Expensive colt Storm Boy has almost certainly run his last race in Australia with the three-year-old to be trained by Ballydoyle maestro Aidan O’Brien with a view to the European summer.
Managing owner Coolmore confirmed on Tuesday that the son of international supersire Justify, a four-time stakes winner in 10 starts at two and three for trainers Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, would soon be heading to Ireland in the hope of landing an elusive stallion-making Group 1 sprint.
“This is not something new, it's something that's been done with great success through the likes of Merchant Navy, Starspangledbanner, So You Think and Haradasun in the past, where they went to Ballydoyle and won Group 1 races in the northern hemisphere,” Coolmore Australia’s Tom Moore told The Straight.
“Aidan loves training Justifys and he was keen to get his hands on him, get him up there nice and early ahead of next season and allow him to settle into his new surroundings before targeting some big sprint races throughout Europe next year.
“He's a horse that Aidan is extremely excited about and we look forward to getting him up there.”
The Cunningham family was one of the initial shareholders in Storm Boy, a $425,000 Magic Millions yearling purchase by Waterhouse, Bott and Kestrel Thoroughbreds’ Bruce Slade.
They stayed in the syndicate when Coolmore swooped on the horse after his Magic Millions 2YO Classic demolition last January, paying more than $20 million upfront to secure the young stallion prospect.
The son of Justify won a Group 2 Skyline Stakes, ran third in the Golden Slipper and was fourth in the Group 1 ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes to round out his two-year-old season and he returned in August to score convincingly in the Group 3 San Domenico Stakes.
In his three starts since, culminating in his unplaced performance in The Everest, things didn’t necessarily go to plan.
“Look, he's been enormous. He obviously hasn't reached the heights we all expected him to reach, that being a big Group 1 win, but he's a Group 1 horse all day,” Mitch Cunningham told The Straight.
“It just didn't play out through no fault of anyone really. He had some tough runs in testing circumstances and I think he always ran well. There's a big race in him and everyone's confident that this decision is to the advantage of the horse and the ownership group, for sure.”
Bren O’Brien
If everything goes to plan in his new surroundings, a clash with Australia’s premier three-year-old, Saturday’s emphatic Group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes winner Switzerland, could also be on the cards for a Ballydoyle-trained Storm Boy at the Royal Ascot meeting next June.
“He's a horse that Aidan is extremely excited about and we look forward to getting him up there” - Coolmore's Tom Moore on Storm Boy's move to Aidan O'Brien
A trip to the UK was immediately put on the agenda in the Flemington mounting yard by the colt’s co-owner, Coolmore’s Tom Magnier, and the three-year-old’s trainer Chris Waller after the Snitzel colt’s brilliant straight six win victory.
By the same sire as the O’Brien-trained four-time Group 1 winner City Of Troy as well as top-class filly Ramatuelle and Australian-bred Group 2-winning filly Learning To Fly, Storm Boy’s pedigree gives him dual-hemisphere appeal as a stallion prospect if he can perform in Europe and even North America in 2025.
“Justify has elevated himself very quickly to being one of the premier stallions in the world and to be able to do it in both hemispheres is something that’s very rare,” Moore said.
“So, naturally, a top-class Justify colt such as Storm Boy, with his looks and pedigree, being out of a Fastnet Rock mare who's out of champion (New Zealand) mare Seachange by the Cape Cross, if he was to go up there and realise his true potential, he would certainly have his admirers in the northern hemisphere as well.”
Storm Boy won $3.54 million in prize money in his short racing career in Australia. His two-year-old half-brother Shangri La Boy, a colt by Pierro, is in training at Randwick with Waterhouse and Bott.
