Little Brose
As those bits of inspiration on Facebook say, the fact any of us is alive – amid the randomness of the universe – is a miracle. And it’s the same for horse as for human.
The odds of breeding a stakes winner are also rather large, but for Little Brose to have become the burgeoning Per Incanto’s first such two-year-old victor in Australia, it’s something worth savouring indeed. Given the rotten luck that seemed to dog his dam like a country and western song, he’s done well to just be alive, let alone win black type.
The story of Little Brose – the Hayes brothers’ colt with the striking colouring who took Saturday’s Listed Merson Cooper Stakes (1000m) at Caulfield – starts with the importation from the US of a speedy, if perhaps cursed, grey mare named Mohegan Sky.
A 1200-metre Listed winner at Belmont, by the relatively obscure sire Straight Man from a Seattle Dancer mare, she was brought out in 2010 as Newgate Stud was being established. The deal set an early marker for Newgate founder Henry Field’s long love affair with American speed mares, which has since hatched the likes of Group 1 Moir Stakes winner Wild Ruler (Snitzel), and more.
Mohegan Sky was, however, swiftly onsold in-foal to Lonhro for $260,000 the following year to Tyreel Stud, producing first foal Porotene Diva (Lonhro). Second foal Rolling Cloud (Fastnet Rock) was another good type, which prompted New Zealand boutique breeder David Wallace to buy Mohegan Sky, for $250,000, when she was offered again at the Magic Millions Broodmare Sale of 2013.
“She was a Listed winner in America, but she was a really good looking, fast-looking mare, and a complete outcross, so I thought I could send to any kind of Danehill horses,” Wallace tells It’s In The Blood.
Wallace, son of Jim Wallace of Ardsley Stud, at Masterton in the lower North Island, and brother of renowned bloodstock agent Michael – who did his bidding on Mohegan Sky – had high hopes as he brought the mare back to New Zealand, particularly as she was in-foal to Dream Ahead. This, however, was where the fates turned nasty.
That Dream Ahead foal was a well put-together filly, shaping as a decent sales prospect, when Wallace received a phonecall. “They’d found her in the paddock with a busted leg,” he says.
Two years later, in 2015, Mohegan Sky bore Wallace a “belter of a colt” by speed sire Shamexpress. “A bit later I got a phonecall. Same thing. Found in the paddock with a broken leg,” he recalls.
In 2018, Wallace sent his mare to Newgate to be covered by Russian Revolution, in whom he has a share. The resultant colt was another “magnificent type”, but one day he lashed out in a stall at his farm, badly cut his leg, and had to be euthanised.
Wallace had bred six foals from Mohegan Sky, and the three who didn’t meet a premature end weren’t that noteworthy, even if two brought him fair returns.
Deep Blue Sea (Ocean Park), a $120,000 yearling colt, won at Ballina and Murwillumbah. Kutayha (Savabeel) sold to Chris Waller for $300,000 and he won three races, two in Sydney. Wallace, however, also bred a 2017 filly by Reliable Man who was “so small and sway-backed I couldn’t sell her, so I gave her away”. She ended up racing, as Mohegan Star, and was unplaced in four starts.
Ultimately, Wallace sold Mohegan Sky eight years after he’d bought her for a tenth of the purchase price, to Victorian breeders Kelly Bloodstock, in-foal again to Russian Revolution. They now have her yearling filly on the ground, but sadly the tale of the desperately unlucky American mare was brought to a close a few weeks ago when, aged 19, she was bitten by a snake.
However, Wallace’s seventh and last manoeuvre with the mare appears to have paid off handsomely.
In 2019, he bought a cover from Per Incanto from a shareholder in the stallion – for a knock-down $10,000 from his regular fee of $17,500 – who stands at the nearby Little Avondale Stud of his friends Sam and Catriona Williams. And after sending the pregnant Mohegan Sky back across the Tasman to Sledmere Stud, she bore the eye-catching colt who’s become Little Brose, a $200,000 Magic Millions Gold Coast purchase this year by Lindsay Park.
“Per Incanto throws such nice foals that I thought he’d suit the mare physically,” Wallace says. “I didn’t go into the pedigrees that much, but on type they matched up really well. And the nicest foals the mare had came when I sent her to sprinting sires. I probably should’ve stuck with that idea really, rather than send her to a couple of longer-distance sires, but hindsight’s a great thing.”
The mating with the son of Street Cry in fact transpired as outcross over outcross. There’s no sign of Danehill anywhere, and just three appearances from his otherwise ubiquitous grandsire Northern Dancer, at 5Sx6Dx5D.
After a debut second in the Group 3 Maribyrnong Plate (1000m) at Flemington on Cup Day, Little Brose was most impressive in taking the Merson Cooper by a length and a quarter, confirming the suspicions of Sledmere’s Catriona and Roy Murphy that he’d show up before Christmas.
Catriona says the colt was “a stand-out from day”, not least because of his unusual coat, largely due to the grey Mohegan Sky.
“He had a lot of presence about him, was very correct and he had a bit of spunk about him too, which I believe he still does,” she says.
“But he was the type of horse who, when you walked into a paddock, you would look at, just because he stood out with his unique colouring – a really nice, deep steel grey, with a few white patches and spots on him. I’m told they’re very easy types to syndicate – horses with unusual colouring, or greys – because people like looking at them. But he looks like he’s got the ability to match.
“We were a bit torn on whether to go to the Millions or give him another couple of months and wait for [Inglis] Classic. But Roy and I really liked how well he was progressing, so we opted for the Gold Coast.
“He had a huge overstep, was very athletic with a big swagger to him. Every time he came out at the sale, he was very distinctive and deliberate about what he was going to be doing. He never did anything wrong.
“The pedigree was on the lighter side, but as a physical, he looked like a racehorse. We were confident he’d make a lovely racehorse, but we are a little surprised to see him succeed as early as he has. But horses have that ability to surprise you – it’s not until you look under the hood you find out what sort of heart they’ve got.”
Little Brose’s form also caps a strong showing for juveniles from Sledmere sold to the Hayes brothers, after their $190,000 Classic yearling – Arkansaw Kid (Harry Angel) – won Moonee Valley’s $500,000 Inglis Banner in October.
“When I spoke to [Lindsay Park buyer] Dean Hawthorne to congratulate him I said it was nice to see we’ve had these two stakes horses come off the farm who were born and raised here, to go through to their stable and win the early two-year-old races,” she said. “It means we must be doing something right, I suppose.”
Wallace, who owns around 15 broodmares and also bred No More Tears (Darci Brahma), a triple stakes-winner in New Zealand and Group 3-placed in Sydney – is philosophical over what could be called his mixed luck with Mohegan Sky.
“I didn’t get what I’d hoped from her, but she did a nice job for me in some ways,” he says. “I got some good money for her yearlings, so she certainly paid her way.”