Iconic Kiwi stud The Oaks has hit the market as owner Dick Karreman celebrates another Group 1 win, while Qatar Racing’s David Redvers talks up with another stallion investment and a former Singapore trainer embarks on a new era.
The Oaks on the market
Queenslander Dick Karreman has raced a host of top-class horses over the years.
There’s been champion mare Seachange - a dominant force in New Zealand racing in the mid-2000s and who is notably the second dam of Coolmore’s colt Storm Boy - and there’s been Recite, Artistic, Risque, Devise, Keepa Cruisin and Catalyst, just to name a few, all of whom have won elite races for The Oaks Stud owner.
But Karreman’s latest racetrack star, Saturday’s New Zealand 2000 Guineas winner Savaglee, also holds special significance for the businessman who largely avoids the media and is rarely seen, either at the races or at Karaka where his prominent nursery The Oaks Stud is a vendor at the annual New Zealand Bloodstock National Yearling Sale.
As usual, Karreman wasn’t at Riccarton to watch the Pam Gerard-trained colt in action on Saturday. He prefers to leave that to The Oaks Stud’s general manager Rick Williams, the man who selected the colt from the Waikato Stud for $400,000 at last year’s Karaka sale in the hope of turning him into a stallion.
Coming five years after Karreman’s brilliant but injury plagued gelding Catalyst won the 2000 Guineas, the emergence of Savaglee coincides with changes that are in the air at The Oaks Stud.
The billionaire businessman has quietly listed for sale his 202-hectare The Oaks Stud, a valuable piece of land that is located on the edge of Cambridge, which he has owned since 2002.
“He (Karreman) has got a family situation that he has to sort out, and that's why it's part of a super fund, and the land is owned by the super fund, but there's a number of plans we've got going on between us at the moment,” Williams told The Straight.
“But it’s very satisfying, obviously. He wanted me to buy a colt, and I got lucky, but he was thrilled.
“He didn't come over, unfortunately, but obviously, when you get a classic winner of any sort, you're rapt and he's come through the race really well.”
Williams will consult form analysts and ratings gurus to help him, Karreman and Gerard determine exactly where to head next preparation with Savaglee.
Enhancing the colt’s value as a stallion prospect is high on the agenda.
The inaugural NZB The Kiwi at Ellerslie on March 8 could be a possibility but the lure of the Group 1 status attached to the Australian Guineas at Flemington a week earlier may be too hard to ignore.
“He ran the third fastest Guineas of all time (1:33.86 seconds), so you could say, ‘well, how good were they, the ones he beat?’” Williams says.
“We'll find out as these horses race on, but you can only win, and when you win in a good time, you've got to start looking at other options.
“Obviously, he's worth a certain value, because it’s New Zealand Group 1 and a Classic Group 1, but he's worth a hell of a lot more for them to get one in Aussie, so we'll see.”
For Williams, it’s business as usual at The Oaks Stud with about 30 yearlings likely to be offered at Karaka next January under the farm’s distinguished banner despite a possible sale of the farm hanging over them.
“The property market is pretty quiet at the moment, so it's no surprise (about a lack of interest). It's a difficult time to be selling,” Williams said.
“But I'm not surprised with that, and Dick isn't worried. He certainly doesn't need the money. He's got plenty of assets.
“It's just a matter of which ones you sell off to square things up with his family. He's got plenty of plan Bs and Cs.”
Qatari tycoon Sheikh Fahad backs Widden stallion prospect
Southport Tycoon’s jockey will wear Qatar Racing’s distinctive claret and gold silks for the first time at Caulfield on Saturday when the stallion prospect runs in the Sir Rupert Clarke in an attempt to add a third Group 1 victory to his CV.
Sheikh Fahad Al Thani’s Qatar Racing, along with Widden, completed a buyout of the Bennett Racing-owned Australian Guineas and Manikato Stakes-winning son of Written Tycoon prior to the Golden Eagle, in which he finished ninth, just 3.2 lengths behind international winner Lake Forest, after coming from last at the 800m mark.
Trainer Ciaron Maher has already transferred the four-year-old to his Cranbourne stable ahead of the stallion’s final run for the spring in the Sir Rupert Clarke.
Sheikh Fahad’s latest investment in Australian stallions continues Qatar’s close association with Widden’s Antony Thompson, having previously had his colours on Zoustar, Zousain and Jacquinot, all of which reside at stud in the Hunter Valley.
Thompson has forged a long and successful relationship with Tweenhills and Qatar Racing manager David Redvers and Sheikh Fahad and he’s thrilled that Qatar Racing has bought into Southport Tycoon.
