Rob's recipe for success

Some people can remember a moment when their life took an unexpected twist and changed forever.

Rob Crabtree has his – the point where racing grabbed him out of nowhere, sparking a branching out from the world of selling cars towards a different kind of horsepower.

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Forty years later, he’s among the most canny breeders in Australia, sending out yearlings from his expansive Dorrington Farm property in the heart of Victorian horse country, near Nagambie.

Self-made – in cars and horses - the septuagenarian owns some forthright and fascinating views on breeding. He likes one line that would turn the game’s accepted wisdom completely on its head: stallions are irrelevant.

He’s also not entirely fussed about winning Group 1s. That’s possibly just as well, since the horses he’s bred and/or owned have won three of them, amid a stack of around 40 placings that might drive a different mind mad.

For the man who helped start the chain that hatched Black Caviar (Bel Esprit) who bred Magnus (Flying Spur), and who has a priceless filly on the ground by I Am Invincible out of his Blue Diamond winner Catchy (Fastnet Rock), where it all started can be easily traced.

Join In The Chorus

In 1980, Crabtree, a devout Collingwood fan, attended a North Melbourne Football Club lunch, hoping for car business opportunities. His table of strangers included future media baron Kerry Stokes, and breeding baron (and North Melbourne vice-president) Monty Millson.

“Monty said, ‘I’m a breeder, and I’ve got a yearling by this stallion of mine called Plush. Would you all like to part own her?’” Crabtree recalls.

“I’d never ever been to a racetrack before. But everyone at the table seemed like a good bunch of blokes, so I said ‘Why not?’”

Crabtree may have had trouble digesting the filly’s eventual name - Join In The Chorus (Demerit), the first line of the North Melbourne team song - but it was an auspicious introduction. At her first start, the filly was second in a stakes race at Flemington.

“I thought, ‘This is easy!’ he says with a laugh, before adding: “We’re lucky in racing, because it’s all documented. You can go back to these crossings in the road where we changed directions. That’s why horses like Black Caviar and Winx are so important. They bring people in, create those moments, and create the interest from which people springboard into the industry.”

Catching the bug, Crabtree retained his interest in Join In The Chorus post-racing. And though that was less than successful, he became entranced. Then he became a breeder, buying three mares, kept on his cattle farm near Macedon, north of Melbourne (which he’d later sell to become Eliza Park Stud).

“I think it’s just because I’m stubborn. I just demanded of myself that I’d see it through,” he says of a venture, or adventure, that raised some eyebrows. “I think people looked on in wonder, which is what you often do when you look in the shaving mirror, isn’t it?

“I just fell in love with the animal. They’re a wonderful, kind, lovely animal; worth respecting and loving.”

While Crabtree landed few knockout blows in his initial years in breeding, things changed in 1990 when he bought the West Australian mare Rich Haul (Haulpak), in foal to Zeditave. The offspring was The Heavyweight, a black type winner but one typical of the Crabtree barn, in that his eight wins were shaded by 25 placings.

The same Zeditave-Rich Haul mating also produced Zedrich, who won Melbourne Listed races in his first two starts, and came sixth in the 1995 Golden Slipper.

While that result was bittersweet, around the same time Crabtree welcomed a filly out of a Vain mare named Song Of Norway, who he’d bought in foal to Snippets. He retained a quarter share with Eliza Park Stud. She was named Scandinavia, and she’d play a fundamental role in Australian breeding.

“She was typical of a lot of my horses in that she had four Group 1 placings,” Crabtree says. One was a narrow third in the 1998 Newmarket at Flemington to General Nediym, handled by the young Peter Moody.

When Scandinavia’s racing career ended a year later, a deal was struck in which Crabtree would keep her first and third foals, and Eliza Park’s Lee Fleming the rest.

Scandinavia’s third foal was the outstanding Moody-trained sprinter Magnus, who finally brought him a Group 1 in The Galaxy of 2007. With Crabtree retaining a half share, Magnus has of course become an enduringly successful stallion standing at Eliza Park, and as it is now, Sun Stud. He recently sired his 40th stakes winner in Kemalpasa, on VRC Derby Day.

Scandinavia’s second foal resulted from a mating with Eliza’s New Zealand import Desert Sun. Bought as a yearling by Crabtree’s neighbour Ric Jamieson, she was called Helsinge. Unraced, she went to Bel Esprit. The result was of course the Moody-trained superstar, Black Caviar.

Crabtree acquired full ownership of Scandinavia when Fleming sold out of Eliza. Among others, he bred Magnus’ stakes winning full sister Arctic Flight, and Scandiva (Fastnet Rock) – who won at Group 2 and was – again - Group 1 placed in Randwick’s Sires' Produce S.

“Scandinavia’s a magnificent mare - the epitome of a blue hen,” says Crabtree of the now 25-year-old chestnut who’s retired on his farm.

Group 1 victories remained elusive for Crabtree until, never raining but pouring, the Team Hayes-trained Catchy won the 2017 Blue Diamond, 40 minutes before stablemate Sheidel (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}) took the Oakleigh Plate.

“It was pretty incredible,” Crabtree recalls. “I could’ve cheerfully just celebrated the Blue Diamond, and then the second one came along. It was surreal.”

That said, actually winning Group 1s doesn’t hold primacy in the Crabtree philosophy.

“If you’re horses are competitive in Group 1 races, that’s enough,” he says. “I wasn’t breeding at the top, and probably I’m still a level below that, but it’s nice to know I’ve bred good quality animals. I think constant black type, rather than Group 1 wins, is the main litmus test.”

'Quite predictable'

The key to that is families, with the emphasis heavily on maternal lines.

“I think stallions are the most irrelevant thing I’ve seen in breeding,” he declares. “It’s all about the female – the female side of the stallion, and the broodmare.

“We all go to good stallions. The differential is the broodmare side of both the stallion and the mare. You can put a good mare to a half-decent sire, as long as that sire’s female side is consistent right through recent generations.”

Despite what you hear, breeding is “quite predictable”, says Crabtree. He once bought a stakes winning Perth mare called Lady Knockout (Serheed {USA}), put her to Magnus to produce the stakes winning Missy Cummings, and put that mare to Zoustar to create the multiple stakes winning Mizzy, third home in this year’s inaugural Golden Eagle.

“I think that’s good breeding – taking a stakes winning mare and making her progeny stakes winning horses. That’s hard to do,” says Crabtree, a devotee of mating “like with like”, along the sprinter/middle distance/stayer lines.

“We all have bad luck stories and good luck stories. That’s all great, but breeding’s really quite a predictable thing, and if you can build generations of black type horses out of families that perhaps weren’t even there in the beginning, that’s the epitome of successful breeding.

“There’s no industry in the world more steeped in lessons that are out there if you look for them. Everything’s so well documented, through stud books, and racetrack performances. It’s all there. You just have to look.

“You don’t just live in hope. You live in expectation. Out of my 20-something yearlings this year, I absolutely know that three to five of them will be black type horses. I just don’t know which ones yet.”

Crabtree finally sold out of the car business six years ago, and has subsequently boosted his foal output from 10-12 in the past couple of years to the 28 he’ll offer in the new year. His Magic Millions yearlings will be prepared by astute Hunter Valley horseman Mike Fleming and sold through the Bhima Thoroughbreds draft.

With Catchy now in foal to Zoustar, and Sheidel in foal to Trapeze Artist, Crabtree appears set to continue his knack of breeding highly attractive horses.

“My recipe for commerciality has been roughly to be the average of the Melbourne Premier sale, off a quite low service fee,” he says.

“I think that’s the key to breeding – find your level and be successful at that level.”