“I feel confident we have the right product”
Satchell has high hopes ahead of Willow Grove Stud’s first Inglis Premier Sale draft
Ralph Satchell has been breeding and selling yearlings for many years, but he will enter uncharted territory at this year’s Inglis Premier Yearling Sale when his operation, Willow Grove Stud, presents their first draft at the Melbourne auction.
Based in South Australia, Satchell admitted that Willow Grove Stud had in the past sold all their yearlings at their home sale in Adelaide, but after some sage advice from Inglis’ Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch, the farm decided to take a different approach in 2024.
“When the Inglis boys come to South Australia to inspect yearlings, they usually call in as a courtesy because we haven’t actually ever entered a horse for an Inglis sale before, we’ve always loyally stuck to South Australia – our home state.” Satchell told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“We have had a couple of sale toppers in Adelaide recently and we’ve sold extremely well and our percentage of stakes winners to runners is going well, so we’re doing a pretty good job. But Sebastian Hutch had a good talk to me and I’ve really taken his advice, feeling we needed to expose some of these nice horses to a broader buying bench.
“So I took that advice on board and let them [Inglis] cherry pick, on type, what they thought a really good product out of our group and here we are.”
Willow Grove Stud will present four yearlings – a filly by Rubick (Encosta De Lago) and a trio of colts by Ole Kirk (Written Tycoon), Headwater (Exceed And Excel) and Smart Missile (Fastnet Rock) – at the Inglis Premier Yearling which begins its three-day run on Sunday.
“The Inglis boys saw our yearlings a number of times and they gave us a very detailed description of how they viewed them,” Satchell said.
“I think the Inglis team have hit the nail on the head, these are the types and likely runners that are going to appeal to the trainers who are going to say: ‘Gee that’s a nice horse, that looks like a runner.’ “I would say the four of them look like runners and they have a bit of quality about them and everything is right about them. They are great walking horses, great legged horses. I am sure they are a sound product to buoy our little trip to Melbourne.”
Of the four yearlings set to go under the hammer at Oaklands junction next week, Satchell believes the colt from the first crop of Vinery Stud’s dual Group 1-winning three-year-old Ole Kirk is the headline act amongst the draft.
Catalogued as Lot 332, the youngster is the second foal out of placed mare Kibibi (Exceed And Excel), herself a sister to the Listed winner and Group-placed Athelric and from the further family of Group 2 winner Old North (Lonhro).
The daughter of Exceed And Excel (Danehill) handed the farm a memorable result when her first foal, a colt by Harry Angel (Dark Angel), now named Dapper Don, topped last year’s Magic Millions Adelaide Sale when selling to Kennewell Racing and George Moore Bloodstock for $230,000.
Satchell said he sees similarities between the Ole Kirk yearling and his older half-brother, but believes the mare’s 2022 yearling has a slight edge over his sibling in terms of size and scope.
“The Ole Kirk is our flagship colt. I felt this colt needed to be exposed to a bigger buying bench. The Harry Angel half-brother, the first foal out of the mare, topped the Adelaide Sale last year,” Satchell explained. “This colt is very similar to his half-brother, he is a little bigger and has slightly more scope to him and presents very well.
“The Harry Angel was full of quality and was very correct and the Ole Kirk is the same, but the difference is that he is that little bit bigger, being the second foal out of the mare.
“The Harry Angel was a running sort of colt, but this guy has a lovely deep hindquarter, deep shoulder and plenty of lung room and he is just a bigger version.
Ole Kirk himself proved precocious enough to win at Listed level and also place in a Group 1 as a juvenile, but he hit another level as a three-year-old, winning the Golden Rose Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m), earning him Australia’s Champion Three-Year-old Colt title in 2020-21.
While the studmaster believes his Ole Kirk looks a readymade runner, he does attest that, like his sire, he would most likely develop into a nice three-year-old.
“I think by the time he gets to three, he might be a very good horse. I see a lot of similarities between this colt and his sire. Some good judges really rate this colt and I do myself as well,” he said.