“We've had a position (since the autumn) and we've just increased the position. Some of the owners wanted to stay in and some were happy to get out,” Thompson confirmed.
“We've increased our stake and he'll be in the Qatar colours going forward.
“We're lucky to have very good friends in David Redvers and Hannah Wall, Sheikh Fahad and the team. They've been great supporters.”
Sheikh Fahad and Redvers were among the more than 91,000 racegoers at Flemington on Melbourne Cup day, flying directly from the Breeders’ Cup in the US to be in Australia in time for the cup having witnessed the northern hemisphere-bred Zoustar colt Starlust win the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint for trainer Ralph Beckett 48 hours earlier.
Redvers believes Southport’s pedigree and race performance makes him a highly commercial stallion prospect ideal for Qatar’s bloodstock portfolio.
“Whatever else the horse does on the track is a bonus as he's a dual Group 1 winner already,” Redvers told The Straight.
“He's clearly got the profile of an exciting horse to go to stud. We obviously hope that the colours can be carried to glory between now and when he does head off to Widden Valley.
“But he's very much been bought as a stallion, and it's exciting to be involved with it.”
Sheikh Fahad has reduced his investment in European racing, scaling back the number of yearlings he’s buying in England, Ireland and France because of the declining return on investment through prize money offered in those jurisdictions.
That’s polar opposite to what owners can realise in Australia where, Redvers says, Qatar Racing’s investment in the industry Down Under for more than a decade has been profitable.
Zoustar has contributed a significant amount to that positive balance sheet as his popularity and commercial appeal continues to grow to a career-high $275,000 fee this year.
Sheikh Fahad and his brothers also have racing and breeding interests in the United States and Japan as well as maintaining a racing team in Europe, predominantly fillies.
“He's very much got a global operation, we've got horses in training in Japan, America, France, England and Australia, obviously,” Redvers said.
“And Australian racing proves profitable for us because the prize money is so good. There's some lovely people here and some great bloodstock, so he really enjoys the relationship with Ciaron Maher, for example, and we've also got plenty of (shares in) horses with Chris Waller.”
Another promising horse sporting the Qatar Racing silks is the Team Hawkes-trained two-year-old colt West Of Swindon, runner-up in Saturday’s $1 million Golden Gift at Rosehill at his first start.
From the first southern hemisphere crop of Coolmore’s Wootton Bassett, the Qatar-bred West Of Swindon was bought by his trainers for $350,000 at the Gold Coast last January with Sheikh Fahad retaining a share.
Redvers, who runs his Tweenhills Stud at Gloucestershire in the UK, is a regular visitor to Australia as well as the US, allowing him to provide a global perspective on the industry.
He says even with his unique insight and experience, what occurred at last month’s Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, turbo-charged by Amo Racing, caught everyone by surprise.
“But what we've seen time and again is that the yearling market, the top end of the bloodstock market, is completely immune to all of the world's (commodity) markets and the other stresses and strains that mere mortals are put under with interest rates and taxation and what have you,” he says.
“It just seems to get stronger and stronger, because those people that are super wealthy that are playing at that end of the market are pretty recession-proof.
“And it's a wonderful thing if you're lucky enough to be involved with stock at that level, but it's not quite so pretty at the other end.”
Bright start for Grays
Accomplished trainer Stephen Gray turned 60 on Saturday. On Sunday, he and his father Kevin, 87, celebrated their first winner back in partnership after Stephen and his wife Bridget ended their 25-year career training in Singapore.
They have trained the winners of bigger races, individually and together, but Sunday’s victory by Idyllic at Tauherenikau in New Zealand’s North Island was an important milestone.
There’s no doubt that Stephen and Bridget bear some emotional scars caused by the brutal demise of racing in Singapore, so much so they departed Kranji in April rather than staying until the final meeting in October.
“I still have good ambitions to achieve (big-race results) and I have a fantastic farm and training centre here at Copper Belt Lodge (at Palmerston North),” Stephen Gray, who has also invested in a carwash business back home in New Zealand, told The Straight.
“We are slowly getting over Singapore, but I now realise it was always going to close as they didn't want it and didn't want to fix it.”
The Grays’ six-year-old mare Idyllic hadn’t raced since May but she came into her first-up run on the back of two Foxton barrier trial wins. She has now won four of her 16 starts.
Fellow Kiwi trainer Donna Logan is setting up her training base at Byerley Park near Auckland after training in Singapore since 2017.
