Racing NSW has confirmed a range of new races will be staged in 2019, ensuring a race of at least $1 million to be run every Saturday across what is now termed The Everest Carnival, plus two new $1m races for Newcastle and Kembla Grange.

The $14m The Everest, to be held on October 19 this year, is the feature event, but a slew of support events now stretch across an eight-week period which directly overlaps the spring carnival in Melbourne.

The carnival kicks off at Randwick with the traditional Epsom Hcp day on October 5, before the G1 Spring Champion S. now worth $1m (up from $500,000) the following week, supported by a race called the Silver Eagle, worth $500,000 over 1300m exclusively for 4-year-olds and as a direct lead up to the $7.5m Golden Eagle, to be held three weeks later.

The Everest day then follows on October 19, the same day as the Melbourne Racing Club will stage the G1 Caulfield Cup. As has been the case, the $14m main race will be supported by the $1.3m Kosciuszko.

October 26 will see the staging of the inaugural $1m Bondi S. a 1600m 3-year-old set-weights race, the same day at the G1 Cox Plate is run at Moonee Valley.

Saturday November 2, the same day as four Group 1 races are run at Flemington on Derby Day, the inaugural $7.5m Golden Eagle for 4-year-olds will be run at Rosehill along with the $1m Winners S. (to be named after the winner of The Everest each year), a 1300m set weight and penalties race.

There is also a new 2000m handicap to be run that day called the Rosehill Gold Cup.

The final day, to be staged on November 9, will feature the $1m Golden Gift over 1100m for the 2-year-olds as well as the $500,000 Hot Danish S. for fillies and mares over 1400m.

The Hunter and The Gong

In a massive boost for regional areas, Racing NSW has also confirmed there will be two $1m races staged at Newcastle and Kembla Grange on November 16 and 23 respectively.

The $1m Hunter will be a quality handicap race held at Newcastle over a distance of 1300m while The Gong will also be a quality handicap run for $1 million in prizemoney over a distance of 1600m at Kembla Grange.

"The Everest has captured extraordinary interest both inside and outside racing throughout Australia and internationally. The inception of the Golden Eagle with the addition of the Winners Stakes and Silver Eagle will further strengthen our racing program during the Spring in Sydney," Racing NSW Chairman Russell Balding said.

“We are confident that the addition of these new races, along with the programming change will ensure that they attract the highest quality horses to compete through the entirety of our Spring carnival and that the racing public will have the opportunity to celebrate and experience Sydney racing at its best.”

Australian Turf Club Chairman Matt McGrath said the super-charged program delivers for all aspects of the industry.

“Sydney continues to build its own world class racing Carnival in the Spring and these changes further enhance the racing program as well as delivering fantastic returns to our key stakeholders," he said.

“The Australian Turf Club has recently launched its hospitality sales program for our Spring racing and we have been thrilled with the early response which will only be enhanced after these announcements.”

State government backs changes

The changes have the full support of the NSW state government with Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation, Kevin Anderson, praising Racing NSW for its vision.

“We hear it time and time again that people want to attend races in New South Wales, rather than travel to other states, which is why this investment from Racing NSW will be significant for race goers and participants alike,” Anderson said.

Redzel claimed The Everest in 2017 and 2018

“The Everest has been a phenomenon with no other event coming to prominence so quickly. The NSW Government in partnership with Racing NSW and the ATC want to see this rapid growth continue and the expanded carnival is important in the next stage of its growth.” Balding said it was important that regional areas shared the benefits of the Racing NSW vision.

"Racing is a vital part of our social fabric and it is fitting that Newcastle and Wollongong as our next largest cities after Sydney will now have race days that they can be proud of," he said.

“These meetings are a great opportunity for new racegoers in these cities to attend a feature event and see what racing is all about. Just as the Sydney public has embraced The Everest, we are confident that the Newcastle and Illawarra public will embrace The Hunter and The Gong as their race."

It has also been confirmed that Gosford will also get its own standalone Saturday meeting to stage its Cup, likely to be in early May.

Victorian-based Baystone Farm was fourth in terms of aggregate sales across the National Broodmare Sale, selling 21 mares and fillies across the four days for just short of $5 million in total.

