Savabeel can top Australasian stakes winners charts with Celestial Fury
Busuttin and Young hoping to deliver a poignant 20th black type winner of season for stallion that kick-started career
Entering the final stages of an enthralling 2020/21 season, the races to decide the leading stallions of the past 12 months have shaped up as close-run contests.
Newgate’s first-season sire phenomena Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) and Capitalist (Written Tycoon) have contested an extraordinary battle for the leading freshman sire honours, with the former, a Golden Slipper Stakes- (Gr 1, 1200m) winning stallion, set to fend off the late charge from his barnmate, who has four stakes winners to his name.
The general sires, too, is close, with Written Tycoon (Iglesia) looking set to claim a first sires’ premiership, holding a margin of little more than $600,000 over rival Not A Single Doubt (Redoute’s Choice).
Although not a premiership in its own right, one accolade that is set to go right to the wire is the stallion to yield the most individual stakes winners across Australia and New Zealand this campaign, with Coolmore’s evergreen Fastnet Rock (Danehill) and Waikato Stud’s perennial New Zealand champion sire Savabeel (Zabeel) tied on 19 stakes winners apiece, with just a handful of black-type races remaining until the season’s end.
Today, training duo Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young could sway that contest in their compatriot’s favour, as the talented Celestial Fury looks to lay down a marker in the Taj Rossi Series Final (Listed, 1600m) as to his VRC Derby (Gr 1, 2500m) credentials in the spring for Savabeel, a stallion that has left a significant marker on the careers of the husband and wife training partnership, most notably through a VRC Derby-winning son of Savabeel from a decade ago in Sangster.
“He certainly has been an important stallion for us,” said Busuttin to ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday, who trained in partnership with his father, Patrick, when Sangster won the 2011 running of the VRC Derby, although it was Trent and partner Natalie that guided the three-year-old through his spring preparation, becoming the second Group 1 winner for the stallion, who now boasts 23 elite-level winners.
“He got us that original horse that got the ball rolling, but we’ve been a heavy supporter of his and I think we’ve had three or four runners by Savabeel in Derbies.
“We bought Atmosphere who ended up running second in the Hong Kong Derby by a nose, but certainly, we’re a big supporter of the stallion, he’s done a fantastic job and we’d be very happy if (Celestial Fury) brings Savabeel that (20th) stakes winner.”
Savabeel’s exceptional season has yielded 11 stakes winners in New Zealand, where he leads the general sires premiership by more than $1 million, while standout performers across the Tasman has seen a further eight stakes winners in Australia, spearheaded by Epsom Handicap (Gr 1, 1600m) and Futurity Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) winner Probabeel, a figure that seems him tied with Not A Single Doubt and ahead of Exceed And Excel (Danehill).
Busuttin and Young purchased Sangster for just $19,000 out of the 2010 NZB Ready To Run Sale, having prepared him for the breeze up auction themselves, and it was Young’s keen eye for the pedigree page that saw the training partnership snare the Valachi Downs-bred Celestial Fury for $120,000 from the Riverrock Farm draft at the 2020 running of the two-year-old sale at Karaka.
Out of Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) mare Sister Celeste, Celestial Fury is a half-sister to juvenile Group 1 placegetter Kelly Renee (Vespa), while the Savabeel – Galileo cross is running at 40 per cent stakes winners to runners.
“Natalie picked him out from the Ready to Run sale on pedigree,” said Busuttin. “We couldn’t get across at that time of year because of Covid, but Mike Kneebone did all of the inspections, he has been a long-time supporter of the stable and does a lot of our inspections. He gave this horse the tick of approval.
“He didn’t breeze up the best, he was very raw and very new, and if you were going just off the breeze up you probably wouldn’t have looked too hard.
“But certainly, out of a Galileo mare, you don’t get any better and then there’s the Savabeel factor as well, we’ll buy them all day. There’s not a lot to argue about, Savabeel out of a Galileo mare.”
Celestial Fury showed a touch of speed and class in winning his maiden at Flemington over 1400 metres a fortnight ago and Busuttin sees him as the ideal candidate to step up to the gruelling 2500-metre test of the Derby as a spring three-year-old, but not before a good showing in today’s Listed juvenile feature at headquarters.
“It just fits the profile: on his breeding. The Victorian Derby comes around very early and it’s tough on young three-year-olds, so you need the right profile of horse and at the moment this horse fits that, but we’ll know more after Saturday. We certainly expect him to run well, but we won’t get carried away on the back of one win,” said Busuttin.
“Not too many win their first start at Flemington and he did that, and now he’ll step up to the mile which he’ll enjoy.
“He’ll have to improve, it’s a very good field, looking at it. There are plenty of different formlines. But we’re very happy with him and we think he’ll be very competitive.”
Seven-year-old Mirage Dancer (Frankel) has been the headline act for the training partnership this season, winning the Metropolitan Handicap (Gr 1, 2400m) in Sydney’s spring, while Group 1-winning juvenile Tagaloa (Lord Kanaloa) has headed to stud, leaving Busuttin and Young relying on young talent, such as Celestial Fury, to provide the ammunition next season.
“We don’t have a headline horse, but a few horses that will be competitive in some stakes races, but we’re really relying on horses like this horse, Celestial Fury, and others,” Busuttin said.
“I think we’ve got a few really outstanding unraced or very lightly raced staying horses that could impact on Oaks and Derby type races.
“We hope to be figuring prominently in those, but it’s very hard to get them there, every stable thinks they’ve got them, it’s about getting them to peak. And for the spring we’re hoping that one or two of them can put their hands up.”
Among that contingent is Tatsuro, a son of Maurice (Screen Hero), who will also contest today’s Taj Rossi Series Final.
“He’s shown enough and is by Maurice, and I think he’s a stallion that’s really going to show up in the next 12 months over 1600, 2000 metres. Arrowfield don’t get it wrong too often,” Busuttin said.
“I’d love to have a bunch of Maurices in the stable as well.”