Rowe-View: A Chairman’s Special
It’s been a busy week in Sydney, so this Chairman’s Sale special Rowe-View edition comes to you a day later than planned.
At the top of the Chairman’s market the big-spending American John Stewart made a splash, paying $3.2 million for Tutta La Vita (The Autumn Sun), one of nine seven-figure mares sold on Thursday night at Riverside.
The elite mares, the so-called collectors’ items, are hard to put a price on and Resolute Racing’s Stewart, in an interview with this column soon after buying the Chris Waller-trained three-time Group 1-placed filly, indicated that he doesn’t get too caught up in trying to put firm values on.
He compares his global investment strategy in the thoroughbred industry – he has spent $8.64 million in Australia in the past four weeks to go with his tens of millions he’s paid for bloodstock in the northern hemisphere – to that of buying works of art.
“I like to look at the ones that I really want and then go and get them more agnostic of the price than I am of evaluating my top ten and here is what I think they should bring and trying to get value in the bidding,” Stewart, who also has an art and car collection, told us.
“I’m trying to be more focused on the ones that I think line up really well with our programme and being more aggressive on those horses. That’s my style.”
He added: “I have a private equity firm and I buy industrial companies. I try to buy companies that I want and if I have to pay a little bit more for them, I’d rather do that than buy companies that I’m not as excited about that I could get more cheaply.”
“I feel like there’s a premium market [doing it that way with bloodstock as well].”
Stewart also reiterated his interest in a “couple of mares” being offered at the Magic Millions “that we’re really keen on”.
The Resolute Racing principal has already publicly stated his desire to purchase Te Akau’s ten-time Group 1 winner Imperatriz (I Am Invincible).
Meanwhile, Stewart confirmed that Waller would train his $3 million I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) daughter of Oakleigh Plate (Gr 1, 1100m) winner Booker (Written Tycoon) and the $900,000 Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) son of Tulip (Pierro), the two highest-priced of the six Easter yearlings Resolute Racing signed for last month.
***
Premier trainer Chris Waller, the man who guided the brilliant but brief racing career of five-time Group 1 winner The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice), says the best is yet to come for the Arrowfield Stud stallion.
The Autumn Sun has gone from a “will he or won’t he?” sire to potential bonafide star in a matter of weeks, with first crop three-year-olds Autumn Angel winning the Australian Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m), Vibrant Sun landing the Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m) and Coco Sun taking out the South Australian Derby (Gr 1, 2500m).
Waller won eight of nine starts with The Autumn Sun, a JJ Atkins (Gr 1, 1600m), Golden Rose (Gr 1, 1400m), Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m), Randwick Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and Rosehill Guineas (Gr 1, 2000m) winner who was raced by Hermitage before being sold to Arrowfield.
The trainer was like a proud father when reflecting on the stallion’s recent feats.
“It is an amazing story and it’s probably a small indication of just how good he was [as a racehorse]. He was retired sound and in great winning form as a three-year-old, but the owners made the choice to retire him,” Waller says.
“His value was so high, they put him to stud. We saw when he turned at four that he developed into a man and we never saw that on the racetrack, so it’s no surprise that his stock are taking time.
“We’ve bought more than anybody, and we knew that, but we still had to put them through their two-year-old preparations.
“I think now that we know them better, we’ll leave that early pre-Christmas two-year-old prep and start them later and you’ll get better results as a consequence. He’s a superstar [sire], but they’re three-year-olds.”
Dual Group-winning filly Autumn Ballet, another first crop daughter of The Autumn Sun, was sold for $1.6 million at the Chairman’s Sale on Thursday.
Waller acted as a vendor for the first time at the Chairman’s Sale in offering Tutta La Vita and he has another nine mares to be sold under his Chris Waller Racing banner at the Magic Millions including Group 1 winners Atishu (Savabeel) and Madame Pommery (No Nay Never).
He said the one-horse experience at Chairman’s provided an insight to the other side of the sales scene.
“Getting people’s feedback was interesting and you get it first-hand what people like and what they don’t like. We are only ever on the other side of the fence trying to keep our cards close to our chest and you get to see everyone’s cards, you get to see who is interested, who comes back, it’s a unique situation,” Waller said.
“Plus, we know so much about those horses that we’re able to give people the information that they want. It was a good exercise.
“We’ll just concentrate on the ones that make us look good, but they’ve been very good horses to the stable, so it’s only fair that we take them through to the end and get them delivered properly into the second part of their life.”
***
Former Inglis employee Jin Tian can take credit for Harry Bailey making the daunting step from bloodstock consultant to auctioneer.
The Englishman, 35, has been behind the rostrum at Inglis’ Melbourne Gold, HTBA and the Australian Weanling and Broodmare Sales honing his skills with a gavel in hand and his distinctive manner has been compared by some pundits to that of an auctioneer from his homeland, Tattersalls CEO Edmond Mahony.
Inglis’ Sebastian Hutch recalled Tian’s baiting of Bailey after last year’s HTBA sale which led to the company adding him to the auctioneer’s roster under the mentorship of Jonathan D’Arcy, Chris Russell, Brett Gilding and Angus Robertson.
“‘Oh Harry, you’ll never make an auctioneer’ and Harry said, ‘Stuff you, Jin, I’m going to sell at this sale next year’ and he responded, ‘You’ll never be able to do it, don’t be ridiculous’,” Hutch remembers.
“Jin has obviously gone on to the Hong Kong Jockey Club since then and when Harry started selling at the Gold sale, we were all texting him hoping he was watching. Harry’s first horse in his first run sold and Jin, to be fair to him, came back and said, ‘he’s my brother, I’m so proud of him, I gave him some feedback and he’s done so well’.
“So, it was borne out of that, but as it turns out, Harry’s been effective at it and he seems to be really enjoying it.”
***
It’s not exactly a small field when it comes to honourable thoroughbred breeders being unlucky in the pursuit of love.
So, it’s not a complete surprise that we hear on the grapevine that one of the industry’s most eligible bachelors could be about to test the waters on Farmer Wants A Wife in a bid to settle down and live happily ever after.
The producers of the hit Australian television show would swoon over the vision opportunities a desirable racehorse breeder residing on a picturesque stud could present to a national audience, no doubt sending ratings to an all-time high.
If the said husband-to-be does get past the selection process and onto primetime, the question remains, however, will the new bride still say yes, yes, yes when she realises that the lavish farm with a huge stallion barn isn’t that of her new beau’s?
***
As you may have read in Friday’s edition, Sam White has made the giant step into playing studmaster and stallion man. It’s no mean feat for a son of a real estate agent from Shepparton in country Victoria who perhaps unconventionally went from working in property to thoroughbred breeding and racing.
Over the past decade he’s honed his skills – and his connections in the industry – to take charge of what was Leneva Park’s stallion farm at Seymour Park in Victoria’s Northwood Road breeding thoroughfare.
The rebranding of the stud as Lovatsville is a nod to White’s maternal family history.
“Lovatsville comes from my mother’s family who came out from Scotland in the mid-1800s and they were the Frasers of Clan Lovat on the shores of Loch Ness,” White revealed.
“They were a family that had a small farm out at Rushworth [in central Victoria] and that was a property named Lovatsville. Mum’s one of ten, five girls and five boys, and we spent a lot of our childhood growing up out there in a pretty close-knit family.”