Sheikh Mohammed was wise enough not to publish a list of ambitions when he expanded his involvement in Australian racing and breeding by buying the Woodlands Stud empire from the Ingham family in 2008. Had he done so, however, it is likely that the Golden Slipper would have featured prominently on the document.
Two-year-old racing fills only a relatively small part of Australia’s racing programme; but its part is a very prestigious one, and the G1 Golden Slipper S. is undisputedly the jewel in the juvenile crown. The Golden Slipper is a natural target for any serious player, but particularly for any player who owns Woodlands Stud, a property central to the history of the race.
Woodlands and the Slipper
Woodlands Stud was formerly owned by George Ryder, the Chairman of the Sydney Turf Club through the 1950s and the founding father of the Golden Slipper. During the ‘50s, the two-year-old racing programme was being expanded in Sydney as jumps racing was being scaled down.
Creating a showpiece juvenile race was an obvious move, although cynics might suggest that it was also a convenient move for Ryder because the Woodlands roster contained the imported stallion Newtown Wonder (GB) (Fair Trial {GB}) who was a specialist sire of fast, precocious horses.
Subsequent to the 1953 breeding season, Ryder asked for nominations for the inaugural STC Golden Slipper, due to be run at Rosehill in the autumn of 1957, breeders being asked to nominate the unborn foals that their mares were carrying. Plenty did, thus ensuring that it would be easy for the Sydney Turf Club to come up with the colossal prize fund (£10,000) being offered for the Slipper.
Ryder asked for nominations for the inaugural STC Golden Slipper, due to be run at Rosehill in the autumn of 1957, breeders were asked to nominate the unborn foals that their mares were carrying. - John Berry
As it turned out, Newtown Wonder was represented by five of the 11 runners in the first Slipper including the runner-up Flying Kurana. Victory, though, went to Todman, the star of the third crop of Hyperion’s imported grandson Star Kingdom (Ire) (Stardust {GB}). Star Kingdom went on to sire the next four Slipper winners too, and thus was born the Star Kingdom / Golden Slipper legend.
George Ryder’s pivotal place in the creation of the Golden Slipper is commemorated with the presence on the Rosehill undercard of the G1 The Agency George Ryder S., even if it was arguably fair to say this year that the G1 Longines Golden Slipper was on the George Ryder under-card, with the mighty Winx (Street Cry {Ire}) the cynosure of all eyes when taking the George Ryder for the fourth time.
2019 Golden Slipper winner Kiamichi
One of the greatest Slipper winners, 1982 hero Marscay (Biscay), was bred at Woodlands while the property was owned jointly by UK-based Lord Derby and US-based King Ranch, but the property became even more synonymous with the Golden Slipper subsequent to its purchase by Bob and Jack Ingham in 1985.
The Ingham brothers were involved in the ownership of no fewer than seven Golden Slipper winners, with 1997 winner Guineas a providing a particular thrill. Trained in Crown Lodge by John Hawkes and bearing the famous cerise silks, Guineas was a Woodlands home-bred sired by the Inghams’ foundation stallion Crown Jester (Baguette) who had previously sired the Colin Hayes-trained 1985 Golden Slipper winner Rory’s Jester.
Forensics (Flying Spur) won the Golden Slipper for the Ingham family in 2007, just a year prior to Sheikh Mohammed’s purchase of Woodlands.
The Ingham brothers were involved in the ownership of no fewer than seven Golden Slipper winners. - John Berry
Four years later Sepoy (Elusive Quality {USA}) provided Sheikh Mohammed with his first Golden Slipper winner. An outstanding two-year-old, Sepoy ranks as one of the better winners in the race’s rich history as does Darley-bred Pierro. Even so, Saturday’s Slipper has to be regarded as an even greater triumph for Sheikh Mohammed with Godolphin runners filling the trifecta.
Fittingly, the winner Kiamichi (Sidestep), a Godolphin home-bred by a home-bred Darley stallion, hails from a family which came into Sheikh Mohammed’s hands when he bought the Woodlands empire lock, stock and barrel.
