Time passes quickly in the thoroughbred industry and a Group I winner that should have been sold at the 2020 Magic Millions, but instead found himself an Inglis Easter graduate had such a special temperament he was selected as the Christmas yearling for social media by the farm where he was raised.
Back in December 2019, Mel Copelin at Torryburn Stud was faced with the task of picking a yearling that would tolerate a few things out of the usual for a pre-Christmas photo shoot and the man for the job was the I Am Invincible colt from Miss Interiors.
Fast forward five years and Home Affairs, as he was to become, is about to make history at Magic Millions in 2025 as the most represented sire and being a first season sire this is a unique achievement with his 63 catalogued youngsters giving him 11 more than his reigning champion sire I Am Invincible.
Mel Copelin was our guest on the Tara Talks Racing podcast this week and was happy to share the story of the young Home Affairs, whose dam Miss Interiors was purchased from the 2017 Inglis Chairmans Sale for $675,000 by Damon Gabbedy’s Belmont Bloodstock on behalf of Torryburn Stud.
“We bought his mother at the Chairman’s Sale in foal to Deep Field and that first foal was Aysar, a Group III winner and second in a Group I, who is now at stud in WA,” said Copelin.
“We planned the next mating to I Am Invincible and Home Affairs came along as her second foal.
“I foaled him down and he was magnificent from day one.”
It was all smooth sailing for the colt and the Gold Coast in January was selected as the right sale to maximize his value.
“He grew out perfectly and was prepped for Magic Millions, but then he hurt himself on the way to the Gold Coast,” she revealed.
“He got off the truck and had injured a hock, so we had to fix all that up, withdraw him from sale and then take him back home.
“After that we kept him wrapped up in cotton wool until Easter, but in between we sold Voyage Bubble to top Inglis Classic and then COVID started and Inglis Easter is going to happen, but it’s going to be online…
“So we’ve got this amazing horse that we’ve had under wraps for so long and nobody has really seen him except for the 15 people that came to the farm.
“One of them was Guy Mulcaster, who was working for Coolmore that year and they selected him, secured him online, the hammer went down and half an hour later they came and picked him up and he was gone.
“And that’s the story of that.”
Home Affairs sold for $875,000 and went on to win $2.2million and is now one of the hottest young sires in the country with his first two year-olds to run next season.
Naturally, Torryburn Stud have supported Home Affairs with some quality mares and Mel has been super happy with the results.
“His foals are the best foals from those mares and if you want to improve a mare, you send it to him,” she said.
“He's very fertile and strong behind and his foals have a huge amount of strength. He stamps them really well and I think that’s generally what breeders are seeing and as a result are sending their mares back.
“I think he ticks all the boxes. He's from a stallions pedigree - He's won the right races – He won at two – He was amazing at three and he beat the older horses.
“I think there's not many stallions that tick all those boxes, so hopefully that stands him in good stead to do the rest of it.”
To hear the full interview and our thoughts on last weekend's racing have a listen to our podcast Tara Talks Racing.
