Milan Park’s Rider hoping for a Super Saturday with son of Dundeel
Waikato Stud-bound colt given chance in All Aged Stakes for autumn finale
New Zealand breeder Tony Rider hopes stud-bound colt Super Seth (Dundeel) can provide him with a Sydney Group 1 victory on Saturday just a week after narrowly being denied in the Sydney Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) with another horse under his ownership.
Rider, the Milan Park principal, is a shareholder in the Anthony Freedman-trained Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Super Seth, who will join the Waikato Stud stallion roster at the end of his racing career, as well as having a stake in the Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman-trained The Chosen One (Savabeel).
The latter was runner-up in the Sydney Cup last Saturday while the three-year-old is nominated for the All Aged Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) this weekend in what is likely to be the colt’s last run of his campaign.
Secured for stud duties by a syndicate headed by Waikato Stud’s Mark Chittick after the colt’s Guineas performance last October, Superth Seth won the Manfred Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) first-up before finishing second in the Futurity Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m).
In his most recent start, Super Seth ran eighth in the Doncaster Mile (Gr 1, 1600m), the second of two runs in Sydney in a preparation hindered by a minor virus after the Futurity Stakes.
“I think the track didn’t really suit him and whether it was the track or the virus, I am not too sure, but I think the feeling was that it was the track,” Rider said yesterday.
“It is that time of the season where you can’t rely (on getting a dry track) and it is the same with The Chosen One, it if was a bit better who knows.”
Super Seth is set to take on fellow three-year-olds Bivouac (Exceed And Excel), Brandenburg (Burgundy), Flit (Medaglia d’Oro) and Standout (Exceed And Excel) in the $480,000 All Aged Stakes, which received 22 entries yesterday.
Group 1 winners Pierata (Pierro), Kementari (Lonhro), Fierce Impact (Deep Impact) and Santa Ana Lane (Lope De Vega) have also been nominated for the last Group 1 race of the Sydney autumn carnival.
Rider is among the ownership of Super Seth that also includes prominent New Zealand thoroughbred investor Lib Petagna, Nearco Stud, Sir Peter Vela, Barneswood Farm as well as Australian owner Richard Pegum.
Buying into stallion prospects to complement Milan Park’s band of 25 broodmares is something Rider has undertaken for a number of years and, in particular, with Chittick.
“I have gone in with Mark Chittick on a number of stallions over the years,” he said.
“I am a small stud breeder with 25 broodmares and I am always looking to buy into potential stallions.
“I have a share in Savabeel and probably over the past ten years we’ve done reasonably well (out of him). We can’t grizzle.”
Rider is in lockdown at his Cambridge stud farm during the coronavirus crisis and watched the Sydney Cup from his lounge room when fellow New Zealander Etah James (Raise The Flag) won the $1 million race.
The shutdown of the country, including the New Zealand racing industry, will have ramifications for the thoroughbred industry and Rider is already weighing up how best to handle the scenario while the current closure of international borders could also impact breeders’ decisions.
“It’s pretty hard with no racing here in New Zealand. They are talking about opening the tracks in July, so we’ll just have to wait and see,” he said.
“Last year, we sent about nine mares to Australia, but we will probably cut back on that and breed to local stallions,” he said.
“The coronavirus is a bugger and it is affecting everybody.”
Meanwhile, The Chosen One will be spelled in Australia with the plan being to target the Melbourne spring carnival with the talented four-year-old stayer.
Rider’s opinion that the rain-affected surface counted against The Chosen One was backed up by Forsman.
“It was obviously a very testing track and I was actually surprised how well he performed on it,” Forsman said.
“In the end, the track conditions probably cost him. The winner had a two-kilogram pull in the weights and probably got through the ground a bit better than he did but all things considered, it was a very brave run.”
The Caulfield Cup (Gr 1, 2400m) and Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) are the two probable goals for The Chosen One at this stage,
“He will stay based in New South Wales and go back into work in early June,” Forsman said.
“We will get him going and we will have to work out a path as to what we do with him in the spring. Bjorn (Baker) has sorted out a place for both our horses (The Chosen One and Quick Thinker) to go and obviously as things stand, there is no point making plans for bringing them home because we want to campaign them in Australia in the spring anyway.
“We will give them a spell and when they go back into work we will look to send a staff member across to oversee things.”