Rebel Dane out to extend lead in race to be crowned leading two-year-old sire
Rebel Dane’s (California Dane) connections are hoping the born-again sire’s transformation takes another decisive leap as the final month of the season begins in earnest today, with two key stakes chances in separate states for Widden’s new stallion.
The little sprinter that could – he weighed all of 400 kilograms wringing wet at the start of his dual Group 1-winning career – has become the little sire that could, as bookings continue to build towards a full book for Rebel Dane’s first season in the Hunter Valley.
Just 18 months after serving a second straight list of mares numbering only in the teens in Victoria, Rebel Dane stands atop Australia’s two-year-old sires’ table, and is third among second season sires.
The numbers are remarkable, coming from his first two seasons at Swettenham Stud which, while higher than those two stark books of 11 and 14 in his third and fourth seasons at nearby Glen Eden, still only numbered 33 and 30 mares.
After a first season of seven starters for three winners, Rebel Dane has had just 18 for eight this term. He sits third on the second season table behind Maurice (Screen Hero), who’s had 74 runners for 38 winners, and Capitalist (Written Tycoon), who’s had roughly ten times Rebel Dane’s runners, with 175 for 66 winners.
And Rebel Dane leads the juvenile board, through just four starters and the one solitary winner, but with that filly being the outstanding Fireburn, winner of both the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) and ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m).
He has a strong chance to go further ahead today, with the Andrew Bobbin-trained Anphina pressing for favouritism and a breakthrough win at her fourth start, in the Taj Rossi Series Final (Listed, 1600m) on Winter Finals Day at Flemington.
And at the Sunshine Coast, the first of Rebel Dane’s two stakes winners – the Matthew Dunn-trained Subterranean – aims to add a second Group 3 in the Winx Guineas (Gr 3, 1600m), for which he’s on the fourth line of betting at around $9 after scoring at Ipswich last start.
“How Rebel Dane has gone this year has been just so far beyond expectations,” said the rising 13-year-old’s breeder and managing owner Louis Mihalyka, of Laurel Oak Bloodstock, also one of the breeders of Fireburn.
“If we were speaking on August 1 last year and we asked what we wished for for Rebel Dane, you’d have had more chance of winning Lotto than of him siring the Golden Slipper winner.
“Having Fireburn winning a Slipper was enough but we’ve taken the stallion along for the ride as well and raised his commercial appeal dramatically.
“And each little positive outcome – like having Rebel Shadow win at Randwick last week, having Subterranean win last start, and with Anphina a good chance tomorrow – it all helps make him more than a one hit wonder.”
Rebel Dane’s stud story has been just as stunning as his racetrack career.
Gary Portelli, who trained him throughout his career, recalls he couldn’t ride him when he first arrived as a yearling, as “I didn’t have a girth small enough to go around his belly”. But, after being sent for a maturing spell straight away, Rebel Dane would go on to earn top tier laurels at four and seven – in the Rupert Clarke Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and Manikato Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) – in an era of sprinters such as Lankan Rupee (Redoute’s Choice), Chautauqua (Encosta De Lago) and Buffering (Mossman).
He was only still competing at seven because connections could not find a stud to take him at their desired price. And when he did start his stud career, his mares lists represented slim pickings for the speed sire in Victoria, compromised further by a blockage issue in his 11-mare season three. Once that was repaired, and with Subterranean taking the Ken Russell Memorial Classic (Gr 3, 1200m) at the Gold Coast in May last year, demand rose to the point where Rebel Dane covered 49 mares in his third season at Glen Eden, when he stood for $8,800.
That became his last spring in Victoria, with Fireburn’s dynamics – also for the Laurel Oak-Portelli combination – leading to Rebel Dane finding his third home from six seasons.
Standing at Widden in the more sprinter-friendly Hunter this spring for $27,500, Rebel Dane is set for major upswings in quality and quantity.
Mihalyka reports that with some 50 mares booked under the stallion’s ownership and various breeding rights, around a further 100 outside mares were likely to be covered by him.
“We’re capping him at 150 mares and they’re on track to fill the other hundred, since he’s at about 130 in total now,” said Mihalyka of Rebel Dane, who only served 141 mares through his first five seasons combined.
“And he’ll have good quality mares, too, which is a natural progression when you become a $25,000 stallion in the Hunter Valley, where there’s a better range of top mares.
“Also now, with a few results having come in, there’s better opportunities to identify things that worked with him, pedigree-wise.”
Rebel Dane holds a sizeable lead on the two-year-old sires table over far more seasoned rival, the great Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice). The Arrowfield titan has 16 juvenile winners this season from 49 runners for earnings of $3,449,095.
Snitzel has been wearing away at Rebel Dane’s lead in recent weeks, and now trails him by $459,455 with five Saturdays left in the season. But Snitzel has no two-year-old metro starters today, and July prize-money would strongly suggest Rebel Dane is secure in his first title.
Still, Mihalyka is taking nothing for granted.
“At the start of July in 2016, we [Laurel Oak] had Sir Bacchus well in front on the BOBS horse of the year awards,” he recalled. “There were five Saturdays in that July, too, and Chris Waller’s mare Pioneering won on July second, the 23rd and backed up on the 30th to win again and dead-heat with us for the award.
“But Rebel Dane is now a fair way ahead of Snitzel and the big two-year-old races are now over, so fingers crossed.”
Anphina could put the issue beyond any doubt if she claims today’s $96,000 first place prize-money for the Taj Rossi final. Bred by Grant Bloodstock – another of the breeders behind Fireburn – the filly showed great improvement in her second start to run a long-neck second over 1400 metres at Flemington to one of Snitzel’s two-year-old winners – the million-dollar yearling Brosnan. She then worked home well last start for fourth over 1420 metres at the same track on a Soft 7. Flemington was last night rated a Soft 6.
Bookmakers last night had the Patrick Payne-trained filly Quang Tri (Shalaa), winner of Swan Hill’s prestigious Elvstroem Classic (1300m) last start, a slight favourite over Anphina at around $5.50.
While Snitzel won’t have a runner at Flemington, another Arrowfield son of Redoute’s Choice (Danehill) – Pariah – has a chance to continue his recent first-season emergence in the meeting’s other two-year-old event, the Yulong Next Generation Sprinters Final (1200m).
Pariah, standing his fifth season this year at $16,500 after a career-high 157 covers last year, will be represented by the Arrowfield-bred, Danny O’Brien-trained Without Envy, an $8 chance in the nine-runner field for her debut. He also has second-starter Vagrant, a Twin Hills-bred filly who won on debut for trainer Mitch Freedman at Swan Hill and was last night around $9.50.
Pariah, the dual Group 3-winning son of the Hussonet (Mr. Prospector) mare Secluded, has slid up stealthily to sit fifth among first-season sires on earnings, with four winners – all since February – from 25 runners. They include Swiss Exile, winner of Eagle Farm’s Spirit Of Boom Classic (Gr 2, 1200m), while Runaway Belle has been placed in Listed class in Adelaide.
“I’ve always felt with Pariah there’s a very strong influence of Hussonet,” Arrowfield’s Peter Jenkins said. “And Hussonet was a sire of good sprinters, but not so much two-year-olds, and I think we might be starting to see that trend with Pariah, too.
“His stock could be a bit later-blossoming, but he’s had a couple of stakes horses, and you can see by the books he’s getting and the prices being paid for his yearlings that he’s very well thought of.”
Peter Moody’s Chaseton (Capitalist) held favouritism for the Next Generation Sprinters Final last night after winning his debut at Geelong, ahead of Jerome Hunter’s last-start Caulfield winner Thron Bone (Thronum).