Opening Group 1 of the season brings about family affair
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…
That was an Andy Williams song, written about Christmas, but sod that. For those of us besotted with another, more enduring season, it applies to right now. The sun shines, the warmer breezes of spring fill the lungs, the mares are foaling, and the most alluring races, the most captivating competitors, are back to behold.
And Saturday’s first major race day of 2023-24 unfolded as a fine tribute show to one of the great families, and one of the finest modern mares, in the stud book, as three budding spring stars began their campaigns victorious.
At Randwick on Winx Stakes day, Arrowfield-bred three-year-old filly Autumn Ballet (The Autumn Sun) won the Silver Shadow Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m), and four-year-old mare Parisal (Astern) the Toy Show Quality (Gr 3, 1100m).
And at Caulfield, Parisal’s three-year-old half-brother and Darley-Godolphin teammate Cylinder (Exceed And Excel) claimed the Vain Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m).
They’re all superbly bred in their own way, but have two major aspects in common.
Their damsire is Street Cry (Machiavellian), famed as the sire of Winx herself, and the champion American mare Zenyatta, among others. We can only imagine how even more substantial a sire he’d have become had he not left us at just 16, but he’s offering some more proof now by surging up the broodmare sire charts.
In Australia, he’s made inexorable progress on that table in the past four seasons – 30th, 17th, 13th, 11th and 8th. Thanks to his trio of winners last Saturday, he’s now fourth for 2023-24.
The season is only three weeks old of course, but he’s had far less than half the runners than the usual suspects above him – Encosta De Lago (Fairy King), Fastnet Rock (Danehill) and Redoute’s Choice (Danehill).
It’s broodmare siring form the former shuttler hasn’t matched in his other old home, the United States, where, apart from an outlier result of sixth in 2019, he’s had a second-best of 14th, and is 20th for 2023. We’ll explore why later.
Perhaps more importantly though, what Saturday’s trio also share is a presence in their bottom line of one of Australia’s most influential modern mares: Shadea (Straight Strike). She’s the fourth dam of Parisal and Cylinder, via their Flemington Group 3-winning mother Circular (Street Cry), and the third dam of Autumn Ballet, through her somewhat ponderous mum Grisi.
Shadea is a Blue Hen highlight in this female line that’s produced a litany of stakes winners, and a couple of greats. And she’s served magnificent justice to a family that was already doing rather well.
In recent history, it begins with outstanding New Zealand mare Gay Poss. Foaled in 1966, she was a daughter of Le Filou (Vatellor), who arrived from France to become New Zealand’s champion stallion four times.
He sired Cracksman – not the great British one trained by John Gosden, nor the Victorian one of the same time who honoured the name in a couple of Benchmark 58s, but a decent 1960s edition who won the prestigious Great Northern Derby at Ellerslie.
Le Filou also sired a trio of well-known Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) names trained by the master, Bart Cummings: Big Philou, the infamously nobbled 1969 favourite; Red Handed, who won it in 1967; and Light Fingers, who won Cummings’ first Cup in 1965 and was particularly well named – Le Filou being French for “the thief”.
Cummings, hopelessly devoted to Le Filou, also trained Gay Poss to win the AJC Oaks and Caulfield Stakes of 1970, plus four other Group events.
At stud, she threw a Listed winner and a Group 2 placegetter, but her best trick was an unraced second foal, My Tricia (Hermes), who became another Blue Hen. Her second foal was the superb Grosvenor (Sir Tristram) – a multiple Group 1 winner and sire of 16 top-level victors. Her fourth was his full brother National Gallery, said to be just as good, winning the then-Group 1 WA Derby (2400m), placing second to the champion Red Anchor (Sea Anchor) in the VRC version, but sadly demised after 14 starts.
My Tricia threw three other stakes winners, but it was through her first foal Concia (First Consul) – a winner who gained no black type – that her legend lives in this story. She had only four runners, and two scored at stakes level: another AJC Oaks victor in Mahaya (Sir Tristram) and, the foal before, Shadea.
Foaled in 1988, Shadea won the then-Group 3 Sweet Embrace Stakes in 1991, was slow away and checked when midfield in Tierce’s (Victory Prince) Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m), then twice ran second as that star colt completed his Group 1 Triple Crown in the Sires’ Produce (Gr 1, 1400m) and Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m).
Shadea’s career at stud began at Arrowfield, a touch inauspiciously, with three unraced foals. But the second of them, Miss Trump (Last Tycoon), would produce a stakes winner, and the dam of Group 1 victor Catalyst (Darci Brahma).
After five foals, however, and transferred to Darley’s precursor Woodlands Stud, she was put to that operation’s star sire Octagonal (Zabeel), and the magic happened.
Out came Lonhro, whose unnecessary introduction should include 11 elite-level victories, world champion middle distance horse of 2004, and sire of 13 Group 1 winners, among 95 stakes winners and counting, with a handful of successful sires including Pierro and Sweynesse.
Next out was Lonhro’s brother Niello, a triple top-tier winner, while the last of Shadea’s seven straight Octagonal foals – and the last of her lifetime dozen before dying of a heart attack in her paddock in 2007 – was a Listed winner in Shannara.
