Thanks to Covid and showjumping commitments I’ve not been to the Hunter Valley for what I suspect is four years, so last weekend’s action packed three days of touring the finest studs in Australia’s horse heartland provided the perfect catalyst to revive our popular A to Z format.
Anders was a showstopper at Widden. You know that feeling when you have a pre-conceived idea of what a horse is like and then it walks out and is about a million times better than you thought…. Well that’s Anders.
Blossoms and Brutal, now there’s two words you don’t expect to see in the same sentence, but we saw them at Newgate.
Henry Field and his team elected to parade their proven sires from their day paddocks along a picturesque laneway allowing for a more intimate experience with both staff and horses. It was a winner!
Coolmore is always the final stop for us before we head back down south and there is always a sense of saving the best for last.
Fastnet Rock opened the parade looking very sprightly, while the hope for the future Home Affairs closed the show and impressed greatly with his muscle power and strength, reminiscent of everyone’s great favourite Choisir, who was laid to rest last year.
Darley presented their usual quality line-up of sires and while their much loved champions Lonhro and Exceed and Excel are ever so slowly moving into the twilight years, there is an army of young guns vying to fill their shoes.
Dubawi’s champion son Too Darn Hot (GB) is a study in refined elegance, while Bivouac has the power physique you would expect of a horse that thumped Nature Strip in the 2020 G1 VRC Sprint Classic.
Exceedance and Ole Kirk are the future for Vinery and it’s not hard to see why they are in demand!
Female stallion handlers are not widely seen as a rule, but they nearly outnumbered the men at the Darley parade.
Golden Slipper winners – saw four of them on this trip in Farnan, Stay Inside, Capitalist and Pierro. Winning this iconic race does guarantee a golden opportunity for a young sire to succeed, but reality is not all Slipper winners are equal.
He’s OK, but Extreme Choice won’t be covering from the start of the season due to a bout of colic resulting in surgery from which he is recovering well. It’s a crushing blow for the most exciting young stallion in the country, who is sub fertile at the best of times, but Newgate do have two of his sons on the roster in Stay Inside and Tiger of Malay.
I want to come back next year!
James Bester always entertaining at Coolmore and Tom Magnier gave a great opening speech impressing the point of collecting not only the right horses but the right people…. Ain’t that the truth!
Kia Ora Stallions have spared no expense and left no stone unturned in seeking to establish themselves as an elite player in the stallion market and with Farnan, Captivant and Prague have a second to none chance for success.
Combine three premium young stallions with a stylish marquee, plentiful Moet and a shuttle bus service back into town and you have the recipe for a memorable evening!
Linga Longa pub played host to the Kitchwin Hills team showcasing their young stallion Graff on Saturday evening and while I didn’t make it to that one, all evidence would suggest a good time was had!
Mares and the tracking of their progeny was a topic that cropped up quite a bit on our trip with many mare owners lamenting the Racenet Black Book going behind their pay wall. For those that don’t know, Racenet and Breednet are completely separate entities now following the sale of the former to News Ltd, so Breednet has it’s own Black Book and if you want to create an account to follow mares progeny, named horses, sires, trainers, jockeys and even nicks, click here.
Nine o’clock bus, yes that was the last one out of Kia Ora, after that it was make your own way!
One am, rumoured last man standing at Yarraman on Friday, possibly someone named James!
Porky pies, not sure who is telling the truth here but there seem to be a lot of ‘he’s the fastest 2YO….
Quaff is a word more often seen on a Scrabble board, but when you go away on one of these weekends it’s a pastime you will assuredly enjoy.
Dictionary definition – quaff - to drink a beverage, especially an intoxicating one, copiously and with hearty enjoyment.
Repeated often…’we priced him too cheap last season’.
So You Think is finally getting the credit he deserves as a sire, giving I Am Invincible a good run for his money to finish second on the champion sire list for last season. I saw a lot of thoroughbreds who have achieved amazing things over the past weekend, but if I could ride one of them it would be him.
The Autumn Sun was in fine fettle at Arrowfield and has grown and developed into a magnificent beast and speaking of beasts… Maurice (Jpn), the ‘beast from the east’ is back and so busy he has a wait list thanks to the deeds of Mazu and Hitosu, not to mention new star Kibou.
Under -rated is something you don’t see a lot of on this tour, it’s mostly over-rated, but All Too Hard fits the description and is serious value if your goal is breeding top class winners. The younger half-brother to Black Caviar, All Too Hard sired four Group I winners – 3 in Australia, 1 in HK - last season and the only other Australian based sire to do that was I Am Invincible!
Vinery Stud is always breakfast on the Saturday and this year we arrived to very sad news of the passing of More Than Ready (USA) in the US at age 25. The black horse was a fixture at the farm, shuttling from Kentucky for an astonishing 19 years, coming first in 2001 as a four year-old and for the last time in 2019.
RIP old man, it’s been a life well lived.
Widden do warm homestead hospitality like no other farm and their parade days offer a rare chance to visit one of the great family owned and run stud farms in the world. Nature has delivered a beating to the valley of champions in recent years with prolonged drought, bush fires and more recently a deluge and flooding, but from adversity often comes greatness and the farm has never looked better.
X-rated, am showing my age here, but until this trip I had no idea who Anna Paul is and even less as to why so many young women are seemingly in awe of this Australian ‘influencer’. Miss Paul has many talents it turns out as her Only Fans followers know very well… go on you know you want to google her!
Yarraman Park was packed on Friday afternoon as breeders from all over the country turned out to celebrate the success of newly crowned Champion Australian Sire I Am Invincible.
From humble beginnings, I Am Invincible has achieved incredible success and brought life changing money to so many of his supporters. His first four years at stud were spent at a fee of $11,000 and his emergence as an elite stallion both in the sale ring and on the racetrack is the inspiration of dreams.
Zoustar is the heavy hitter at Widden Stud, but they also have an affordable and attractive option for his fans in his brilliant sprinting son Zousain, who went ever so close to winning a Group I. A couple of his yearlings were paraded and expect to see many more nice ones by him at the sales in 2023.
