A pregnant broodmare residing on a boutique thoroughbred farm might provide the best clue to the outcome of a key Blue Diamond Stakes lead-in race at Sandown.
Assembling among a small squad of two-year-olds, Redders will be given his chance to impress on the racetrack to match the impact he has created off it in a Blue Diamond Preview.
Redders is one of five debutants in a Listed race for colts and geldings that will go some way towards establishing a hierarchy for next month’s $2 million Blue Diamond Stakes.
With the unraced division comes the unknown, but a spring mating plan for Redders’ dam may be all we need to know to assess the colt as a leading chance on Saturday.
Redders is the third foal out of Highly Geared, a well-performed Ad Valorem mare whose longevity on the track delivered 10 wins and 12 placings across five seasons of racing.
Admired for his looks and presence, Redders topped the second tier of the 2024 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
He was a $230,000 buy for Danny O’Brien and a dream result for Roona Lodge, an agistment and broodmare farm run by the Rickert family near Warwick in southeast Queensland.
It was also a full-circle purchase for O’Brien, the prominent Victorian trainer who bred and sold Redders’ sire Star Turn as a yearling.
To O’Brien’s shrewd eye, the chestnut colt was a clone of his father. A mirror image he couldn’t resist.
“Star Turn was an outstanding yearling and this colt is as well – he was a horse who was hard not to buy once you had a look at him,” O’Brien at the time of purchase.
“Of all the Star Turn colts I’ve looked at over the years, this guy was the one who most looked like his old man.
“Every now and then, one slips into Book Two and this guy for me was that horse.
“On type he was the equal of any of the nice colts during Book One.”
Appearances are one thing. Coping with the demands of a training routine to be up and about on the doorstep of Victoria’s only juvenile Group 1 race is another.
But after showing enough early promise to convince co-breeder Tamara Rickert that Highly Geared should have another spring appointment with Star Turn, Redders has thrived as a part of stable life.
“Highly Geared has a Trapeze Artist filly on the ground at the moment and she’s that strong. She looks like a colt,” Tamara, who still calls Redders by his farm name of Jimmy, said.
“But we pre-empted Jimmy being as good as what we think he is, and Highly Geared is back in foal to Star Turn.
“He's just a machine and he's still a colt because he's got the brains as well as the body. He's a bit of a package.”
On the back of O’Brien’s obvious interest and connection, Redders is the best yearling sale result for Tamara and her husband Kerry.
“He was a lovely horse, his conformation was tremendous,” Tamara said.
“And we thought, well, ‘yeah, he'll go for a nice little bit’, but holy smokes!
“When Danny came and had a look at him he said he is the spitting image of his father. And he is. I went back and I watched Star Turn’s race videos, and Jimmy is the spitting image of him. So it blew my mind that sale day.”
Redders has won unofficial barrier trials at Flemington and Werribee going into his debut.
Expectations are high that the colt will emerge as a bona fide Blue Diamond chance as he challenges city midweek winner and Maribyrnong Plate placegetter Shining Smile for favouritism.
“It's a bit of a double-edged sword the way things have worked out,” Tamara said.
“We're super excited for the horse because we bought back in after Danny bought him off us.
“But we’re excited because we've got breeding partners, we've got the mare and what a stakes winner would do for her would be fabulous considering this is her first foal for us.
“We’re crossing everything possible.”
In two divisions of the Blue Diamond Previews, fillies outnumber their male counterparts on the score of representation and experience.
Seven of the 17 fillies accepted for the Group 3 Preview have been to the races and three - Miss Celine, Palm Angel and Too Darn Crystal - have unbeaten records.
“Of all the Star Turn colts I’ve looked at over the years, this guy was the one who most looked like his old man" - Danny O'Brien on Redders
Miss Celine and Palm Angel were stakes winners during the Melbourne spring carnival, with the latter being the most favoured to make a winning return.
Among the unraced brigade, the $1.25 million Snitzel filly Boa Vista and My Gladiola, a $550,000 daughter of I Am Invincible out of the Group 2 winner and Group 1-placed sprinting mare Villa Verde, add considerable interest.