Amidst those seven Octagonals also came the unraced O’Giselle, who added another three stakes winners to the growing pile, including two in Britain, as well as Autumn Ballet’s aforementioned dam Grisi.
And Shadea’s foal before Lonhro – her last non-Octagonal mating, conceived at Arrowfield by the Danzig (Northern Dancer) stallion Chief’s Crown – was Sibylline.
A winner who was city placed, Sibylline softened the line a touch in bearing just one stakes-placegetter among six runners. But her one foal by Octagonal again showed the strength of the cross, with Hexameter a city winner whose offspring include Circular, the stakes winner who’s had two more so far in Parisal and Cylinder, and who’s yearling filly by Bivouac (Exceed And Excel) is said to be the belle of the crop at Darley.
So, what’s working with Street Cry as a broodmare sire, particularly in those golden couple of hours last Saturday thanks to his pairing with the Shadea line? Most likely it’s the breeding world’s equivalent to that “Location, Location, Location” mantra of real estate:
Natalma, Natalma, Natalma.
It’s impossible to have too much of her, and in Australia – more so than the US – there’s a world of opportunity to repeat the daughter of Native Dancer (Polynesian) through that almighty great-grandson of hers, Danehill (Danzig).
The nine-time champion sire, multiple champion broodmare sire, and biggest influence on modern Australian breeding, Danehill is of course inbred to Natalma at 3×3, via his grandsire Northern Dancer (Nearctic), and second dam Spring Adieu (Buckpasser).
Taking Autumn Ballet, her sire The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) has Natalma four times in his first six generations, via Northern Dancer (three times) and Spring Adieu.
Parisal’s sire Astern (Medaglia D’Oro) has a similar sprinkling via the same Natalma offspring, including thrice from his damsire Exceed And Excel, who’s by Danehill. And Cylinder is by Exceed And Excel himself.
The Danehill-free Street Cry, however, brings a different strain of Natalma, importantly through another daughter in Raise The Standard (Hoist The Flag), the granddam of Street Cry’s sire Machiavellian (Mr Prospector).
On top of this, Street Cry and Machiavellian descend from a Native Dancer sire line, and so, with Natalma also there, Machiavellian brings a gender-balanced duplication of Native Dancer, for extra reinforcement.
“So the two things most needed come in the one stallion – Street Cry – via Machiavellian,” Peter Jenkins, Arrowfield’s pedigrees maven, tells It’s In The Blood.
Jenkins says he had an inkling Redoute’s Choice would click with Street Cry mares, due to all this Natalma. It was why he advised Arrowfield boss John Messara to go off campus with champion mare Miss Finland (Redoute’s Choice), to Darley’s Street Cry in 2011, in the mating that produced MRC Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Stay With Me, herself a stakes producer.
One of two stakes winners for The Autumn Sun so far, Autumn Ballet is also more proof for Jenkins’ suspicions on Redoute’s Choice’s offspring.
Sons of Redoute’s Choice over Street Cry have now produced a stunning eight stakes winners from just 39 runners – at 20.5 per cent. The pick of them so far has been Golden Slipper winner Farnan (Not A Single Doubt), with others including Exotic Ruby (Snitzel), and even a son of the modest sire Bradbury’s Luck (Redoute’s Choice) in Col ’N’ Lil, a dual black type victor in Queensland.
“It’s one of the great crosses, and it’s quite simplistic,” Jenkins says. “It’s surprising it hasn’t been tried more often, given the prominence of Redoute’s Choice and Street Cry. I think that might change.
“And this Shadea family is one of the great families. And unlike a lot of great families from that period, it’s trained on, and continued to throw out good runners.”
Darley’s Alastair Pulford said the stud was delighted to see Street Cry continue to be “such a dominant force”.
“He dominated as a sire of sires last season, between Anamoe and Dubai Honour and as a broodmare sire,” Pulford said.
Trevor Lobb, former general manager of Woodlands and Darley, is another who loves seeing the family continue to honour Shadea’s name.
“She was a lovely mare – one of those mares you fell in love with,” Lobb said.
“She was tough, and all racehorse, and that was one of the reasons we got her from Arrowfield in the first place.
“She’s been a massive presence in the whole operation – from Woodlands through to Darley, and it’s great to see her influence kicking on.”
Grisi, meanwhile, has led a roller coaster existence. She had just two starts for no wins, her first foal Miss Carlotta (Redoute’s Choice) was unraced with bad knees, and her full brother Mr Lannigan was passed in at $45,000 as a yearling, and was last seen running ninth at Dalby.
But Grisi’s third was Autumn Ballet, an impressive enough type to fetch $340,000, sold to her trainers, Team Waterhouse-Bott. And a few weeks after she became her parents’ first stakes-winner in the Black Opal (Gr 3, 1200m) last March, her full sister yielded Arrowfield $1.2 million when sold to Emirates Park at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale.
Who knows what that pair’s yearling full brother will fetch next year?