Sire of Kiamichi - Sidestep
Kiamichi’s sire Sidestep carried Sheikh Mohammed’s maroon and white silks into second place behind Overreach in a quinella for their sire Exceed And Excel (Danehill {USA}) in the 2013 Golden Slipper, trained by Peter Snowden who had come into the Sheikh’s employment courtesy of the Woodlands deal.
Sidestep subsequently joined the Darley roster at both Kelvinside Stud (NSW) and Haras du Logis (Fr) but the initial enthusiasm for his services quickly waned. In the space of a couple of years, Sidestep’s Australian book dropped from 134 to 36 and his French book declined from 105 to 23.
Currently he is not shuttling and is standing at Telemon Stud in Queensland, his fee there in 2018 having been $7,700. That, obviously, may well change in the future now that his first crop has yielded the Golden Slipper winner.
Longstanding Woodlands Family
Previously winner of the Group Three race named in honour of the first filly to win the Golden Slipper, Magic Night (Star Kingdom), Kiamichi comes from a longstanding Woodlands family. Her dam Ouachita was unraced, but her lineage is rich in Slipper history, not least for the fact that she and her first two dams are all daughters of Golden Slipper winners.
Her sire Canny Lad (Bletchingly), a stalwart of the Woodlands roster for many years, ranks as the most recent Golden Slipper winning colt to descend from the Hyperion sire-line. Hopefully he won’t be turn out to have been the last, particularly if the Eureka Stud-based Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo) lives up to his early promise.
It was disappointing that Ouachita never raced because she is a full-sister to two stakes-winning juveniles, Preserve and Rio Osa. The former was a particular star for the Inghams, winning four valuable races as a two-year-old in the 1999/2000 season, namely the G1 VRC Sires’ Produce S., the G2 STC Magic Night S., the VATC Debutante S. and the Gosford Slipper. She also ran very well when seventh of 16 in the Golden Slipper, beaten around three lengths by the winner Belle Du Jour (Dehere {USA}). Preserve has graduated to become a very good broodmare, her nine winners including the Group winners Safeguard (Exceed And Excel) and Archives (Helmet).
Rio Osa is also a good producer, most recently in Europe where her progeny is headed by the stakes-placed winner Sutter County (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}), a very smart two-year-old in 2016 when trained for Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed al Maktoum by Mark Johnston, winning Newmarket’s first two-year-old race of the season. Another stakes performer for the family in the UK has been Soul (Commands), a son of Ouachita’s half-sister Marvilha (Night Shift {USA}) and a winner in Australia, Dubai and England, most notably taking the G3 Hackwood S. over six furlongs at Newbury in 2012.
Furthermore, Ouachita is a half-sister to another top-class horse: Denman (Lonhro), winner of the G1 Toohey’s New Golden Rose S. at Rosehill in 2009. Prior to producing Kiamichi, Ouachita has come up with winners by Exceed And Excel, Hard Spun, Lonhro and Epaulette, headed by her current three-year-old Cossetot (Epaulette), successful last month in the Tasmanian Derby.
Kiamichi’s second dam Peach and her third dam Market Maid were daughters of two of the greatest Golden Slipper winners, Vain (Wilkes {Fr}) and Marscay (Biscay). This repeated use, generation after generation, of Golden Slipper-performed stallions clearly gave the family every chance to throw up another winner of the race.
This repeated use, generation after generation, of Golden Slipper-performed stallions clearly gave the family every chance to throw up another winner of the race. - John Berry
The word ‘another’ is used advisedly because Kiamichi is the third Golden Slipper winner to have emerged from it. Kiamichi’s fourth dam Marjoram (Major General {GB}), a half-sister to the 1973/’74 Horse of the Year Taj Rossi (Matrice), produced the 1980 Golden Slipper victrix Dark Eclipse (Baguette); while Marjoram’s and Taj Rossi’s dam Dark Queen was very closely related to the 1966 Golden Slipper heroine Storm Queen, both being by Coronation Boy (Ire) (Nasrullah {Ire}) out of daughters of the Law Maker mare Crown Appeal.
Kiamichi was not necessarily an obvious Golden Slipper winner, but she ranks as a very appropriate one.
