Scentify
Andrew Lloyd Webber has long been referred to as a man with the Midas touch.
It’s of course earned through a lifetime of producing hit musicals – The Phantom Of The Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar and Cats to name a few – but in recent years it’s carried over into another world of risk and reward: thoroughbred breeding.
In 1992, he and wife Madeleine founded a stud at Newbury, 60 miles west of London, and named it Watership Down. That’s also the name of a musical production he was involved with based around animals – not horses, nor even cats, but rabbits – but in any case, it’s been another success.
The farm’s first major purchase was American mare Silver Lane (Silver Hawk), for $750,000 in 1992. She was carrying Black Hawk (Nureyev), who’d become a stakes winner, earning more than £3.5 million in Japan. Silver Lane later bore Shakespeare (Rainbow Quest), who fetched 2.2 million guineas (£2.31m) as a yearling and won black type, as did two later foals.
A year after Black Hawk, Watership Down bought Group 1 winner Darara (Top Ville). She became a blue hen, producing no fewer than four Group 1 winners including the Lloyd Webber-owned and fittingly-named Dar Re Mi (Singspiel), who won thrice at the top level.
Watership Down expanded in 1996, taking in Ireland’s Kiltinan Castle Stud, but has maintained a focus on quality, currently owning just 15 mares in the northern hemisphere. Which makes it all the more remarkable the stud had two of the top three lots at last year’s Tattersalls October Yearling Sale: a Frankel (Galileo) colt out of Dar Re Mi’s daughter So Mi Dar (Dubawi) which topped the auction at 2.8 million guineas, and another colt by Frankel (he had the top four lots), which raised 2 million guineas.
All of this might seem to suggest that alongside a stack of musical scores by his piano, Lord Lloyd Webber of Sydmonton also keeps a tall pile of pedigrees; or that while absorbed in writing songs, he often has to dash away and go elbow-deep in helping birth a foal. But the horses are, in fact, the passion and pursuit of Lady [Madeleine] Lloyd Webber, who represented Great Britain in three-day eventing before moving, most impressively, into racehorses.
Her husband’s main sporting interest possibly lies in his lifelong support for Leyton Orient football club, which could be where the Midas touch comes to a shuddering halt. They’re currently in League One, the third tier of English football, or about country benchmark 58 class, though they were promoted last season from League Two (non-TAB).
But still, as one of Britain’s 100 richest people – and having recently overtaken Paul McCartney as the nation’s wealthiest person in music – Lord Lloyd Webber talents have built the financial clout behind Watership Down.
And, with timing to make a master conductor smile, that golden touch has been to the fore again surrounding the stud’s nascent foray into the Australian market, which went on show at Moonee Valley on Saturday.
The Lloyd Webbers have dipped a toe into Australia in the past few years, thanks to the promising sire Too Darn Hot (Dubawi), the sole stallion in whom they have an interest, half-owning him with Darley. When the triple Group 1-winning sprinter-miler began shuttling to Australia in 2020, Watership Down decided to buy a selection of broodmares here to put to him.
One of the first was Fine Scent (All Too Hard), a half-sister, 14 years younger, to 2003 Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Polar Success (Success Express), and a Perth city winner of three races. With prominent “shuttling” bloodstock agent Johnny McKeever, the Lloyd Webbers bought Fine Scent for $210,000 at the Inglis Chairman’s Sale of 2020, held online due to Covid.
As per the plan, she was put in foal to Too Darn Hot in the spring of 2020. The result was no smash hit, however, and Fine Scent was moved on in 2022, at a small loss. Her Too Darn Hot colt sold for just $15,000, to Murray Bridge trainer Shane Oxlade, at this year’s Inglis Classic sale.
But when they bought Fine Scent – a sizeable mare bred by Gerry Harvey – she was in-foal to the very substantial Justify (Scat Daddy) – and this resulted in big boy Scentify. Born at Yarraman Park Stud, where Watership Down houses some of their Australian mares, he was sold as a weanling for $145,000, then onsold a year later to Ciaron Maher for $125,000.
That dip in price now appears as Maher’s good fortune, for on Saturday Scentify, now a three-year-old colt, made it two-from-two in winning over 1200 metres at Moonee Valley, following his debut victory at Warrnambool.
The Lloyd Webbers owned his dam for just two years, but go down as the breeders of a city winner from their first Australian runner. That’s quite some timing, but better could be to come, with Scentify showing he could become a stakes horse in the spring.
Watership Down also made a splash in buying some of Too Darn Hot’s Australian stock. With McKeever and Team Waterhouse-Bott, they paid $1 million for a filly out of 2018 Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) runner-up Enbihaar (Magnus) at this year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, who’s now in training as Too Darn Lizzie. They also bought a $500,000 Inglis Easter colt from Majesty (Fastnet Rock), who’s with the Hayes brothers.
