Tropical Squall
A filly bought for $16,000 from a $1,500 mare covered by a stallion standing for $11,000 won Saturday’s Group 1 Flight Stakes, and the world knew romance was alive and kicking.
Tropical Squall, from the first crop of the possibly misunderstood VRC Derby winner Prized Icon out of the maiden-winning Squalls (Fusaichi Pegasus), brought her parents’ first stakes success – let alone at the top tier – with a victory reflecting the recent trajectory of both the filly and the place that bred her and stands her sire.
Kooringal Stud, somewhat off the beaten track just north of Wagga, has had a blistering 2023.
In April, the rambling farm announced it had acquired Merchant Navy (Fastnet Rock) as its fifth stallion. Few eyelids were batted. The dual hemisphere Group 1-winning sprinter had stumbled out of the gates as a sire, leaving Coolmore happy to see him go after five springs.
Two weeks later, Royal Merchant won an Adelaide Group 2, becoming Merchant Navy’s second stakes-winner after Group 3 victor Steel City two months earlier.
And another fortnight on, Royal Merchant went round at Morphettville again and took the Group 1 Goodwood, giving Kooringal’s new sire a top-level success in his second season with runners. The phone soon started ringing with booking requests, with Kooringal’s only minor regret that they’d already set a service fee of just $13,200 – half of his already reduced 2022 fee at Coolmore.
Kooringal also stands Prized Icon, for his owners Gooree Park. VRC Derby winners haven’t been greatly known for doing much after their VRC Derby – either on the track or at stud. In his first four seasons at an $11,000 fee, the son of More Than Ready covered books of 115, 95, 58 and 56 mares.
After his first season of runners – when there were only six of them – his fee dropped to $8,800 for this spring, with many probably wondering if his main claim to fame would end up being that he was James Cummings’ first Group 1 winner.
But against this backdrop springs Tropical Squall, bought by Gooree to support their stallion when Kooringal took two of his fillies to the 2021 Gold Coast National Weanling Sale, and for just $16,000.
Sent to Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, she didn’t debut until a June two-year-old – perhaps not unusual with Prized Icon’s stock. She comfortably won a 1250-metre Canterbury maiden that day, then was sent away for more development before resuming with another emphatic win, over 1400 metres at Kensington.
That flung her into Group 2 level in the Tea Rose Stakes, also over 1400 metres, as a $5.50 third favourite, where she performed creditably when third. And then, stepped up to the top level and the 1600 metres of the Flight Stakes, she was fifth pick at $9, but led throughout and held on bravely to win by almost a length.
The fact second place went to Kimochi (Brave Smash), also bought by her owner as a weanling, for just $21,000, will have inspired hope for the little guy everywhere – two fillies costing a combined $37,000 reaping $571,000 in a minute and a half. Tropical Squall has now won over $538,000, and Kimochi $440,000.
And the sight of Tropical Squall claiming a Group 1 – as the second winner of Prized Icon’s 15 runners so far – will have nearly brought the roof off at her birthplace.
Kooringal, run by brothers Angus and Richard Lamont since their parents and third-generation owners Stuart and Penny took a step back a few years ago, was delighted to acquire Prized Icon when he finished racing as a five-year-old.
Angus told It’s In The Blood the win with so few runners on the ground was timely, given many clients who’d been sending him mares may have opted this year to try the farm’s new boys, Merchant Navy and Finance Tycoon (Written Tycoon).
He’s also confident many more successes are around the corner for a stallion with far more on his CV than what’s perversely become something of a poisoned chalice of being able to win – Group 1 or not – over 2500 metres as a spring three-year-old.
Punters will know many a modern VRC Derby winner has failed to kick on, and that perhaps all that’s been proven is they were the most advanced horse in the field at the time.
But, similarly, the race has often gone to the classiest runner, not necessarily an out-and-out stayer, and Lamont feels Prized Icon fits this category.
“People get put off by horses winning a [VRC] Derby but Prized Icon was a good miler at his best,” Lamont said. “He won the Derby on class, in what was a sit-and-sprint like the VRC Derby can be. I just think he was a far better horse than anything else in it.
“I vividly remember watching him win the Champagne Stakes and thinking what a good two-year-old he was. He had seven starts at two and wasn’t out of a place.”
