The word on the street is there are very few full books out there so if there’s a stallion that you like, do make an offer. The stud can only say no.
In my view, we should have much more confidence in our industry. The Entain money is making racing a much more attractive proposition than it used to be. Provided that you’ve got a correct young horse, you don’t have to sell it as a yearling; you do have the option of leasing it, perhaps keeping a share in the racing partnership.
So what am I doing this season?
Well, I’ve bought three cheap mares off Gavelhouse. Miss Thorn I’ve already written about; she’s been covered by Armory.
I’ve also purchased two Darci Brahma mares. Marshal has a 17-day positive to The Chosen One – surely the best-priced stallion in the country. She’s a sister to Dee and Gee about whom I wrote a story or two elsewhere on this site. Welcome hasn’t had a heap of luck so far in her breeding career, but this is one heck of a family (Sunline, Phar Lap). She’s booked to Pure Champion.
Chambon has left the promising Riviera Rebel to Pure Champion and has a stunning yearling filly by the same sire. It never pays to ignore the obvious, so back she goes.
I already have a yearling by The Alfonso and am much impressed by his strength and temperament. The two mares at the bottom of my list, Desiree and Make You Move are both booked to him. They have both left winners so they’re worth a crack.
To be entirely honest, I had forgotten that such awards existed, so was surprised to learn that our homebred Our Echo had been judged top South Island sprinter for the 2023-2024 season. I assumed that his victory in March’s WRC Lightning Handicap had clinched the deal.
So, as you do, I got Googling to discover more details. There was nothing about the awards celebration, except for a list of winners. As I scanned down the list, I noticed that the Champion Stayer award had gone to Shockallia. Readers of this site will recall that this son of Shocking was a Cloughmore recommended mating back in the day.
To be fair, I was pretty chuffed. Both horses deserve some sort of recognition – as do their trainers, jockeys, work riders, stablehands, vets and farriers.
Last Tuesday I bought a mare from Gavelhouse for $500. In itself, this isn’t news, but I don’t buy too many empty elderly broodmares with moderate produce records, especially if some of the stallions involved have been top class.
So what was I thinking?
Well, firstly I had a vet check her out for breeding soundness. It really is a joy talking to vets: you’ve got to listen to what they have to say, and especially how they say it. They will never commit themselves, unless the horse is observably dead, but amongst the forest of uncertainty I picked out a few saplings of optimism. In short, most of the breeding bits seemed just fine.
Anyway, I then checked out the mare’s race record: 5 wins and a third placing in the prestigious Matamata Breeders Stakes. Check.
What about her progeny? Five to race, three relatively minor winners. Of more interest, I noted that three of her younger foals had yet to race. These included a 3YO named High Roller. When I watched his latest trial, I became seriously excited. Have a look at www.loveracing.co.nz
LOVERACING.NZ – New Zealand Thoroughbred RacingNew Zealand’s premium digital channel showcasing thoroughbred horse racing. We deliver the latest news, video, profiles, field & form, statistics and raceday info.www.loveracing.co.nz
and you’ll understand.
When, and preferably before, you buy a mare you really need to have some sort of idea what you’re going to do with her. When she’s 17, there’s no point just popping her in a paddock; you need to try to get a foal out of her.
Over the years, I’ve developed a few rules for stallion selection.
Never use a stallion who isn’t courageous and doesn’t care about winning.
Never use a horse with poor conformation.
Get the best deal you can on the service fee.
Always choose a stallion with a complementary pedigree. (I’ll explain what I mean by this next week.)
Readers of this site will be familiar with my enthusiasm for the Waimate-based son of Footstepsinthesand. Recent events have done nothing to dull that positive attitude.
Day 1 on the carnival saw the tough Street Fightin’ Man win the open sprint; Wednesday was Peecee Pussycat’s turn in the limelight with his victory in the open staying event; the final day featured the exciting Riviera Rebel dominate his rivals in the R75 1600 race.
It is certainly fair to say that these three winners don’t resemble each other much and they certainly operate over a variety of distances. However, they all are tough, sound individuals who show a strong will to win.
And isn’t that what breeding thoroughbreds is all about?
Recently I was asked to give a mating recommendation for the good mare, Sulu Sea. I have to admit that she was a racehorse who I knew virtually nothing about. I had no idea how “good” she was. After completing some basic research, I concluded that If you’re capable of finishing within a length of the winner of the Wellington Cup, you’re a pretty handy racehorse.
I quickly discovered that Sulu Sea had two unusual qualities. Firstly, the further she went, the better she performed and, secondly, her pedigree could kindly be described as unremarkable.
Sweet Orange, Duelled, Desert Fox…it’s not until we get back to Sulu Sea’s third dam that we find a stallion one could describe as successful – the Sadler’s Wells horse, Scenic.
So where to from here? The first thing breeders need to do is to figure out what sort of distance aptitude they want their foal to have. When you have a good class staying mare, there’s not a lot of point sending her to a pure sprinter. You need to try to produce a stayer that is better than Mum. The best way of doing this is by trying to identify those aspects of the mare’s pedigree that led to her being who she is.
The challenge with Sulu Sea is that the influences she is predominately inbred to – Danzig and Mr Prospector – are anything but stamina influences. So what’s going here? Clearly, Danzig and Mr Prospector have had very little influence on the production of this mare, so is there a pedigree influence which is positively linked to producing high-class stamina?
The answer is a resounding “yes”. You’ve got to track a wee way back, but there are no fewer than eight Princequillo strains in this pedigree. The great Sir Tristram is inbred to Princequillo, a U.S bred stallion who has been hugely influential in the development of the thoroughbred.
So I’d recommend that the owners of this mare find a stallion strong in Princequillo. He’s a stallion you can inbreed to without undue conformational or temperamental risks.
