Racing – The great equaliser
The sudden retirement of star mare Avantage (Fastnet Rock) shook the headlines late last week after it was discovered that she had heat in her off-fore. A subsequent X-ray found a hole in the tendon and Te Akau Racing immediately withdrew her from Saturday’s Tarzino Trophy (Gr 1, 1400m).
Combining the huge demand for quality broodmares, with the stud season just into its third week, the mare’s connections wasted little time in deciding her future.
She is to be sold on plus.gavelhouse.com, the auction initiated Sunday night and to conclude at 7pm New Zealand time on Wednesday, September 22.
Throughout the year highly performed and well-related mares have been selling for huge sums and none are better bred than Avantage. Only her ex-stablemate Melody Belle (Commands) can claim a superior race record.
What her purchase price might be is anyone’s guess, however, there is every possibility that she will set a new record for a sale via any digital platform.
With less than 48 hours remaining before the hammer is lowered the bidding is already at $1.6 million. It will not surprise to see that figure double when the dust settles.
Big money, no guarantee
While apparent millions are being thrown around for such mares it is also quite sobering to know that success at the highest level is not necessarily determined by huge pots of money, although it does help in accessing the best bloodlines.
The three Group 1 races run on Saturday are glorious examples of the great equaliser – performance on the track. On the racetrack, horses neither know their pedigree nor their purchase price.
Non-share holders in Zed (Zabeel), Darci Brahma (Danehill) and the late Atlante (Fastnet Rock) needed to outlay a grand total of $33,000 in service fees to breed to Verry Elleegant, Sierra Sue and Callsign Mav.
In 2014, the season Verry Elleegant was conceived, the fee to Zed was $5,000. In 2015, Darci Brahma stood at $20,000 and Atlante, $8,000.
Mapperley Stud lost the services of Atlante after just one and a half seasons and Darci Brahma’s fee is currently $15,000. Zed’s fee has increased to $6,000.
Verry Elleegant was retained by her breeder and not offered for sale but her dam, Opulence (Danroad) twice went through the ring.
In 2007, trainer Nick Bishara purchased Opulence as a yearling from Highview Stud for $5,000. Four years later, Verry Elleegant’s breeder Don Goodwin paid $14,000 for her as an in-foal broodmare, carrying her first foal.
In the cases of Sierra Sue and Callsign Mav, their buyers each managed a serious discount off the service fee.
For the outrageous price of $2,000, Peter Lock found Sierra Sue at the 2019 Karaka May Sale. The filly was already broken in, trialled, won and then sold to her current owners by agent Phill Cataldo.
Callsign Mav was offered as a weanling by Windsor Park Stud at the 2017 Karaka National Weanling Sale and made the princely sum of $3,000.
As John Malcolm, stud master at the famous Kinross Stud, once said to a young Denny Baker (Hallmark Stud): “No one knows where the next good horse is going to come from.”
He could have added: “And big money is no guarantee either.”
Is sea-water necessary?
Especially in New Zealand, it took ages for local breeders to recognise and support locally-bred and performed stallions.
Not so much in Australia. When Star Kingdom (Stardust) turned the Australian breeding industry upside down during the 1960s, Australian breeders flocked to his sons and grandsons. As a sire line, Star Kingdom is struggling sixty years on, but you do not have to look very far to find his strong influence in the bloodlines of a large proportion of Australian sire families.
A hundred years back, here in New Zealand, the colonials did get their opportunity but starting the last half of last century the “sea-water” factor drove the industry. Stallions apparently needed to be imported from the northern hemisphere.
Sobig (Summertime) was the first to change that belief and make buyers and breeders sit up and take notice. His success, which immediately followed his sire’s death, was particularly strong in Australia.
Summertime (Precipitation) was a great “sea-water” asset to the New Zealand Stud Book but Sobig altered the way breeders treated locally-bred and performed stallions.
The results of all three of Saturday’s Group 1s are a testament to that change, as all were sired by the colonials.
