Cover image courtesy of Inglis
North Pacific is by far the highlight from Gillies' dalliance with commercial breeding, but having once had a broodmare band of around six, the Melbourne businessman has cut right back to just one plus his racing interests with horses trained by Anthony and Sam Freedman and Grahame Begg.
Selling an $800,000 yearling would be a dream of most aspiring breeders, and Gillies got to live that dream when North Pacific became the second most expensive colt ever sold in Victoria at the 2019 Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale.
"I'm not too big a breeder, at most I have only had six mares. I've sold a few of them now. l race horses but I've backed off the breeding as, apart from this fella, I haven't had much success," Gillies told TDN AusNZ.
"I had the intention there to make a go of the breeding game and breed my own and sell a few, but it didn’t work out as I thought it would."
North Pacific as a yearling
The one which did work out was the Brazen Beau colt. Owned by Orbis Bloodstock and trained by Michael, Wayne and John Hawkes, he is now ruling favourite for the G1 Golden Rose S.
The question Gillies is now getting quite used to answering is why did he decide to sell him?
"You ask yourself at times, should I have sold him? But when you look at it $800,000 is a bloody good result," he said.
"You ask yourself at times, should I have sold him? But when you look at it $800,000 is a bloody good result." - David Gillies
"When I think about whether I should have kept him, or stayed in him, it was pretty clear that Orbis wanted to race him by themselves. So I didn’t get an option to stay in him."
It was the improbable nature of that result, especially when compared to other horses he had bred, which convinced Gillies that perhaps the breeding game wasn't for him.
A tale of two mares
When he sent two of his mares to Darley's Brazen Beau in 2016, he had a pretty clear expectation of what standard of horse each of them would produce.
The highlight was Hipster Girl (Nicconi), the stakes-quality mare, who he had raced through trainer Jason Warren. She may have won just one race, but she was fourth in a G1 VRC Oaks and boasted a pedigree featuring Group 2 winner Velasco (Flying Spur) and her stakes-winning progeny Debellatio (Smart Missile) and Devoirs (Dehere {USA}). This was to be her first foal.
Brazen Beau | Standing at Darley
The other mare was Up In Lights, who Gillies had purchased for $50,000 as an unraced breeding prospect three years earlier. Out of a half-sister to Group 1 winner Metal Bender (Danasinga), she had previously produced fillies by Star Witness and Reset and a colt by Not A Single Doubt.
"If you look at Up In Lights' page, and what she had thrown before, it was hard to get excited about it from a pedigree point of view," Gillies said. "Hipster Girl arguably had a much better pedigree and was able to get to the track."
He had spoken to Will Bourne, then at Darley, about possible matches for his two mares, with Brazen Beau, then in his second season, winning the nod.
"After talking to Will, I figured Brazen Beau was a promising stallion, and I might as well send a nice mare to him. He was a champion racehorse."
"After talking to Will, I figured Brazen Beau was a promising stallion, and I might as well send a nice mare to him. He was a champion racehorse." - David Gillies
But as is so often the case in breeding, things didn't work out as planned, and it was the colt out of Up In Lights who produced the stunning result.
"I look at the two Brazen Beaus that year and I got $800,000 for one and $9000 for the other. It just comes down to type," he said.
"Every day in the build up to the Sale, the hype (on the Up In Lights colt) just got bigger and bigger. I’d get reports from Bhima and a mate of mine Rod Douglas, who was giving me advice, and they would just keep getting stronger. Rocket was telling me I might get $200,000, then $300,000 and then $400,000.
North Pacific when sold as a yearling | Image courtesy of Inglis
"He'd been pulled out of the box so many times and the feedback was always so positive.
"Paul King, from Orbis, when he bought him, said he had plenty of ammo left with him, and I’d love to know how much ammo he had."
Orbis is now enjoying the fruits of its investment with North Pacific being talked about as a possible stallion prospect off his win on Saturday.
In contrast, the Hipster Girl colt, named Beauzen, was sold through the Inglis Scone Yearling Sale for $9000 and has yet to be placed from four starts.
"I’d love to be able to tell you there was a secret to it all, but there's not," Gillies said.
A change in approach
The vagaries of the breeding game are not for everyone, and it was those uncertainties which led Gillies to reducing his broodmare numbers down to just one, including the recent private sale of Up In Lights, who, having produced a Maurice (Jpn) colt, now named Miyazaki, missed her next two seasons.
"I sent her to Dundeel, then to Brazen Beau and I wasn't able to get her back in foal," he said.
"I didn’t want to sell her because I had a great result with him and my intention was to keep going, because of the hype that was building around North Pacific, but she went through two years empty and I had tipped a bit of money into her with various vets, trying to get her ready.
"I had an offer, which I knocked back, and they came back and offered a bit more for her, so I moved her on."
I Am Invincible | Standing at Yarraman Park Stud
The offer, via an agent, was from Willow Park Stud, and she is now at Glenn Burrows' property at Scone, and will be mated to Yarraman Park's I Am Invincible with the intention of producing a three-quarter sibling to North Pacific.
As for Gillies, he is happy with his sole broodmare, his racing interests, which include several promising 2-year-olds, and the ongoing connection with one of the most exciting colts in the land.
"I can always tell people I bred a good one and hopefully he can go on and win a Group 1 race or two," he said.
