The week’s column from Tim Rowe starts out with a Mongolian presence at Karaka, travels to Perth for a chat with Group 1-winning owner and breeder Richard Foster, ponders the battle by the sales companies to sell Winx’s latest foal, reveals a change in approach for NZB and an overdue win for Invincible Madison.
Mongolian buyer makes most of first visit to Karaka
Mongolian Ganbaatar Davgadorj watched Knight’s Choice score a fairytale win in this year’s Melbourne Cup from the Flemington grandstand and now he’s chasing his own piece of Australian racing silverware.
While Australian racing, via last week’s New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale, is a first for Davgadorj, the businessman has raced horses with success in North America, experiencing Grade 1 glory with 2015 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Mongolian Saturday and with Mongolian Groom who saluted in the 2019 Awesome Stakes at Santa Anita.
The pair was trained in the United States by expatriate Mongolian trainer Ganbat Enebish.
Davgadorj’s Khan Altai Resources bought five horses for a combined $415,000 at last week’s NZB Ready to Run Sale, ranging from $30,000 for a Dubious gelding up to $160,000 for a Contributer colt and $100,000 for a son of Time Test.
The quintet is likely to be trained in Victoria, although Davgadorj is yet to confirm which stable will prepare the two-year-olds. He hasn’t ruled out also racing some horses in New Zealand.
“Our past experience (in western horse racing) is that 10 years ago we were engaging in the horse business in America and now we have come to Karaka to explore new opportunities,” Davgadorj told The Straight through an interpreter.
Horses are a way of life for Davgadorj, and for Mongolians in general, and while the endurance test of Australia’s most recognised race, the Cup, would be coveted, the 3200-metre journey is nothing compared to the racing that takes place in his home country.
“Mongolian horse racing comes from the Qing Dynasty … that is a cultural tradition and also vaccination and identification for Mongolia,” says Davgadorj, who pointed out that the racehorses are often ridden in races over distances of 11km to 24km by children as young as 10 years old.
“The horse is our identification, that's why we would like to keep that diversified culture. We do not do it for gambling or for other purposes, we do it for our ordinary lifestyle.”
“The horse is our identification, that's why we would like to keep that diversified culture." - Ganbaatar Davgadorj
Not to be confused with Inner Mongolia, the birthplace of Yulong's Yuesheng Zhang a well as the investor 'Mr Wolf', which is an autonomous region of China, Mongolia is an independent nation located between China and Russia that has a population of 3.47 million people.
Davgadorj, who is considering returning to Karaka in 2025 for the yearling sale as well as attending some of Australia’s yearling sales next year, operates businesses in a range of sectors, including retail, construction, roads, mining and hospitality.
NZB managing director Andrew Seabrook credited the auction house’s China representative Alex Teng for playing a key role in encouraging Davgadorj’s participation in the two-year-old sale.
“I can't speak highly enough of Alex Teng, our Chinese representative who's on our staff full-time. He does a great job in China and Mongolia. This business is about relationship building,” Seabrook says.
“It was great to see China buy 10 horses and Mongolia to buy five horses. It’s the first time ever that the country of Mongolia has been represented on a buying sheet in New Zealand and perhaps in Australasia.”
While Mongolia featured on the buyers’ sheet for the first time at Karaka, the Malaysian buyers also stepped up, taking home 40 horses as well as buying the auctioned slot in The NZB Kiwi for $225,000.
Queenslander Foster toasting maiden Group 1 win from the west
Despite minimal sleep after a night enjoying the finest hospitality Perth has to offer, Queenslander Richard Foster couldn’t have felt better on Sunday, basking in the glory of breeding his first Group 1 winner.
The principal of Yarramalong, a South East Queensland-based commercial thoroughbred breeding operation, was trackside at Ascot on Saturday to witness his four-year-old Port Lockroy win the Group 1 Railway Stakes, Western Australia’s premier race.
The entire is by Better Than Ready, a sire Foster bought off the track in 2015 from Brisbane trainer Kelly Schweida, out of his good-producing mare Freezethemillions who has already thrown Group 3-winning juvenile and first season sire Alpine Edge.
Foster kept a major share in Better Than Ready with the Kruger family’s Lyndhurst Stud Farm, which is based near Warwick, and has bred to the top Queensland stallion every season including sending Port Lockroy’s dam Freezethemillions to Better Than Ready six times in the past eight years.
The Annabel Neasham and Rob Archibald-trained Port Lockroy was beaten just 2.11 lengths in the Golden Eagle before being sent west for his second tilt at Group 1 level.
The $1.5M G1 Swan Draught Railway Stakes was won by Port Lockroy. Congratulations to trainers Annabel Neasham & Rob Archibald, jockey Clint Johnston-Porter and winning owners. pic.twitter.com/bR4bo1BssB
— Racing WA Thoroughbred (@RacingWA_Tbreds) November 23, 2024
Sold by Yarramalong at the 2022 Magic Millions sale on the Gold Coast for $300,000, Foster retained a 25 per cent share in Port Lockroy who after Saturday’s triumphant performance has banked almost $1.2 million for connections in his 15-start career to date.
“The hospitality in Perth, I've got to say, is outstanding. They have looked after us,” a jubilant Foster reported on Sunday.
“I think we only slept for four hours, but you don't need a lot of sleep when you have a bit of exhilaration. The adrenaline gets you going.”
Foster has been breeding and racing horses for decades but he decided to go commercial about a decade ago, the same time he purchased Better Than Ready after a tip-off from agent Julian Blaxland that he was for sale. The 15-year-old stallion is now the sire of two Group 1 winners, Port Lockroy and Kingsford-Smith Cup winner Apache Chase, the best of his 14 black type scorers.