Extrapolating the fact, across the 15 stakes races from Saturday, all but two were sired by New Zealand-bred or Australian-bred sires. Of the 57 metropolitan races run, 44 fit in the same category.
New Zealand’s leading stud, Waikato Stud, currently stands six stallions. Each and every one was bred either in New Zealand or Australia.
For such a large scale operation, that fact is significant and proves how much things have turned around during the last 50 or so years.
The same stud quietly underlined that fact with their Savabeel (Zabeel) siring five metropolitan winners this past Saturday.
There were ten races on the Randwick card and Savabeel sired three of them, including Atishu, whose Bill Ritchie Handicap (Gr 3, 1400m) win has set her up for a tilt at the time-honoured Epsom Handicap (Gr 1, 1600m) next month.
Blue hen
She never won a New Zealand Broodmare of the Year title but she easily qualifies as a ”Blue Hen”. The reference is to Grand Echezeaux (Zabeel).
Her influence is clear via her two sons, three-quarter brothers Darci Brahma (Danehill) and Burgundy (Redoute’s Choice).
The August 17 edition of Kiwi Chronicles, which included comments from Rick Williams of The Oaks Stud, Darci Brahma’s under-appreciated record was discussed. The stallion is a New Zealand treasure and his runners continue to get the job done even if they are somewhat overlooked in the sale ring.
One statistic that stands out is his 72 per cent winners to starters ratio. If you get a winner, there is a one-in-five chance that your winner will achieve some sort of black type and a better than one-in-ten chance of winning at stakes level.
On Saturday, Sierra Sue became his 12th Group 1 winner and she isn’t finished yet. Only five years of age, the mare knows how to win and took her earnings to beyond the million dollar mark with a desperate lunge to bag the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m), beating a stellar field.
Darci Brahma’s three-quarter brother Burgundy is proving to be a sad loss to the industry, having passed away in 2019. His Bellacontte looked totally trapped half-way down the straight in Saturday’s Gold Trail Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) at Hastings, but weaved out then back towards the fence before diving through to a good win.
The filly has won three of her six starts, has scored back-to-back stakes wins, and takes a healthy lead in the New Zealand Filly of the Year series. She must be a leading candidate for Group 1 honours at Riccarton in November.
Pencarrow Stud and the Vela Brothers raced Romanee Conti (Sir Tristram) with great success, she becoming the foundation mare for their highly successful operation. From her, they bred Ethereal (Rhythm), the last horse, and one of just 11 in history, to win the Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m)-Caulfield Cup (Gr 1, 2400m) double in the same season.
Romanee Conti’s three-quarter sister is Grand Echezeaux. Both are from the Vice Regal (Bismark II) stakes-winning mare Richebourg.
A total of 14 stakes winners, made up of four Group 1 winners, three Group 2 winners, five Group 3 winners and three Listed winners, descend from Richebourg, and all in a relatively short space of time. The family, established by the late Jim Campin of Chequers Stud, is one the most desirable in the stud book.
Too easily overlooked
Valachi Downs’ Vespa (Elusive City), a former Champion New Zealand Two-Year-Old, doubled his number of stakes winners when Wakari gamely held out the favourite to take his record to two wins in four starts in snaring the El Roca Trophy (Listed, 1200m) at Hastings.
When seriously challenged, Wakari simply out-toughed his opponent. It was a gritty and determined win.
On the racetrack Vespa proved himself as an early and sharp sprinter, scoring the Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) and the Karaka Million (RL, 1200m) at two. Later, he placed at 1600 metres in Group 1 company.
From limited opportunities Vespa has sired 13 winners in two crops, five of which have achieved black type.
Better, but it still stings
Two weeks back, Kiwi Chronicles discussed the close-but-no-cigar results experienced by Rich Hill Stud.
That week saw Elephant (Shocking) and Riodini (Proisir) go so close in adding to their respective sire’s records as well as gaining much valuable Australian black type exposure.
This week, their news is improved. Resident shuttler Vadamos (Monsun) claimed his first stakes winner when Art De Triomphe broke through in taking out the Canterbury Belle Stakes (Listed, 1200m) at Riccarton.
