Rowe On Monday – Singapore owners filling the gap, Calliope’s big weekend, a Group 1 worth celebrating and an Everest conundrum
In this week’s Rowe On Monday, Singapore and Macau owners turn their attentions to Australian and New Zealand racing, a weekend double for a Godolphin blue hen, a cause for celebration after a Group 1 win, and a sticky question for the rest of The Everest slotholders.
The sudden loss of thoroughbred racing strongholds Singapore and Macau in the aftermath of the pandemic left a major hole in the Australasian bloodstock market, but investors from those Asian regions are returning.
The two-year-old breeze-up trade market felt the brunt of the respective governments’ decisions to abandon racing in the two regions as disillusioned owners walked away from the sport.
The Singaporean government made its call in 2023 to end thoroughbred racing, with racing stopping in October 2024, while in Macau, a financially crippled jockey club ceased operating on April 1 that same year.
Macau owners, trainers and jockeys were not even given three months’ notice that their lives would be upended.
But two years on, New Zealand Bloodstock business development manager Mike Kneebone, a familiar face in Asia for decades, says there’s renewed interest from owners in Singapore, in particular, about becoming involved in the sport again.
Instead of racing the horses at Kranji, home of the Singapore Turf Club since the late 1990s, or Taipa in Macau, they intend on having them trained in Australia and New Zealand.
“One thing that really I’m quite pleased about this year is we’ve had quite a bit of interest from Singapore (about attending the NZB Ready to Run Sale in November),” Kneebone told Rowe On Monday.
“We have continued going there ever since the racing closed because obviously there’s a lot of people there that still love their racing and I think we just needed to get them to learn more about the New Zealand racing and Australian racing.
“They are the ones that maybe are not racing horses in Malaysia and have started to look towards the southern hemisphere and I think we’ll see some results from there this year as well, which is great news.”
One Singaporean cohort could make an impact on the NZB buyers’ sheet in November.
“When we first started doing it (going to Singapore again), I think people were like, ‘oh, racing’s closed there, why would you go there?’,” Kneebone said.
“But it’s quite surprising. I’ve got one group I think of nine coming down and maybe they might buy two or three horses, I don’t know.
“They might buy more, but that’s just the revival of it that sort of excites me a little bit.”
Singaporean Eric Koh has had a portfolio of horses in Australia and New Zealand for some time, including $5.6 million filly Chayan who was purchased by Coolmore’s Tom Magnier at the Chairman’s Sale in May, and compatriot Jayven See had Steady Ready run in the Concorde Stakes behind Tempted at Randwick on Saturday.
Singapore-based Hong Kong businessman Ben Kwok has also been a major investor in the New Zealand breeding industry.
“There’s obvious ones like Benny Kwok who have got a lot of financial interests in the game in New Zealand, but I think that just going back there and seeing old clients and catching up with them – and we’ve done that a little bit in Macau as well – is going to bear fruit over the next couple of years,” Kneebone said.
Another blue hen for Godolphin
It was a good weekend for Calliope, Godolphin’s daughter of Exceed And Excel who has developed into a blue hen broodmare.
A Magic Night Stakes winner, whose barrier manners hampered her brief four-start career, Calliope’s Group 1-winning daughter Tempted surged into The Everest as the logical second favourite to Ka Ying Rising with an emphatic Concorde Stakes victory.
On Sunday Calliope’s new season three-year-old son Zambales, who is by Pinatubo, won his maiden over 1300m at Bendigo after a string of near misses at two.
Trained by Anthony and Sam Freedman, the Group 2-placed and Group 1-performed Zambales sat outside the leader to narrowly score in what is almost certain to prove a fertile form race in the coming weeks.
Calliope, who is also the dam of Group 2 winner Kallos, has a yearling filly by Anamoe, making her a three-quarter sister to the Ciaron Maher-trained Tempted.
Outside Team Godolphin, Fernrigg Farm will also be cheering, having bought Calliope’s second foal, the unraced The Muses, for $160,000 at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale in 2024.
Her first foal, a filly by Pinatubo, brought $200,000 at this year’s Inglis Easter Yearling Sale.
A liquid lunch for My Gladiola
When My Gladiola won the Group 1 Moir Stakes – a deserving victory after two Group 1 seconds to star colt Tentyris at three – at Sandown on Saturday, a thought about the celebrations crossed this journalist’s mind.
The mare’s trainer John McArdle likes a good time and for a stable that operates at a relatively small scale and punches well above its weight, it was almost certain connections would not let the opportunity to toast the Group 1 slip.
So, on Monday morning we checked in with McArdle’s ‘twin’ Shane Nichols, himself a Group 1-winning trainer, to see how it unfolded.
McArdle, we were told, “was in good shape” on Sunday morning but Nichols was a notable absentee at the Royal Hotel in Mornington that afternoon due to Father’s Day commitments.
Early on Monday, Nichols is already proposing “a liquid lunch” in honour of My Gladiola’s Moir success.
Who will put their hand up to run in The Everest?
If The Everest was a thing during Black Caviar’s career in the early 2010s, it might not have got off the ground or gained the support from slotholders that it has.
As the build up to the 10th running of The Everest nears full swing, Ka Ying Rising’s track record-breaking first-up performance at Sha Tin on Sunday has seen his price shorten to $1.40 to make it back-to-back wins in the race.
The Australian Turf Club won’t be disappointed, having leased its slot to the Hong Kong Jockey Club on an initial two-year basis, with Ka Ying Rising’s certain reappearance no doubt helping record early ticket sales for Randwick on October 17.
But what about the remaining 11 slotholders?
Fairway Thoroughbreds’ John Camilleri signed up Ninja, a sprinter he bred, in a deal with microsyndicator MyRacehorse’s Ben Willis whose colours are worn by the Farnan four-year-old gelding.
Regardless of the result, it will be a big marketing win for MyRacehorse.
Godolphin has Tempted and Coolmore has Guest House (or a filly like Chayan, perhaps) while Tabcorp, who won The Everest two years ago with Bella Nipotina, could also justify the $700,000 slot fee through its marketing budget.
However, for the likes of James Harron Bloodstock and auction house Inglis there has to be some rational return on the money they have put up.
Will owners of Australia’s best sprinters come to the negotiating table knowing they are running for perhaps third and need to split it with a slotholder when they could target other races and get the lot?
There was always going to be a year when The Everest slot holders faced this conundrum.
Reflecting back on Sunday, meanwhile, Ka Ying Rising ran 1:06.11 seconds for the 1200m. The Sha Tin surface was playing extremely fast, with three other class records broken on the day, but it goes without saying that Ka Ying Rising is lightning quick.
How the speed figure and ratings gurus put a number on the performance given the fast times on the 10-race card will be of interest, at least to me anyway.
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