It’s In The Blood
“Buy the horse you dream about”, the Inglis advertising said.
But for a couple of shrewd breeders, the one they sold turned out to be the horse of their dreams this Easter.
Kerrie Tibbey, the septuagenarian owner of Goodwood Farm, went “a little bit naughty” three years ago in paying $25,000 for an unraced and empty mare, with a poor breeding record, who looked rather plain on her Inglis Digital photos.
Her three co-investors had set a limit of $20,000. We’re not talking sheep stations, but Tibbey did go 25 per cent beyond budget to secure the mare, named Mandalong Snitjess (Snitzel).
On Sunday, the mare’s first foal since that purchase, a strapping son of Written By (Written Tycoon) known also as Lot 129, fetched $700,000, bought by Singapore-based Aramco Racing, with a likely destination of Chris Waller’s stable.
It was a new high for Goodwood in the 20 years since Tibbey bought the Murrurundi farm, eclipsing her previous best of $650,000. It also smashed the record for a Written By, with the current second–season sire’s earlier peak being just $410,000.
Just ten lots earlier, a beautiful chestnut filly by Justify (Scat Daddy) out of Irish-bred mare Luminous Eyes (Bachelor Duke) sold to Lord Lloyd Webber and Johnny McKeever for $550,000, from Willow Park Stud’s draft. Luminous Eyes had won a Group 3 in Ireland, and had thrown a dual Melbourne Group 2 winner in Lumosty (Fastnet Rock), but the owners had bought her in-foal to Justify – taking a punt on the then new stallion – for just $52,000.
As always, there are theories or reasons as to why the buyers of Mandalong Snitjess and Luminous Eyes, through good fortune or planning, could pick them up so cheaply – timely reminders ahead of next month’s broodmare sales.
Mandalong Snitjess perhaps wasn’t the most photogenic of eight-year-olds, but moreover, her record as a broodmare might have been what prompted her NSW-based owner Jessica Tanner to move her on.
A $70,000 buy at the 2015 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale for Mandalong Stud, she was unraced due to a hind leg injury as a yearling, which hastened her entry to the breeding barn.
As a three-year-old, she missed to Dissident (Sebring) in 2017, then wasn’t served the following year. She bore a foal by Charge Forward (Red Ransom) in 2019, but it died after birth. She wasn’t covered in 2020 or 2021, and thus presented empty at an Inglis Online sale in August, 2021, catching the eagle eye of one of Tibbey’s long-term clients, Canberra hobby breeder Guy Orbell.
“Guy rang and said, ‘Hey look at this mare’,” Tibbey tells It’s In The Blood. “I was extremely busy at the time, so I didn’t get around to it, until the last minute. I saw her photos and she looked pretty average, but then I looked at her pedigree.”
Tibbey was entranced to see not only that Mandalong Snitjess had the proven strength of Danehill-Redoute’s Choice-Snitzel as her sireline, but the damsire clout of Zabeel (Sir Tristram) to Octagonal going into her mother Bon Fire.
Better still, Bon Fire, a Newcastle winner at 1400 metres among only three starts, was the dam of Heat Of The Fire (Strategic), who’d thrown Godolphin Group 3 winner Furnaces (Exceed And Excel), plus one Listed winner and the dam of another, the now five-year-old mare Scorched Earth (Nicconi).
The cherry on top was that Bon Fire was out of the stakes-winning Pampas Fire (Prince True), which made her a half-sister to Cloister (Marauding), herself a Listed winner but best known as the dam of dual Group 1-winning sprinting mare Melito. And Melito had a similar sireline to Mandalong Snitjess, being by Redoute’s Choice.
With so many well performed females about, Tibbey went chips-in.
“I was probably a bit naughty and went past the budget, but my co-owners are all still fantastic friends and great people,” Tibbey said.
After Sunday, they’re no doubt even better friends.
“It was just this pedigree with so much depth to it, with a lot of good racehorses in it. It was one of these really old families full of the names you know and trust, that I’d known for a million years, and I think Snitzel mares are just wonderful,” she says.
“The thing that probably scared buyers off was her breeding record. Yes, it wasn’t great, but I did think that she had at least produced one foal, even if it had died. At the price, it was worth a go, although the price we paid was as far as I wanted to go.”
It was Orbell the pedigree buff who pushed for a first cover from the untested Written By, the Blue Diamond (Gr 1, 1200m) winner then in his third year at Widden Stud for $24,750.
Tibbey’s farm has reared track stars including Dance Hero (Danzero), Manawanui (Oratorio), Rebel Dane (California Dane) and Private Eye (Al Maher), but she was happy to defer to Orbell.
What the match-up brought was a double-up of the outstanding US blue hen Best In Show (Traffic Judge), with her super-producing granddaughter Dancing Show (Nijinsky) present at 5m x 5f.
