Rowe On Monday – Howard back for Star cameo, Corboy chases next bloodstock trade, Snitzel leads the way, why sires’ premierships can be distorted

Star’s Howard back for Tassie

Vin Cox has fitted seamlessly into the fold at Denise Martin’s Star Thoroughbreds, with the pair buying 15 yearlings so far across Magic Millions, New Zealand Bloodstock and the opening day of the Inglis Classic sale.

A proud Tasmanian, Martin’s next port of call will be Launceston for the state’s Magic Millions sale on February 23, but it won’t be Cox who will be accompanying her to Carrick for the one-day auction.

Instead, Randwick Bloodstock’s Brett Howard, who retired late last year and handed the Star reins to Cox, will be conducting inspections.

Star Thoroughbreds won the Mystic Journey on Sunday in Hobart with Sanniya, a Stratosphere three-year-old who made it six wins in succession in the Group 3 on Hobart Cup day. 

Stablemate Durazzo, who also carries the purple and white Star colours, ran second in the Thomas Lyons.

“Look, as much as I’d love to go to Launceston, the one sale that Brett asked he could do was the Tassie sale, so Brett’s in charge down there,” Cox revealed at the Inglis Classic sale. 

“The Tassie horses are going very well and (Sanniya) absolutely bolted in and the good horse (Durazzo) just got beaten in the Thomas Lyons. But I think he ran super.”

Corboy home free after Street Boss colt’s sale

On Saturday, just hours before Closer To Free burst into Blue Diamond contention, renowned horse educator and trainer Adrian Corboy was wandering around Inglis’ Riverside Stables complex in Sydney seemingly without a care in the world.

A breaker for Ciaron Maher and Danny O’Brien, the Wangaratta-based horseman was on the hunt for his next Closer To Free, a Street Boss colt he sold privately to prominent owner Sean Buckley just 10 days earlier.

He’d bought him from the Classic sale 12 months earlier from breeder Milburn Creek for $60,000 and while a price has not been disclosed, you can bet it’s many multiples of what Corboy outlaid.

So far, everyone’s winning, with the Street Boss colt scoring on debut for O’Brien, 10 days after he’d won a trial at Caulfield for Corboy in a performance that put him on the radar of agents, owners and rival trainers.

While it must be tempting to keep a good horse, allowing Corboy to showcase his skills as a trainer, he’s a man who sticks to his model – and that’s breaking-in and trading horses while maintaining a small stable of racehorses of his own.

He’s trained seven winners in his past 50 runners, dating back to August 2023.  

Snitzel on top at midpoint of season

Arrowfield’s late king Snitzel has hit the lead in the Australian general sires’ premiership, putting him in pole position to claim a fifth title.

And the Hunter Valley nursery’s anointed successor to Snitzel, The Autumn Sun, is second on the premiership with his star daughter and Golden Eagle winner Autumn Glow set to resume in Saturday’s Apollo Stakes.

As for Snitzel, his surge up standings was helped by two-year-old colt Fireball’s first-up victory in the $2 million Inglis Millennium on Saturday with the James Harron syndicate and trainer Chris Waller setting him towards the autumn two-year-old “majors”.

The colt is the 167th stakes winner for Snitzel and the 64th two-year-old stakes winner. 

Prize money anomalies skew sire premierships

Speaking of sire premierships, has there been a change of policy in calculating horses’ prize money earnings, the main metric used to crown champion stallions, be it general, first, second, third or broodmare sires?

It appears that the $333,334 women’s bonus won by Tigroni for being the first female-owned horse across the line in the Magic Millions 2YO Classic in January is credited towards the horse’s prize money record.

The amount appears on Tigroni’s Racing Australia record as well as for the filly’s sire Tiger Of Malay in the first season stallion standings.

It’s been standard that owner-breeder bonuses such as BOBS, QTIS, VOBIS and WestSpeed have been acknowledged on the form cards of horses, but the specific sales company bonuses related to women’s and pink bonuses or other extra incentives have not.

For instance, the Kris Lees-trained Night Agent won a Port Macquarie maiden on Sunday, with connections picking up a $100,000 bonus from Inglis on top of the $19,575 prize money (including a BOBS bonus) for the 1100m maiden. However, the $100,000 is not reflected on Racing Australia nor on his sire Brutal’s progeny earnings on providers such as Arion.

In the Inglis Millennium on Saturday, the Bjorn Baker-trained Profitabelle, who finished 12th, picked up $40,000 for being majority female-owned and paid up for the Inglis Race Series but that money is not reflected on Racing Australia, unlike Tigroni in the equivalent Magic Millions race.

Given the proliferation of “pop-up races”, which can skew the sires’ premierships, the additional sales company bonuses seem to be a step too far. But if they are going that way, for whatever reason, then it should be all-in.