I Am Famous
She may have a boy’s name – and not a real boy at that – but in terms of being a wonderful broodmare, Pinocchio (Encosta De Lago) appears to have proven herself the genuine article once again.
The grey mare might also have a quite particular taste in stallions, and had an ordinary track record as well – eight starts for Guy Walter for just one top-three finish, a nose win in a 1200-metre Wyong maiden in 2013.
But Pinocchio, dam of Everest (1200m) winner Classique Legend (Not A Single Doubt), unlucky Hong Kong star Aethero (Sebring) and more, looks to have another exciting prospect in I Am Famous (I Am Invincible), who completed a winning hat-trick last Saturday at Rosehill.
Pinocchio has been one of the largest foundation stones upon which Tyreel Stud has been built since Linda and Laurence Monds took over the farm on the banks of the Hawkesbury in 2014.
That year, they bought Pinocchio from the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale, in-foal to Foxwedge (Fastnet Rock) for $320,000. It was a significant outlay for them at the time, and a step up from the yearling sale price – $210,000 – which preceded her modest racing career. But the rationale was sound, and it’s since been franked in emphatic style.
She was a daughter of Encosta De Lago (Fairy King), the dual champion sire who would become Australia’s champion broodmare sire four times in six years from 2016 to 2021, with his leading grandsons being Happy Clapper (Teofilo) twice, plus Impending (Lonhro) and – after that Everest win in 2020 – Classique Legend.
But Pinocchio was also from a female family which was as classy as it was grey, with a sprinkling of silver stars.
Her grey dam Surrealist (Kenny’s Best Pal) left two stakes victors among her nine winners from ten foals. They were headed by Pinocchio’s seven-years-older full-brother Racing To Win, winner of five Group 1s and five Group 2s – all in Sydney. Surrealist had also borne the cleverly named Purrealist (Tale Of The Cat), a Group 3 winner from five starts before his exportation to China, and the chestnut sheep of the family.
Pinocchio’s second dam was Sunset Beach (Kenmare), who apart from Surrealist also passed her grey colouring to Group 2 winner Mardi’s Magic (Kenny’s Best Pal). In turn, Mardi’s Magic threw the dams of some more star greys, the Group 1-winning Chain Of Lighting (Fighting Sun) and Group 2 victor Glint Of Silver (Rubick).
After settling in at Tyreel, Pinocchio unfurled a breeding record which was stellar and intriguing in equal parts.
“She was a really powerfully built mare,” Linda Monds tells It’s In The Blood. “Not huge, but she had everything in the right places and was just very strong.”
The Foxwedge foal, the chestnut Puppet Master, won three sprints at Newcastle and one at Canterbury. After his birth, Tyreel sent Pinocchio to Not A Single Doubt (Redoute’s Choice), and she got in-foal with the colt who’d become Classique Legend. An eye-catching, $400,000 yearling, the grey carried Bon Ho’s distinctive white and red colours to two Group 2s and Listed success, before his Everest triumph.
Third-up was Aethero, who inherited his sire Sebring’s (More Than Ready) chestnut colouring, and could have been anything. Sold to Hong Kong for $575,000 at the 2018 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale, he won five of his first six starts, scoring at Group 2 level and running third in the Hong Kong Sprint (Gr 1, 1200m) at start number seven, before encountering bleeding issues which would limit his career to nine runs.
After him, Pinocchio was put in-foal to So You Think (High Chaparral), but only three months off giving birth, she lost the foal. A repeat cover from So You Think produced a sales smash, with the resultant grey colt selling for $1.1 million at Easter 2020, also to Ho. That was off the back of Classique Legend’s first Group 2 win to that point, coming six months before the Everest triumph that would have made this sale far greater.
Misfortune struck again, however. Named Fairy Legend, the colt had only had three Sydney barrier trials, the last two for Classique Legend’s trainer Les Bridge, before dying from colic.
In 2018 came a fallow year for Pinocchio. She missed to Pierro (Lonhro), Merchant Navy (Fastnet Rock) and then Capitalist (Written Tycoon). After the year off, Monds tried I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit). Pinocchio clicked first time, and threw I Am Famous.
This time, with Classique Legend’s deeds well known, the grey filly sold for $2 million to the Yellow Brick Road Company and Mitchell Bloodstock, as fourth-top lot at Inglis Easter 2022. After five runs highlighted by a debut third, the Chris Waller-trained four-year-old has now claimed her past three, including last Saturday’s Benchmark 78 over 1400 metres at Rosehill, which portended higher goals in the spring.
