From a $1 million sale as a yearling to a $315,000 online pick-up for a leading syndicator, Caballus’ climb through the racing ranks has been anything but conventional.
Trading bloodstock has become a never-ending cycle for Sydney-based syndicator Scott Darby.
As the outlets for selling racehorses have evolved since he first went into business, so has Darby’s methodology in finding an opportunity.
Many syndicators have become more than just buyers and sellers of yearlings.
Gone are the days when their budgets were mostly spent within the window of the Australian and New Zealand sales season.
Now, there are different angles to explore and trends to follow and Darby Racing is all over most of them.
Overseas has become a consistent source for racehorses bred on staying lines and that means northern hemisphere sales are on the horizon.
In this part of the world, traders looking to turn a quick profit on last season’s yearlings will be trying to cash in during breeze-up sales.
“From the yearlings we bought this year we’re down to selling shares in the last couple of them before we head into the Europeans and the ready-to-run horses later this year,” Darby told The Straight.
But Darby will momentarily hit the pause button on his ceaseless recruitment drive when the Moir Stakes is run at Moonee Valley to watch a horse that is yet another example of how malleable the bloodstock market has become.
If Caballus can somehow overcome what Darby describes as a less-than-favourable barrier draw in the Group 1 sprint, it will rank alongside one of the smartest transactions the syndicator has ever made.
And that would be some achievement.
Darby Racing can count She Will Reign, who won the Moir in 2017, and Yankee Rose as incredibly cheap yearling purchases who found Group 1 glory on their way to high-priced sales as broodmares to Japan.
More recently, the syndicator has been making headlines with Overpass, a $75,000 yearling getting ready for a spring campaign that could easily take his earnings past $8 million.
But Caballus might be Darby’s jackpot horse. He’s not exactly a diamond in the rough. More like “one that has slipped through the cracks”, as Darby puts it.
Caballus is turning out to be an online sale success story among the thousands of horses sold each year through an avenue that has become a bona fide marketplace.
No longer is it a digital wasteland for over-the-hill discards and dreamers.
As Darby will tell you in Caballus’ case, the right amount of due diligence and homework and a bit of inside intel can take you a long way at the click of a button.
Caballus, a son of Australia’s champion sire I Am Invincible out of a stakes-placed Commands mare, made $1 million as an Easter yearling in 2022.
The fact he was purchased by Coolmore’s Tom Magnier to be trained by Chris Waller only fuelled the expectation that the colt was a quality racehorse in the making.
Alas, Caballus got lost in a search for excellence where multinational outfits such as Coolmore are trying to acquire the absolute best.
He became collateral damage in the quest for turning racehorses into stallions. Less than two years after his star turn at Easter, Caballus was listed via the Inglis Digital platform and sold to Darby for $315,000 - as a colt.
“It comes back to numbers,” Darby says.
“Studs like Coolmore have got to play the numbers game like everyone else.
“That’s where the studs are going to make the most money. Is the horse going to be the next big thing for them?
“They are looking for that horse that just jumps out of the ground, whether it’s off a high service fee to start with or a low fee.”
Caballus might yet be that horse because he still races as an entire on the recommendation of trainer Bjorn Baker who told his new owners there was no apparent reason to introduce the four-year-old to racing’s unkindest cut.
But Darby knows there is work to do before Caballus attracts the attention of a significant stud in a stallion market that is as competitive as ever.
“He’s probably one of the best-looking colts you’ll ever see. A real Adonis,” Darby said.
“But we’ve got a long way to go. I mean, look, he is a Group 3 winner and to be commercial at stud and stand a commercial fee he needs to do more than he’s done.
“He might find a stud just on what he’s done but the idea is to get the success to put him in front of the real commercial studs. That’s where the big money is.”
That plan starts in earnest on Saturday when Caballus resumes against eight rivals that include Everest contender I Wish I Win, the Blue Diamond Stakes winner Hayasugi and the Golden Slipper quinella pairing of Lady Of Camelot and Coleman.
“He’s probably one of the best-looking colts you’ll ever see. A real Adonis." - Scott Darby on Caballus
There’s also Estriella, the Ciaron Maher-trained mare identified as an elite sprinter even when Caballus had her measure in a nondescript winter juvenile race in Sydney last year.
“When he came up for sale and we were doing our research we spoke to Ciaron Maher about Estriella,” Darby said.
“Straight away he said ‘Group 1 horse’ and that was part of the main selling point for us in buying Caballus.”