She didn’t just win, she waltzed away. Once she joined the leader at the 200 metres she was travelling too well, then left the others to it, clearing out by three lengths.
The exasperation from two weeks ago has not gone away, however. Riodini, by Proisir (Choisir), made another bold, front-running effort to steal the George Main Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) and it almost paid off. Only the performance of a champion (Verry Elleegant) stood in his way. It was a gallant run and it pays to remember that he was giving the mare two kilograms yet gave her plenty to think about. He was caught very late in the piece, the margin just three-quarters of a length.
The wounds from a near miss in the Feehan Stakes (Gr 2, 1600m) by the exciting Elephant (Shocking) are still fresh. They were repeated in the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes when another son of Shocking (Street Cry), I’m Thunderstruck, came so close, finishing a highly meritorious third.
His was a huge run. He was a clear last at the 800 metres and still last at the 400 metres. When pulled wide into the short Caulfield straight he was severely bumped, sent sideways, yet somehow recovered, then flew hard for a mighty third.
Defying his race record
Their sire, Shocking, is proving to be a bit of a mystery. Could it have something to do with his being a Melbourne Cup winner?
Certainly, he did win the great race and won it as a four-year-old, which is never easy for a young horse.
The question is, why is he suddenly siring sprinter-milers?
One answer might be the old adage that even in distance races, the fastest horse wins. Shocking may indeed have won at the extreme distance, but his third in the Queensland Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) a mere five months prior to winning the Cup, probably suggested that staying was his bailiwick.
His maiden win was at 1300 metres yet the year following his Melbourne Cup victory he bagged the Group 1 Makybe Diva Stakes, a 1600-metre race also at Flemington.
That same season, but in the autumn, he was successful, again at Flemington, in the Australian Cup (Gr 1, 2000m).
His stats among his stakes winners is clear. They can stay all right but the mark of a good sire is versatility. There is clearly enough speed within his type and bloodlines. In Elephant and now I’m Thunderstruck, that speed is evident.
As for barn mate Proisir, the opposite appears true. Of Proisir’s stakes horses just two have won beyond 1600 metres yet two of his fillies have Oaks form. Vancooga and Feel The Rush filled second and third in the 2020 New Zealand Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m).
Proisir himself was most effective around the mile but he had the class to extend champion Dundeel (High Chaparral) at 2000 metres. His trainer, Gai Waterhouse, thought sufficient of his talent to line him up as a three-year-old in the Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m). He was having just his fifth start. That was some assignment.
It ain’t over ‘til it’s over
Sakura Blossom (Vancouver) had the Hastings crowd in awe after her stunning performance in race two over 1200 metres.
She was completely left at the start, settling at least three lengths behind the second last runner. Passing the 600 metres she had caught the tail. Rounding into the straight there were three behind her but at the 300 metres was giving the leader a conservative eight lengths.
She wobbled and ran around for a few strides, balanced then charged hard. Still six lengths in arrears at the 200 metres, her chances of winning looked hopeless. At the 100 metres the margin was three lengths but she was flying; levelled up to the leader inside the 50 metres and had the audacity to streak three quarters of a length in front at the post.
The mare is now two for two. Her racing career was delayed due to bone chips but that behind her, her future looks very exciting.
A graduate of the 2019 NZB Ready to Run Sale, Sakura Blossom was offered under Janine Dunlop’s Phoenix Park banner and made $150,000. She was originally offered as a weanling in Sydney, then passed in at the 2019 NZB Karaka Yearling Sale. She represents the first crop of Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) champion Vancouver (Medaglia d’Oro).
She is the fourth winner from her unplaced dam while her granddam, Gold Affair (Made of Gold) produced nine foals, eight of which raced but none could manage a win.
Gold Affair does have something going for her, however. She ranks as a winning sister to Gold Anthem, the dam of champion sprinter Starspangledbanner (Choisir) and granddam of Amicus (Fastnet Rock), winner of Caulfield’s The Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m).