After I Am Famous came another grey filly, retained by Tyreel and now called Candlewick (Pierro), who’s causing her owners some excitement in the stable of John O’Shea and Tom Charlton, with whom she’s won a barrier trial.
Following her birth, Pinocchio missed to Snitzel in 2021, returned to I Am Invincible in 2022 for what became a now-yearling filly Tyreel will also keep, then last year missed to the famously potent Anamoe (Street Boss) before getting in-foal again to I Am Invincible.
And so Pinocchio has borne some good ones through seven covers, but missed to five other stallions.
Now, no less a breeding authority than Federico Tesio opined that a key factor in successful matings was that the mare should “love” the stallion she’s put to. There might have been a touch of the Italian romantic mixed into that theory, but Monds wonders if Pinocchio at least has certain tastes.
“It’s interesting – she would get in-foal straight away to I Am Invincible and a couple of others, but other stallions she just wouldn’t click with,” Monds said.
“I could just about believe Tesio’s theory with Pinocchio, but all I know is she was a bit tricky.”
A theory in which Monds has more faith is that a year off – as was forced on Pinocchio in 2018 – can do a mare wonders.
“I actually think a year off will never harm them. It’s nice to give them a break,” said Monds, who keeps her mare numbers to around 22 on her compact 100-acre farm.
“We breeders find giving them a break difficult, especially if we don’t have huge numbers to support that in terms of the sales ring, but I think it is always lovely to give them a year off. They deserve it.”
In any event, that theory might be evidenced by the fact I Am Famous came from Pinocchio’s subsequent cover in 2019.
“I Am Famous was a stunner from day one, just a beautiful filly physically, and she sold really well,” Monds said. “She always had that sassy attitude, where I think she always knew she was pretty good, and she was probably a bit of a boss.
“She was as close to perfect as we could get them in so many ways. And when you’ve got a pedigree page like hers, that’s a large proportion of her value. I’m really happy for her owners, and the way she’s going, she’ll hopefully be able to recoup their funds. She’ll also be a beautiful breeding prospect down the track.”
Monds said she chose I Am Invincible for obvious reasons – that after Pinocchio’s barren 2018 “we’d start from the top”.
“Physically, they were a great match-up,” she said. “Plus, Classique Legend had worked his magic, so I just felt we wanted to go to the best.”
Perhaps aptly then, what sticks out about I Am Famous’s pedigree is that it’s relatively uncomplicated.
Ignoring another great breeding theorist, Leon Rasmussen, there are no mares – superior or otherwise – duplicated in her first six generations.
And there’s still only one in the first seven, though she was a handy one in 1952 USA mare Lalun (Djeddah). She’s at 7m x 6m, 7m, with Never Bend (Nasrullah) accounting for the two seventh column mentions, including as I Am Famous’s fifth damsire.
Closer up, I Am Famous shares something with her still more famous half-brother Classique Legend. Only two stallions are duplicated in the first five generations of both. One is Northern Dancer (Nearctic), who is of course rather ubiquitous, but the other is Australian sire Bletchingly (Biscay).
Bletchingly – sire of Pinocchio’s damsire, Kenny’s Best Pal – comes into I Am Famous’s top half at 3f through his son Canny Lad, sire of I Am Invincible’s dam Cannarelle. In Classique Legend, it’s Canny Lad again, but this time in the fourth column as sire of Shantha’s Choice, dam of Classique Legend’s grandsire, Redoute’s Choice (Danehill).
In what Monds described as a heart-rending business decision, Pinocchio was sold in-foal to I Am Invincible by Tyreel this year. At an optimum time, given she’d just turned 15 and still close to her peak, she fetched $1.15 million when sold at the Inglis Chairman’s Sale to Bromfield Park and Group 1 Bloodstock.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in our ten years here,” Monds said. “But I can’t collect too many mares, as we just don’t have the room. So, it was a business decision, plus I’d much rather see her living her life and continuing on, on a larger property somewhere else. So I wish her new owners well.”
To ease the pain somewhat, Monds has Pinocchio’s latest two fillies in Candlewick and the yearling by I Am Invincible.
And things are going well for the stud on top of that. Tyreel celebrated a top tier winner this year, having bred South Australian Derby (Gr 1, 2500m) heroine Coco Sun (The Autumn Sun).
Monds is also excited about another filly bearing her brand (and a ten per cent stake) in All Woke (All Too Hard), who in two starts at Morphettville has won a two-year-old race on debut before a Listed third, and is set to resume for Phillip Stokes in Caulfield’s Quezette Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) on August 17.