Bushfires in my hometown of Milton the week
before and a bout of maternal anxiety with kids home alone made it a shortened
trip of just two days.
My children, Jack and Jasmine, are now 15 (my how time flies!) and are more than capable of running the show at Daybreak Farm in my absence, but having been evacuated the previous week along with our six horses and all of our other animals with fire on our doorstep, they were less than keen for me to go galivanting around the countryside.
The compromise was two days and you can pack a bit into that time if you plan your trip and see and talk to as many people as possible!
1/Drought was the number one talking point. It's dry at my place, but nothing like this. We still have grass of some sort, plenty of farms in the Hunter and surrounds that do not have irrigation are back to dirt and that means a massive feed bill. Many broodmare owners are now seeing a drought levy on their agistment bill and you can see why.
My children, Jack and Jasmine, are now 15 (my how time flies!) and are more than capable of running the show at Daybreak Farm in my absence, but having been evacuated the previous week along with our six horses and all of our other animals with fire on our doorstep, they were less than keen for me to go galivanting around the countryside.
The compromise was two days and you can pack a bit into that time if you plan your trip and see and talk to as many people as possible!
1/Drought was the number one talking point. It's dry at my place, but nothing like this. We still have grass of some sort, plenty of farms in the Hunter and surrounds that do not have irrigation are back to dirt and that means a massive feed bill. Many broodmare owners are now seeing a drought levy on their agistment bill and you can see why.
A visit to Newgate Farm and a tour of the farm with Henry Field took us up to a high vantage point where you can look back down the valley and the difference between irrigated and non-irrigated paddocks is the difference between Mars and Earth. The Hunter River is a godsend for all those around it and is the very lifeblood of Australia's thoroughbred heartland.
2/ Snitzel has broken an amazing number of record s in recent years and is without doubt the premium stallion in the Hunter Valley this year, but the question now being asked is will he make a sire of sires? He will have no fewer than 17 sons at stud this spring around Australia and so far only three have had runners.
Group II winner Salade has had very limited opportunity and with his oldest progeny just turned five has left nine winners. Snitzel's Group I winning sons Shamus Award and Sizzling have had very good opportunity at leading farms Widden Stud and Newgate Farm respectively and will face judgement day at the end of this season when their oldest stock turn four.
Newgate Farm have punted that Snitzel will make the grade as a sire of sires and have his Group I winner Wandjina with two year-olds to run this season and have added two more sons in Russian Revolution and Menari, while Aquis Farm have also gone hard on Snitzel with Spill the Beans in Queensland and two more sons to stand for them in the Hunter Valley in Group I winner Invader and the late announcement Jukebox.
Add in Kitchwin Hills strapping chestnut Sooboog and breeders looking for Snitzel blood in the Hunter Valley outside of the horse himself have quite a bewildering array to choose from.
As a sire, Snitzel is well known for producing his good horses in all shapes, colours and sizes, a characteristic reflected in these young stallions, several of them pictured below.
Russian Revolution
Invader
Menari
So who will be the best? Everyone seems to have an opinion on that, but we'll
need to wait a few more years yet to have the answer!
3/ Snitzel might not stamp his stock, but I Am Invincible certainly does. They are all bay and beautiful and fast… some faster than others obviously and not many faster than Group I winner Hellbent who joined his sire at Yarraman Park this spring.
Breednet's Melbourne photographer Grant Courtney was at the Yarraman parade last Friday and took these images that suggest if you can't afford I Am Invincible these days, then Hellbent is the next best thing!
3/ Snitzel might not stamp his stock, but I Am Invincible certainly does. They are all bay and beautiful and fast… some faster than others obviously and not many faster than Group I winner Hellbent who joined his sire at Yarraman Park this spring.
Breednet's Melbourne photographer Grant Courtney was at the Yarraman parade last Friday and took these images that suggest if you can't afford I Am Invincible these days, then Hellbent is the next best thing!
Hellbent is above and I Am Invincible below.
4/ Value proven sires are like unicorns in the Hunter Valley, few and far between, something that has been lamented by a great many broodmare owners. Not every mare is worth spending $50,000 or upwards on for a service fee, so if you want to spend less and yet still stay commercial with a proven sire the choices are limited.
The bar is set very high for commercial success in the Hunter Valley and a lot of sires that do a good job, but not a spectacular one are sent packing which polarizes the market leaving the outstanding stallions and the new and unproven.
This is why stallions like Choisir, Star Witness and Nicconi are consistently popular, while younger stallions such as Foxwedge and All Too Hard also fit the profile as being proven, affordable and commercial.
Nicconi with yours truly and Charlotte Manuel of Bella Lodge.
Not everyone wants to gamble on the unknown, sometimes it's nice to put on old
slippers rather than high heels that may well trip you up.
5/ Chautauqua is a talking point wherever you go and everyone has an opinion, so this is mine.
He's an eight year-old gelding that has won $8.8 million in prizemoney and in Chautauqua's view, he has nothing left to prove. Once the champion sprinter of his time, he has become a smart arse and nobody likes a smart arse.
Horses all have very different personalities and varying levels of intelligence and I would suggest his intelligence is well above average and as such he has concluded racing is beneath him.
That's fair enough, he's given more than most horses ever do and won his connections more money than Black Caviar did, so what does the future hold for him?
Racing NSW have purchased Princes' Farm with the view of making it a Racing Academy and general showcase for all things good and positive in racing, so what better drawcard than Chautauqua, indeed a living legend.
5/ Chautauqua is a talking point wherever you go and everyone has an opinion, so this is mine.
He's an eight year-old gelding that has won $8.8 million in prizemoney and in Chautauqua's view, he has nothing left to prove. Once the champion sprinter of his time, he has become a smart arse and nobody likes a smart arse.
Horses all have very different personalities and varying levels of intelligence and I would suggest his intelligence is well above average and as such he has concluded racing is beneath him.
That's fair enough, he's given more than most horses ever do and won his connections more money than Black Caviar did, so what does the future hold for him?
Racing NSW have purchased Princes' Farm with the view of making it a Racing Academy and general showcase for all things good and positive in racing, so what better drawcard than Chautauqua, indeed a living legend.
But perhaps the last words on the topic should come from Chautauqua, who may well take a page from Kevin Bloody Wilson's play list …. DILLIGAF! (image Steve Hart)
6/ Constitution and trainability are super important qualities in a stallion. Yes, you need speed, but if a horse won't eat and you can't work it, the racing career of said horse will be limited. Those qualities came to mind when looking at Merchant Navy at Coolmore.
He obviously has speed, you don't win a Group I VRC Coolmore Stud Stakes and a Royal Ascot King's Stand Stakes through being slow, but he also has the constitution and the trainability.
Quite often when horses come back from the Northern Hemisphere after racing, they return looking like the proverbial 'hunted dog'. We've all seen them at the stallion parades, tired, out of sorts and well short of their best, but not Merchant Navy.
Yes, he will look better again next year, but looking at him now what's not to like!
Thanks to Breednet's Mark Smith for a great new selection of stallion images.
