Run The Numbers – Eight Northerlys – Bob Peters’ extraordinary WA domination

Leviathan WA owner Bob Peters has now won more editions of the Northerly Stakes than Lloyd Williams has Melbourne Cups.

Cosmic Crusader‘s success on Saturday was Peters’ eighth win in Western Australia’s Group 1 weight-for-age race, which has had three different names since he first won it with Old Nick in 1998.

Old Comrade, an old sparring partner of the horse which the race would be eventually named after in Northerly, won it twice in 2001 and 2002 when it was still known and the Fruit ‘N’ Veg Stakes.

Perfect Reflection and Arcadia Queen followed suit in 2015 and 2018, the latter the first leg of a run of three Peters’ wins in four years in what was then known as the Kingston Town Classic, with Truly Great victorious in 2020 and Regal Power in 2021.

Peters’ successes have come with four different trainers, Greg Harper (Old Nick), Lindsey Smith (Old Comrade). Grant (and Alana) Williams (Perfect Reflection, Arcadia Queen, Truly Great and Regal Power) and now Michael Grantham (Cosmic Crusader).

And as for jockeys, William Pike rode Arcadia Queen and Perfect Reflection, Paul Harvey the two victories on Old Comrade, Peter Knuckey on Old Nick, Chris Parnham on Truly Great, Patrick Carbery on Regal Power and most recently Clint Jonhson Porter on Saturday.

Four of the eight wins were from three-year-olds, one was a four-year-old, two five-year-olds and a six-year-old.  

What makes Peters’ achievement even more extraordinary is that he bred all seven individual winners of the race as well as racing them in his iconic cerise and white colours.

What started out as his own breeding operation in Western Australia in the early 1990s has evolved into a national, and international, breeding and bloodstock arm.

That path is reflected in the sires of his Northerly Stakes winners.

His first two winners were both by Old Spice, who he stood at stud in WA. But the more recent victories have come from stallions based in the Hunter Valley. Arcadia Queen and Regal Power were both by Pierro, Perfect Reflection by More Than Ready, Truly Great by Dundeel and Cosmic Crusader by Maurice.

Cosmic Crusader was foaled in New Zealand, as her dam Cosmic Storm was sent across the Tasman to visit Charm Spirit. She only made that trip because Maurice, who she has visited the other seven times she has been to stud, was confined to Japan in 2020 because of the pandemic.

He is the first Northerly winner to be foaled in New Zealand since Summer Beau, who won the race back-to-back in 1996 and 1997.

Intriguingly though, he is from a female line where his previous 19 dams were all born in Australia.

Bob Peters’ Northerly Stakes winners

It is an original colonial family which harks back to a mare called Betty, who was foaled in 1818 at Home Bush Stud near Parramatta, one of Australia’s first horse studs started by D’Arcy Wentworth, and now, as the name would indicate, on the site where the 2000 Sydney Olympics were held.

Across the last 207 years, Betty’s descendants have won over 100 stakes races, according to Thoroughbred Heritage, including 1877 Melbourne Cup winner, The Assyrian.

More recent stars from this C-10 family include La Volta, Willoughby, Mighty Boss, Rodin and another of Peters’ Group 1 winners, Superstorm, who is a half-brother to Cosmic Crusader’s dam, Cosmic Storm.

Their dam, Stormy Nova was by Metal Storm, the Mungrup Stud-based, imported French stallion which Peters used to great effect in his pedigrees. He features in the pedigree of Peters’ Winterbottom Stakes winner Graceful Girl as well as Arcadia Queen and Regal Power.   

It is a testament to Peters’ vision that he chose a family who had been in Australia for over 200 years to cross with a stallion who first came to Australia in 2017.

Maurice now has seven global Group 1 winners, three in Australia and four in Japan, with his most recent in Australia before Saturday coming in 2022. In that autumn, Hitotsu, who now stands alongside his sire at Arrowfield, won both the Australian Guineas and Australian Derby, while Mazu won the Doomben 10,000.

Of his 11 stakes winners in Australia, 10 are from the crops before he took that break from shuttling in 2020 due to the pandemic. However, the crop from when he returned in 2021 is only now three, with plenty of upside to come.

With three Group 1 winners to his name, he trails only the legendary Deep Impact, who has five, in terms of Japanese-bred stallions with elite winners in Australia.

Maurice progeny stats: