Playing God is in a league of his own in Western Australia.
Held in the highest regard in the west despite a recent influx of young stallions from the eastern seaboard, Playing God stands at a service fee of $49,500.
It’s a record for a stallion in the state, eclipsing that of his own sire Blackfriars who claimed 12 WA sires’ premierships.
Since arriving at Darling View Thoroughbreds in 2020, Playing God’s progeny have gone from strength to strength on the racetrack and in the sales ring, smashing WA records and attracting attention from leading Australian industry figures.
The story of Playing God started in early 2009, when West Australian training icon Neville Parnham saw something he liked in an undeveloped yearling that others overlooked.
“Going back to his yearling purchase he wasn’t the nicest horse at the sale, he was narrow and unlike his brother God Has Spoken who we bought a year earlier,” Parnham told The Straight.
“He was nothing like God Has Spoken, he was narrow in the chest and an average-looking yearling, hence why he didn’t bring a lot more money than what he did, which was $27,000.
“He matured quite a lot during the process and as a two-year-old he was racing in the autumn, and he had about four runs."
Debuting as a two-year-old in 2010, Playing God burst onto the West Australian racing scene, going on a winning run at the back end of the calendar year.
He won the Group 2 WA Guineas comfortably, before dominating his three-year-old class once again in the Listed Aquanita Stakes. His success set him up to take on the older horses in the Group 1 Kingston Town Classic, where he took full advantage of his light weight to pick up the first of his two wins in the race.
The autumn allowed Parnham to travel his star colt to the east coast, where he gamely competed against some elite competition.
Reflecting on his time with Playing God, Parnham explained: “He arguably might have won the Australian Guineas. Brett Prebble rode him because Steven (Parnham) had a fall and had broken his collarbone. Brett rang up for the ride.
“When Brett got off he said, ‘sorry guys, I zagged when I should’ve zigged’, and the winner (Shamrocker) went straight through the position he vacated.
“I backed him up seven days later in the Australian Cup and he ran third in that race, beaten by Shocking who had won a Melbourne Cup."
Returning to Western Australia, Playing ran a valiant second in the WA Derby, with a foot issue causing the star colt to miss a key lead-up run.
As an older horse, he would continue to be a fierce competitor on both sides of the country, winning a second Kingston Town and placing in a Turnbull Stakes and a CF Orr Stakes at Group 1 level in Victoria.
Following the decision to retire Playing God, Parnham explained an initial plan to stand him alongside Blackfriars didn’t materialise.
“The owner, Colin Loxton, he owned both of them (Playing God and full brother God Has Spoken), he had a great run with them and not being the breeding type of person, he wanted to race them to an older age, and then we had to find homes for them,” Parnham said.
“Playing God was the first one, but there wasn’t a great deal of interest in him. We thought Scenic Lodge might be interested in taking him on, because they had indicated that, however when approached, they didn’t want him because they had his sire.
“The next port of call was asking someone like Gray Williamson from Mungrup Stud.
“They were pretty keen and took him on. They nurtured him in that initial part of his stallion career, and they did pretty well.”
Taking up residence at Mungrup, Playing God’s maiden crop, which earned him the WA champion first-season sire title, came from an introductory fee of $6600, a figure which dipped to $4400 before his first foals hit the track.
Parnham was quick to source some of his debut crop, purchasing the first yearling through the sales ring, subsequent Group 1 placegetter Platoon. Also in that maiden draft was Lordhelpmerun, who won the Group 3 WATC Sires’ Produce Stakes.
Like Platoon, Kay Cee ended up in the care of Parnham, this time racing in the blue and orange colours of the Edwards family.
After a moderate start as a late-season two-year-old, Kay Cee quickly accelerated through the grades, winning the Listed Burgess Queen Stakes before placings in the Group 3 WA Champion Fillies’ Stakes and the Group 2 WA Guineas.
"He was narrow in the chest and an average-looking yearling, hence why he didn’t bring a lot more money than what he did, which was $27,000," - Neville Parnham on Playing God
Two weeks after her photo-finish loss in the Guineas to stablemate War Saint, Kay Cee lined up in the Group 1 Kingston Town Classic, capitalising on her 50kg impost under weight-for-age conditions to run down Gailo Chop and claim a maiden elite-level victory.
