Cover image courtesy of Kia Ora Stud

It is 105 years since Percy Miller first stood stallions on Kia Ora, dipping his toe into the water with an import called Flippant (GB), who cost 1000 gns, and served around 20 mares in his first season.

What followed was a breeding operation that would shape the Australian thoroughbred throughout the 20th century, starting with Magpie (GB), who followed Flippant into the breeding barn, Kia Ora stallions would become among the most revered in the country.

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Champion stallions Midstream (GB) and Delville Wood (GB) would follow, while in the era after Miller's passing, the likes of Gunsynd and Baguette stood on the property and like their illustrious forebears, were buried there upon their deaths.

After a significant period investing in stallions across other farms, and 21 years after Malaysian businessman Ananda Krishnan purchased Kia Ora, Golden Slipper S. winner Farnan and multiple Group winner Prague are set to extend the Kia Ora stallion legacy.

With such an amazing history, the respective sons of Not A Single Doubt and Redoute's Choice are quite literally walking in the footsteps of giants.

Like Miller and his stud manager Bert Riddle a century before, the team at Kia Ora have grand ambitions for their stallions and have spared no expense to accommodate them, with Farnan and Prague familiarising themselves with their plush new surroundings in the stallion barn this week, a little over four weeks from beginning their duties.

"The boys moved in on Tuesday. We brought them over to the new complex. It’s very exciting. It’s good to see all the work coming together over the last couple of months. It’s been a phenomenal effort getting ready for the breeding season. We had that deadline there that had to be met," Shane Wright, Kia Ora Stud's bloodstock and breeding manager, said.

A spring deadline

Kia Ora confirmed its continued investment in the stallion market in August last year with the purchase firstly of Farnan, Australia's Champion 2-Year-Old, and then Prague later that month. With the intention of launching its new stallion facility in 2021, construction began in December last year, with a firm deadline.

"We started Christmas week, that was when the site was opened. For what has been done in that time, we are extremely proud and the whole team has worked very well together to get where we are now," Wright said.

"Like any farm, there's always work to be done, but we are pretty much ready to go. The stallion barn is obviously done, and the covering barn is ready for operation, although we have always been in the ownership of many top stallions in the Hunter Valley, to have our own new complex operational really adds a very exciting dynamic for the whole team heading into this coming breeding season.

"The stallion barn is well done, nicely finished and a really functional barn. It keeps with Kia Ora's model of being very naturally Australian and having top-class facilities, we are all very proud of it."

Infrastructure is only as valuable as the horses that utilise it and the challenge for Kia Ora and its two new residents is to ensure they get every chance to succeed in the ultra-competitive environment of the Australian breeding industry.

To this point, the two colts, who have had several months to adjust to post-racing life, have done everything asked of them.

"They have really let down well. We have been able to have a handful of parades for local breeders that have been able to attend and who have been able to do so within the restriction guidelines. They've been very well-received," Wright said.

"Farnan has been fully booked for a while now and Prague's numbers are coming along nicely and he is going to get a very nice book as well this season.

"They are two very good horses to deal with, Farnan has that playfulness and presence about him, which is great to see and Prague is an absolute gentleman."

A Golden opportunity

Farnan is the first Golden Slipper S. winner to retire to stud in Australia in four seasons, and as a son of Not A Single Doubt, brings a pedigree to match that race performance.

As well as being one of Australia's leading sires of the past decade, Not A Single Doubt, now pensioned from duties at Arrowfield Stud, is also building a strong record as a sire of sires, with Newgate's Extreme Choice set to claim honours as Australia's Champion First Season Sire this season.

Farnan is one of three sons of Not A Single Doubt to head to stud this season, and by far the best-credentialled and he will stand at $55,000 (inc GST).

"To relaunch an operation with a horse like Farnan is just a dream. He's got looks, he was such a precocious 2-year-old, a Champion of his season, and of course was a Golden Slipper winner. If you look across the years in Australia, they have been the ones that worked," Wright said.

"We have seen Not A Single Doubt really take a step into being a sire of sires. It’s come together quite well for him and we couldn’t be happier about it."

Farnan was initially purchased by Phoenix Thoroughbreds/Aquis for $550,000 through the Vinery draft on the first day of the 2019 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.

