Slipper success for ambitious Field and Freedmans with Stay Inside
Exciting Extreme Choice colt stamps himself as a top-shelf performer with dominant win in delayed Group 1
Henry Field’s well-considered early gamble totalling tens of millions of dollars to corner this season’s best available two-year-old colts has been handsomely rewarded after Stay Inside (Extreme Choice) produced an electric performance to emphatically take out yesterday’s delayed running of the $3.5 million Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
One of three juvenile colts bought into by Field’s Newgate Farm and partners in recent months, Stay Inside’s value skyrocketed following the manner of his victory which almost certainly assures him his place as the most expensive first season sire when he is eventually retired to stud.
Newgate Farm already stands Capitalist (Written Tycoon), the 2016 Golden Slipper winner who has made an outstanding start to his stud career, and there was not another winning colt until 2020 when Farnan (Not A Single Doubt) took out the race.
He was recently retired to stand at Kia Ora Stud this year at a valuation tipped to be north of $40 million, figures which prompted Field to make an early move on the current generation’s most promising colts and the Richard and Michael Freedman-trained Stay Inside certainly delivered at Rosehill yesterday, seven days after the race was first slated to be run.
On a drying Soft 7 surface, Stay Inside ($4.60) was given a nice run by jockey Tommy Berry, who positioned him in a trailing position behind the leaders in a field headed up by Profiteer (Capitalist).
Berry maneuvered the colt into the clear at the top of the straight and, from there, the Slipper was never in doubt, going on to score by one and three-quarter lengths over Anamoe (Street Boss) ($15) with his Godolphin stablemate Ingratiating (Frosted) ($20) another two and a quarter lengths away in third.
Four Moves Ahead (Snitzel) was the first filly home in fourth, while the Newgate-China Horse Club’s yearling buy Capitivant (Capitalist) was fifth, just ahead of Artorius (Flying Artie), who Newgate Farm bought into after his Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) win.
Profiteer, the first of Newgate’s colts investment made in early February, finished seventh, six lengths adrift of Stay Inside.
After the race, Michael Freedman took time to take in the achievement so soon after reopening his Sydney stable after a short-lived and, by his own admission, disastrous training stint in Hong Kong.
“Last year we sat at home, we didn’t have a runner anywhere,” he said
“To have two in the race today and come away with the winner, I’m a bit speechless.”
Freedman unveiled Stay Inside publicly for the first time on January 4 in a Rosehill barrier trial before returning to the track for another hit-out 11 days later with Berry in the saddle.
Berry said: “I remember telling Michael when I rode this colt in his (second) trial that he was probably a preparation away and I don’t know how far you should push him. How silly I was,”
From there he would score emphatically at Randwick on January 23 when heavily backed for his first start, before his emphatic Pierro Plate (1100m) win on February 13 confirmed his Slipper credentials.
The Freedmans rounded out Stay Inside’s Slipper campaign in the Todman Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) when he was beaten into fourth after being held up for a run. James McDonald chose to ride Home Affairs (I Am Invincible) (eighth) yesterday in preference to the colt, allowing Berry to pick up the mount.
“He’s just such a professional. I mean you can make all the plans in the world from barriers but he (Berry) rode him to absolute perfection and got him into the perfect spot,” Michael said.
“He was able to find the right spot and conserve his energy, and with that turn of foot, he’s the real deal.”
His brother and training partner Richard praised Michael for his handling of Stay Inside, who was prepared out of Randwick, particularly with the postponement of the meeting by a week owing to the torrential rain which fell in Sydney.
“Michael’s done a great job with the two-year-olds as he always does,” Richard said.
“He picked the right day to work him and worked him the right way and the horse looked beautiful here today. I thought he looked better today than he looked when he won before.”
Berry agreed the extra week leading into the Slipper had benefited Stay Inside.
“I rode him last Tuesday morning and Michael called me on the way home in the car and said ‘I’ve seen you happier after a piece of work’,” Berry revealed.
“I said, ‘I don’t know what you want me to say, he worked good, he just didn’t blow me away’.
“I rode him this Tuesday morning, I didn’t even have to say anything, I think the smile said enough. It’s just amazing what a week can do in racing with these two-year-olds.
“Going to the gates he was ready to go.”
Rachel King was in awe of runner-up Anamoe’s performance after jumping from the outside barrier (15), declaring: “He’s a superstar in the making. If he draws a gate he wins.”
Connolly savours Stay Inside’s Slipper win
Bred by Kingstar Farm’s Matthew Sandblom, who is part of the Newgate syndicate who bought back into the colt, Stay Inside is the first named foal out of the winning mare Nothin Leica Storm (Anabaa), a $90,000 Inglis Chairman’s Sale purchase in 2018 from the Widden Stud draft carrying the Slipper winner.
Sandblom sold Stay Inside for $60,000 to Newgate Bloodstock at the Magic Millions Gold Coast National Weanling Sale before he was resold for $200,000 to his trainers and agent Rick Connolly.
Sydney–based Connolly watched the race at home in solitude but was hoping to catch up with the Freedmans and the colt’s owners last night to celebrate the success.