Rated highly by his trainers Lloyd Kennewell and Lucy Yeomans, Dapper Don is slated to partake in his first trial at Cranbourne a few hours before his half-brother hits the sales ring and Satchell is hoping he can advertise the mare’s capabilities in the breeding barn.
“I spoke to Lloyd Kennewell at the sale today [Thursday] and he said he hasn’t got a two-year-old in the stable that can go with the Harry Angel. He is going to trial at Cranbourne on Monday about an hour and a half before this colt goes through the sale ring. The other guy really looked like a two-year-old, so hopefully the trial goes well next week,” said Satchell.
“Talk is cheap, but results count and they seem very happy with him at this stage, so we’ll just have to wait and see what Monday brings.”
Satchell is known for breeding the likes of multiple stakes winner Outlaws Revenge (Reward For Effort), dual Group 3 winner Tequila Time (Stratum) and his stakes-winning half-sister Another Award (Shamus Award), who was also placed twice at Group 1 level, to name a small few. However, recently Willow Grove Stud has been thrust back into the spotlight due to the exploits of their former resident stallion, Mint Lane (Maria’s Mon).
The US Grade 2 winner stood at the South Australian farm between 2010-2018 and he was represented by his first Group 1 winner as a stallion when his son Queman blitzed his rivals in last Saturday’s Oakleigh Plate (Gr 1, 1100m) at Caulfield, and while the result handed Satchell no financial reward, it gave him plenty of satisfaction.
“It was terrific. I bought Mint Lane and imported him to Australia. I think the thing that slowed him down a bit here was that many of his first crop or two that we sold were bought for Singapore and Asia and he actually had a good following overseas,” Satchell said.
“But a lot of his stock didn’t stay in Australia, which probably in the grand scheme of things didn’t help him. He has always been able to get a fast horse, he had Our Gladiator, who was very smart for Jerome Hunter and a lot of others.
“It is fantastic to see him get a Group 1 winner, we always knew he had a good horse in him. They could always be a little bit hot-blooded and probably that didn’t help, but they are very determined horses. It was very satisfying to be able to think of him as a Group 1 sire.”
Mint Lane’s influence can be seen among the farm’s draft at Premier, with two of their offerings being out of daughters of the stallion.
Catalogued as Lot 239, the Smart Missile colt is out of his daughter Fonteyn Lane, who was bred and raced by the Satchells, and she has already produced a dual winner in the shape of Bolted In (Bolt D’Oro), a $40,000 Adelaide graduate for Willow Park Stud.
Meanwhile, the son of Headwater (Lot 277) is out of Mint Lane’s eight-time-winning daughter Hazy Lane, another bred and co-raced by Satchell.
“Interestingly enough two out of our four Melbourne yearlings are out of Mint Lane mares and they are the two we cherry-picked out of the ones we bred over a number of years,” said Satchell. “Hazy Lane we raced ourselves and she won eight races in Adelaide when trained by Richard Jolly.
“The other one is from a very good family, out of Fonteyn Lane. She herself is out of a Zabeel mare and Fonteyn Lane has already thrown a good horse in Bolted In and that is about ready to resume.”
Satchell is hoping the new Inglis exercise will prove to be a lucrative and successful one and he said feels confident he has brought the right product to Victoria.
“It is very obvious that we are exposing these horses to a broader scope of buyers. Some of the more high profile trainers are turning up at the barn and it is good to see the reality of a broader buying bench.
“The Adelaide sale has been good to us over the years and we still have some nice horses for that sale, but if inspections are anything to go by, I am very happy with the way things are going so far.
“I think they have to please on inspection and I think these four please on inspection. I feel confident we have the right product and more importantly the types that can go on and prove that on the racetrack. We look forward to that unfolding.
“I have been selling horses for a long time, so I know what the market wants and I feel very comfortable bringing these four here and I felt it was the right move. Hopefully, we will get a good reception.”