Kay Cee is one of 12 individual stakes winners from Playing God’s first four crops, producing 115 runners in total.
Going at 12 per cent stakes winners-to-runners in his first four crops put him clear of I Am Invincible (9 per cent), Written Tycoon (4 per cent) and Zoustar (7 per cent) for the corresponding period.
It was a dispersal of the famed Mungrup Stud in 2020 that landed Playing God a home on the Darling View roster, which at the time included Patronize and Lucky Street, with a deal done by the Atwell family to make him the poster boy of the operation.
Playing God winning the 2011 Kingston Town Classic. (Vision: YouTube)
By this point, he was already the most expensive stallion in the state, with a fee set before the Mungrup dispersal of $16,500.
“We were lucky enough to be able to pick him up in 2020,” Darling View’s stud manager Brent Atwell explained to The Straight.
“It was an interesting time, obviously the opportunity arrived and he was available for sale.
“Me and my family looked at him and thought it would be a really good step for our farm moving forward. Thankfully for us we took the plunge and never looked back.
“To have a horse of his calibre stand here at Darling View has taken us to the next level.
“It’s been very humbling. At the same time our business has grown astronomically off the back of his success, along with our vision and where we wanted to take the farm.
“We saw his potential from the stock that he’d produced from smaller books and smaller opportunity.”
September Born, a son of Playing God, wins the 2024 Fairetha Stakes at Ascot. (Vision: YouTube)
With his fee exactly three times the amount it was when the Atwell family purchased Playing God, the gamble has paid off, with bidders not shy about descending on the Perth Magic Millions Yearling Sale each February to try to secure his progeny.
In the 2024 edition, the headline Lot of the sale, a sister to Group 1 Railway Stakes winner Bustler, went for a WA record $625,000 to Sheamus Mills Bloodstock.
Not only did Playing God have a record-setting filly headline his crop, but he also boasted three of the top five highest-priced Lots, matching the stellar 2020 performance of another WA-based stallion, War Chant.
With attention on both sides of the country at an all-time high for Playing God, Atwell believes there could be more to come now that he has become a regular date for some of the top mares on the local scene.
“He’s basically getting the best mare from every breeder in WA, he’s seeing stakes winners and stakes placegetters consistently.
“People know what type of mare to send him now, it was quite up and down (historically),” he said.
“We used to breed a dozen mares in the Hunter Valley, all of those mares have returned back to Darling View here in WA and are visiting Playing God.
“The foals he is putting on the ground now, I believe the types are better, he’s seeing better mares and the future is bright.
“People are talking about some of the yearlings purchased at Magic Millions earlier this year, you would have never expected this horse to be producing precocious two-year-olds, but he’s doing that.
“I was talking to Neville Parnham, he’s happy with what he’s seen from his yearling purchases but he is very keen on his three-year-old crop, he thinks they’ll make a fair dent in the carnival.”
Among them is the promising Simon Miller-trained West Star who earned his first black-type win and led in a Playing God quinella to the Listed Belgravia Stakes, a key lead-up race to the Group 2 WA Guineas.
Hot on West Star's heels in the Belgravia was the Parnham-trained colt September Born, a brother to Kay Cee.
“Me and my family looked at him and thought it would be a really good step for our farm moving forward. Thankfully for us we took the plunge and never looked back" - Darling View's Brent Atwell on the decision to stand Playing God
September Born subsequently rocketed to the top of WA Guineas betting with his victory in the Fairetha Stakes at Ascot last Saturday to bring up Playing God’s 21st stakes winner..
“At the moment I would think he will get to a mile, maybe that will be his forte,” Parnham said.
There is more than just September Born in the arsenal of Playing God-sired carnival contenders for Parnham, with the master trainer set to unleash a procession of stakes winners and exciting up-and-comers on Ascot during the summer months.
Parnham expects Zipaway and Bustler to line up in the Group 1 Railway Stakes while he has high hopes for three-year-old fillies Divine Impact and Nickelplay.
“I’ve got another one in Gold Flakes who goes pretty nice, and there’s a few others as well that have shown me a lot of promise.
“I was looking at my list of horses in the stable and there’s so many Playing God’s there, they’re good racehorses."
