‘We’ve got quite a lot of really promising horses coming through for next season’
Henderson celebrating OTI’s first century with the promise of more success in the pipeline
A glass of early morning champagne on a Greek island might not have been the most expected way to celebrate, but as OTI’s Terry Henderson toasted 100 winners for the season on Saturday, it certainly tasted sweet.
Far from any mounting yard, a few minutes after She’s Unusual (Unusual Suspect) churned through the sodden turf of Newcastle to claim a 1400-metre Class 1, as the sun rose over the Aegean Sea, Henderson raised the bat for OTI’s first century, with a small group of family and friends on the sun-kissed isle of Syros.
Though well below the peak of the enduring syndicator’s achievements in 2023-24, the John O’Shea-trained mare’s win capped a supercharged season for OTI as it continued to dwarf its previous biggest haul, which Henderson estimates was in the 80s.
What has particularly delighted Henderson, his general manager Shayne Driscoll and NSW Manager Gus Boyd – it that the century has included 18 stakes wins, earned by nine different runners.
Furthermore, three figures came with six Saturdays still left in the season – and that’s in Australia alone.
Henderson was making his annual stop in the Greek islands en route to Royal Ascot meeting, looking to kick on from celebrating OTI’s first winner at the prestigious five-day meeting last year, when the Harry Eustace-trained Docklands (Massaat) took the Britannia Stakes (1m).
The four-year-old will aim higher on Tuesday when he contests the opening race of the meeting, the Queen Anne Stakes (Gr 1, 1m). Henderson rates him a decent each-way chance – before he likely follows the path of so many European-based OTI horses by heading to Australia for the spring.
He’s a touch more ebullient about the prospects of another who’ll bear his group’s famed colours at Ascot, in Deakin (Australia). The four-year-old gelding will contest Friday’s Duke of Edinburgh Stakes (1m 4f) and this spring is expected to try to provide trainer Joseph O’Brien with his third Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) win in just eight years, and OTI’s first.
But whatever number of winners and stakes-winners OTI ends with over the August 1 – July 31 timeframe, Henderson looks back with pride on the efforts of his team in this momentous 12 months.
“It’s not over yet – there are some nice stakes races still to come, in Australia and of course in Europe, but it has been a very good, consistent season overall really,” Henderson told ANZ Bloodstock News down the phone from Syros.
“What I really love is it’s not just quantity but quality. Almost 20 per cent of our wins have been stakes-wins, which is a good stat.
“Plus, we’ve got quite a lot of really promising horses coming through for next season. The team has done a very good job, both for getting winners at the moment, and laying the foundation for nice horses to come through.
“We’ve bought around seven or eight in Europe who are arriving in Australia in the next six months, so we’re well equipped to go into next year.”
Henderson highlighted OTI’s emerging stayers including New Zealander Mark Twain (Shocking) and French-bred gelding Athabascan (Almanzor) – two of his group’s stakes-winners this term – as being set to fly the navy and gold flag this spring. Hezashocka (Shocking) has also risen up in recent weeks to claim two black type wins, with the promise of more to come.
Sevenna’s Knight (Camelot) – who has a Group 2, a Group 3 and a Listed win in France so far since August 1 – may also be Melbourne Cup-bound unless, Henderson said, trainer Andre Fabre opts for a crack at the Prix de l’Arce de Triomphe (Gr 1, 2400m) at Longchamp in early October.
OTI also appears to have much to look forward to in spring staying features from Warmonger (War Decree), after his extraordinary 10.4 length romp in the Queensland Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) on June 1.
And while staying imports have been the traditional staple for OTI, which tends to be a lesser player in Australia’s yearling or weanling markets, one of three foals bought from a Victorian paddock by Henderson – for a combined $60,000 – has accounted for three stakes wins this season, over sprint trips.
Lady Laguna (Overshare) only had her first start of the term on December 9, but added four wins from seven starts including her first top-tier laurel in Randwick’s Canterbury Stakes (Gr 1, 1300m) – plus three seconds at the elite-level.
“Annabel Neasham has done a magnificent job with that mare,” Henderson said. “She’s not beyond coming back and being a contender for The Everest (1200m). Australia seems to lose a lot of our top sprinters when they go off to stud as three-year-olds, so that could work in her favour as well.”
Though one of Australia’s oldest syndicators, reaching a quarter of a century in years this season, OTI has become stronger through something of a recalibration in recent years.
Its numbers of horses has risen from around 130 before Covid to 180 now, Henderson said. This includes some 130 current runners, including around 30 in Europe.
Racing’s pandemic boom also helped spawn another strategy which has contributed to OTI’s best season – branching northwards from their traditional Melbourne base to strengthen their hands in Sydney and Brisbane.
“That’s been the big move in the business in the last three years, having far more horses in New South Wales and Queensland,” Henderson said.
“Our team does a fantastic job, the business is well on the track and we seem to have been able to keep our clients happy, and we’re very happy with the group of clients we have.
“Our number of clients hasn’t gone up so much. But if our owners are getting results and getting revenue coming back, they’ll be happy, and they’ll generally reinvest it. We’ve been the beneficiary of that.”
Henderson said tried stock were not only OTI’s staple but its strength.
“Our business model is that we don’t take horses to market until we know they can run, and that’s proved to be a good basis,” he said.
“We do a few yearlings but not many. And even with the yearlings we breed or buy, we generally sit on them until we know they can run. We’ve still got five or six yearlings from this year that we’ve bought that we’re still in the process of breaking in before we go to market with them.”
Henderson said OTI has also strengthened its importation program by implementing its “Eurolink” system in the past three years, in which horses move from a European stable to one designated Australian counterpart. For example, horses prepared in England by Eustace will go to Neasham, and from Tim Donworth in France to Mick Price and Michael Kent Jr.
“This helps makes things easier with communication between the stables, so each end only has to communicate with one other trainer, not several of them,” said Henderson, adding European trainers still earn a “small royalty” from prize-money the horses won in Australia.
OTI was also benefitting from a strategy of identifying and buying European horses early – and thus more economically than some other importers.
“We spend a lot of time tracking the European horses,” Henderson said. “The logic is to acquire middle-distance and staying type youngsters, and try to get them when they’ve shown something, but to get in early without waiting until they’ve won a stakes race.
“Sevenna’s Knight could be an Arc horse, if he’s not a Melbourne Cup horse. And he cost a fraction of what some other Australian importers are paying. We had our eye on him after his first run, and we followed him through.
“We’re not believers in paying the huge money you see some people pay. You see some good results, but overall it’s a low percentage play.”
Despite the Group 1 victories of Warmonger and Lady Laguna, Henderson said the part of the season that made him most proud had come – literally – off the track.
“For me, the highlight of our business in the last two years has been our welfare operation,” he said of OTI’s extensive rehoming program for retired runners.
“We are so proud of the program we’ve set up, and the fact it’s been looked at by a number of jurisdictions as a proper method of doing it.”