July 29th, 2023 — Uncategorized
It’s certainly taken longer than I expected but it’s happened. On Friday at the Riccarton polytrack, the imposing 3YO filly Mumbo Jumbo gave her sire his first victory.
And what a win it was. The filly, jumped, drifted, refused to settle, fought her rider and showed every sign of greenness. The upside was that, whereas this sort of equine behaviour usually results in a horse becoming an also ran, Mumbo Jumbo overcame her waywardness to storm home to claim an impressive victory over the 1200 trip. The video is well worth a look.
I’ll admit that this article is partly motivated by a feeling of relief. I have the Savabeel mare Desiree currently in foal to Mongolian Falcon and I also bred and still own a powerfully built rising 2YO filly by the sire. I confess that I still like the stallion, although sending a slow-maturing mare to him might not be the smartest move ever.
My rising 2YO is out of the Rip Van Winkle mare To Love You. She won three races but suffered a tendon injury when the NZ Cup seemed a realistic target. She then died of a twisted bowel eight days after foaling. The filly is 3×3 Galileo, so I’m looking forward to her racing career with some anticipation.
June 30th, 2023 — News, Uncategorized
As some of you will be aware, I have two lives. One is as a breeder and thoroughbred consultant; the other is as a secondary-school teacher of English. In this latter role I’ve spent the last 48 years at Feilding High School. It’s been an absolute blast, but the body is telling me that enough is enough.
Anyway, I won’t be able to afford to keep all my horses when I exit FAHS in early December, so I’ll leave it up to the market to pick through the following animals.
Racehorses for Sale or Lease.
Nortolose (4g Highly Recommended – Flirtation). Slow developing stayer, similar to most of his recent relatives. Has been patiently handled by Danny Frye and is currently spelling. Dam is a ¾ sister to our homebred SW La Nouvelle Vague, the St Reims gelding who holds the Australasian record for 2600 metres Other close relatives are Bodie (G1 Auckland Cup), SP The Jungle Boy and SP Rising Tide.
Unnamed 2f by El Doute – Kool Connection (Iffraaj). The dam is a winning daughter of G3 winner Sokool. Recently broken in by Ilone Kelly, this filly has been spelling for six weeks and is ready to go into full work.
Weanling filly by Echoes of Heaven – Misty Trella (Thorn Park). I deliberately purchased the two-win dam of this filly to go to EoH, a stallion I’ve been fortunate enough to have a fair amount of success with. I can forward you some photos of this filly; they show that she is powerfully built and correct. She’s currently being agisted at Norwegian Park at Karapiro. Peter Westend reports that she has an outstanding attitude.
Mares for Sale or Lease
Desiree (Savabeel), Jenna (O’Reilly), Manhattan Melody (Manhattan Rain), Make Your Move (Rip van Winkle), Flirtation (Colombia), Kool Connection (Iffraaj), Chambon (Jimmy Choux) and Zayzay (Fast n Famous) are all available. The latter two mares are domiciled in the South Island.
Contact details: jeffreys@inspire.net.nz or 0210455855.
April 10th, 2023 — Uncategorized
As I’m sure you all realise, two essential aspects of having a degree of success with thoroughbreds are doing your homework and being patient.
A couple of years ago, the winning Savabeel mare Desiree was offered on Gavelhouse. A couple of detractions were that she was in foal to the unpopular Mongolian Khan and that her first four foals had done absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, she came from a very acceptable family so some further digging was clearly justified.
Hm. The stud which looked after the mare were unable to tell me what had happened to the second and third foals, but a quick Google search informed me that the fourth foal, a colt by Wrote, had made $80,000 as a yearling. The video on the sales website looked impressive enough so I checked the identity of the buyer.
Neil Connors.
I was now seriously interested as it was Neil who, back in the day, had purchased a Stark South yearling later named Bodie that I had done the mating for. A few years later, after Bodie had won the Auckland Cup, Neil asked me to recommend a mating for a speedy Spectacular Love mare he owned; the resulting Al Akbar gelding, later named Race Ahead, won the Singapore Derby.
Today, the Wrote – Desiree gelding won a 1600 maiden event at Woodville. Aptly named Script, he won with some style. Let’s hope he keeps on winning.
Last Winter, I needed to cut down on my numbers so put Desiree and her Mongolian Khan filly on the market. Firstly, there were no takers; then I managed to quit the filly. OK, let’s just find a home for the mare, I thought. I had one nibble but no-one came to pick her up.