Prized Icon debuted with a third in Capitalist’s Breeders’ Plate (1000m) at Randwick, then ran four straight placings from 1000 metres to 1400 metres before ending his juvenile season with victories over the Randwick 1600 metres in the Listed Fernhill Handicap and the Group 1 Champagne Stakes.
He did become one of those VRC Derby winners who never scored again, but was placed in three more Group 1s, two of them over the mile when second in Hey Doc’s Australian Guineas and in the 2018 Chipping Norton Stakes, behind Winx.
“In shape, he looks more like a sprinter really,” Lamont says. “And the fact he was up and going when third in a Breeders’ Plate shows he was actually quite precocious as a two-year-old.
“We’ll see a lot more of his stock as three-year-olds this season. I wouldn’t be surprised if he does get some two-year-olds – he had a runner in the Breeders’ Plate on Saturday after all – but the majority do seem to be taking their time, or they’ve been given time.
“But we’ve had a big response since Tropical Squall won on Saturday, which is great.”
Just as Lamont is hoping his judgement in landing Prized Icon and Merchant Navy pays off, he appears to have chosen well, and cheaply, by buying Tropical Squall’s dam Squalls, even if she’s sadly no longer with us.
Squalls was well bred enough, and a good enough type, to be bought for $440,000 as a yearling by Woodlands Stud in 2007, a year before its takeover by Darley. She only won a maiden at Cranbourne in a truncated, six-start career, but still drew a decent $220,000 when sold as a broodmare in 2010.
Despite her lack of success in the breeding barn, Lamont sniffed her out online on Bloodstock Auction in 2019, and bought her for a song with his new sire Prized Icon in mind.
Squalls came from a strong female line, with her dam Blue Storm (Bluebird) a dual Melbourne Group 3 winner, and second dam My Gold Hope (John’s Hope) winning seven stakes races including three Group 1s in Randwick’s Doncaster and All Aged Stakes, and Ellerslie’s Railway Handicap.
“I got her for $1,500, probably because she was a 14-year-old, and everyone wants mares straight off the track or one or two foals in,” he recalls. “People say you can’t breed a good one out of an old mare, but I don’t subscribe to that at all.
“I liked her bloodlines, and thought she’d work well with Prized Icon. I’d done a lot of research on what works with his sire More Than Ready, and thought Squalls matched up nicely with him. There were a few key female bloodlines, and Squalls’ sire Fusaichi Pegasus, and his sire Mr. Prospector, go well with More Than Ready, in my opinion.”
Deeper in, Lamont also fancied that the eventual Tropical Squall would have a 7m x 8m duplication of influential 1938 US mare Hildene (Bubbling Over). The 1950 Kentucky Broodmare of the Year, and later a designated Blue Hen, comes through More Than Ready’s female line via her son First Landing, and into Bluebird’s through Hill Prince.
There would also be a gender-balanced triplication of Pharamond at 7m x 8m, 8f, a two-stallion doubling of Mr. Prospector in the first five generations, and two appearances in each half by the great Northern Dancer – at 5f, 5m x 5m, 5m, through four different vessels.
Tropical Squall also has a 4m x 5f duplication of key American sire Halo, via More Than Ready’s sire Southern Halo and Fusaichi Pegasus’s second dam Rowdy Angel.
Squalls had already had two foals by another More Than Ready son in Sebring which thus had the same double Halo. But, both sons, they produced little to write home about.
“This cross is a better one than Sebring’s,” Lamont says. “Yes, hindsight’s a wonderful thing, but I think Prized Icon’s damlines have a bit to do with it.
“Squalls had been to a few stallions and things hadn’t worked out. I just hoped by trying something different it might work, and that since the people who’d bought her as a yearling [Woodlands] were no slouches, I thought there could be an update pretty soon.
“Tropical Squall was a beautiful specimen when she was born. Magic Millions were chasing me to show off a couple of Prized Icon’s better types for their weanling sale, so we sent two fillies up, both of whom were bought by Gooree.
“And Tropical Squall is a good example of the types Prized Icon’s getting. He’s getting fantastic types, and I’ve always had a lot of confidence in what he’s throwing. He looks himself like a beautiful specimen, and looks more like a sprinter than a stayer.”