Highness
The promising Michael Freedman-trained colt Highness (Snitzel) served notice of a regal future in jumping out of the ground late on to claim Wyong’s Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1100m) last week.
And in so doing he revived memories of a close relative, his ‘uncle’ Dissident (Sebring), a stallion whose reputation may have dimmed somewhat through a meagre stud career, but whose racetrack deeds stamp him as one of Australia’s finest sprinter-milers of the century so far.
His is a saga not without bumps, including owners pledging to buy shares and pulling out. And one man who benefitted is 80-year-old Ron Hamer. A co-breeder of Highness and Dissident (and the sole breeder of Group 1 winner Prompt Response), Hamer has reaped rewards for making some astute moves and seizing opportunity when it came knocking.
A former industrial pipe manufacturer from Wee Waa, then Dalby, and now retired on the Gold Coast, Hamer was looking to make a start in ownership when he caught wind of a chance to buy into a filly trained by David Hayes, Diana’s Secret (Anabaa).
“I had a bit of luck getting into it,” Hamer said. “Someone pulled out of Diana’s Secret and left 15 per cent of her there, and I was able to buy that.”
At first, the deal had its question marks. A $330,000 Gold Coast yearling in 2006, Diana’s Secret won her second start at Sandown, her tenth at Caulfield, but none others in a 16-race career netting just $73,000 in prize-money.
But Hamer kept his share, along with partners including Widden Stud, as the mare went to the breeding barn aged four. First out, from a mating with much vaunted first–season stallion, the three-time Group 1-winning Haradasun (Fusaichi Pegasus), came Karma Is Good, who unfortunately wasn’t, although he only had three poor attempts to prove his worth before breaking down.
For a second mating, in 2009, Diana’s Secret was put to another first-season sire in the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Sebring (More Than Ready). This time, things worked considerably better. The resultant foal was Dissident.
Peter Moody had become a household name by the time the yearling Dissident stepped out amongst Widden’s draft at the Gold Coast in January, 2012. The Melbourne premier trainer’s superstar Black Caviar (Bel Esprit) had won 16 out of 16 – a phenomenal record, though it would be enhanced by nine more wins before the end of her perfect career.
But Moody was still a racehorse trainer with a traditional model to service. He paid $210,000 for Dissident – the same figure he’d paid for the yearling Black Caviar – and then found the owners to foot the bill. Or at least he thought he had.
“Most of the partnership who bought him said they would retain the majority shareholding in him of 70 to 80 per cent,” Moody recalled in his autobiography. “Gradually, all bar one of the partners pulled out and left me holding the baby, which was pretty ordinary. I had to pay up for the horse myself, then scramble to put a syndicate together.”
Eventually, Moody wrangled a posse of 17 various interests to complete the ownership ticket, and kept ten per cent himself. Among the owners were long-term client Owen Egan – and that one original part-owner Moody mentioned – the colt’s co-breeder Hamer.
“I’d told Widden I was interested in staying in, and they told Peter, and I got in touch, so I kept ten per cent. It worked out well,” Hamer told It’s In The Blood.
That was an understatement. Dissident had recouped substantially more than his purchase price by his sixth start, when second in the 2013 Golden Rose (Gr 1, 1400m) between two other future sires in Zoustar (Northern Meteor) and Bull Point (Fastnet Rock).
He won the Randwick Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) in his next prep, then took two more elite-level races back-to-back in the spring of 2014, in Caulfield’s Memsie Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and Flemington’s Makybe Diva Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m). By then, he’d won $1.4 million.
Soon after that, Hamer exercised another piece of fine timing. Newgate and the China Horse Club bought the majority of Dissident, for $8m, and Hamer was happy to cash in his chips. The stallion won a further two Group 1s in the 2015 autumn, became Moody’s fifth Horse of the Year in six seasons – after Black Caviar’s treble and Typhoon Tracy’s (Red Ransom) title – and then went to stud.
Alas, echoing the aforementioned Haradasun, who left five stakes winners up to Group 2 level, Dissident’s stud career hasn’t gone close to matching his time on the track. He’s had four Australian black–type victors, capped by the two Melbourne Group 2 wins of Yes Baby Yes, and in 2021 was relocated to Wagga’s Riverdene Stud, where he last year covered 14 mares and this year stood for $5,500.