Trailing only behind the industry's big boys Newgate, Yarraman Park and Widden Stud and ahead of the likes of Coolmore and Godolphin, it is another endorsement of the strength of the trading aspect of the broodmare market.

Manager Dean Harvey oversees a business model which is largely based around finding quality fillies or mares straight off the racetrack, getting them in foal to a well-matched and popular stallion and offering them back at the sales.

Baystone achieved outstanding results with these return mares, with three from last year's Broodmare Sale being particularly well received by the market.

Starlike (Exceed And Excel) was purchased for $100,000 12 months ago and offered again this year in foal to Zoustar, reaching $300,000 when sold to Yulong.

Foxy Miss (Foxwedge) was a $30,000 purchase who reached $250,000 to China Horse Club in foal to Written Tycoon, while Amorphous (Redoute's Choice) was a $30,000 purchase who realised $180,000 to Twin Hills when offered in foal to Pierro.

Baystone's top lot was Helix Park (Nicconi), who in foal to Snitzel, proved very popular selling to China Horse Club for $650,000.

"We knew she was going to be a mare that would sell well, just for the fact she was in foal to Snitzel. There weren't many mares in foal to Snitzel and he's one of the best stallions in the country. We knew she'd sell well and she had a good pedigree to match too," Harvey told TDN AusNZ.

There were also strong results from the Race Fillies and Maiden Mares Session, with multiple stakes winner Dainty Tess (War Chant {USA}) reaching $300,000 for Yarradale Stud for her WA owners, while Listed winning sprinter Desert Lashes (Reward For Effort) made her way to Sun Stud for $230,000.

"We had a really, really good week. We started with some race fillies off the track that sold really well and that continued right through to the end of our draft," Harvey said.

"We had some really well-credentialled mares that the market seemed to accept well and sold accordingly, so we were very happy."

Surpassing last year's total was a significant milestone when you factor in the $1.5m Baystone achieved for Group 1 winner Silent Sedition (War Chant {USA}) in 2018.

This year, 12 of its draft reached $200,000 or more, backing up a business model which has seen Baystone go from strength to strength.

Also backing that up is the quality of buyers that have been attracted to Baystone's mares, with the likes of China Horse Club, Aquis Farm and Yulong involved in purchasing last week.

"We try and buy fillies off the track, that's our model. We get them and get them in foal and get them to the marketplace the year after," Harvey said.

"We've got to buy fillies that pretty much, as soon as they open the book, we want people to be looking at ours and saying they want them. Sourcing those fillies at the top end of the market, who have the looks to match, current families and in foal to the right stallion."

"We hope they go along and produce really good stock and they get great results out of those mares."

Buying as well as selling

Baystone was also active as a buyer last week, purchasing, via bloodstock agent Sheamus Mills, two stakes-placed mares in Highway (High Chaparral {Ire}), for $175,000 from Coolmore's draft and Bubbles'n'troubles (Hinchinbrook) for $140,000, from Glastonbury Farms.

The plan would be most likely to get them in foal and turn them around within 12 months.

But the business model is far from set-and-forget for Harvey, with the demands of the market and the availability of quality stock varying from year to year.

"It’s ever-evolving and the market is ever-evolving, so you just have to change from year to year. Something that worked this year may not have worked last year. We come back and go through the stock we've bought now and we might see a gap in the market to be still buying and looking for more stock," he said.

"It changes from year to year and you've just got to be flexible enough to make it work."

The changing market

Competition is also increasing. Baystone and NSW-based farms Willow Park and Bell View Park Stud have been the main ones to play in this space, but others are seeing the attraction in the model.

"It has got more competitive, there are more people doing this sort of thing. Trying to buy fillies off the track now has got harder and there are a lot more people looking for them now," Harvey said.

In response, Baystone has cast its net wide using its contacts to source fillies and mares out of the USA and Europe in recent years with some success.

Harvey also trades in the pinhooking markets, buying weanlings to sell as yearlings, and in particular yearlings to sell at the Ready to Run Sales. Last year, Baystone bought a Written Tycoon colt for $100,000 at the January Magic Millions Sale and sold him at the Inglis Ready To Race Sale for $260,000 nine months' later.

"We have done quite well out of it the past few years. We sold a dozen this year and we will probably do up to that again this year, maybe around 8-10," Harvey said. "That's been a good market to play in for us."

