OTI hoping to boost reputations of ‘underrated’ New Zealand sires
OTI Racing hopes to affirm its VRC Derby (Gr 1, 2500m) stocks and provide a boost to more than one underrated New Zealand sire at Flemington today via horses at two ends of its spectrum: their highest earner and a three-year-old second-starter.
While the Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr-trained I’m Thunderstruck (Shocking), very much a known quantity, will start a short-priced favourite in the feature Makybe Diva Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m), excitement is building around his stablemate Cadazio (Tarzino), who contests the last race of the day.
The gelding will compete for just the second time in his career when tackling the Exford Plate (Listed, 1400m), having impressively won a Geelong maiden over the same 1400-metre trip by two-and-a-half lengths on July 15, after taking a Casterton trial by a similar margin and a Cranbourne jump-out prior to that.
OTI principal Terry Henderson says Cadazio, a $120,000 NZB Ready To Race purchase from the second crop of Price’s former VRC Derby winner Tarzino (Tavistock), is showing all the signs of a booming future, including in the near-term.
“This race will tell us a bit more, but he does look to have an X-factor about him,” Henderson told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday. “Everything about the horse suggests he’s well above average.”
After his debut victory, followed by another Cranbourne jump-out win, Cadazio has not escaped the bookmakers’ notice. He’s already been made an $11 co-second favourite for the VRC Derby, and was last night also on the second line behind Foujita San (Maurice) and Berkeley Square (Territories) for today’s assignment, in which he’ll jump from gate 13 under Jamie Kah.
“He’s a big horse, but quite mature for a three-year-old, which you need for our Derby,” Henderson said.
“He was quite a leggy horse early and you didn’t know which way he was going to go, but as he aged and, particularly after his first preparation in Victoria, he really developed well and filled his frame out. He’s still a touch leggy but has got a body to match it.
“It looks as though he can handle all sorts of ground, which is handy given the predicted rain for Saturday. He hasn’t put a foot wrong so far, and that’s probably why we’ve got such a high opinion of him.
“It was an impressive win at Geelong. He’s still very green, but he was very strong at the line. The timing was excellent because it gave us the chance to give him three weeks off, and his trial since was very good.
“This race is late in the day but that will probably suit us. The track could be cut up on the inside, and he’ll get back and hopefully be finishing off in the long straight. We want to be really coming out saying we have a realistic Derby prospect.”
Cadazio is also entered for the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) but, Henderson said, is more likely to be steered towards longer targets, chiefly the 2500-metre Derby but also potentially the Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) a week before.
“He’d need to win a decent race between now and then to get into the Cox Plate but he could be a sneaky chance to get into it,” he said.
Cadazio is the third offspring of the two-time Matamata winner Light Up A Screen (Conatus), but second dam Betty Blockbuster (Zabeel) was a full sister to Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winner and seven-time stakes winner Inaflury.
Betty Blockbuster brings one half of a dual-female 3×3 cross of Zabeel (Sir Tristram) – Tarzino’s damsire. It’s a duplication of no great renown, and Cadazio was in fact passed in at a $40,000 reserve when offered through Tarzino’s (and Gerry Harvey’s) Westbury Stud from Karaka Book 2. He had drawn more interest, however, by the time he was offered as a ready-to-race two-year-old, including from bloodstock agent Phil Cataldo.
“Phil [Cataldo] got him for us. We were only going to go to $100,000 for him but Michael Kent [Junior] and I were on the other end of the phone and we said to go another bid,” Henderson said.
With a chance to become OTI’s second VRC Derby winner – after Kibbutz (Golan) in 2007 – Cadazio represents a gathering force in Tarzino. While he didn’t have a first crop winner until Price and Kent Jungle Magnate scored at Sandown in June last year, it was as three-year-olds that his produce began to thrive, not unsurprisingly.
Jungle Magnate took the South Australian Derby (Gr 1, 2500m) in May before his transfer to Hong Kong. Gypsy Goddess then won the Queensland Oaks (Gr 1, 2200m) – helping her to last week’s crowning as Australia’s Champion Three-Year-Old Filly – and Tarzino now has a building 21 winners from 61 runners.
“Gerry Harvey said he probably made a mistake in setting his service fee at $15,000 this year,” Henderson said. “You could offer $25,000 and you still mightn’t get a service from him.
“There’s a few stallions in New Zealand who are probably undervalued, like Tarzino, Proisir, Per Incanto and Shocking.”
The last of that quartet, who still stands for $12,500 at Rich Hill Stud, has the prospect of more glory through OTI at Flemington today, not only with I’m Thunderstruck but also Hezashocka (Shocking). The five-year-old is among the favourites as he pursues a third win in five starts this campaign in the open class Foundation Plate (1700m), also for the Price-Kent-Kah triumvirate.
I’m Thunderstruck, who resumed with a superb fast-closing second in Snapdancer’s (Choisir) Memsie Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m), is now the highest-earner in OTI’s history, his $6.55 million having surpassed the $4.48 million of Gailo Chop (Deportivo).
A mammoth $4.1 million came in just one of I’m Thunderstruck’s wins, last spring’s Golden Eagle (1500m), the start after what remains his sole Group 1 victory in the Toorak Handicap (1600m). With two seconds and a third also in his top-tier resume, connections are eager for success today lest observers harken back to another OTI performer, the doughty yet notorious Tom Melbourne (Dylan Thomas). That gelding also took two seconds and a third at the top level – but didn’t win one – and finally finished with 14 runner-up prizes against six wins.
“I’m Thunderstruck doesn’t want any more Group 1 placings. He’s already got a few, so we don’t want to replicate Tom,” Henderson joked.
More seriously, he’s warm on the chances of I’m Thunderstruck in what shapes as a delicious tactical battle in the eight-runner contest. The five-year-old will likely take a more forward role than usual for Mark Zahra from gate one, with the Gai Waterhouse-Adrian Bott camp sending renowned front-running jockey Tim Clark from Sydney to replace Damien Oliver aboard second favourite Alligator Blood (All Too Hard) from barrier two.
“Gai wouldn’t have sent Tim Clark down here for fun, so we know what the tactics will be. Hopefully we sit on his back and get a crack in the last 300. It’s more forward than he’s often gone, but when you’ve got a good front-running rider like that it’s always harder to make ground, even at Flemington,” Henderson said of I’m Thunderstruck, who will be targeted at a further three Group 1s after today, the Underwood Stakes (Gr 1, 1800m), Might And Power Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) and the Cox Plate.
“He was hampered by slow starts last prep, but as a racehorse now he’s more mature mentally, and he’s racing a lot better, and no longer hanging the way he did early in his career. So you’d think he’s got a bit more ringcraft than he had, and for those bigger races that’s going to stand him in good stead.”
OTI starts Hezashocka in the Foundation Plate along with the Matt Cumani-trained French import San Huberto (Speightstown), who will have his first start since an eighth-placed finish in Homesman’s (War Front) Australian Cup (Gr 1, 2000m) in March last year due to suspensory issues.
San Huberto ran third in the 2019 Belmont Derby (Listed, 8.5f) in the US behind another seven-year-old entire now based in Australia, last year’s Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) placegetter Spanish Mission (Noble Mission).
While it’s hoped he can tread an overdue Melbourne Cup path, Hezashocka has boomed through the winter to suddenly become a chance of trying to emulate his 2009 Cup-winning sire this spring.
“You’d probably think it’s a touch early for Hezashocka in the cups this year, but he’s been running so well, he’s a sneaky chance of getting through to them and doing well,” Henderson said.
“If you’d said that to us six months ago we would’ve said, ‘Not this year’. But he’s done so well.”