I’ve always thought that fortune does indeed favour the brave, so I resolved to keep Desiree and breed from her. Off she went to Mongolian Falcon. A few weeks later, a positive test was returned.
She’s now looking particularly attractive.
November 8th, 2022 — Uncategorized
I’ve learned a lot today.
If you are a regular reader of this site, you’ll have noted that the sidebar of the front page records a steadily increasing number of winners.
And I’ll admit that ever since the consultancy side of my involvement in racing and breeding began in the early 1990’s, I’ve toyed with the idea of accumulating 1000 winners. I’ve always had a soft spot for records – why not set one of my own?
Well, the magic number popped up last Saturday, but it wasn’t until this afternoon that I figured out what had happened.
I knew – or thought – that Amberecho’s Riccarton victory was win #998 so was looking forward to checking out the entries for the final day of Riccarton Carnival. From nowhere came the idea to check out the produce of Terry Archer’s Thorn Park mare, Shaylee Wilde.
I quickly discovered that the recommended mating I’d done for her back in 2016 had morphed into the Zacinto gelding, Joey Jaws. Last year he won a maiden at Queanbeyan and just last Saturday he scored an unexpected victory at Cunnamulla. This was a non-tote meeting featuring a five-race card so it’s fair to say the competition could fairly be described as being weak as it’s possible to find.
Moreover, I’d never heard of Cunnamulla and, for once, Google wasn’t overly helpful. I did learn that the town was some 750 kms from Brisbane and that the railway line goes no further. Accommodation is available at reasonable rates (mixed reviews) and outback tours are offered by enterprising locals.
Anyway, surprises (of both sorts) are an integral part of racing so it’s symbolic that the milestone arrived how it did.
And isn’t it symbolic that this 1000th win was a product of the concerted efforts of so many people. (One gets the impression that Joey’s Jaws is less enthused about racing than his succession of owners and trainers).
So I’d just like to pay tribute to all those industry professionals who have helped me on my way from August 1974 to 5 November 2022. It’s been a blast!
November 6th, 2022 — Uncategorized
If you were watching the R75 1100 event at Riccarton yesterday, it would have been hard not to be impressed by Amberecho’s emphatic victory.
The word on the street before the race was that front-runners were going to find the head-wind difficult to manage. Our daughter of Echoes of Heaven has always liked to lead, so there wasn’t an over-abundance of confidence in my mind as to how matters would turn out.
I shouldn’t have worried. Amberecho jumped well, settled outside the leader and engaged her afterburners with 300 to go, leaving her rivals well and truly astern.
Hopefully, she’ll be competitive in black-type events before the end of the season.
Our other Echoes of Heaven progeny, the four-win gelding Our Echo, scored a comprehensive victory at last week’s Ashburton trials. He’d been suffering from a wind affliction before his Trentham win in January; shortly afterwards it worsened to the extent that an operation was required.
We’re very grateful to Australian vet Ian Fulton for performing said operation, which to date has been successful. Echo won’t be appearing over the Riccarton carnival; he could well kick off at Cromwell later in November.
And there’s more. Our broodmare Misty Trella foaled an Echoes of Heaven filly some three weeks ago. The mare has produced nothing of note so far but, in my opinion, the mating is a cracker. Will the EoH factor be enough to produce a decent racehorse?
September 18th, 2022 — Uncategorized
That’s the question which so many of us are currently asking.
We are part of an industry with declining numbers of mares being bred, declining numbers of stallions available and – unsurprisingly – declining numbers of foals making an appearance each Spring.
Last breeding season, 4586 mares were covered – 1918 fewer than 14 years previously; 2893 foals were born – 1660 fewer than in 2008-2009.
Even more dramatic was the decreasing numbers of stallions at stud: 170 to 106 over the same time-period.
And yet we are told that the industry is doing just fine. Really?
Our breeders are continuing to produce a quality product. Studs are investing in stallions as cleverly as they’ve ever done but we’re getting to the stage where stallion choices for breeders are so limited we’ve got to ask the question – is it all worth it?
I have a policy of never paying more than $4000 – ish for a service fee. According to www.arion.co.nz just 34 stallions stand at this figure or below. Once you eliminate the proven failures, horses that stand at the other end of the country and those with pedigrees that simply don’t suit your mare, there’s not a lot left.