Earlier that day, the same combination had gone to $1.6 million to secure a GSA Bloodstock-bred son of Redoute's Choice from the draft of Bhima Thoroughbreds.

Born to be a stallion

That colt was a three-quarter brother to Group 1 winner and Widden Stud stallion Stratum Star and would be named Prague.

Twice a Group 3 winner, he would tackle the best horses throughout much of his career, running second in a G1 Inglis Sires' as a 2-year-old and fourth against the older horses as a 3-year-old in both the G1 Newmarket H. and G1 All-Aged S.

At $16,500 (inc GST), Kia Ora feels he is the perfect horse to sit alongside Farnan on its new roster.

"In his price bracket, he is absolutely huge value. There are not many direct sons of Redoute's Choice that are coming through the system. Redoute's Choice is a Champion sire and a sire of Champion sires, so to have a young son of his coming through is great," Wright said.

"He was a $1.6 million yearling, so I think that gives you an indication of the quality of horse he is when it comes to his physical.

"Then there is what he did on the racetrack. He was a phenomenal 2-year-old, dual Group winner, Group 1-placed and was very unlucky in the Sires'. He was very consistent as a 3-year-old and if you go back and look at his runs in the Newmarket and in the All-Aged, his runs were absolutely phenomenal."

Wright is also confident in the physical compatibility of Prague as a stallion.

"He's the sort of horse that will suit nearly any mare. He stands at 16.1. He's got great balance, great athleticism and so much quality. He's correct and a great mover," he said.

"It sounds like you are describing the perfect horse, but he just about is in that regard. Anyone that has come here to see him has been really taken by him. Almost everyone who has come here to the farm has booked a mare in to him.

"They are good breeders who have decided to support him with really nice mares that can produce really good racehorses."

The new breeding season has come up quickly for Kia Ora, and the significance of the milestone of getting Farnan and Prague settled into their new surroundings can not be undersold.

"It’s a sigh of relief that they have settled in. We are getting ready here for the first foals and not long after that we will be covering the first mares. It’s a hugely exciting time for the whole team here at Kia Ora," Wright said.

Cover image, Snippets and jockey Philip Smith winning the inaugural 1987 Magic Million, image courtesy of Martin King Sportpix

On February 2, 1986, on a Gold Coast afternoon in late summer, Elders Pastoral hosted an auction of 200 yearlings that became the genesis of Magic Millions. Each of the horses was unreserved, and each would qualify for a wildly rich, wildly ambitious closed race for 2-year-olds worth $1 million the following summer.

The catalogue was stuffed with small breeders, single-digit drafts from Coffs Harbour, Toowoomba and Roma. But there were significant players among them too.

John Messara’s Middlebrook Park was there, as was Gainsborough Lodge, and even Gerry Harvey sent a few.

“That was quite surprising, because there’s no one more lousy than him,” joked David Chester, the long-serving sales director at Magic Millions. Chester was there for the Sale in 1986, and has been ever since.

“We had to beg, borrow and steal to get horses for that Sale,” he said. “It cost $10,000 to enter your horse. Today, for our Sale in January, it’s about $2000, so it was a lot of money. And there were a lot of people that just didn’t want to do it.”

The concept for the Sale hung on 200 unreserved yearlings that would qualify for a $1-million race the following summer. This race would become what is now the Magic Millions 2YO Classic, run each January for $2 million, and it was the first of its kind anywhere in the world - a race restricted to graduates of a particular Sale.

“To make it work, to get the million dollars for the race, we had to sell 200 horses,” Chester said. “No more, no less, and it was done that way to give buyers a 200-1 chance to win a million-dollar race. And there were no better odds anywhere.”

In the second half of the catalogue, Lot 170 was a bay colt by the Widden stallion Lunchtime (GB), the fourth foal from the Grand Chaudiere (Can) mare Easy Date. He sold that afternoon in 1986 for $22,000, purchased by Dalgety Bloodstock as a buy-back for John Augustine’s Gregadoo Stud Farm in Huntly, Victoria.

The colt was named Snippets and, the following summer, he won the $1 million 'Magic Million' at the Gold Coast Turf Club, the closed concept race for 2-year-olds.

