An Awesome opportunity – Railway Stakes day a potential game changer for WA stallion
The stocks of Awesome Rock, a handsome son of Fastnet Rock who stands at stud for his breeders Alan and Sue Olive in Western Australia, will be on the rise if some Railway Stakes day results can go his way at Ascot.
When Awesome Rock won the 2016 Mackinnon Stakes, a sense that justice on the racetrack had been served overwhelmed the Flemington enclosure.
Eight months after losing the Australian Cup in the stewards’ room, Awesome Rock, a striking son of Fastnet Rock, finally had his time on the big stage.
While the Mackinnon at the time might have been losing its lustre as a prestigious and traditional weight-for-age support race at the Victoria Derby meeting, the importance of Awesome Rock’s win couldn’t be understated for those closest to the entire.
Awesome Rock was trained with a career at stud foremost in the minds of co-trainers Leon and Troy Corstens.
That’s why the Australian Cup decision was hard to swallow – and the Mackinnon victory meant so much – to a syndicate that got together to pay $575,000 for Awesome Rock as a Magic Millions yearling.
“We have said right along that he’s such a beautiful animal, and when we lost the Australian Cup on protest we were desperate to get the Group 1 he deserves,” Troy Corstens said after the Mackinnon.
“He’s an amazing looking animal and I’m sure he’s got a bright stud career ahead of him.”
Awesome Rock was raced by a group of owners that included industry heavyweights such as Newgate and Brad Spicer, a syndicator known for spotting a good horse.
His breeders Sue and Alan Olive kept a significant portion and while others moved on, they remained central figures in the next chapter of Awesome Rock’s journey into Western Australia’s sires’ ranks.
As the only stallion standing at the Olives’ Gold Front Thoroughbreds property northeast of Perth, another potential watershed moment arrives for Awesome Rock during the Group 1 Railway Stakes meeting at Ascot on Saturday.
Awesome Rock is the sire of Watch Me Rock, favourite to win the Railway after compiling 10 wins from 18 starts, including a lead-up victory in the Group 3 Asian Beau Stakes three weeks ago.
Rock Fest, a Gold Front graduate who sold for $55,000 at last year’s Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale, is given an undeniable chance in the Group 2 WA Guineas to complement two runners in the Crystal Slipper Stakes for juveniles.
Awesome Rock is in his ninth season at stud and the number of mares he has covered has fluctuated from a high of 108 in 2022 down to 34 in 2024.
The best of his progeny includes Awesome John, the 2023 WATC Derby winner who now races in Hong Kong, and the stakes-credentialled Searchin’ Roc’s, recently retired to stud as a broodmare after banking more than $1 million from nine victories in Perth.
But with Watch Me Rock’s emergence over the past 12 months, interest from WA breeders has returned this year at a modest service fee of $7250.
A Railway victory will add to that momentum and give Awesome Rock a profile that can set him apart from a host of WA sires chasing for recognition in a state breeding industry that has been averaging an annual crop of no more than 1000 foals in recent years.
In terms of standing stallions, Darling View Thoroughbreds dominate the WA breeding scene with four on a roster headlined by the in-demand Playing God, a benchmark for sires in the state.
Sue Olive says it leaves smaller concerns, such as Gold Front, to navigate the inevitable ups and downs of the industry.
“The rest of us, we’re all sort of like on a par with each other,” she told The Straight.
“For us in WA, this is the time of year you want a stallion to be able to make a name for themselves.”
The Olives established Gold Front after selling a successful drilling business, turning a cattle property into a 300-acre farm for thoroughbreds to accommodate a breeding enterprise that Sue, who also trains a small team as a side hobby, says came with a vision that it might be something bigger.
“It was just open country and we ended up dividing them into the paddocks that they are now,” she said.
“At the time we built it basically for what we needed it for and where we were heading.
“We weren’t doing a lot of training at the time, so it was all for just spelling and breeding. And then we decided to put stallion yards up just in case we got a stallion.”
In a full-circle moment, Awesome Rock became that stallion.
“We opted to take him on and one other owner, Stan Saric, stayed in him. We bought the other owners out and that’s how we ended up with him back over here (in WA),” Sue said.
“He was a serious racehorse in himself, the highest Fastnet Rock earner.
“His progeny have been doing well and have done from day dot so he definitely puts a motor them.
“In this business you just need a few things need to go your way – and a bit of lady luck doesn’t hurt either.
“And with stallions like Awesome Rock, they just need that one horse to jump out of the ground and ‘bang’ away they go.”
Just as in the Mackinnon nearly a decade ago, much will hinge on the Railway’s outcome for a horse notorious for making everyone wait.
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