In his weekly bloodstock column, Tim Rowe talks to Joe Pride about risky x-rays and Group 1 glory, reflect on Hermitage's latest elite success, discusses the demand for top stallions and Snitzel's big Saturday.
Pride's ability to overlook Ceolwulf’s blemishes pays off
Joe Pride finished sixth on the Sydney trainers’ premiership last season, preparing 46 city winners, equal with his Warwick Farm-based peer Bjorn Baker.
Helped by his one-three Everest finish with Think About It and Private Eye, Pride’s stable also banked $19.23 million in NSW prize money in 2023-24, bettered by only Chris Waller, Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott and Ciaron Maher.
Think About It ($70,000) and Private Eye ($62,500), both purchased in partnership with Jamie Walter’s Proven Thoroughbreds, cost a relative pittance compared to what the average sale price of the yearlings which enter many of the biggest Sydney stables and, again on Saturday, Pride’s Group 1 Epsom Handicap winner Ceolwulf demonstrated the trainer’s eye for value.
Pride, who confirmed Ceolwulf will have his next start in the $5 million King Charles on Everest day, has to compromise when it comes to acquiring horses. He rarely spends more than $250,000 and shelled out $170,000 for Ceolwulf at the 2022 New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale.
Ceolwulf, Pride says, was probably worth at least double what he paid for the Cambridge Stud-bred and Riversley Park-consigned son of Tavistock but he was overlooked by some members of the buying bench because of his x-ray issues.
Vets identified a subchondral lucency in his right stifle, deemed to be moderate risk, and a small fragment in Ceolwulf’s left front fetlock adjacent to his sesamoid bone that could not be surgically removed.
“He had an x-ray issue which allowed us to buy him because he was a pretty stylish colt. He breezed up well and without his x-rays he might have been a $300,000 to $400,000 horse and I wouldn’t have bought him at that price,” Pride told The Straight.
“I asked my vet and he said the way I train he’d take a punt on him. I have always got to compromise a little bit because I’m not buying for above $200,000 to $250,000 and I’d rather go with the style of horse that I like with a decent pedigree and be confident that I can manage the horse from a soundness perspective.
“It was a punt on those x-rays but, touchwood, he’s been a very sound horse.”
Interestingly, Hong Kong buyers are generally most put off by apparent x-ray faults, but Magus Equine’s Willie Leung - a regular at the three Australasian two-year-old sales each October and November - saw past those veterinary issues, underbidding the colt who breezed up in 10.77 seconds.
“It was a punt on those x-rays but, touchwood, he’s been a very sound horse." - Joe Pride
With a brief of finding a Guineas and Derby horse, Pride identified Ceolwulf at the Karaka sale with the help of New Zealander Leighton Howl. Howl bought 10 per cent in the horse and Pride’s stable clients took the rest.
“I have been going to the sales for 20 years and I’ve been going to the Ready to Runs for a long time and I’ve looked at a lot of Tavistocks like a lot of us have,” Howl said.
“He is probably the only Tavistock that looked like the sire when he was a racehorse and (New Zealand racing journalist) Dennis Ryan would probably confirm that as well.
“He had a lot of quality about him and, to be honest, I thought he was probably the best Tavistock I’d looked at.”
Twice Group 1-placed at three in the Rosehill Guineas and Australian Derby, Ceolwulf’s Epsom victory capped off a good year for Howl who also bought Satono Aladdin gelding Lupo Solitario, last December’s Group 3 Bonecrusher winner for trainer Danica Guy, who was on-sold to Hong Kong trainer Frankie Lor.
Howl paid $82,500 for Lupo Solitario of the Book 2 draft of Rich Hill at the 2022 NZB National Yearling Sale. He is being targeted at the Hong Kong Derby.
Pride and Howl will be back at Karaka in November hoping to find another Guineas or Derby diamond at the two-year-old sale.
Hermitage’s Lady on the rise
Just as Joe Pride and Leighton Howl earmarked Ceolwulf as a quality middle-distance horse, Chris Waller and his agent Guy Mulcaster sensed Lady Shenandoah was a miler in the making from the time they picked her out at last year’s Inglis Easter sale.
And at Randwick their foresight was proven spot on when the Hermitage-owned Snitzel filly - a three-quarter sister to Hong Kong Group 1-winning sprinter and Aquis Farm sire Stronger - put her rivals to the sword in the Group 1 Flight Stakes.
Her stablemate Autumn Glow, also part-owned by Hermitage’s Eugene Chuang, was of course scratched from the race on Friday when a long odds-on favourite due to knee chips.