“Magic Millions wouldn’t be here today if it hadn’t been for that first Sale and the success of Snippets,” Chester said. “I’ve always said we should erect a monument to this horse, because he’s more important than anyone.”

A Champion emerges

Snippets was a late foal in 1984, born at Gregadoo on November 1. By that time, Lunchtime had been covering mares at Widden Stud since 1974.

The colt’s dam, Easy Date, had been sold three times that year, first for $5000 at a small Scone sale, and then again by breeder Barry Gamer to John Augustine. She was carrying Snippets as she moved around the country.

As a yearling, her colt headed to the Gold Coast for the new concept Sale in early 1986.

“I distinctly remember him arriving on the complex, and Carl Waugh (breeder and one of the original owners of Magic Millions) took one look at him and said, get this horse off the grounds and send him to someone that can clean him up,” Chester said. “They sent him to Sally Rogers, and that’s how she ended up training him.”

Like many of the horses catalogued for the Sale, Snippets was there as a buy-back.

“About half of the vendors put the horses in because they wanted to win the race,” Chester said. “John Augustine bought the horse back at the auction, and because Sally had done such a good job with him for a week or so, they left him with her to train.”

It was all above board. Snippets was returned to Augustine for $22,000, and he began racing in October 1986.

The colt won his first race at Eagle Farm, and his second at the Gold Coast two days after Christmas. On January 10, 1987, he won the inaugural ‘Magic Million’ for 2-year-olds over 1200 metres, clattering home by 4l to Prince Anton (Prince Ruling {NZ}).

His share of the prizemoney was $515,000, and he then skirted south for a runner-up finish to Beau Zam (NZ) at Newcastle and a win in the G3 Brambles S. at Kembla Grange. Thereafter he was fifth in the 1987 G1 Golden Slipper, won by Marauding (NZ).

Snippets had failed in the pinnacle juvenile race of the season, but he returned a fortnight later at Randwick to win the G1 Sires’ Produce S. His 2-year-old campaign wrapped up with seven starts for five wins and a second in Group company.

As a 3-year-old colt, he won the G2 Challenge S., G1 Oakleigh Plate at Caulfield and G1 The Galaxy on a Heavy 10 at Randwick. He was second to Special (Habituate {Ire}) in the G1 Lightning S. in 1988, and unplaced to the same mare in the G1 Newmarket H.

Snippets became Australia’s 13th millionaire racehorse by the close of his career in April 1988, a winner of nine races in 14 lifetime starts.

He was an Australasian 2-Year-Old Champion and Australasian Champion 3-Year-Old Sprinter, and retired as one of the fleetest, most consistent speed horses of his era.

The genesis of something special

David Chester knows well that one swallow does not make a summer.

From his sale on the Gold Coast in 1986, Snippets emerged as one of the smartest sprinters of the era. However, he wasn’t the only good one to pop out of that inaugural Sale, and Chester said that this was what saved the concept’s bacon.

“If we’d had an ordinary lot of horses sold that year, I don’t think it would have worked,” he said. “But we had four out of that 200 sold that ended up running in the Golden Slipper in 1987, including Mother Duck, Prince Anton and Snippets.”

Mother Duck (Luskin Star) won a spate of stakes races throughout her career, including the G3 AJC Gimcrack S. and Listed The Shorts, while Prince Anton won a Group 3 and two Listed features in 1987.

“The importance of Snippets and a few of these other horses really put the Sale on the map,” Chester said. “It quietened the critics, who had said the whole concept would die because 200 horses wouldn’t get a good field for the million-dollar race.”

Since then, the concept has ballooned, the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale into the R. Listed Magic Millions 2YO Classic.

Its past winners include General Nediym in 1997, Testa Rossa in 1999, Dance Hero (Danzero) in 2004 and Capitalist in 2017. The fillies Away Game (Snitzel), Sunlight (Zoustar) and Houtzen (I Am Invincible) have won it and, alongside the Golden Slipper and G1 Blue Diamond, it’s one of the banner events of the racing season.

“No one could have imagined it would have been so successful,” Chester said. “But it was, and here we are 35 years later.”

