Sunset Dreaming
Since the best laid plans of mice and men can often go awry, it’s a good thing there’s also the afterthought. It’s been serving veteran Adelaide breeder Brenton Parker very well of late, with one stellar family in particular.
The 75-year-old retiree sold a filly by Hellbent (I Am Invincible) to Eales Racing for $75,000 at the 2021 Inglis Premier sale. Parker, breeder of triple Group 1 winner Happy Trails (Good Journey), had been hoping to make six figures, but decided he’d live with that outcome.
Quite a few months later he checked Eales Racing’s website – bedecked in the black and orange colours most gloriously borne by Street Cry (Machiavellian) sons Shocking and Whobegotyou – and noticed a slice of the filly was still available. He bought back in, she became Benedetta, and after debuting five months after that she’s now a Group 3 winner with nearly a million dollars in the bank.
Her dam, Whatalovelyday (Domesday) had also been acquired in a change of plan.
Parker had sought a breeder at the Magic Millions National Broodmare sale of 2016, and supplied his advisor Adrian Hancock with a shortlist. Those were missed out on, and Hancock told his client a fallback option could be this Domesday (Red Ransom) mare who was in-foal to Starspangledbanner (Choisir).
Whatalovelyday had won once at Doomben, twice at the Sunshine Coast, and was Group 2-placed from 32 starts for Jon Walk. The main attraction was a blue–blooded Australian female line, evoking names such as Bart Cummings’ outstanding pair Leica Lover (Latin Lover) and Leica Show (Showdown). Parker went along with Hancock’s advice, and Whatalovelyday was his for $150,000.
That’s a not insubstantial amount for a hobby breeder with eight mares, but after something of a rocky start, his now 12-year-old has been delivering in spades, continuing to serve justice to her fabulous female forebears.
That first Starspangledbanner filly fetched a modest $30,000 at the Adelaide Magic Millions sale. Parker bought her back for the successful bidder – David Jolly – to train. Named Quick Call, she impressed in a jump out, prompting Jolly to tell Parker he’d “have some fun with her” in a spring campaign. But in her second jump-out, she died of a heart attack.
Whatalovelyday’s second cover – her first with Parker – had been with Foxwedge (Fastnet Rock), to produce another filly. Whatafox also fetched just $30,000 at Adelaide, but was twice stakes-placed from 13 starts – including in the Monee Valley Fillies’ Classic (Gr 2, 1600m) on Cox Plate day – before retirement early this year.
The upswing in fortunes continued after Parker then sent his mare to Hellbent to breed Benedetta.
And now the lovely days look set to continue, in the form of a fourth foal, and another filly, Sunset Dreaming (Impending), who made it three from six by taking the lucrative VOBIS Gold Eureka Stockade (1400m) on Ballarat Cup day last weekend.
She was bought by Tony McEvoy and Belmont Bloodstock at the Gold Coast in 2022 for double the price of Benedetta – $150,000. The fact that purchase happened 11 months before Benedetta’s debut says much for Sunset Dreaming’s type, which in turn explains why in this instance, Parker didn’t muck about.
“I’ve known Tony a long time, from his days in Adelaide, and I rang him within about five minutes and made sure I stayed in her,” he told It’s In The Blood.
Parker keeps his cards close to his chest as to who advises him on his matings, but Impending (Lonhro), then in his second season, was on the shortlist.
“I’ll try to go to a first–season sire every season, but I also don’t mind second season,” Parker said. “They still won’t be proven, but they won’t have had any convictions yet either. By the time you’re selling them, they might have had only a couple of runners, so all the possibilities are still there.”
Now, however, it would appear Whatalovelyday and Sunset Dreaming could be critical to his immediate future.
The dual Group 1-winning sprinter has stood at Northwood Park this season for just $8,800 – making him the cheapest of Darley’s 17 stallions standing in Australia. After serving 186 mares in his first season of 2018, the son of Lonhro (Octagonal) covered just 44 last year, still at his starting fee of $22,000, and a few less this year, Darley says.
He’s had 58 winners from 148 runners, with just the one stakes-winner. And that’s come not in Australia but New Zealand, although the three-year-old filly in question – Impendabelle – has won two of them, and both Group 2s.
“He’s hanging in there. He throws a nice enough type,” said Darley’s head of stallions Alastair Pulford. “He’s had a good little run lately, and gets plenty of winners, although he does need some high–class horses to put his name on the map.”
Such is the lottery of standing stallions. An impending exit from Darley seems likely for the ten-year-old sire, or else he could dream this McEvoy filly won’t let the sun go down on him.
In a strong first campaign, Sunset Dreaming debuted with a maiden win at Ballarat in September, flashed home for a narrow second at Bendigo, then scored at Ballarat again in a fillies and mares’ Benchmark 64 (1200m). Tried in black type, she ran fifth twice at Caulfield – in the Blue Sapphire (Gr 3, 1400m) and the Sandown Guineas (Gr 2, 1600m) – before backing up from the latter to win the Eureka Stockade, making it three from three on her home track.
“Before her first start, Tony had said she was a nice filly,” Parker said, “but then she won her first race, should’ve won her second, won her third, and we knew she had something.
“She went into a couple of stakes races and didn’t disappoint, but didn’t quite get to the line, and then her win last Saturday was terrific, and I hoped a pointer to a good autumn.
“The idea was that she would go for a spell, but Tony rang on Monday and said she was bouncing around and hadn’t left an oat. She’s had six runs but they’ve mostly be spaced out reasonably well. So she’s going to have 10 days on the water walker with a view to possibly going to the Gold Coast Guineas on Magic Millions day. That’s something exciting to look forward to.”
Sunset Dreaming’s pedigree is a rather clean slate, with no repetitions in the first five generations. There’s little evidence about Impending over Domesday mares, though it’s running at two winners from two runners at present. Lonhro over Domesday’s sire Red Ransom (Roberto) has seven winners from 11 runners at 63 per cent, including one stakes victor. And Domesday himself has 100 winners from 170 starters as a damsire, at 58 per cent.
What is clear is that Whatalovelyday hails from a hugely successful colonial family, which may have helped give Impending this particular boost.
Her fourth dam was Leica Show (Showdown), bred and trained by Cummings, who scored five stakes wins as varied as the 1974 VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m) and the following year’s William Reid Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) and Canterbury Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m). Her dam Miss Valeica (Valognes) – whose grandsire was the famed French stallion born in 1935, Bois Roussel (Vatout) – left another Cummings star in Leica Lover (Latin Lover), who scored eight stakes wins.
At stud, Leica Show threw the Cummings-bred pair Leica Planet (Planet Kingdom), winner of the Goodwood Handicap (Gr 1, 1200m), and Chateau Leica (Century), Sunset Dreaming’s fourth dam, who also was the mum of the triple early-90s Group 1 winner – including two Doncaster Handicaps (Gr 1, 1600m) – Pharaoh (Sackford).
Sunset Dreaming’s third dam is Leica Or Not (Kendor), who left three stakes-winners including two at the top level wide apart in Light Fantastic (Danehill Dancer), the 2008 Australian Guineas victor, and 1998 New Zealand Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) winner Leica Guv (Deputy Governor).
Parker has also bred Whatalovelyday’s first colt, Le Plus Rapide (Rubick), a $130,000 Gold Coast yearling purchase this year who’s awaiting his first start with Henry Dwyer.
A second colt, by King’s Legacy (Redoute’s Choice) is destined for next year’s Melbourne Premier yearling sale.
And, repeating the Benedetta mix, Whatalovelyday is now in-foal to Hellbent again, only this time she’s carrying what’s likely to be a very valuable colt.