A crucial decision in mid-2023 not to retire Bella Nipotina has already yielded her owners an additional $7 million in prize money, and they are now eyeing the richest prize in Australian racing, The Everest, after she was snapped up by slotholder TAB for this year’s edition.
Managing owner and the iron mare’s breeder Michael Christian revealed how close he and his fellow connections had come to retiring Bella Nipotina after a slightly underwhelming campaign in the autumn of 2023.
Speaking on the Wednesday Debate on Giddy Up with Gareth Hall on SENTrack, Christian said it was a touch-and-go decision whether to send Bella Nipotina to the breeding barn or press on, with trainer Ciaron Maher proving key to the decision to continue with her racing career.
“It was probably June last year, we sat down. She ran the super race in The Quokka. Then we brought her back and she raced in the Sangster,” he said.
“There was a discussion with the ownership group then about what do we do and consultation, of course, with Ciaron and his team. And the decision was made, ‘well, let's press on and see. She's running well enough and she's sound enough not to necessarily retire her’.”
At that point of her career, the daughter of Coolmore’s Pride Of Dubai had raced 38 times for six wins and earned just short of $4 million.
Since that decision, she has raced 15 times for three wins and seven placings, including wins in the Group 1 Tatts Tiara and the Doomben 10,000. She has earned over $7 million in the past 13 months.
With the mare in career-best form at the start of her seven-year-old season, there was no need for a similar discussion ahead of the current racing year.
Having spurned slot holders' advances for the last two editions of The Everest, preferring instead to successfully target the Manikato Stakes in 2022 and the Giga Kick Stakes last year, Christian and his fellow owners will get their chance in the $20 million race.
A deal was done with TAB this week which has secured Bella Nipotina a spot in the race on October 19 at Randwick after her first-up second in the Concorde Stakes. She will be Maher’s first runner in the race.
“We had two slotholder approaches before the Concorde, and in discussions with those slot holders, we decided that we would wait to see, just for everyone's comfort, ours as well as theirs, to run in the Concorde and just to tick off that,” Christian said.
“I mean, we had no doubt she was going to come back and run the way she did, but it was good for all to see that. Her sectionals in the Concorde were just blistering, then we had another couple of slot holders approach us after the Concorde.
“So we're dealing with four slot holders and look, cutting and dicing and … we're dealing with them for probably three or four weeks. And the TAB were the first to come to us to identify whether that's something that we would think of.
“And it's been a pleasure to deal with Brett Boyd (Tabcorp - Head of Partnerships) and, in the end, we thought this was the best way to go. TAB is an independent slot holder and there's not too many independent slot holders in The Everest.”
"TAB is an independent slot holder and there's not too many independent slot holders in The Everest."
Michael Christian
A month out from the race, TAB are the third slot holder to lock away a runner, joining Trackside Media (I Wish I Win) and the Max Whitby group (Bustling).
Christian said the thought of buying a slot for themselves from one of the other slot holders had crossed the ownership group’s mind, but that the deal with TAB was a much less risky strategy.
“That was certainly something we considered really hard. The only risk with that is that if for some reason Bella didn't come up or there was a problem, we would be stuck with a slot with no horse and then clambering ourselves to try and find a horse,” Christian said.
“So, that was certainly a consideration, but in the end, we didn't want to go into the race with it potentially costing us $300,000 or $400,000. So, we thought, ‘look, the deal from TAB is a great deal’. So we're very happy to run with that.”
Having proven herself an iron horse with a six-year-old campaign that took in 15 starts across four states, Bella Nipotina’s retirement seems the furthest thing from the mind of Christian and his fellow owners.
But when that happens, there is a good chance she will end up in the broodmare barn of his Longwood Thoroughbred operation in Victoria.
“When Ciaron says that's enough, we can make some decisions about what the future looks like. We've been very fortunate,” Christian said.
“We bought her granddam (Bella Inez) as a yearling and then bred her mother and we've bred others in the family that have been very successful, like Hallowell Belle, who's a Group 2 winner and five-time Group 1 placed, and Fuddle Dee Duddle, who's a multiple stakes winner who's produced Brereton who's a stakes winner.
“One of our strategies is to try and build families in terms of breeding families and that's what we've been able to do with this family.”
Bella Nipotina’s dam, Bella Orfana, died earlier this year after a battle with a rare cancer, but Christian is pinning his hopes on a yearling half-sister to his triple Group 1 winner.
“We do have her younger half-sister by Trapeze Artist, who's just a yearling. So, we'll retain her to race and try and carry on the legacy,” he said.