But that’s not to detract from the lightly raced Lady Shenandoah’s performance, a $525,000 purchase bred and sold by Arrowfield, who has made it two wins from as many starts this preparation.
“She's only had four starts, but that obviously goes to show how much ability she's demonstrated to Chris at home because he doesn't usually run them in hard races as young horses,” Mulcaster said of the filly who defeated subsequent Golden Rose-placed colt Mayfair first-up in the Group 3 Ming Dynasty.
Hermitage’s Hong Kong owner Chuang has experienced elite level success through the deeds of five-time Group 1 winner The Autumn Sun, the first order filled by Mulcaster, as well as September Run and Straight Arron.
A son of Fastnet Rock, Straight Arron won the ATC Carbine Club in Sydney for Waller and Chuang before he raced in Hong Kong for the owner, winning the Group 2 Jockey Club Cup.
“She really impressed us in the Ming Dynasty first-up over 1400m up against the boys when she put them away quite easily, which was not unexpected, but she did better than we thought she might, and she's just gone to another level now,” Hermitage manager Shannon Clarke said of Lady Shenandoah.
Lady Shenandoah’s form makes Clean Energy, the sister to Sunlight, read particularly well with the Yulong and Coolmore-owned filly having the Waller-trained filly’s measure at Warwick Farm on debut on a heavy 10 surface and then again in the Listed Bill Carter Stakes at Doomben in May when striking a Soft 6 track.
“I won't take anything away from Clean Energy, but I think Lady Shenandoah’s probably a bit better on top of the ground,” Clarke said.
“She ran super in the Listed race up there in Queensland on a soft six, but I think now that she's on top of the ground, we've seen what she can really do now.”
Hermitage’s equine interests were initially managed by Olly Koolman, but in recent years it has been experienced horsewoman Clarke who has overseen the racing and breeding portfolio.
Clarke has worked for Chuang for the past eight years, firstly as Koolman’s understudy until his departure in 2020.
Logjam at stallion farms
As colleague Bren O’Brien reported on the eve of the September 1 opening of the southern hemisphere season, Australian breeders are anecdotally limiting their exposure this year by breeding fewer of their broodmares and cutting their financial exposure to service fees and ballooning upkeep costs in the expectation that the yearling market may tighten further in 2025.
In a game with few absolutes, breeders are also taking fewer risks than in the past when it comes to stallions, so it stands to reason that the top echelon of sires - the top 20 per cent of the proven and first-season stallions - are seen as the safest bets even though they have service fees to match.
Bren O’Brien
And that can lead to a logjam for spots at this busy time of the year, five weeks into the breeding season, with mares available outweighing the slots available each day, causing them to be “bumped” and a scramble to have them served by a stallion deemed commercial.
“I think it’s happening more this year, to be honest with you,” one breeder told this column.
Snitzel to the fore near and afar
Snitzel was numerically the most successful sire across Australasia on Saturday with six winners, headed by Lady Shenandoah, but he also had Pacific Warrior win at the last Singapore meeting at Kranji.
The name might not ring a bell to most, but he was formerly known as Basquiat - the top-priced yearling at the 2021 Magic Millions sale at $1.9 million to the bid of Coolmore’s Tom Magnier.
He was the first foal out of Listed winner Bonny O’Reilly, whose third foal Lough Eske by I Am Invincible sold to Yulong for $1.3 million while Pacific Warrior’s brother by Snitzel sold for $600,000 at this year’s Easter sale to Karl Brown and Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott.
Basquiat was later sold on Inglis Digital by Coolmore for $290,000 to agent Bevan Smith who was acting for clients of premier Singapore Michael Clements until he was transferred to Daniel Meagher’s stable when Clements quit the sport in September 2023.
The Grand Singapore Gold Cup - the last race to be ever run in the Lion City - was taken out by another Australian-bred, the David Kok-trained Smart Star, a gelding by Widden’s Star Witness who was bred by Walter Power.
He was bought out of the same Inglis Digital sale as Basquiat, but for a considerably less $15,000, before being sent to Singapore to race.
Remember those details - they might be in a racing trivia quiz one day.
While Snitzel dominated on the track, it was pointed out that Darley’s Harry Angel also had a good day on the track - despite not siring a winner.
His four-year-old son Tom Kitten was runner-up in the Epsom and fellow four-year-olds Arkansaw Kid and Stretan Angel filled the placings in the Group 2 Gilgai, won by straight-track flyer Right To Party whose past four wins have all been at Flemington.
Godolphin’s three-year-old colt Tarpaulin also ran fourth in the Danehill.
