From sales ring confusion to unlikely partnership – Koh hoping Klocke can follow Tatt’s stars’ path
Singapore owner Eric Koh is hoping promising colt Klocke can follow the path of last year’s Tattersall’s Stakes graduates Autumn Boy and Sheza Alibi when he contests Saturday’s Listed feature at Eagle Farm.
It’d take a wildly optimistic personality to suggest that this year’s Tattersall’s Stakes for two-year-olds at Eagle Farm on Saturday will turn out to be the exceptional form race of 12 months ago.
At that stage Autumn Boy had won his only start – a Canterbury 1250m maiden – and $10,000 filly Sheza Alibi had won a Rockhampton maiden and a rich two-year-old race at Townsville in North Queensland.
A year on, Autumn Boy is a Caulfield and Rosehill Guineas winner and Sheza Alibi, transferred to trainers Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman, took all before her as a three-year-old including three straight in the autumn.
Sheza Alibi can arguably, along with Autumn Glow, lay claim to being Australia’s best racehorse after her emphatic Randwick Guineas and Doncaster victories in the autumn.
Autumn Boy finished runner-up to the filly in both those races.
The Tatt’s Stakes, a Listed race over 1400m, attracted a field of 13 before scratchings with Autumn Boy’s trainer Chris Waller accepting with two horses and electing to run Zoustar colt Klocke and scratching Snitzel A’La Rouge.
A creature of habit, a trait which has served Waller well, the longstanding premier Sydney trainer used the same Canterbury race to launch the career of Klocke in early June as he did with Autumn Boy a year earlier.
The key difference at this stage is that Klocke, who is owned by the Coolmore colts syndicate but races in the colours of Singaporean Eric Koh, finished runner-up to Trilogy Racing’s The Machine Gun, a rival in the Tatt’s Stakes this weekend.
If the Koh-Coolmore relationship sounds familiar, it’s because they were the major participants in Inglis setting a new $5.6 million benchmark for its Chairman’s Sale in May.
Tom Magnier paid the sale-record price for the Group 2-winning I Am Invincible filly Chayan, who spent more than 10 minutes parading in the Inglis Riverside Stables sales ring as major thoroughbred investors clashed for the right to own the talented rising three-year-old.
It was also another sales ring drama at the Magic Millions in January last year that led to Magnier and Koh first joining forces on the Steve Grant, Ken Lowe, and Laurel Oak Bloodstock’s Louis Mihalyka-bred Zoustar-Sense Of Hite colt.
The official results say Klocke cost $500,000, but for a brief moment Koh thought he’d bought the Silverdale Farm-sold yearling for $450,000.
“I was thrilled when the colt was knocked down to me for $450,000,” Koh told The Straight this week.
“But it turned out Coolmore was also on him and there was some confusion after the hammer came down (about disputed bids so the auction was restarted).
“As fate would have it, and perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise, Tom and I agreed to go halves on him.
“It has been good to have Team Coolmore help manage the colt with a good man like (racing manager) John Kennedy and a professional like Chris Waller training him as well.”
While the Annabel and Rob Archibald-trained Chayan was barrier trialling in January and racing in February and March, her season closing out when midfield in the Golden Slipper, a more patient approach has been taken with Klocke.
“We’ve taken heed of Chris’ advice and we have been patient with this colt and I think it’s been the right thing to do with him,” Koh said.
“We’re hopeful that he can exceed our expectations from here on.”
With Victorian jockey Ben Melham booked for the ride, Klocke is a $7 third favourite in the Tatt’s Stakes behind Godolphin’s Tannin ($4), an Exceed And Excel colt who won his first start at Gosford on June 11, and the Peter Robl-trained Hard To Exceed ($5).
Koh knows he’s enjoyed more than his fair share of racing luck this year, but it hasn’t stopped him from dreaming about what could be to come with Klocke over the next 12 months.
“Deep down, of course, I’d be hoping and wishing that he can be good enough to make it as a stallion, but it’s more fingers crossed (than confident),” he said.
Recent Tatt’s Stakes history is on Koh’s side.
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