mo, a five-year-old bought at a Keeneland January sale for all of $2,200, has won nine of his 11 starts, all at Lima’s Hipodromo de Montericco. The latest brought his first stakes success at Group 3 level – and over 2400 metres if you don’t mind, for a sire who won from 1000 metres up to the distance of his Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) triumph.
Vancouver, who’s second-best performer after Overpass is American quadruple black-type winning mare Madone, is likely to end up covering around 45 mares at Woodside this term at his $9,900 (inc GST) fee.
That’s a modest rise from 37 at $11,000 (inc GST) in 2023, his second season at the farm following his transfer from Coolmore.
“Vancouver’s going along nicely,” Dodemaide said. “He’s got Overpass, who’s a star, but he’s got more than him. He’s got ten other stakes-winners, and runs at a winners-to-runners percentage of nearly 70 per cent.”
The 12-year-old has 172 winners from 262 runners in Australia at 65.6 per cent, while his worldwide mark is 68.8 per cent, from 282 winners out of 410 runners.
With six crops racing in Australia, and a personal best finish on the general sires’ table of 30th last season, Vancouver sits equal fourth among Woodside’s six stallions by service fee.
The list is topped at $22,000 (inc GST) by Benbatl (Dubawi), who won three Group 1s in three countries – in Dubai, Germany, and in the 2018 Caulfield Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) before running second in Winx’s (Street Cry) fourth Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m).
Second on the Woodside list on $19,800 (inc GST) sits Shalaa, who looks set to cover a similar book of around 90 mares to that of 2023, his first year in the south after Hirsch went hard to buy the former Arrowfield shuttler from his French owners Al Shaqab.
Dodemaide said bookings were still coming in for Shalaa for this season, in which his four Australian stakes winners have helped him to 11 in total, amid 18 worldwide.
Shalaa is now well exposed to the Australian market, having outgrown the handicap of many a European shuttler – that buyers and breeders here are unfamiliar with his racetrack deeds.
Those deeds could scarcely have been more impressive, mind you, with six wins from eight starts including the top-tier double of Deauville’s Prix Morny (Gr 1, 1200m) and Newmarket’s Middle Park Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
With Shalaa having claimed his first elite winner this term with Mornington Glory’s Moir Stakes (Gr 1, 1000m), and boasting a host of city winners, Woodside are hopeful results like Saturday’s black type double will help the him gain greater recognition from Australia mare owners.
“I do find him a little bit underrated, but I’m not sure why,” Dodemaide said.
“I know he raced mostly in France, so people didn’t get to see him here, but when Frankie Dettori hops off after the Middle Park and says he’s the fastest two-year-old he’s ever ridden, you know he’s a fast horse.
“He’s got 18 stakes winners, and when you look at his results it’s metro winner after metro winner.
“If you go back to a sales catalogue from 2020 and look at the first season stallions in it, you’ll go through them and go, ‘No good, no good, good, OK, no good’, et cetera. So many of them don’t make it, but he’s one who has.”
A school of thought exists that Shalaa may have earlier been difficult to read for Australian breeders.
He started sensationally when first-cropper Shaquero won the first juvenile males race of the 2020-21 season – the ATC Breeders’ Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) – and three starts later the Gold Coast’s Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m).
Those results helped Shalaa finish fourth, by earnings, on the Australian first season sires’ table.
But another stat was not so glorious: he’d had only seven winners, finishing a more sobering ninth by that marker, and from 41 runners at 17.1 per cent.
Still, breeders and trainers had pegged him as a sire of early running two-year-olds and fashioned their expectations of his progeny accordingly.
Mare owners flocked to Shalaa in the weeks after Shaquero’s Breeders’ Plate win, swelling his 2020 book to a personal-best 170 covers. But as the market waited in vain for more major two-year-old glory, in 2021 he covered just 88 mares, and in 2022, his last season at Arrowfield, it was 111.
Shalaa has still enjoyed success in the two-year-old sphere. Of the 11-year-old’s 18 stakes winners, he’s had six juvenile black type victors. But the fact his stock have shown up this season in their later years should likely further boost his appeal.
Mornington Glory is six, as is the British-bred Welwal. Eagle Nest is five, so too Ciaron Maher’s sprinter Recommendation, who won three in a row in the Melbourne winter including two Group 3s, and is preparing for next Saturday’s Hong Kong Sprint (Gr 1, 1200m).
“You know what you get with Shalaa’s stock,” Dodemaide said. “You’ll get a horse who could go at two, and will train on for you, and you’ll breed yourself a bit of speed.
“That’s what everyone wants, and you might also get a good trade horse. He’s done OK in Hong Kong.”
Shalaa has had six winners from ten runners in Hong Kong, including the Group 3-winning Whizz Kid.
Dodemaide said Shalaa, an “ideal” stallion in regard to VOBIS bonuses, would have an impressive range of two-year-olds hit the tracks this season. While his 2021 book dropped to those 88 mares, it was off his peak fee at Arrowfield of $44,000 (inc GST), likely boosting their quality.
“His two-year-old crop now are off the back of Shaquero’s success. His numbers went back a bit, but he might have had better mares that season, so there’s no reason why this success shouldn’t keep going,” said the former long-term Inglis staffer.
“You know he gets you very good looking horses. He’s an amazing looking horse himself. I know from driving around looking at stallions in the Hunter Valley when I was at Inglis, he was definitely in the top five good sorts, and he puts that into his progeny.
“He brings the ability to breed you a really good looking foal, a very sensible horse, and he’s a horse who’s capable of getting progeny who can get those two-year-old bonuses and a horse who’ll be running in sprint races as five and six-year-olds.”