What a Winterbottom win means for Trilogy, Burrows’ magic touch and why Coolmore backed in an unheralded stallion

Winterbottom win just the start for Trilogy

When Jason and Mel Stenning rocked up at Warwick Farm in October, 2021, for the Inglis Ready2Race Sale, they wasted no time in making their intentions clear.

They bought Lot 1, a Belardo colt, for $320,000. He was later named Lottwon and it was the start of what would become Trilogy Racing.

Lottwon didn’t reach any great heights – he won an Echuca maiden from just six starts – but that two-year-old sale in Sydney, in which Trilogy signed for five horses, set them on a Group 1 path.

So-called new money always brings a degree of cynicism from the industry’s hard-nosed, but the Stennings, along with key Trilogy members Sean and Cathy Dingwall, are four years into their vision.

And, as Jason Stenning told this column, it’s just the start of the Trilogy story.

They’ve enjoyed Group 1 success via Ozzmosis (Coolmore Stud Stakes), Jacquinot (CF Orr) and Militarize (three Group 1s), but Saturday’s Winterbottom Stakes success with Libertad meant so much more.

A five-year-old stallion by Russian Revolution, Libertad has won Group races at every season, with Perth’s feature sprint race the first time Trilogy’s white and grey interlocking triangle silks carried to victory in a Group 1.

He has also overcome illness and injury, recuperating throughout most of 2024 at Victoria’s Blue Gum Farm, the renowned Euroa stud purchased by the Stennings and Dingwalls from Philip and Patti Campbell in late 2022.

The acquisition of Blue Gum was around the same time that Trilogy bought a share in Libertad, an Inglis Ready2Race Sale graduate who was purchased by trainer Annabel Archibald for $210,000.

They have also recently purchased neighbouring land, allowing Blue Gum to expand its spelling services as well as run Angus and wagyu beef cattle herds.

“We said if he’s going to spell that long and where it’s so calm and quiet, with lush grass paddocks and he actually put on 90 kilos in that 12 months while he was spelling,” Stenning said.

“So, it did take a little while to get him fit, but we wanted him to really let down and recover and heal and strengthen, and I think that was the making of him.” 

Libertad could find a home at stud, be it Blue Gum or elsewhere, but that’s a discussion for another day.

But what Stenning did confirm is that, four years after buying Lottwon, he and Mel are as enamoured by the thoroughbred industry now as they were then.

“And that’s kudos to Sean and Cathy for educating us, training us, teaching us, showing us all the aspects of farm operation, breeding, foaling down,” he said. 

“We’re not just a syndicate, we’re not just racing horses, we’re breeders first and foremost and we always will be. 

“We’re a breeding business and everything we do is to strengthen and create stock, black type stock, for that breeding business.

“So, I would say, we’re exponentially more committed and passionate today than what we’ve ever been, if that’s at all possible. We love what we’re doing and we’re about to invest even more heavily in the industry. 

“We’re constantly in search of making those black-type horses to bring back to the farm.”

Blue Gum Farm will be represented at the major Australian yearling sales, starting at the Magic Millions on the Gold Coast next month.

Group 1s are in the Willows, you just have to find them

When the catalogues are released for next May’s respective Inglis and Magic Millions broodmare sales, it’s a fair bet that breeder Ray Willis will pay close attention to the draft on offer by Glenn Burrows.

It was Scone-based Burrows who sold Electric Charge, subsequently the dam of Libertad, to Willis’ NSW Southern Highlands-based Rheinwood for $200,000 at the Magic Millions National Sale in 2016.

Burrows’ Willow Park Stud also sold the mare Happy Pilgrim to Willis and agent Bill Mitchell at the 2018 national sale on the Gold Coast.

Happy Pilgrim has gone on to produce The Galaxy-winning sprinter Private Harry.

“(Libertad) is the 15th Group 1 winner from mares sold by Willow Park among some 59 mares that have produced Group and Listed winners,” Burrows reported.

Acrobat makes first-season move

Perhaps I’m talking out of school, but there was a post-Inglis Easter sale shindig at Riverside Stables in April 2021 taking place at the Newhaven Park barn.

A major talking point that night, at least for Coolmore associate James Bester and trainer Ciaron Maher, was Acrobat, then an unbeaten two-year-old by Fastnet Rock whose autumn campaign had been ruined by a hock injury before it’d even begun.

A winner of the Inglis Nursery pre-Christmas at his only race start, Acrobat’s health was touch-and-go for a while as an infection took hold of the colt. 

But Maher and Bester, the latter who co-bred the horse with Tom Magnier, were adamant he was the class horse and one of, if not the best two-year-old of the crop, and that all being well the Coolmore Stud Stakes was his for the taking.

Alas, Acrobat never quite made it back, barrier trialling three times either side of a spell, but he was retired to Coolmore after just one start. 

He didn’t possess a typical stallion’s CV, but Coolmore and partners backed him to the hilt, syndicating breeding rights in the colt to ensure he garnered significant support.

Acrobat covered 188 mares in his first season at stud (2022) and 178 in 2023 and 164 last year.

On Sunday at the Sunshine Coast, his daughter Acrodance produced a polished performance for trainer Paul Shailer to win her first start and get her sire off the mark.

With numbers on his side, it’s likely there’s more to come for Acrobat and justify, to a degree, the belief Bester and Maher had and still have in him. It just didn’t happen with that Group 1 on the track.