So what to do? The only answer I can think of is to patronise those stallions which offer excellent value.
I’ll name just six of them. I’m not saying that the other 28 are not worth considering but for my mares I really like – in no particular order – Echoes of Heaven, Pure Champion, Jon Snow, El Doute, Mongolian Falcon and Embellish.
Or is it smarter to just do nothing?
July 21st, 2022 — Choosing A Stallion, News
Aaron Tapper’s decision to stand the well-performed Echoes of Heaven at his Timaru property Clearview Park is easy to understand.
The brother to Manhattan Rain and half-brother to the remarkable Redoute’s Choice is steadily working his way upwards in both our stallion performance statistics and the esteem of breeders.
The deeds of his gelded son Countofmontecristo are well documented but if you’ve never heard of Siam Blue Vanda, just google his Stewards Cup victory – a truly amazing performance.
Here in New Zealand, the 2021-2022 season saw the emergence of two very promising progeny of the son of Encosta de Lago. The very quick Amberecho won three times from just eight starts to graduate to open class and the slower-maturing Our Echo scored three impressive victories culminating in a tough win in the first race of the Wellington Cup carnival. Both gallopers are scheduled to resume their careers in the late Spring.
There’s no doubt that Echoes of Heaven can throw both speed and class but his overall statistics are also impressive. To date he’s had 49 winners who have amassed a total of 149 wins over a variety of distances. Any stallion whose winners average three victories – a figure which is steadily rising – is a horse whose progeny are notable for soundness and racing temperament.
Some other impressive statistics can also be found on www.arion.co.nz
June 7th, 2022 — Uncategorized
Isn’t it a wonderful thing to read that an exciting stallion prospect will stand at an affordable fee?
So often you read in a press release that stallion Y is to be retired to stud. Your eyes are conditioned to flick to the bottom of the article to look for the number with the dollar sign in front of it. So often you’re disappointed to discover that the horse’s management considers that he’s well on the way to being champion sire before he’s even served a mare and have priced him accordingly.
But not today.
When assessing a stallion, we breeders look for high levels of athletic ability, soundness and temperament. Sometimes we have to compromise on one of these factors if we really like a stallion.
The Chosen One ticks all these boxes. In addition, he’s by our champion stallion from what is arguably New Zealand’s best female family. And yes, this the same family which underpins Grangewilliam’s promising The Bold One.
Many of The Bold One’s initial books of mares were modest. It’s hard to imagine The Chosen One is going to suffer from the same affliction.
May 27th, 2022 — Uncategorized
Like most breeders, I need to find a way of turning offspring into income. This year, there are four yearlings which need to find new homes via sale or lease.
Currently on Gavelhouse is the first of these, an impressive rising colt by Pure Champion ex the Fast ‘n’ Famous mare Zayzay. Having extolled the virtues of Pure Champion on this site, I thought that I’d put my money where my mouth was and buy a mare which suited him down to the ground.
The reasons behind the mating are explained on the Gavelhouse blurb (Lot 29); the way this strapping chestnut has grown out gives me cause for hope that I’ve got the mating right.
On her day, Zayzay had ability well above the average: feel free to check out her winning performances on www.loveracing.co.nz
If you have any queries about this racing prospect, do get in touch.
May 23rd, 2022 — Uncategorized
It’s always important to have a strategy when you’re breeding thoroughbreds. In the case of Manhattan Melody, the best strategy seems reasonably obvious.
The performance of the mare’s current foals is going to be a key factor in increasing her value, but it also makes sense to find a stallion on the rise so that if the Toronado, Charm Spirit and Turn Me Loose offspring turn out to be unremarkable, then we still have a chance to make a decent profit on breeding a foal from her.
Also, there seems to be little point spending a heap of money on the 2022 service fee as the mare has yet to prove herself.
So what stallions are clearly “on the rise” and still affordable?
A horse I’ve a lot of time for is Derryn. His 2YOs are looking promising; many of them are good physical types who should improve with age. There are also a heap of his progeny out there: he has 59 2YOs and another 68 yearlings to follow.
It’s too early to say exactly what bloodlines will suit our mare best, but there does seem to be a strong likelihood that Sir Tristram will suit both the Manhattan Rain and the Broad Brush aspects of her pedigree. Many of Derryn’s foals to date do seem to throw to Lonhro to a reasonable extent, so he does appear to be worth serious consideration.