In one sense, Vincent O’Brien’s achievements will never be surpassed. He created the Ballydoyle empire from scratch, re-shaping the international racing landscape through the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s after having sent out multiple winners of the great jumps races in the post-war years, the Grand National, Cheltenham Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle.

Attracting the patronage initially of wealthy American clients such as John McShain, Alice du Pont Mills, Raymond Guest, Charles Engelhard and John Galbreath, and subsequently the British businessman and bloodstock entrepreneur Robert Sangster, he put together a record of high-level success which, horse for horse, will never be repeated.

For instance, in 1975 he sent eight horses (all aged three or above) to Royal Ascot and seven of them won – and that was at a time when he only had 15 horses in that age-group in the stable. By modern standards, that is unthinkable.

The most notable by-product of Vincent O’Brien’s genius was the consolidation of Coolmore as a world-leading breeding operation under the direction of the trainer’s son-in-law John Magnier. Operating on a blue-print devised by Magnier, a hand-picked squad of colts were turned into high-class racehorses and then stallions, with the most obvious stars sold to stand in America while some were retained nearby at Coolmore.

The arrival of G1 Irish 2,000 Guineas winner and G1 Eclipse S. winner Sadler’s Wells (USA) (Northern Dancer {Can}) at Coolmore at the end of 1984 proved to be the key required to take the operation to a higher level still, a level at which it is still dominant to this day.

It is worth remembering that Sadler’s Wells had not been the best three-year-old in Ballydoyle that season. Pole position had been held by G1 2,000 Guineas and G1 Irish Derby winner El Gran Senor (USA) (Northern Dancer {Can}). Consequently it was El Gran Senor who was dispatched across the Atlantic to stand alongside his father and his Derby-winning paternal half-brother The Minstrel at Windfields Farm in Maryland, enabling Sadler’s Wells to be retained in Ireland at Coolmore. That was very fortunate!

Come the 1990s, however, Vincent O’Brien was an old man. The final acts of the greatest show on turf came when Royal Academy (USA) (Nijinsky {Can}) took the G1 Breeders’ Cup Mile in 1990 and College Chapel (GB) (Sharpo {USA}) won the G3 Cork And Orrery S. at Royal Ascot in 1993, both ridden, of course, by the trainer’s old ally Lester Piggott. The curtain finally came down on O’Brien’s stellar career at the end of the 1994 season.

Vincent O’Brien’s retirement created a void which John Magnier soon found that he needed to fill. While the Maktoums were continually increasing their investment through the 1980s, Ballydoyle had started to become marginalised as regards to being competitive in top-class races. Sadler’s Wells, however, changed all that. Coolmore had had its first champion sire when the former Ballydoyle inmate Be My Guest (USA) (Northern Dancer {Can}) won the General Sires’ Premiership for Great Britain and Ireland in 1982.

Sadler’s Wells became its second champion sire when winning the first of his 14 premierships in 1990; and no other farm has housed a champion sire since then, with Caerleon (USA) (Nijinsky {Can}), Danehill (USA) (Danzig {USA}), Danehill Dancer (Ire) (Danehill {USA}) and (ten times champion to date) Galileo (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells {USA}) all also heading the list.

These stallions helped to take the ownership group put together by John Magnier back to the top table and it made sense to put a trainer into Ballydoyle to keep the operation in-house. The question was who could possibly be up to the task of following in Vincent O’Brien’s footsteps?

Step forward Aidan O’Brien (no relation).

Born in County Wexford in October 1969, he had started work in stables on leaving school, initially for P. J. Finn at the Curragh and subsequently for Jim Bolger at Coolcullen in County Carlow. He soon became an accomplished amateur rider and topped the amateurs’ jumps premiership in 1993/’94.

Having married Anne-Marie Crowley, he began training in 1993. Anne-Marie’s father Joe had been a successful jumps trainer at Piltown in County Kilkenny and she had won the premiership when she took over the stable before handing control over to her husband. He in turn became champion National Hunt trainer in his first season, 1993/’94, before retaining his title in each of the next four years.