Hamer had still kept his slice of Diana’s Secret, and after Dissident she threw her first filly in Diana’s Star (Northern Meteor), who on the back of her older half-brother’s exploits fetched $400,000 when bought at Easter by Gai Waterhouse.
Hamer stayed in for a small share in Diana’s Star, but it soon became apparent Diana’s Star was decidedly short of one quality – ability. She ran last in one trial before Waterhouse showed her the door, then ran second-last in another, for Darren Weir, before a hasty passage to the breeding barn.
After Diana’s Star, a full-brother to Dissident fetched $500,000 – to Waterhouse at Easter again – but racing as Dossier he too proved the unpredictability of breeding. The Horse of the Year’s little brother won two from 24, both at Rockhampton. Diana’s Secret, meanwhile, had no more live foals despite five further covers, and died in 2017.
But while Diana’s Star had played the proverbial tone-deaf sister to Dissident’s Nellie Melba, she appears set to prove a successful conveyor of genes, judging by last week’s debut of her fifth foal Highness – the current fourth-favourite for the Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) on January 13.
Hamer, and Egan, have stayed in Diana’s Star, and are thus two of the co-breeders of Highness, with Victoria’s Mick Johnston completing the trio.
It may have taken a few goes for something to click with Diana’s Star, and for that the owners of Highness – primarily bloodstock giant James Harron’s colts syndicate – may have the great Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) to thank.
Diana’s Star’s first foal by Sebring – a three-quarter sister to Dissident – was Willinga Panache, a $410,000 yearling who won two at the Gold Coast from 24 starts before retirement last year.
Second foal Call Me Mighty (Fastnet Rock) fetched $460,000 and has had six unplaced and unflattering runs in Hong Kong, all this year.
The gelding Diana’s Affair (Merchant Navy), a $210,000 yearling, has won two, at Ipswich and the Sunshine Coast, from 13, and Hinata (Not A Single Doubt), is unplaced in her four runs around Brisbane after fetching $425,000 as a yearling.
Perhaps fortunately for the vendors, when Highness entered the ring at the Gold Coast last January, of those four older siblings only Willinga Panache had significant exposed form.
And given the siblings’ subsequent results (or non-results), and what some other relatives did (or didn’t) do on the track, it’s correct to assume Highness must have presented at the sale in quite some eye-catching order, considering Harron went to $900,000 to secure him from Segenhoe Stud’s draft.
“Our syndicate are huge fans of Snitzel,” Harron said, “and the colt was a very masculine, very strong horse, very powerful, and with a really strong purposeful action. He was everything we look for in a Magic Millions precocious forward type.
“There was certainly a bit of a question mark on the dam’s produce record, but we did our due diligence on him, he was by an exceptional sire in Snitzel, and was a real stand-out physical type.
“Really, if he’d have been a first foal, or a brother to a real Group contender, he would’ve flown past the million dollar mark. So, there was a slight question mark, but fortunately he looks like he could be the flagbearer for the mare.”
And so Snitzel appears to have blended better with Diana’s Star in creating Highness than did another son of Redoute’s Choice (Danehill), Not A Single Doubt, in siring Hinata, given her exposed form so far.
“It can happen,” said Harron. “When you look at Highness’s family, there’s a Horse of the Year in the pedigree out of his second dam. So Highness is very well related. The genetics are there in the family to prove that you can get a top–class racehorse, and with the introduction of Snitzel, fortunately it seems to have nicked and triggered a great result.”
Snitzel’s nick with Diana’s Star’s sire Northern Meteor has had limited exposure but has had three winners from five runners, including the one (Restricted Listed) stakes winner in Highness.
But Snitzel’s nick with Northern Meteor’s sire Encosta De Lago (Fairy King) is the four-time champion sire’s finest (albeit also his most populous by far) with 63 winners from 80 runners and seven stakes winners, topped by three Group 1 victors in Invader, Sword Of State and Summer Passage.
Meanwhile, Hamer, Egan and Johnston now have a yearling colt by Diana’s Star out of So You Think (High Chaparral), while the mare now has a colt foal by Maurice (Screen Hero) on the ground.