‘The horse is still going well and there’s still a good few years left in him, we’ve decided to sell’
Mane man Osborne to sell I Am Invincible breeding right
In 2010, in the hope of encouraging repeat business to their unheralded new stallion I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), the Mitchell brothers of Yarraman Park offered lifetime breeding rights to anyone who sent mares to the Group 3-winning sprinter for each of his first three years.
Thirteen breeders took up the Mitchells’ offer and supported the son of Chatswood Stud’s four-season shuttler Invincible Spirit (Green Desert), a sprinter who won a D C McKay Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) and finished runner-up in a Goodwood (Gr 1, 1200m) behind champion globetrotter Takeover Target (Celtic Swing) in 2009 for trainer Peter Morgan, a year before the stallion’s retirement.
Eleven of them have, as I Am Invincible’s fortunes have risen year after year to become twice champion sire and Australia’s most commercial stallion, cashed in their lucrative breeding rights, the phrase “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” ringing true for the majority.
Trainer, owner, breeder and horse transport allrounder Neil Osborne was one of those breeders who hit the jackpot via his early support of I Am Invincible as his fee rose from $11,000 – and traded at much less – to hit a career peak of $302,500 (inc GST) last year.
The Mane Lodge principal, whose Sutton-based stud is located close to the NSW-Australian Capital Territory border, also roped in a few mates from around Canberra, notably Bernie Howlett whose patronage of I Am Invincible would produce the now champion stallion’s first Group 1 winner, Darley’s Victorian stallion Brazen Beau, and Osborne’s training peer Norm Gardner who also sent mares for the sire’s first three years at stud to claim the breeding right bounty.
As well as Howlett breeding Brazen Beau, who won a BRC Champagne Classic (Gr 2, 1200m) and finished runner-up in a JJ Atkins (Gr 1, 1600m) at two for trainer Chris Waller prior to his Group 1-winning feats at three, Gardner bred the Maribyrnong Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) placed Silent Whisper who also emerged from I Am Invincible’s first crop.
Osborne also played his part in helping start I Am Invincible’s stud career, breeding the brilliant but ill-fated I Am Snippety in the sire’s first season.
The star filly, who was trained by her owner-breeder, trounced her rivals in the Wellington Boot (1100m), country NSW’s premier two-year-old race, before tragedy struck the following month when I Am Snippety broke down when almost certain to win the Kindergarten Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) at Randwick.
Osborne has continued to support I Am Invincible at stud, until the commercial realities of the sire phenomen meant it made more sense for him to sell his nomination each year rather than sending a mare without the credentials warranted by a stallion of his standing.
But now, 14 years after I Am Invincible was retired to stud, Osborne and his wife Denise have made the decision to sell their breeding right in the champion sire, leaving the Sydney-based Reg Kemister as the last of the 13 “originals” who are forever intrinsically linked with the stallion’s owners, that being Yarraman Park and Ray and Brett Gall.
“I spent $200,000 on a mare and bought Parker’s Piece [in 2018] and then I sold the first one out of her by Vinnie for $260,000. She won her first start, but I was behind the eight-ball all the time because he was getting better and better. He had Black Caviar and Winx and all those sorts of mares going to him. I couldn’t compete,” Osborne told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“So, I decided to sell it the past four years. Fast Fleet, the dam of Santa Ana Lane, went twice and the Mitchells have sold it for me twice as well.
“While the horse is still going well and there’s still a good few years left in him, we’ve decided to sell it. His best years might still be to come with the mares he’s covered in the last three or four years.”
Kemister, meanwhile, has no intention in parting with his lifetime breeding right.
Only last year, he sold an I Am Invincible daughter of his Coolmore Classic (Gr 1, 1500m) winner Heaven’s Above (Street Cry) for $1.35 million to Glentree Racing’s Bruce Wilson at the 2023 Inglis Easter sale. She is called Heavenly Shades and is an unraced two-year-old in training with Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman.
Kemister said on Wednesday: “I have used the breeding right every year and I’ve still got a few mares out there now, six to eight of them, that he is the sire of.”
Signing under his President Bloodstock banner, Kemister last week paid $395,000 at the Chairman’s Sale for Solitary Road (Quality Road), a mare who he will send to I Am Invincible in 2024. An unraced sister to American Grade 3 winner Lonely Road, Solitary Road is already in foal to the Mitchells’ super sire and is expecting an early foal.
The Mane Lodge-owned breeding right in I Am Invincible, a rising 20-year-old who will stand for a fee of $275,000 in 2024, will be offered on day one of the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale on May 28.
Osborne is proud of his small part in the I Am Invincible story, and he admits he may even become a little emotional when his breeding right is sold in a horse who has changed many people’s lives.
“Normie Gardner bred I Am Invincible’s first stakes placegetter, and then I bred I Am Snippety who won the Boot in record time. Jen [Butler] and Barry [McDonald] from Dartbrook Downs went in with Richard McClenahan and they bred Hellbent from their breeding right,” he said.
“Normie got $400,000 for his breeding right, Bernie might have got $450,000 and I think Barry got $550,00 when he sold his and the highest was $600,000, which was sold last year [at Magic Millions].”
There is, of course, only one Vinnie, but Osborne has parlayed some of his earnings into other stallion shares and breeding rights. Two of them, a son and a grandson of I Am Invincible, are trending in the right direction.
He owns a share in I Am Invincible’s barnmate and son Hellbent, who sired his second first crop Group 1 winner when Benedetta won The Goodwood (1200m) last Saturday, and his Newgate Farm-based grandson and Group 1-producing sire Tassort (Brazen Beau) whose fee has gone from $11,000 to $38,500 this season on the back of the success of this season’s first crop two-year-olds headed by ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) winner Manaal.
Osborne also owns a breeding right in Tassort’s rostermate North Pacific, another son of Brazen Beau, whose first crop will hit the racecourse next season.
“Then there’s Super One who keeps getting a nice horse and there’s Overshare and Kobyashi, they all seem to be able to throw a good one,” he said.