Aidan O’Brien’s diligence, horsemanship, industry and integrity had been obvious from the outset, so much so that multiple champion jockey Christy Roche, who rode for Jim Bolger for many years and who ultimately became O’Brien’s first stable jockey at Ballydoyle, once remarked that O’Brien was the only employee whom Bolger was ever sorry to lose “- and that includes me!”.

When Aidan O’Brien became champion trainer (albeit by taking over a stable that was already at the top) in his first season, that was all the confirmation that John Magnier needed. Having been made an offer which he couldn’t refuse, Aidan O’Brien took up the mantle of Vincent, moving into Ballydoyle in 1996.

Needless to say, he produced a champion from his first batch of two-year-olds when Desert King (Ire) (Danehill {USA}) won the G1 National S. as a juvenile before taking the G1 Irish 2,000 Guineas and G1 Irish Derby at three.

Desert King was not Aidan O’Brien’s first Classic winner: 24 hours before Desert King won the Irish 2,000 Guineas, the trainer saddled the quinella in the G1 Irish 1,000 Guineas, Classic Park (GB) (Robellino {USA}) beating her better-fancied stablemate Strawberry Roan (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells {USA}).

O’Brien ended 1997 as Ireland’s champion trainer (with his horses having earned more than the combined totals of the next three trainers, ie John Oxx, Jim Bolger and Dermot Weld). His two-year-olds that year included the Group 1 winners King Of Kings (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells {USA}), Saratoga Springs (USA) (El Gran Senor {USA}) and Second Empire (Ire) (Fairy King {USA}) as well as the G2 Coventry S. winner Harbour Master (Fr) (Bluebird {USA}). Aidan O’Brien has been Ireland’s champion trainer every year since then.

During his first few years at Ballydoyle, Aidan O’Brien maintained the yard at Piltown (where his and Marie's elder son, former champion jockey Joseph, now trains) and also kept a string of jumpers going, with the great hurdler Istabraq (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells {USA}) earning his place in racing history by winning the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham three years running, 1998 to 2000 inclusive.

Inevitably, though, the current century has seen him focus on the Flat horses, with his list of champions trained and big races won becoming ever lengthier. He became champion trainer of Great Britain for the first time in 2001, the first Irish-based trainer to top the British premiership since Vincent O’Brien in 1977.

His winners that year were headed by Galileo (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells {USA}), his first Derby winner. The following year O’Brien again trained the Derby winner with High Chaparral (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells {Ire}) and again won the British as well as the Irish trainers’ premiership.

Aidan O'Brien's Epsom Derby Winners

Aidan O’Brien’s domination of European racing has been uninterrupted. He is equally adept at training sprinters and stayers, young horses and old. He has won Ireland’s top juvenile race the G1 National S. eleven times and its British counterpart the G1 Dewhurst S. six times; while he has saddled the winner of the G1 St Leger six times and the G1 Ascot Gold Cup seven times, most notably with the legendary four-time winner Yeats (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells {USA}).

His success, of course, is not merely confined to Europe, as is confirmed by a wide-ranging list of success including his 12 Breeders’ Cup triumphs as well as the G1 W. S. Cox Plate victory of Adelaide (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in 2014 and the brace of G1 Hong Kong Vase wins recorded by Highland Reel (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}).

Saturday was yet another red-letter day for Aidan O’Brien. Vincent O’Brien trained six Derby winners, starting with Larkspur (Ire) (Never Say Die {USA}) in 1962 and ending with Golden Fleece (USA) (Nijinsky {Can}) in 1982.

The win at Epsom this weekend of Anthony Van Dyck (Ire) (Galileo (Ire}) means that Aidan O’Brien has now passed that total, doing so in a race in which he saddled five of the first six home, and seven of the first ten. He long ago passed Vincent O’Brien’s total of16 British Classics wins and has a current tally of 35, headlined by ten victories in the 2,000 Guineas. He keeps re-writing the record books – and he’s still aged only 49!

In a sport which, particularly in its upper echelons, can be cut-throatedly competitive, Aidan O’Brien is as notable for his fair play and integrity as for his success. Totally unaffected by fortune and fame, he is as modest and unassuming as the day he started, invariably deflecting praise away from himself and towards his horses, staff and patrons.

A great trainer, he is at least as special a human being, a true credit both to his profession and to himself.