Million dollar finale for Prices’ Headwater mare Jamaea
Yulong adds Percy Sykes winner to growing Nagambie broodmare band
Luke Price often wonders what his million dollar mare, Percy Sykes (Gr 2, 1200m) winner Jamaea (Headwater), would have achieved if the wet-track handbrake wasn’t applied to the high-class two- and three-year-old filly.
The rising five-year-old won a million dollars on the track – $1,039,365 in 20 starts to be exact – and yesterday she realised another $1.025 million through the Inglis Digital July (Late) Online Auction, selling to Yulong’s powerhouse owner Zhang Yuesheng, with the Chinese billionaire acquiring the two highest-priced lots of the sale.
She was also the third seven-figure mare to sell through Inglis Digital in succession, Jamaea joining Miss Roseiano (Exceed And Excel) ($1.275 million) and Another Award (Shamus Award) ($1.2 million).
Jamaea and Brookspire (Hinchinbrook), who Zhang also bought at yesterday’s online sale for $640,000, will both be covered by Yulong’s first–season sire Diatonic (Lord Kanaloa).
Kembla Grange-based Price, who trains in partnership with his Nowra-located father Robert, said an injury just weeks after the live breeding stock sales necessitated the retirement to stud of Jamaea, who won the Furious Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) as a three-year-old.
“We were happy with her when the Chairman’s and Magic Millions sales were on. She’d had six weeks work and the plan was to race on for another 12 months. If we weren’t happy with the way she was coming up then we’d have to pull up stumps but she was going quite well,” Luke Price told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“I reckon two weeks after those sales had finished, I gave her a pretty good hit-out here on the course proper [at Kembla Grange], which I was absolutely over the moon with, but she just didn’t come through it as well [as I would have liked] and she just had a bit of a hind suspensory issue from wear and tear.
“When we x-rayed it the vets weren’t really concerned at all but when we scanned it, it just showed a bit more tear there than what you’d like to see and it wasn’t worth risking her.”
On a dry surface in the late summer, Jamaea resumed with a third to Fangirl (Sebring) and Espiona (Extreme Choice), but in the Surround Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) she struck a Heavy 10 surface.
“Her record wasn’t as good because of the wet tracks, I feel. The wet tracks really pulled her up a lot. I reckon her record could have been a lot better,” Price said.
“We were trying to get her to Group 1 standard and we just didn’t quite get there and I blame the wet tracks for that.
“You see some of her best runs against Fangirl and Espiona one day at Randwick, I thought that was a great race, so she proved she (was highly talented).”
A $130,000 purchase by the Prices from the 2020 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale from Bruce Neill’s Cressfield Stud, Jamaea is out of Bow Mistress Trophy (Gr 3, 1200m) winner Isibaeva (Johannesburg), herself an 11-time winner who is a daughter of another Tasmanian stakes winner in Dragila (Encosta De Lago). She, incidentally, also won 11 races.
Jamaea’s owner Bruce Noble was ecstatic last night and admitted to be a little bit merry.
“Once she hit her reserve, I decided that every $50,000 I’d have a beer. Let’s just say I’ll sleep pretty well tonight,’’ an elated Noble said.
“You always dream of selling a $1 million mare but when it comes down to it, there really aren’t that many people walking around with that sort of money to spend, so you never genuinely expect to reach those heights, but we’ve done it today and it’s bloody amazing.”
Yulong chief operating officer Sam Fairgray said: “We want to give Diatonic some really nice mares in his first season to give him the best possible chance and we think Jamaea is perfect for him.
“She’s an attractive race mare with a great record, a multiple Group 2 winner and performed at both two and three so we’re delighted to have her.
“The bidding certainly wasn’t easy – it’s getting harder and harder to buy these top-level mares but Mr Zhang wants to keep putting together an elite broodmare band so it’s great that Jamaea will be joining the group.
“We knew her price would be at the pointy end, these mares are attractive to a lot of people and bring top prices, it’s certainly not easy being a buyer of these elite mares at the moment.’’
Price revealed Tommy Berry thought so highly of Jamaea’s Magic Night Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) second that the jockey was pushing for the filly to run in the Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), which was taken out by Stay Inside (Extreme Choice).
The father-and-son training combination, however, stuck with plan A: a successful tilt at the Percy Sykes Stakes.
“She is tough and she had a massive engine. Brock [Ryan] used to do a lot of the trackwork on her, and he is only a small little fella, and then I started riding her a lot more just to share it because she could be quite difficult to ride. She had that attitude where she’d chase you out of the box pretty quickly,” the trainer said.
“She has that attitude. You could feel that improvement each run as well. She had an electrifying turn of foot.
“I remember after the Magic Night, Tommy [Berry] rang me up and he was already booked for one in the Slipper but he was trying to get one of his mates on her and then he must have had a good think about it and said, ‘nah, go with your plan, give her a let up into the Percy Sykes’, so we went to the Percy Sykes extremely confident, she trialled ten days before and the rest is history.”
On her seven figure sum, Price remarked: “Inglis’ tried to talk her down a bit, around the $800,000 to $900,000 mark, but I always thought she was worth a million and I would have been disappointed if she didn’t make that.”
Earlier, the half-sister to owner Bob Peters’ Group 1 winner Inspirational Girl (Reliable Girl), the stakes-placed Brookspire (Hinchinbrook), will join her sibling at Yulong in Victoria after Zhang bought the Chris Waller-trained mare.
The Yulong principal paid $1.1 million at the Inglis Chairman’s Sale in May for Inspirational Girl, one of three stakes-performed horses out of Be Inspired (Zabeel), and added the two years younger half-sister yesterday.
Rising six-year-old mare Brookspire, who defeated a field which included Jamaea in winning the $1 million Magic Millions Fillies & Mares (1300m) on the Gold Coast in January, is stakes-placed, having finished runner-up in the Belle Of The Turf Handicap (Gr 3, 1600m) in late 2021.
She is also a half-sister to the Listed-winning sprinter Ruettiger (Duporth), while Be Inspired is a sister to Group 3 winner Rainbow Styling and a half-sister to fellow Group 3 winner Zingaling (Redoute’s Choice).
Brookspire, who won $930,000 in prize-money, was purchased by owner Brae Sokolski and Waller for $300,000 at the 2019 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
The Sokolski-led syndicate also sold dual Listed-winning, Group 2-placed She’s All Class (I Am Invincible), bought back by her managing owner through Matt Scown Bloodstock for $620,000, at the July (Early) Online Sale.
Meanwhile, Sean Buckley’s Ultra Thoroughbreds purchased a share in Rich Hill Stud-based stallion Proisir (Choisir), who will be crowned New Zealand’s champion stallion when the 2022-23 season concludes on Monday, for $380,000.
Godolphin paid $400,000 for a share in Proisir – the sire of five individual Group 1 winners this season – at the Chairman’s Sale while Sydney owner and breeder Carl Holt paid $265,000 for a share in the stallion in an Inglis Digital auction in March.
Buckley had been outbid on the previous two shares in Proisir to go under the hammer, but he wasn’t allowing it to happen again.
“Persistence pays off,’’ Buckley said. “I love the horse, I think he’s one of the best two stallions in Australasia alongside Savabeel. I think he’s a superstar.
“I’ll send two mares to him and I’m just so pleased to have bought this share today because he’s a sire I think is going to feature heavily for many, many years to come.’’