In today's Rowe On Monday, Tim Rowe delves into the genesis of Zhang Yuesheng's Australian rise, explains why Kingstar Farm is a hidden gem for breeders and recaps further insights from former Racing Queensland boss Jason Scott.
Street-wise Donohue unearthed Keeneland Treasure for Zhang
Just as Winx was making her way towards equine greatness, and on the path to her second of four Cox Plates, Yulong founder Zhang Yuesheng was on the other side of the world looking for horses by her sire Street Cry.
BBA Ireland agent Michael Donohue, then helping what was a fledgling Yulong, certainly in comparison to what it is today, was dispatched to America for the 2016 Keeneland September Yearling Sale with the progeny of Street Cry high up on Zhang's wish list.
Donohue signed for three northern hemisphere-bred Street Crys in Kentucky during that sale on behalf of Zhang, and only now is the investment really starting to pay off.
One was Yulong Warrior, a Group 3 Al Bastakiya Stakes winner at Meydan in 2018, another was injured after just one start and the other won a maiden at Presque Isle Downs in Pennsylvania at her ninth and final race start for trainer Graham Motion.
That filly was Draconic Treasure, a US$320,000 purchase by Donohue and Zhang who, although failing to reach any great heights on the racetrack, has left her mark as a broodmare which was cruelly cut short after just three foals.
Draconic Treasure is the dam of Saturday’s Memsie Stakes winner Treasurethe Moment, the Yulong homebred who could be on a Cox Plate trajectory just as Winx was as a four-year-old mare a decade ago.
Donohue, who stepped back from his role with Yulong two years ago, was up early in Ireland on Saturday to take in some of the feature Australian racing and witnessed the country’s champion three-year-old Treasurethe Moment’s dominant first-up performance, an effort which left trainer Matt Laurie, quietly spoken at the best of times, almost speechless.
The Irish bloodstock agent remembers buying Draconic Treasure at the world’s biggest annual yearling sale nine years ago.
“I suppose, as good a sire as he was, he probably wasn't as appreciated then as he is now,” Donohue told this column of Street Cry’s appeal in 2016.
“He was just beginning to be appreciated worldwide as a sire and … he was really starting to prove himself as a broodmare sire back then as well, so that was the idea, to try and secure a couple.
“(Draconic Treasure) was no great star (on the racetrack), but she turned into a lovely big good-looking typical Street Cry mare.”
Donohue has witnessed Yulong’s phenomenal rise up the ranks into a true global thoroughbred powerhouse from close quarters, assisting Zhang in buying horses for him from about 2010 when he visited Ireland.
It was two to three years before Zhang attended the 2013 Melbourne Cup carnival as a guest of Inglis, which sparked his initial investment in the Australian thoroughbred industry.
TREASURETHE MOMENT ⭐
— 7HorseRacing 🐎 (@7horseracing) August 30, 2025
Nine in a row for this emerging star! She steps into open company and toys with them in the Memsie🤯 pic.twitter.com/wLLvrAD8q5
“Actually, the first horse that I ever bought him, would you believe, was an eventing horse. They are strongly involved in sport horses and I bought him an eventing horse that he sent out to China,” Donohue recalls.
“But pretty soon after I met him, I realised that he had big plans and big aspirations. He’s a remarkable man, and it’s remarkable what he's achieved.
“Back then I did have the inkling that this gentleman was a different type of a businessman, just the way he was quite calculated in everything that he did, everywhere he went he was taking these mental notes.
“Like all these great businessmen, he's probably a modern-day genius when it comes to putting his mind to something (and achieving it).”
As for Treasurethe Moment’s immediate family, her oldest half-sister Kind Treasure, by Frankel, was retired to stud, unraced by Yulong. She has a yearling filly by Grunt and she was covered by Alabama Express last October.
Her only other half-sister is Mohoko Takeo, a mare by Grunt who won two races for trainer Adam Trinder in Tasmania. She has been retired but has not yet been to stud.
Treasurethe Moment’s fourth dam Market Slide produced Melbourne Cup winner Media Puzzle and four-time European Group 1 winner Refuse To Bend.
Kingstar a fertile hunting ground
Breeders could do worse than looking at Kingstar Farm draft of broodmares each time owner Matthew Sandblom makes way for new stock by selling horses either online or at live auctions.
Kingstar sold Miss Loren in 2020 for $30,000 - in foal to Capitalist - to Mullaglass Stud’s Dr Richard McClenahan at the Inglis Australian Broodmare Sale. The resulting foal, a colt by Capitalist, was sold by McClenahan for $110,000 as a yearling.
Miss Loren, still in the Mullaglass broodmare band, is also the dam of Saturday’s Group 3 San Domenico Stakes winner Raging Force, a Darby Racing-owned $150,000 Cosmic Force gelding for trainer Peter Snowden.
In years past, Sandblom also sold Chateau Griffo, a stakes-placed Sebring mare, to Widden Stud, while she was also in foal to Capitalist.
Chateau Griffo subsequently produced Group 1 Caulfield Guineas winner Griff, a colt by Trapeze Artist.
On the racing front, Sandblom of course sold Golden Slipper-winning colt Stay Inside (for $60,000) as a weanling, only to buy him back for many, many multiples of that through his shareholding in Newgate Farm after the colt launched what would be a career-defining two-year-old season.
Jason Scott forthright as usual
Jason Scott, the wagering figure who spent two years in racing administration as chief executive of Racing Queensland, was not shy in sharing his opinions in the Straight Talk podcast last week.
He may have got some people offside with his views on the Pattern, believing the importance of black-type is overstated, but Scott has broad shoulders.
Scott argues that racing must remain on the front foot in the management of horse welfare and a range of other issues, particularly in terms of keeping governments on side.
His comments come as the Queensland government is handed a review into the state’s three codes, which could reshape how the sport is managed depending on the recommendations that are made in the report by the Queensland Racing Review committee.
The committee is chaired by Matthew McGrath, the former chair of the Australian Turf Club.
“Well, 100 per cent of our revenue in Queensland comes from wagering, either from the point of consumption tax or from the race field fees. So if you have someone in there (as RQ CEO) who doesn't understand how to maximise your revenue, you're already starting one place behind the other,” Scott says.
“Now, I understand the feedback, but that feedback is usually from people who have been used to running inefficient models. And I had it all the time.
“‘We've got a right to race’. No one's got a right to race. We don't even have a right to race as an industry. We've got to keep earning that social licence. We've got to keep showing improvement.
“We've come a really long way in the last 10 or 20 years in terms of safety, in terms of aftercare for horses, in terms of how we're managing injuries. And we've got to continue to do that or we won't have an industry. We've just seen a tiny little bit of that with greyhounds in Tasmania.”
Scott hopes the five mainland states “don’t get into some sort of MeToo position and listen to the activists”.
“Because once greyhounds are finished, it'll start on harness, and then they'll move to thoroughbreds. I copped a lot of flack for saying it in a meeting with country racing people, that I think there's a chance racing's not here in 35 or 40 years,” he says.
“And if it's handled incorrectly, it won't be.”
