Shanwah
Cherry Taylor will be forever grateful she was heavily pregnant the day Sayyida (Zabeel) suffered a broken leg.
Ciaron Maher, Ethan Brown, Kevin and Vicki Payne, the Hayes brothers, and dozens of other people in the racing game ought to be grateful too, for Taylor’s fevered actions that day have helped all of them prosper.
Sayyida had been bought by Taylor and husband Brent for $160,000 as a yearling – a not insubstantial sum for a young couple only a few years into their outright ownership of New Zealand’s Trelawney Stud.
The filly had won two out of four, was favourite for the 2003 New Zealand Derby (Gr 1, 2400m), and was running in the Avondale Guineas (Gr 2, 2000m) when in the home straight catastrophe struck.
She’d suffered a compound fracture, with breaks in three places. Such disaster would invariably become tragedy, but there was one person insisting otherwise.
“I was heavily pregnant, and I waddled down to the stalls just crying and screaming ‘You’ve got to save her!’” Taylor tells It’s In The Blood, with a sheepish laugh.
“It was still quite early on for us at the stud, and we were devastated. To be honest, anyone else would have put her down, but I was crying like a baby, and performing like a trained seal. I saw the compound fracture but still insisted she had to be saved.
“I was maybe not making the most sense, but I think the fact I was heavily pregnant meant everyone was too scared to say no to me.”
The massive and unlikely undertaking of saving the filly’s life was begun. It required surgeries, metal plates and screws, and a huge amount of hoping that this half–a–ton of unpredictable animal would be calm and still enough in the weeks that followed to give the operation a chance of success.
Unfortunately not.
A couple of weeks after Sayyida had returned from hospital and was recovering in a small yard, Taylor, now with new daughter Ella, took a walk to see her – to Taylor’s unfolding horror.
“She started rearing up, and did it a few times,” Taylor says. “It was terrible. We had to get her checked and, sure enough, she’d broken all the screws and they had to take her back for more surgery.
“After that, the surgeon rang me – because Brent told him he’d have to tell me – and he said, ‘Look, if she does it again we can’t save her. There’s nothing left to screw into’.”
This time, as if the filly knew, the recovery worked.
Sayyida of course wouldn’t race again but she would be able to breed.
And though her breeding career would eventually be impacted by her injury, what a broodmare she became.
Her first foal, in 2005, was Ruqqaya (Van Nistelrooy). A city winner, she would produce dual Group 1 hero – and now Group 1-producing Yulong stallion – Grunt (O’Reilly). Trelawney also bred out of Ruqqaya the Team Hayes-trained triple stakes-winning mare Zayydani (Savabeel), whose colt first foal by Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) was bought by David Ellis for $400,000 at Karaka this year.
Better was to come for miracle mare Sayyida. Her next named foal was Ocean Park (Thorn Park), who won five Group 1s including a Cox Plate (2040m), and has four top-tier winners to his name as a sire.
Next up, Sayyida threw Lady Sayyida (Iffraaj), who, while a mere country winner, has also kicked on at stud for Trelawney.
Her first foal was Excelida (Exceed And Excel), trained by Team Hayes to Group 2 success and a third in the 2022 Empire Rose Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m).
And her fourth named foal was Shanwah (Too Darn Hot), Maher’s outstanding three-year-old who last Saturday won his fourth–straight race in Moonee Valley’s Alister Clark Stakes (Gr 2, 2040m).
Sayyida’s latest star grandchild made it back-to-back Group 2s in that event, and is now a $6 equal third-favourite for the ATC Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) on April 5.
Given the black type in his family, Shanwah didn’t come cheap, sold by Trelawney at Karaka 2023 for $750,000 to bloodstock agent Cameron Cooke, who had also co-bought the yearling Grunt.
But Shanwah’s owners Kevin and Vicki Payne, who added him to their large bloodstock portfolio, are well in front.
They’ve sold him to new connections in Hong Kong, where he’ll head after Randwick’s Derby. Based on other reported sales, the Hong Kong Derby (2000m) prospect will likely have fetched at least $2.5 million – on top of the near $560,000 he’s already earned.
The Taylors have a rule with the mares they send to Australia. Having made a large enough commitment by sending them across the Tasman, they don’t gamble on first–season sires.
Like all good gambling rules, it’s been broken.
But only twice.
Once was when they took their first look at Pride Of Dubai (Street Cry), and were so impressed they decided to send Sancerre (O’Reilly) to him. Three Group 1s and more than $10 million in prize–money later, you could say Pride Of Jenni has vindicated the decision.
The second time was when they first glimpsed Darley’s then new shuttler Too Darn Hot (Dubawi).
Lady Sayyida was still in Australia after throwing a Zoustar (Northern Meteor) colt who sadly soon died. But following that misfortune has come the exciting Shanwah.
“Brent and I don’t normally go to new season horses in Australia, since we only breed from five or six mares each year there,” Taylor said. “But when Too Darn Hot came out, we just said, ‘Wow – we really like him’.
“Lady Sayyida was empty and over there, and we thought, ‘Bugger it – we really like the look of this stallion’. They were a great physical match-up, and we were trying to produce a nice type.
“And given that the colt made $750,000, you know he was an exceptional type.
“So, Too Darn Hot and Pride Of Dubai are the only two first–season sires we’ve been to in Australia. Bit of a fluke really.”
While type was king, putting Lady Sayyida to Too Darn Hot gives Shanwah an intriguing pedigree.
The only first-five duplication looks a strong one, with the great Mr. Prospector (Raise A Native) coming through both top lines at 5m x 5m, via Seeking The Gold and Gone West.
Other than that, in the first six columns there’s Northern Dancer (Nearctic).
Perhaps often overlooked for his ubiquity in pedigrees, his impact here shouldn’t be underestimated – in a 6m, 6m x 6m, 5m, 6m repetition, since it’s through four different sons in Shareef Dancer, Sadler’s Wells, The Minstrel, and Nureyev (twice). Go back another generation and there’s more Northern Dancer through yet another son, Lyphard.
Another multi-son spread of Northern Dancer was seen to good effect in last week’s column subject, Military Tycoon (Written Tycoon).
Seven columns of Shanwah also reveals a 7f x 5m, 6m of the influential American blue hen Special (Forli), running into the sireline of Too Darn Hot’s dam via Sadler’s Wells’s dam Fairy Bridge (Bold Reason), and presenting via her son Nureyev on both sides of Lady Sayyida.
After Lady Sayyida, Sayyida’s breeding CV tapered away, with more misses than hits.
Lady Sayyida sadly died in 2023 soon after foaling a Per Incanto (Street Cry) colt – her first throw after Shanwah. That colt will be offered at Inglis Easter next month as Lot 20 from Trelawney’s draft.
But Sayyida, now 24, is still enjoying life in retirement at Trelawney – a life which, in normal circumstances, would have ended 21 years ago but for a sobbing co-owner who was not to be trifled with, especially given her state of emotion and trimester.
And Sayyida will always have a special place in the Taylors’ hearts.
“She’s been an amazing mare,” Cherry Taylor says.
“She’s happy and still enjoying life. And the whole family that’s come from her has been fantastic. Shanwah winning two Group 2s is wonderful, and now he’s going to the Sydney Derby. It’d be amazing if he could win it.”