The Willesee years

Snippets retired from the track in the autumn of 1988, a rising 4-year-old with a remarkable career behind him.

He was picked up for standing rights by Mike Willesee’s Trans Media Park Stud at Cootamundra, which later became a branch of Woodlands Stud, later again the property of Godolphin, and now the home of Olly Tait’s Twin Hills Stud.

Willesee had bought into the horse at the end of his 2-year-old career, joining syndicate members John and his then wife Jane Augustine (now Napier), John Izon, former Wallabies player Edward Morey and Tony Milne.

In 1988, when Snippets arrived to stud, Trans Media was an extensive and lavish set-up, heavily furnished by media mogul Willesee with state-of-the-art facilities for stallions and large numbers of mares, and Steve Brien arrived in the same year to work as its broodmare manager.

He remembers Snippets well.

“He was a very good 2-year-old, a very good racehorse,” Brien said. “I’d followed him before he came to the farm, but I didn’t actually see him until he arrived in that August of 1988. He was a typical sprinter, very big in the hindquarter and just a powerhouse of a horse.”

Snippets wasn’t overly tall. He stood a shade under 16 hands, with a rich bay coat and a white sock on his near hind. He was quite unlike his sire Lunchtime, whom turf doyen Les Carlyon described as ‘long and stretchy’.

“He was very quiet, and good to do anything with,” Brien said. “And there was quite a lot of buzz about him coming to Trans Media Park because that year, Rubiton came to stud as well, and he had won a Cox Plate. Joindre, who had won Derbies, had come to stud at the same time too, but Snippets and Rubiton were the two most popular horses.”

These three stallions stood at Trans Media Park with Sovereign Red (NZ) and Golden Slipper winner Sir Dapper. It was an imposing lineup, and the fees for both Snippets and Rubiton were on application.

The stallions were managed by Ron Shirtliff, who had trained the extraordinary mare Wiggle (Rego {Ire}) in the late 1950s.

“I was the broodmare manager, but I backed up Ron when he needed a hand with the stallions,” Brien said. “Mike had nearly 100 mares that he had interests in, and then boarders too, so we had about 150 broodmares or more. Mike put new stallion and yearling barns in, and they’re all still here and still magnificent. It was ahead of its time, and Mike had travelled all over the world with Ray Kirkup looking at other studs to bring ideas back here.”

In a short space of time, Trans Media Park, with its sensational stallion roster, was a major player from its base in the south west slopes of New South Wales. Perhaps it got too big, however, because by 1993 it was dispersing.

“It got very big, and I don’t know if Mike wanted it that big,” Steve said. “He kept some horses, but he cut his breeding interests right back and sold the property to Woodlands.”

The farm, its buildings and many of its people went to the ownership of the Ingham family, and the stallions were moved around.

Snippets ended up at Arrowfield Stud from the 1994 season onwards, joining a formidable roster that included Danehill (USA), Kenmare (Fr) and Rancher.

Legacy keeps on

Snippets covered mares from the spring of 1988 to his death in January 2002.

He was a remarkable stallion, the sire of 55 stakes winners of 119 stakes wins, including Hasna, the speedy juvenile filly that won the G1 Champagne S. and G1 AJC Sires’ Produce S. in 2003.

He sired High Rolling, winner of the AJC Breeders’ Plate, and Akhenaton, who won the G1 Doomben Cup, as well as the significant Group winners Snowland, Sky Cuddle, Spartacus, Sublimate and Casual Pass.

Snippets is also the sire of Pins, who won the G1 VRC Australian Guineas and four other Group races, and who in turn has sired 80 stakes winners, including G1 Cox Plate winner El Segundo (NZ).

Snowland is the sire of the excellent race mare Absolut Glam, while stakes winner Snippetson has sired 13 further stakes winners, including Fast Clip, winner of the G2 Tulloch S. and G3 Doncaster Prelude.

As a broodmare sire, Snippets has been equally as exceptional.

His daughter Scandinavia is the dam of Helsinge (Desert Sun {GB}), who foaled Black Caviar (Bel Esprit) and Widden sire Magnus. Sky Cuddle got the two-time Group-winning mare Champagne Cuddles (Not A Single Doubt), who sold for $2 million to Tom Magnier at the 2020 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale.

