NEW season racing signals the return of gallopers vying for spring riches in Sydney and Melbourne, and initial events include The Rosebud, a Listed feature 1100 metres dash at Rosehill, contested by previous season's top-grade youngsters.
This year, Anders (by Not A Single Doubt) brilliantly won the race from Ole Kirk with both colts now likely to be stud bound.
Dawn Approach male, Dawn Passage won The Rosebud last year, while Sandbar in 2018, Menari 2017, Thronum 2016, and Sebring Sun in 2015, the latter three now at stud.
While Menari (at Newgate Farm, Aberdeen) and Thronum (Sun Stud, Victoria) are well-known with breeders, Sebring Sun retired quietly to stand at the Ruttley family's Glenthorne Park near Taree.
By Written Tycoon, Ole Kirk went onto win the Group 1 $1 million ATC Golden Rose at Rosehill last Saturday week, also an event that Sebring Sun raced and placed. His Warwick Farm trainer Garry Portelli plotted Sebring Sun's career around Sydney's best races, after initially winning his final race start as a two-year-old.
Following his brilliant first up win as a three-year-old in The Rosebud, Sebring Sun franked his ability finishing third in the Golden Rose to Group 1 winners Exosphere and Speak Fondly, with another Group winner Rageese in fourth. The first and fourth horses of that race are also young sires, the latter horse in New Zealand. A liver chestnut stallion, Sebring Sun raced into his four-year-old season earning more black type placings and finished with $320,000.
As his name suggests, Sebring Sun is by deceased Golden Slipper winner Sebring, also sire of stud sons including Australian Horse Of The Year Dissident, $7.2m earner Criterion, Widden Stud's third seasoner Supido, and Spendthrift Farm's youngster Gold Standard.
Enthaar real deal
THE impressive win by Enthaar in Sydney's first two-year-old race of the season - the ATC Keeneland Gimcrack Stakes-G3 at Randwick last Saturday, has thrusted the filly to the top of early betting charts for next year's prestigious Golden Slipper Stakes.
A home-bred filly for Emirates Park, Enthaar continues the great stakes winning run for her sire Written Tycoon, which this year moved to stand at Arrowfield Stud, Scone.
The filly ran away from Mallory (by Not A Single Doubt) and I Am Invincible's Total Babe, a $300,000 graduate from this year's Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
Arrowfield was also the southern hemisphere home to its young shuttle horse Shalaa, sire of Shaquero, which won the ATC Breeders Plate-G3 the juvenile colts and geldings division also on the program.
Bred by Bob Hannon of Ascot Park at Pitt Town in the Hawkesbury Valley, Shaquero was a $160,000 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale graduate. Enthaar defeated Construct, a colt by I Am Invincible, whose GB bred champion sire Invincible Spirit, is also sire of the Irish bred Shalaa.
Third placed in the same race was Astrolodger, a bay colt belonging to the first crop by flashy chestnut Star Turn, a Star Witness stallion which stands at Vinery Stud, Scone.
Vale Bruce Martin
LIVING most of his life in the Upper Hunter Valley, news filtered through of the recent passing of Bruce Martin at 90 years at Terrigal on the Central Coast.
He was among enthusiasts that made use of a small number of mares, when breeding at "Glenhaven" on the Gundy Road, near Scone, (with wife Lilian and son Eddie), until they sold - in the late 1990s, to the Harris family which now operates as Holbrook Thoroughbreds.
I recall one of his home-bred horses, Laudham Star, a Baguette stallion he stood at Glenhaven and which sired a host of winners.
During earlier times, Mr Martin bred stakes winners Todstream (by Todman) and Cantabrian, a Biscay stallion which later sired four stakes winners in Western Australia. Mr Martin's other livestock exploits included managing F K Mackay's Poll Hereford Stud at "Mullee" on the edge of Scone.
Cup snippet
IT was interesting to read that this year's Melbourne Cup has the highest number of first acceptances, at 94 (up from 80 last year) than in the previous 10 years. While there are 82 locally-trained gallopers, Covid-19 affected the international nominees at 12 ( about 16 usually).