Wings of destiny – Oaks filly 40 years in the making for Taits

“It’s a good question,” says Olly Tait, considering if it was ever his destiny to breed horses up to the Tait family name. Horses like Baguette, Tie The Knot and Zanbagh.

At his Twin Hills Stud in regional Cootamundra, Tait horses make up almost nothing of the farm’s commercial operation, but they’re hard to ignore when they continue to light up Australian racing.

Like the filly, Wings Of Song, who will race at Morphettville this weekend in the Australasian Oaks after six wins on the bounce. Like her half-brother before her, Cherry Tortoni, and others like Wild Iris, Spinning Hill, Dark Jewel. This is a human family that has been breeding classic horses for nearly a century.

“But what we do in future generations with these good pedigrees we have, I’m really not sure,” Tait says. “It’s not something that’s really been discussed.”

Tait is the third generation of his Hall of Fame family, Hall of Fame because in 2014 the Taits were inducted for decades of breeding brilliance. And it hasn’t been a numbers game. They keep less than 10 mares, all of the progeny retained for the family’s red silks with the white hat.

“There used to be a lot of owner-breeders out there, people who just bred to race in the way that my father and my aunt do, but there aren’t that many of them anymore,” Tait says. “And in their favour, they’ve had three exceptional families.”

Tait’s father is Sandy Tait, his aunt Jill Nivison, and the three families he mentions have changed the breed in Australia.

The first is the Dark Jewel line, which produced Baguette, Heirloom, and so on, while the second is the Fiancée line, which produced the Oaks winner Wild Iris and her daughter Zanbagh. 

The third family is the talk of the town this weekend; the Whisked line which got Tie The Knot in 1994, the mare Tortoni in 2009 and Saturday’s Australasian Oaks contender Wings Of Song.

Three-year-old Wings Of Song is trained by Patrick Payne in country Victoria. She is a last-start Group 3 winner of the Auraria Stakes and she dominated the Tasmania summer, culminating in the 2100-metre Tasmanian Oaks in late February.

The beginning of this family for the Taits goes right back to Baguette in 1975 when he sired the mare Not Enough. That mare in 1981 foaled That Is A Shame, who was so-called when she lost an eye as a foal, and That Is A Shame produced two stakes winners at stud, namely Whisked by Whiskey Road.

Whisked got three stakes winners of her own after winning the Thousand Guineas, Tea Rose Stakes and the Light Fingers through the early 1990s, and one of her foals was Tie The Knot. Another was the Strategic mare Tortoni, dam of Cherry Tortoni and Wings Of Song.

It’s hard to keep track of the rosettes in this family. They go back over 40 years.

“My grandparents raced Baguette, and my father would always say when Tie The Knot was at his peak that it was Baguette that had put the speed into him,” Tait says. “I mean, Baguette was a Golden Slipper winner and a champion two-year-old, and he’s really played his part in this family.”

Baguette is overlooked as an Australian champion, largely because he occurred at the same time as Gunsynd. Trained by Fil Allotta for the Tait family, the walnut-coated stallion retired in 1972 as the greatest Australian-bred stakes winner by earnings, with only Tulloch ahead of him on the all-time earnings list.

As a breed shaper for the Taits, Baguette would be without peer except for him sharing the title with Dark Jewel, Fiancée and Whisked. Wings Of Song this weekend is the fourth generation of stakes winners from her line alone.

“Whenever you breed a good racehorse, it’s exciting. Having a favourite for a Group One is also exciting, and having bred many generations of the family means that it’s all been part of our family for a long time,” Tait says. “We’ve all been there for the whole journey.

“My father and aunt bred and raced Tie The Knot, and my grandfather bred and raced Whisked. They bred That Is A Shame and they bred Not Enough (by Baguette). Before that, you start to test me.”

Tait rattles off the family like other people rattle off times tables. 

“It’s my job,” he says, like it’s nothing extraordinary.

“But remember that these families have been part of my life my whole life. My father was a sheep and cattle farmer, but racing is his huge passion and racing was literally talked about at every meal my whole life. Sitting around the table, it was every meal.”

Tait, his brother and his cousins, they’re all the same. The fire in their bellies was lit when they were young, helped along by the extraordinary success of what was only ever a handful of horses. 

“Whenever you breed a good racehorse, it’s exciting. Having a favourite for a Group One is also exciting, and having bred many generations of the family means that it’s all been part of our family for a long time. We’ve all been there for the whole journey” – Olly Tait

Today, those few horses are all at Twin Hills Stud, including the 14-year-old Tortoni in foal to Coolmore’s Churchill. Her union with Mendelssohn in 2019 resulted in Wings Of Song.

Sandy Tait and Jill Nivison haven’t ever shied away from using the less-proven shuttle stallions that visit in Australia, and they’ve been rewarded for that. Zanbagh, twice a winner of the Emancipation Stakes some years ago, was by Bernardini, while Whisked visited Shamardal, Carnegie and Street Cry. It was Nassipour that sired Tie The Knot.

“Dad’s theory is that for the equivalent Australian-performed horse, you’re paying double the price,” Tait says. “So it’s good value going to the shuttlers, and if you look at the resumés, Mendelssohn was a Group One-winning two-year-old.

“He won the UAE Derby by something like 20 lengths and is by Scat Daddy out of Leslie’s Lady, who is arguably the best mare in the world (as the dam of Into Mischief and Beholder).

“But Dad is also breeding to race, remember, and if you race them yourself, you’re in control of everything. You can do matings without the commercial market in mind. 

Victorian visitor Wings of Song is far too good in the @ladbrokescomau Tasmanian Guineas after a great ride by @JyeMcNeil.

Another Tasmanian feature for trainer Patrick Payne! pic.twitter.com/oO6V9hIKTq

— Tasracing Australia (@TasracingAus) January 5, 2024

“Mendelssohn came to Australia and he wasn’t a particularly popular stallion but it didn’t matter because the colt or filly from that mating wasn’t going to be sold.”

This is the upside of a 40-year-old, deeply proven family. Another is that the stallion influences over the decade have progressed this Whisked family from its Baguette speed to an Oaks-distance filly like Wings Of Song.

Tait says that Whiskey Road played his part here, a stallion that was able to sire the Derby-winning Strawberry Road, while Whisked herself was a Guineas winner over a mile. 

There were initially questions about whether Wings Of Song would stay, given that she is from a Strategic mare (Tortoni), but those were answered when the filly won the Tasmanian Oaks over 2100 metres.

“She’s got a great chance this weekend,” Tait says. “This filly, she wins, and she’s won six in a row now which is very hard to do, plus her win in the Auraria Stakes a few weeks ago was very impressive. 

“She’s barely ever run a bad race and I think she’s got a fantastic chance.”