‘He’ll be catching the eye of a few Aussies who haven’t known much about him’
Inglewood anticipating a surge in interest in War Decree following Warmonger’s Queensland Derby romp
New Zealand’s Inglewood Stud anticipates a strong surge in demand for its young stallion War Decree (War Front) – in a fillip for South Island breeding – following the astonishing win of his son Warmonger in Saturday’s Queensland Derby (Gr 1, 2400m).
The Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr-trained gelding’s 10.4 length romp will not only have sent statisticians searching for the record books but will also have had breeders, particularly in Australia, scrambling to find our more about the relatively unknown stallion who’d just scored his first Group 1 winner.
War Decree, who stood his sixth season last year for just NZ$5,500, had previously had just one Group winner amongst 37 victors from 75 runners, with three crops racing.
And the ten-year-old, who won only three times in an 11-start career for Aidan O’Brien, including a Group 2 at Goodwood over 1400 metres and a Dundalk Group 3 over 2150 metres, stands far away from the Waikato hotbed of New Zealand breeding at the bucolic Inglewood, near Christchurch, as one of only a small handful of commercial sires in the South Island.
But stud owner Gus Wigley on Sunday said his phone had been running hot in the wake of Warmonger’s demolition Derby, with War Decree’s book set to rise this year from the 63 mares he covered last year.
This is not only good news for the stud after it bumped up their lone stallion’s fee to NZ$7,000 for this spring, but for South Island breeders who would more usually need to stump up funds to float their mares to the North Island or fly them to Australia.
Warmonger’s memorable win continued a strong period for Inglewood which, set up in 1938, is the oldest stallion-standing stud farm in New Zealand. Last year the country’s Racing Hall Of Fame inducted its founder Ken Austin, Wigley’s great-grandfather, who had auctioned Phar Lap (Night Raid) and Gloaming (The Welkin), among others, in his previous job before establishing Inglewood.
Six months after that induction came the debut of the Inglewood-bred Velocious (Written Tycoon), the $190,000 Karaka filly who’s won four of her six starts – including the Karaka 2YO Million (RL, 1200m) and the Sistema Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) – to set an inexorable course towards juvenile of the year honours.
Warmonger’s victory added icing to Inglewood’s cake.
“It’s very nice,” Wigley told ANZ Bloodstock News. “The stallion was ticking along really nicely and leaving plenty of winners, but he really needed that headline horse, as all stallions do.
“So it was nice to get a horse come out and not just win a Group 1, but to win it the way he did was very cool.
“I thought the wide barrier was a worry and also the wet track, because something we’ve found in New Zealand is that a lot of War Decrees don’t like it wet. But Warmonger relished it, which was really good.
“The phone hasn’t stopped ringing this morning, so hopefully we can get a full book for him this year. That headline horse gets everyone pretty keen, so hopefully he’s going to serve a really good book of mares.
“Hopefully he’ll be catching the eye of a few Aussies who haven’t known too much about him now he’s got a horse like that.”
Wigley said War Decree, bought from Coolmore in tandem with Warmonger’s breeder Kevin Hickman and his former North Island stud Valachi Downs, could have boasted more black–type progeny before Saturday with better luck.
Val Di Zoldo won Marton’s Lowland Stakes (Gr 2, 2100m) in March last year, but also ran second in a two-year-old Group 3 at Taranaki and run fourth in stakes races six times.
Fellow 2019 first-cropper Third Decree won three on the bounce in the South Island before a black–type second in Riccarton’s Great Easter Stakes (Listed, 1400m) in April.
Hakadecree had two wins and a second from his first three runs before a 0.4 length second in the Gore Guineas (Listed, 1335m) in January when, Wigley believes he “had the race won but got distracted by the tents down the home straight” and was nabbed near the line.
And his fellow three-year-old Luvnwar placed third in Ashburton’s Barneswood Farm Stakes (Gr 3, 1400m) in October to spark talk of a New Zealand 1,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) tilt, but was then bought by Western Australia’s Bob Peters. She made her Perth debut only on May 25, with a second over 1200 metres at Belmont, with Wigley hopeful she’ll progress to the Belmont Oaks (Listed, 2000m) on July 6.
While such offspring have been knocking on the door, Wigley said War Decree would also probably be far better known had his horses not presented such enticing trade opportunities.
Warmonger himself was a $75,000 Karaka yearling pinhooked for $165,000 at the same house’s Ready to Run sale, before a private sale to OTI and the Price-Kent stable. But it took 11 months after that Ready to Run sale before he made his race debut, running third in a Seymour maiden last September. Two starts later, he won in Listed class at Flemington to become War Decree’s second stakes winner.
“War Decree is probably unlucky not to have had a few more black–type winners,” Wigley said.
“Also, most of his horses are bred to race, rather than to go through the sale ring. And his stock have been very popular trade horses.
“A lot of his colts go to Hong Kong and fillies to Australia. That’s fantastic for our clients and the people who support the horse, but those traded horses do disappear for 12 months when they go to Hong Kong, or to Australia in Warmonger’s case.
“Luvnwar looks pretty exciting, but she also was off the scene for about six months when she got traded as well. It can hold a young stallion back a bit when their horses get traded and take a while to find their feet and get settled.
“But I’m pretty excited about what’s going to happen in the next few months. It would be great if Luvnwar can win the Belmont Oaks and War Decree gets another stakes winner before the end of the season.”
War Decree’s start to stud life was also hindered when the pandemic impacted on efforts to sell his first crop at Karaka in 2021, after he’d covered 93 mares in his initial season, at NZ$6,500 – still his largest book.
“He had a good first crop of yearlings at Karaka, and we wanted to put them in front of Aussie buyers, but they couldn’t make it across the ditch because of Covid,” Wigley said.
“Hopefully now with a horse like Warmonger on the scene, we’ll have a few more Aussies over here looking at this stock.”
With Warmonger’s odds for the Caulfield (Gr 1, 2400m) and Melbourne Cups (Gr 1, 3200m) slashed after Saturday, Wigley is hopeful he can continue to put War Decree’s name in lights as a spring four-year-old, and sees plenty of benefits not just for his stud but for all South Island breeders.
“It’ll be interesting to see what he covers, but certainly judging by the interest today, he’ll get a lot of bookings flooding in,” said Wigley, who also has some 30 mares at Inglewood.
“The thing that has limited him is the number of mares on the South Island.
“But it’s expensive to get a mare to the North Island and back, and there’s a lot of well bred and well performed mares here in the South Island, and they’ve got a nice stallion on their doorstep now in War Decree, so the bonus there is that he’ll cover a lot of those mares who might otherwise go north.”
War Decree, the first of two northern hemisphere Group 2 winners from Royal Decree (Street Cry), came to Wigley and Hickman’s attention as a well-bred sire who had performed early and progressed well.
“I loved his pedigree,” Wigley said. “War Front’s a world class stallion, and I’m a big fan of Street Cry mares. And War Decree was good as a two-year-old and trained on to get over some ground as a three-year-old. So he’s a horse I did follow early on after his two-year-old win.”
A year after War Decree’s purchase, Hickman secured another son of War Front to stand at Valachi in U S Navy Flag – coincidentally the sire of Saturday’s tearaway Derby leader Navy King.
“Kevin really liked War Front, and by that time we’d done all the homework on him when War Decree had come down,” Wigley said.
One year younger than War Decree, former Coolmore shuttler U S Navy Flag now stands at The Oaks Stud in the Waikato, and has virtually the same black–type CV that War Decree had before Saturday: one Group 2 winner (Pendragon) and one (dual) Listed victor in Chantilly Lace.