Now it’s up to the owners. How much money do they want to spend? What conformational factors are relevant? And, of course, temperament is always crucial.
A couple of days ago I was engaged in a conversation with a successful South Island trainer. We were discussing the value of inbreeding and the word “incestuous” came up. Back in the mid 1900’s and beyond, this heavily emotive term was frequently used to discredit attempts to produce inbred thoroughbreds.
However, we’re always looking to find clever ways – preferably at minimum cost – to produce a faster horse, and inbreeding really does seem to work, however one defines that contentious term.
So I had a quick search for some expert commentary on the issue and almost immediately discovered the article linked below.
I also discovered another article which clearly assumed that the concerns raised were of no importance compared with our need to produce thoroughbreds which turned out to be more successful than their peers. This article will appear in a day or two.
Finally, I’ll write a piece which summarises my experiences, both successes and failures.`
It is a wonder to me why more people aren’t involved in horse racing. It does require patience and resilience on the part of breeders and owners but surely these are qualities vital for success in just about all aspects of life.
Moreover, in these days of microsyndicates, it’s not an expensive activity. My Cloughmore Racing Partnership owns 9% of a 3YO filly called Vita Amoroso; each partner owns 1% of the horse and is billed around $30 per month. I have no idea what a night on the town costs nowadays, but I’m sure that it’s more than $30.
Sure, some horses are slow and never earn anything back from their owners’ expenses, but it generally doesn’t take long to figure out whether a horse is any good. True, sometimes the trainer isn’t sure on this key point and sometimes the trainer is just plain wrong. An example that still hurts is Dee and Gee. We bought a chunk of her for $1600; five of us outlaid $320 each. She had three starts as a young horse, one of which was quite promising, but the trainer decreed that she had limited ability and our partners were not patient people. So off she went to a South Island stable.
Dee and Gee ended up winning close to $500,000 and included the NZ Cup in her victories. Character building, but at least I had the satisfaction of knowing that I’d selected a good’un – and my resilience levels went through the roof.
But sometimes everything goes right. Judgement and patience are rewarded. And, believe me, there is NOTHING more exciting in life than watching your pride and joy winning a big race.
Yesterday, the Lightning Handicap was run at Trentham. It’s a biggish sprint race and one of the entrants was Our Echo, a horse I’d bred and retained a racing share in. The experts didn’t fancy his chances.
Yet everything went right.
Incidentally, I currently have another Echoes of Heaven for sale or lease. She’s a yearling filly ex the two-win Thorn Park mare, Misty Trella.
In recent years, Cloughmore has seldom been without a representative in the time-honoured Wingatui staying test. La Nouvelle Vague led almost all in the way to win in 2017 and Riviera Rock competed every year from 2020 to 2023 for a return of two seconds and a third.
Our son of Road to Rock retired recently after a gallant career which netted him seven wins and a touch over $250,000. When I scanned the Cup acceptances, I noticed that Shockallia was on the minimum but had little hope that he could be competitive against the likes of Capo Dell Impero and Noble Knight.
My Shockallia story began with a phone call from long-time client Terry Archer in early 2011. There was a yearling filly by Bernardini ex Zalinda for sale. Should he and his partners bid on her? It didn’t take too much research for the answer to that question to be a resounding yes.
My enthusiasm for this pedigree was deflated a couple of years later when the filly, now named Berzallia, reached the racetrack. She was an attractive type but no athlete. In a word, she was slow.
It’s always difficult to know what to do with a slow mare with a strong pedigree. Berzallia’s owners decided to try to breed their way out of her. I recommended Shocking as his progeny were tough, athletic and had good base speed.
About this time, management of Rich Hill Stud had come to a similar conclusion. This was a mare that was worth breeding from and a lease arrangement was agreed upon.
Shockallia was the first product of this mating. If you missed his last to first victory at Wingatui last Saturday, do have a look at the replay. It’s seriously impressive.
It’s worth noting that the most recent manifestation of this cross is The Weapon, currently an entrant for the NZ Derby.
Next to having kids, the greatest thrill I’ve had in life is when horses I’ve bred have won significant races on more than one occasion.
Picture this. Nine years ago, a mare I’d been gifted, the three-win Sheezashotseye (Cicerao), produced a colt foal by middle-range stallion Road to Rock. The mare was a “shy breeder”, being hard to get pregnant and problematic in terms of maintaining that pregnancy. I’d been injecting her with a magic formula at regular intervals to greatly lessen her chances of aborting the embryo and the hard work paid off.
As a young horse said colt was moody in the extreme, but he moved like silk: I’ve always thought that natural athletes can be forgiven almost everything. Unsurprisingly, he’s still moody; trainer Graham Eade once commented that training him was never boring – you got a new horse every morning.
Anyway, Riviera Rock’s now in the twilight of his career. Each season he’s raced he’s won at least one race and has accumulated no fewer than 13 second placings. He’s no champion but always gives 100%.
Yesterday he raced in the Southland Racing Club’s Southland Crystals, a $50,000 open handicap over 2200 metres. He’d won this event last year but this time around the field was stronger and we’d decided to employ a new jockey. Moreover, had time caught up with him?
As it turned out, trainer Graham Eade was right. He’s at least as good as he was last season.
My name is Philip Jeffreys. I’ve been breeding thoroughbreds since 1974 and since the late 1980s have been developing a business which specializes in advising breeders on pedigree matters. This includes mating advice and also pedigree analysis of broodmares, yearlings and weanlings for prospective purchasers.
Even for industry professionals, reasonably priced pedigree advice is vital if sound business decisions are to be made; for newcomers to breeding and racing, objective analysis of pedigrees is essential.
2013 looks like being Cloughmore’s most successful year to date; the site will be regularly updated with our latest winners and a range of articles on pedigree issues.