“It is everybody’s dream to buy a Slipper winner,” he told ANZ Bloodstock News soon after the race.
“Previously working with Tony McEvoy, we went close with Sunlight (third in 2018) and since forming my company Rick Connolly Bloodstock and joining forces at the sales with the Freedman boys and, in particular, Michael who I get on really well with, it’s a great result.”
Stay Inside made Connolly’s shortlist when he spotted the colt during on-farm inspections in late 2019 at Newgate Farm and the colt also gained the approval of the Freedmans once they laid eyes on him at the Gold Coast.
“After formulating short lists and taking Michael and Richard around, we thought he was such a well-balanced colt with great depth of muscle to him. We thought ‘surely he’s fast’. We don’t know how fast, but he looked fast.” he said.
“The Freedman family, all the brothers, they know how to train two-year-olds. They don’t give much away, but they’ve always liked this colt without raving about him because they have got to produce it on the track.
“But two starts ago when he won the Pierro Plate, that was the making of him and we thought, ‘hello, there’s an engine there’.”
Connolly, who will be inspecting Inglis Australian Easter Sale yearlings at Riverside Stables from Tuesday, also reserved praise for Field.
“He is probably one of the leaders of the industry, Henry Field and Newgate, with what that farm is doing,” he said.
“He stands the sire, he has got great faith in Extreme Choice and to go out and buy in his opinion the best colt by Extreme Choice … and he did it with Artorious and Profiteer as well.
“He bought all three of those colts and Henry is at the forefront of the industry.”
Meanwhile, Nothin Leica Storm – a half-sister to Fashion Rocks (Dehere), the dam of the stakes-placed Dinnigan (Snitzel) and Pouting Lips (Hinchinbrook) – has a Russian Revolution weanling filly. She did not get in foal in 2020.
Stay Inside is one of just 48 live first crop two-year-olds by Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) whose fertility issues are well documented.
He has just 29 yearlings and 39 foals but his mare numbers skyrocketed last season, covering 105 mares.
Extreme Choice has one yearling on offer at next week’s Easter sale, a Willow Park Stud-consigned filly out of the Western Australian Derby (Gr 2, 2400m) and Western Australian Oaks (Gr 3, 2400m)-placed Keysbrook (So Secret). She is catalogued as Lot 366.
Eduardo triumphs for Pride in Galaxy
Joe Pride has put this year’s Everest firmly on the agenda after the trainer enhanced his reputation for being able to get the best out of older horses as high-class sprinter Eduardo (Host) produced a display of sustained speed in yesterday’s The Galaxy (Gr 1, 1100m).
Sent to the lead immediately by jockey Nash Rawiller despite the pre-race suggestions that a strong tempo could bring the sprinter undone, Eduardo’s clasp on a breakthrough Group 1 win appeared well in his keeping soon after straightening,
He went on to win by three and a half lengths over Order Of Command (Squamosa) ($26) with another two and a half lengths back to Jonker (Spirit Of Boom ($17) in third, which prompted Pride to foreshadow a second shot at the $15 million Everest (1200m) in October.
Before then, however, the T J Smith Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) at Randwick looms as Eduardo’s next target.
“The horse is a very good horse,” Pride said.
“He’s made a statement today, he made it the other day actually, but it was a statement not taken up by all.
“Wow, that was an amazing win and there’s better ahead of this horse, there’s no doubt about that.”
Rawiller also believes Eduardo will be a leading candidate for The Everest after setting an extremely fast tempo in last year’s race before tiring to finish second–last.
“He’ll be in it (again this) year, a hundred per cent he’ll be a genuine contender,” Rawiller said.
“He’s come back a better horse this season and he feels like to me he will only get better.”
Pride exuded confidence about Eduardo’s Galaxy chances this week despite the wet weather posing problems for many Sydney trainers.
The gelding resumed in the Challenge Stakes (Gr 2, 1000m) on March 6, defeating Nature Strip (Nicconi) in the process.
“I brought him here today and wondered what could go wrong because you know you’ve got the horse on song,” Pride said.
“But there’s the variables of the weight and the way the track was playing.
“What I like about Nash, I just said to Nash ‘I’m not going to tell you what to do mate’ and he was confident he said ‘I’ll find the fence and I’ll just take care of it’.
“He was confident, he knew what he needed to do and he did it.”
Eduardo, who won three of his first 12 starts for Cranbourne trainer Sarah Zschoke, has won four of his seven starts since joining Pride’s Warwick Farm stable and $1.455 million in the process for his new connections.
Pride and his owners, some of whom raced Terravista (Captain Rio) and 2014 Galaxy winner Tiger Tees (Dubawi), bought Eduardo privately in May last year for a figure believed to have been well under the $200,000 mark.
The rising eight-year-old gelding is one of three winners and the last foal out of the unraced mare Blushing (Fantastic Light) and the only stakes-performed horse in his first two dams. His third dam, Peggy Ann (Bletchingly), won seven races including at Group 3 level.
Eduardo’s sire Host (Hussonet), who died last year at Willow Grove Stud in South Australia, is the sire of six stakes winners with Eduardo his first at the highest level.