Dancing Show was the dam of Group 1 winners Hurricane Sky (Star Watch) and Umatilla (Miswaki), the latter of whom is the sire of Written By’s second dam. Dancing show also threw Shantha’s Choice (Canny Lad), dam of Redoute’s Choice.
Written By has sired three stakes winners and one – Group 3 victor The Novelist – is out of a Snitzel mare. Written By’s sire, Written Tycoon (Iglesia), over Snitzel mares has yielded 14 winners from 22 starters including two in black type, at nine per cent to runners. With fine timing, one is Velocious, who won Ellerslie’s Sistema Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) a month ago after taking the rich Karaka 2YO Million (RL, 1200m) in January.
“Guy has been associated with some good ones himself, and he’s very good at matings, so we all went with Written By,” Tibbey said. “It’s turned out to be absolutely the right mating.
“What I know is it produced an absolutely amazing type, one of the nicest balanced racehorses I’ve seen for a long time, whatever nicks and crosses went into him.
“Plus he has the right attitude to be a really good horse. Often they have a good brain but can go off their heads, or be a bit colty. But this boy, you could throw a saddle on him and take him to a barrier trial tomorrow.
“He got lots of looks and X-ray requests, and I think everyone could see quality. It’s not often really nice horses like this come along. I was thinking we might get $400,000 for him. When it went past $500,000 I thought, ‘Oh my God!’ So to get $700,000, we were just ecstatic.”
Tibbey, at pains to thank the team behind her at Goodwood, said Mandalong Snitjess had other attributes to compensate for her lack of track exposure and patchy breeding history.
“She’s a good mum, throws nice foals, is easy foaling, plenty of milk, the colostrum’s good – uncomplicated,” she said.
“But she also just has a presence about her. She’s pretty high in the pecking order in her group, and foals from mares like that are usually confident and forward and happy within themselves. Mares teach their foals to be assertive, confident and high in the pecking order.”
Impressed by the look of the Written By foal, Mandalong Snitjess’s owners stumped up the $44,000 for a cover from Darley shuttler Too Darn Hot (Dubawi), on Tibbey’s suggestion, and now have an impressive weanling colt to show for it. They then went a sizeable notch higher, going to Darley’s $121,000 new boy Anamoe (Street Boss).
“We were a bit nervous paying so much money for Anamoe,” Tibbey said. “It’s just as well the Written By made us money!”
Willow Park’s Justify filly was the result of another leap of faith.
When the 16-year-old Luminous Eyes was presented in the draft of Coolmore Stud, as agents, in-foal to their shuttler Justify at the Inglis Australian Broodmare Sale in May, 2022, that Triple Crown-winning stallion hadn’t had a runner in Australia, and his US juveniles were just starting to debut.
In fact, it would be eight months before Justify’s first Australian star, Learning To Fly, would debut, winning her first three to up to Group 2 level, plus the rich Inglis Millennium (RL, 1100m). Justify now has six elite-level winners across the US and Europe, a champion Australian first-season sire title to his name, and is second among second–season sires this term, with Storm Boy bearing his flag.
“Our client had a lot of faith that Justify was going to make it,” said Willow Park’s Glenn Burrows. “He was a very well credentialed horse, but he was a totally unknown option at that time. So when you consider something like 80 per cent of stallions fail at stud, buying Luminous Eyes was still a punt. He backed a winner.”
Why so cheap, at $52,000? Luminous Eyes had thrown that dual Group 2 winner Lumosty, but she was her first foal, in 2011. Of her next five – all Lumosty’s siblings by Fastnet Rock (Danehill) whose yearling prices included $850,000 and $600,000 – one was unplaced and four were unraced.
Luminous Eyes missed twice, then had two more foals. One is unplaced and the second is as yet unraced, a now three-year-old gelding by Justify. Now named Dino, he’s a $170,000 yearling who’s shown some pretty plain trial form and is now with his second trainer in Kris Lees.
With Luminous Eyes’ sire Bachelor Duke (Miswaki) little known here, there are no readily apparent golden nicks to Justify over the mare, though there is a 4f x 4m of Mr. Prospector (Raise A Native).
Whatever it was, the sister who fetched more than triple Dino’s price tag on Sunday appears to be out of a different cast.
“This goes to show there’s always opportunities in broodmare sales,” Burrows said.
“Luminous Eye was a Group 3 winner, but she’d had seven foals when our client bought her, for one winner, albeit a good one. But the sellers probably just thought she was of an age where if you don’t sell her, you might not be able to later.
“But the Justify filly is just a terrific type. The sire and dam are both huge individuals, and the filly is just beautiful – well grown, plenty of length, and a wonderful, easy action to her.
“The positive inspections were just phenomenal. She had great X-rays, great scope. I’m not sure she’ll be a two-year-old, but I reckon she’ll be a magnificent three-year-old.”