The Lloyd Webbers also sold a yearling colt by Night Of Thunder (Dubawi) at this year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast for $350,000, having sent his dam south in-foal.
The stud’s general manager Simon Marsh said Watership Down now had three mares in Australia, all bought last year, who’d be bred to Too Darn Hot this spring.
Nevershotthedeputy (Written Tycoon), who cost $200,000, and $160,000 buy Night Witches (I Am Invincible) are held in partnership with Twin Hills Stud’s Olly Tait – an old friend of Marsh’s from his days with Darley in England – while Flirting (Medaglia D’Oro), bought for $340,000 last year, resides at Yarraman.
“It started off because we were sending Too Darn Hot to Australia,” Marsh told It’s In The Blood from England, “so we thought we’d buy a number of mares down there, and maybe have a few in training as well.
“We don’t have any plans to buy property down there – we’ve got great places to board our mares – but hopefully Too Darn Hot will be a success there, like he’s becoming here, and we can expand our interests there.
“We can’t take credit for breeding Scentify, but he looks like being a really good horse, which is a great thing.”
That credit goes to Adam Mackrell, another man a little off the beaten path in terms of Australian breeding, who runs Bell View Park Stud, near Nowra, owned by his parents Garry and Judy.
Bell View is in the business of trading mares, usually maiden mares, and usually after mating them. In recent years it’s had success with the likes of Maglissa (Magnus), who they sold carrying stakes-winner Unite And Conquer (Hinchinbrook), and Devious Rumor (Street Boss), who they sold for $220,000 before the mating with Exceed And Excel (Danehill) that produced the $1.2 million yearling colt Mach Ten.
In 2018, they kicked a major goal. Having sniffed out a Frankel mare named Dream In Colour, off the track at a February sale in Newmarket, England, they bought her for around $153,000, put her in foal to Exceed And Excel and sold her for $750,000. Her new owners made $1.1 million selling the yearling colt who’d become Wizard Of Oz (Exceed And Excel).
Two years later, as Covid battered the Australian broodmare market, Bell View had a less fortunate result. Having bought Fine Scent privately off the track and breeding her to Justify, they then had to take a loss in selling her to Watership Down for $210,000.
Mackrell was drawn to the Danehill-free Justify partly because Fine Scent came from a Danehill sireline (Flying Spur-Casino Prince-All Too Hard), and because of his substantial size, officially listed as 16.35 hands, to the mare’s 16 neat.
“For first foals I’d rather use a bigger stallion than something smaller, since first foals can be a bit on the small side,” Mackrell says.
“She was a lovely mare from a great family, so she should’ve made more. But it was hard work selling mares that year, because everything was online. You had to hope people might go to the farm and look at them, rather than see them at the sale.
“Sometimes you win, other times you’ve got to take a hit.”
Scentify’s pedigree presents as a clean slate, devoid of repetition in its first five generations. But go one row further and you find where some spice comes in.
The great Mr Prospector (Raise A Native) comes into Justify through three different daughters: Love Style, the dam of Scat Daddy (Johannesburg), and two Reine-de-Course full sisters in Yarn – whose three stakes winners include gun sire Tale Of The Cat (Storm Cat) – and Preach.
And Mr Prospector is in Fine Scent’s top echelon through yet another mare, Rolls, the dam of Flying Spur (Danehill).
Four female strains of Mr Prospector can’t hurt, and Scentify also hails from a strong female line. Second dam Patou – apart from her first foal Polar Success who in turn left a stakes-winner in Lillemor (Hallowed Crown) – also threw the dam of Group 2 winner Roots (Press Statement). And Scentify’s fourth dam Gold Vink (Gold Sovereign) was also the mother of dual Group 1 winner Bit Of A Skite (Showoff II).
Scentify also looks set to build on a strong second-generational start for Vinery’s All Too Hard (Casino Prince). As a broodmare sire he’s had 11 winners from 22 Australian runners, including a stakes-winner in Western Australia in Man Crush (Manhattan Rain).
Mackrell, who sounds every inch the boy from the bush, can’t admit to being a huge fan of the musical lord, and superstar, from whom he now has just one degree of separation, that mare Fine Scent.
“I’m not that much into music,” Mackrell says with a laugh. “I don’t watch or listen to a lot of what Andrew Lloyd Webber does. But he’s obviously very famous and very good at what he does.
“But in any case, I’ll be cheering Scentify on. It’s good luck to them being listed as his breeders. And we love seeing good results from the mares we sell. Hopefully their buyers will come back and buy some more.”