Son of Kobayashi ready to stand up and be counted
Our Kobison out to put himself in reckoning for The Everest
Our Kobison will face his biggest challenge to date at Randwick on Saturday, a race that could be a dress rehearsal for The Everest (1200m), and the rising star could also put his sire Kobayashi (I Am Invincible) into the mainstream spotlight.
The Angela Davies-trained Our Kobison, a winner of six from just ten starts and a first-up winner at Randwick on August 10, is nominated for the Show County Quality (Gr 3, 1200m) as connections aim to raise the bar after carefully managing his career as a three- and four-year-old.
His rise also mirrors that of the unheralded Kobayashi, who has been producing winners mainly in Queensland in recent seasons without much fanfare, but that could be about to change for the sire who had his racetrack career cut short.
A sesamoid injury forced the Leon and Troy Corstens-trained Kobayashi’s premature retirement to Aquis Farm’s stallion operation, having raced just seven times for two victories as a juvenile including taking out the Redoute’s Choice Stakes (Listed, 1200m) at Caulfield in April 2017.
A $60,000 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale purchase by Troy Corstens, the colt soon demonstrated to the trainer that his bargain buy may have some ability.
“We were pretty unlucky as we had quite a few issues with him. He was a horse that I picked up really cheaply at Magic Millions,” Corstens told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“He wasn’t big and I can understand why he wasn’t popular, but he was a really well put-together colt, he just looked really immature.
“But when I took him home he just jumped out of the ground and did everything right, showed me a stack early.
“We got him up and got him going [for the Maribyrnong Plate in November of his two-year-old season] and he was good, but then we just had terrible issues with his feet. He just had an absolutely ripping attitude and he was always a lovely horse.”
After returning during the autumn to win two of his three starts, he was unplaced in his three runs as a spring three-year-old and when injury struck, he was retired.
Kobayashi stood his first two seasons, in 2018 and 2019, at a fee of $4,400 (inc GST) before it was dropped to $3,300 for the next two years.
It jumped to $8,800 in 2022 and remained the same in 2023 before being increased to a career-high $15,000 for the fast-approaching breeding season.
“Aquis bought ten per cent in him when he was going really well and then when he broke down, they made an offer to the rest of the group that they were going to stand him in Queensland,” Corstens revealed.
“[Industry identities] Sheamus Mills and Dean Harvey were in the horse and they thought it was a terrific idea and we were lucky enough to retain ten breeding rights to him.”
And it’s one of those nominations that led to the breeding of Our Kobison, almost certainly Kobayashi’s best offspring to date and he will get his first opportunity in stakes company on the weekend.
Kobayashi has also sired Listed-winning sprinter Mishani Lily as well as the stakes-placed pair Midnight In Tokyo and Marble Nine, the latter a last-start placegetter in the Bletchingly Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) for Corstens in late July.
Our Kobison was bred by Jodie Fessopoulos, the mother of jockey Liam Riordan who bought a share in Kobayashi with Corstens because her son was apprenticed to the Flemington-based trainer.
Upon the colt’s retirement, Fessopoulos went about “borrowing” a mare to send to Kobayashi and Tony Gorring of Hazelwood Stud in Queensland agreed to lend her Orne River (Fastnet Rock), a Lismore maiden winner from six starts.
“Tony said, ‘what do you mean you want to borrow one?’ and I said I live in suburban Sydney, I don’t want to own one, I just want to borrow her and breed with her and we’ll agist the mare with you and pay you for agistment and when the foal is old enough we’ll bring it down south and put it into training,” Fessopoulos recalled.
“He had a giggle and said he’d never heard of anything like it, but said, ‘sure, why not’. He had two empty mares and asked which one I wanted.
“He sent me the breeding and I looked up those nicks online and put the mares [crossed with Kobayashi] in and one gave me a B-plus and one gave me a C-minus, so I picked the B-plus and that’s how I bred the horse.”
Our Kobison was sent to Davies because the horse’s owners were all Sydney based and Fessopoulos was impressed by the facilities at Gosford when doing her due diligence after the trainer was suggested by another of the horse’s owners.
“She said, ‘send him down and I’ll let you know pretty quickly if he’s any good or not’,” the owner said.
“I paid the bills each month and just let Ange do her thing. I figured when she had something to tell me, she would tell me. She rang me and said this horse is quick and I went, ‘OK, that’s good, let’s see how he goes’.
“The next thing she gave him a jump–out at Gosford. She sent me the video without any comments, nothing. I think there were four horses in the trial and Our Kobison was about 20 lengths in front of the other three.
“I rang her and said, ‘I’ve watched this about six times, is that our horse the length of the straight in front of the others or is that one just finishing off the previous jump–out?’
“I had no idea, but she said, ‘no, no, that’s your horse’. That was when I started to think he might have been a little bit special.”
Since those early encouraging signs, Davies has taken Our Kobison along slowly, progressing from Newcastle maiden and provincial Benchmark victories before landing his first metropolitan win at Warwick Farm just over a year ago.
She resisted some owners wanting to dump Our Kobison in the “deep end” last campaign, but there’s little hiding now.
“Angela won’t say this because she’s an awful lot more conservative than I am, but in terms of his preparation, our A game is The Everest. If all goes according to plan and he was good enough to get a slot, then that’s the path that is pencilled in for him,” Fessopoulos said.
“He broke the track record at Rosehill, but at the end of the day, the last race that he won was a Benchmark 88, so he has to step up now into a Group level. If he comes out and wins the Show County, then I would hope that my phone would ring [from Everest slotholders].”
Corstens, too, has bred to Kobayashi on and off using the nominations he is entitled to and is an unashamed fan of the stallion’s feats to date.
“He reminds me of Encosta De Lago because I think he [Kobayashi] started off at $4,000 or something like that and just built and built and built,” the Group 1-winning trainer said.
“They’ve really got to prove themselves and do it that [hard] way and I Am Invincible was no different.
“He started quite low and built up, they kind of make themselves, those good stallions. I reckon it is a great way for it to happen.”
If Our Kobison can become his sire’s second stakes winner – and achieve more this spring – Kobayashi’s stock may become more commercially mainstream and so too would Orne River who is due to foal a sibling to the Show County contender in the next fortnight.