“I've had Group 2 and Group 3 winners, but that's the first Group 1,” Foster says.
“They're never easy (to win) and you've got to get everything right, the track and the draw, the ride, the horse on the day. They're harder to win than normal races, put it that way.”
Bren O’Brien
Western Australian studmasters have already expressed interest in Port Lockroy, who could stay in Perth for the Group 1 Northerly on December 7 or return to Sydney for the Group 2 Ingham a week later.
As well as his involvement in Better Than Ready, Foster is also heavily supporting the sire’s son Alpine Edge, a first season stallion who has covered more than 110 mares at Clear Mountain Fairview so far this year.
Alpine Edge won the 2020 Listed Phelan Ready and Group 3 BJ McLachlan for trainers Toby and Trent Edmonds.
Yarramalong’s commitment to Better Than Ready, and now Alpine Edge, means sending any of its 59 mares to the Hunter Valley and other farms are few and far between in recent years.
“I sent four or five last year and only one this year. But we do buy mares in foal to Hunter stallions,” Foster says.
“So, we've got quite a few nice yearlings by Hunter Valley stallions and we've got an Anamoe and we've got a Farnan and so on.”
Freezethemillions, a two-time Listed placed juvenile who was bred and raced by Foster, has a Supido filly at foot and she has been covered by Better Than Ready again this year.
Foster also has Port Lockroy’s three-year-old sister For Better, who was placed three times at two in Victoria when trained by Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman, in the stable of Neasham and Archibald as is the two-year-old brother Mortal Halo, who could run in Saturday’s Listed Phelan Ready Stakes at Doomben.
Yarramalong will offer 22 yearlings at the Magic Millions in January, 17 of them by Better Than Ready.
Snitzel in January or Easter?
Champion mare Winx’s second foal, a colt by another champion in Snitzel, was born early on Monday at Coolmore in the Hunter Valley.
Her first live foal, a filly by Pierro, of course, made a record $10 million at the Inglis Easter sale in April when co-breeder Debbie Kepitis bought out her partners for the eight-figure sum.
The Snitzel colt is just hours old, but if his breeders, Kepitis, Peter and Patty Tighe and the estate of Richard Treweeke, elect to sell the 25-time Group 1-winning mare’s new colt in 2026, the auction houses Inglis and Magic Millions will go all out in a bid to be able to offer him.
Inglis went hard in 2023 when word spread Winx’s filly would go to auction, promising (and delivering) connections unprecedented exposure to industry and the mainstream media domestically and internationally in order to drum up interest.
Bren O’Brien
While Kepitis was the eventual buyer, American John Stewart was the under bidder while owners and trainers flew in from other parts of the world, including Japan, to inspect her.
Magic Millions also strongly pitched to sell Winx’s Pierro filly, an October 7-born foal, and you can bet they will add to the incentives they offered last time in the hope of selling her on the Gold Coast in early 2026 with the full endorsement of the sales company’s owners Gerry Harvey and his wife Katie Page-Harvey.
One thing in Inglis’ favour will be the son of Snitzel’s birthdate of November 25, with the Easter sale’s April date providing the colt with an extra three months’ development before going under the hammer.
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One Karaka catalogue, two books
It might only be a small thing, but everything helps when it comes to selling horses.
For that reason, New Zealand Bloodstock’s hard copy catalogue for its 2025 National Yearling Sale at Karaka will contain Books 1 and 2 yearlings in one.
In the past, NZB has printed separate catalogues for its Book 1 and 2 sales, with the perception being that some buyers ignored the Book 2 horses altogether.
“We've decided to put the two books together into one. So, it's still Book 1 and Book 2, but in one catalogue,” NZB managing director Andrew Seabook revealed.
“It might just, it just might promote, it just might urge them to look beyond the book one. Because often they'll get the two books and they might just put the other one aside.
“Obviously, we won't be the first auction house to adopt this practice. But it was raised at a vendor meeting that we had a few months ago by someone, by one of the vendors, and it got unanimous support in the room.”
One example this columnist can remember was Hall Of Fame member John Hawkes paying $180,000 for a Toronado colt out of the Inglis HTBA Yearling Sale (the old Scone sale) which backed onto the Inglis Easter Round 2 sale in July 2020 during the early months of the pandemic.
Hawkes was unaware the colt had even been consigned to the “Scone sale” when inspecting the Easter yearlings at Riverside that July.
The release of the NZB catalogue for next year’s sale is imminent.
Invincible Madison mirrors mother
It may have taken longer than expected, but American-owned filly Invincible Madison broke her maiden in style at Canberra on Sunday.
And in doing so, the Peter Snowden-trained three-year-old Invincible Madison, a $1.2 million purchase from the Magic Millions in 2023, ran faster time than her Group 2-placed mother Super Too did in winning her maiden at the same track in 2016.
Invincible Madison, who stopped the clock in 57.97 seconds for the 1000m with 3.4 lengths up her sleeve, is the first foal out of Super Too, a half-sister to sprinter and sire Super One.
She was bought at the Gold Coast by US bloodstock agent John Moynihan for vodka flavouring entrepreneurs Richard and Tammy Rigney who were holidaying in Queensland almost two years ago.
Super Too, who was trained by Marc Conners, ran 58.09 seconds in winning her first start as a two-year-old when showing similar blistering early speed to her promising daughter.
Glenlogan Park will offer Invincible Madison’s three-quarter sister by Home Affairs at the Gold Coast and there could certainly be a pedigree update or two prior to the January sale judging by the ease of the filly’s first-up victory.