Snippets’ Lass, meanwhile, was foaled in 1993, among the handful of crops to emerge from Snippets’ final seasons at Trans Media Park. She won the Listed Sapphire S. in 1999, and in 2002 foaled no less than Snitzel, followed in 2007 by Hinchinbrook.

Equally, Legally Bay is a daughter of Snippets that founded a dynasty for breeders Chris and Jane Barham. She produced three stakes winners, among them the Royal Ascot-winning and now emerging Coolmore sire Merchant Navy.

When Snippets died in 2002, at 17 years old from internal haemorrhaging, he’d left a remarkable legacy that continued to blossom, and still does. And, career aside, he’s likely to be the only horse in the world upon which a leading auction house can still hang its hat.

Cover image courtesy of Goodwood

The annual festival of racing that is 'Glorious Goodwood', The Qatar Goodwood Festival, kicked off on Tuesday with crowds returning for the first time since 2019. In the splendour of an English summer, the G1 Qatar Goodwood Cup opened proceedings, followed by the G1 Qatar Sussex S. on Wednesday, and Ladies’ Day led the remaining three days of racing as the sport returned to its usual splendour.

Trueshan (Fr) (Planteur {Ire}) was a popular winner of the Goodwood Cup on Tuesday, a race that had been touted as a good return for four-time winner Stradivarius (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}). But it wasn’t to be for the grand and gifted stayer, with Stradivarius' scratching owing to unsuitable ground.

On Wednesday, the £1 million (AU$1.88 million) G1 Qatar Sussex S. was won by Alcohol Free (Ire), a son of Coolmore’s No Nay Never (USA).

The mile race has always attracted a stout offering, with past winners including Kingman (GB), Toronado (Ire) and Frankel (GB), the latter winning it two years on the bounce.

Alcohol Free, bred by Churchtown House Stud and trained by Andrew Balding, defeated Poetic Flare (Ire) (Dawn Approach {Ire}) and Snow Lantern (GB) (Frankel {GB}) to bring his useful record to five wins from eight starts, and a tick over £1 million (AU$1.88 million) for his troubles.

So far, the Goodwood meeting has lived up to its moniker as ‘glorious’, a traditionally beautiful week of racing in the height of the European summer, and one that boasts the spectacular grounds of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon’s Goodwood Estate.

It’s also been a beacon of light, one of the first race meetings that has occurred without any semblance of COVID-19 restrictions.

A happy place

Hermione FitzGerald is an international ambassador for the Qatar Goodwood Festival, a Sydney resident for nine months of the year (from where she works for OTI Racing), and an annual pilgrim to Europe for the remaining months.

For many years now, she has worked closely with Ed Arkell and Adam Waterworth, recruiting local and international horses to Goodwood’s festival in late July, and promoting it aside its chief sponsor, Qatar Racing and Equestrian Club.

Their previous successes include the Japanese superstar Deirdre (Jpn) (Harbinger {GB}) and the Australian filly Houtzen (I Am Invincible), the latter a former galloper for Toby Edmonds before her transfer to English trainer Martyn Meade.

In Meade’s care, Houtzen was second to Battaash (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}) in the 2019 G2 King George Qatar S.

Up until a fortnight ago, FitzGerald was unclear if the Goodwood festival would go ahead with on-course crowds, COVID numbers hitting scary heights among the largely vaccinated British populace.

“With the UK government’s road map out of the pandemic, it was June 19 for the initial opening up of the country,” FitzGerald said. “That got delayed a month to July 19, so that always meant we at Goodwood were confident that we would be able to open up to full crowds and capacity at this race meeting.”

It was a close shave, nevertheless.

“Of course there was uncertainty,” she said. “The government always can make last-minute changes, as happened last year when we were due to be a trial event for crowds. The night before, they canned it when we were supposed to have 5000 on-course.”

The 2020 festival occurred without crowds, which was a huge blow to the event’s organisers. However, it has come back with vigour this year.

“Last year there was nobody at the racecourse, bar a few owners that were allowed,” FitzGerald said. “Historically, Goodwood is known as ‘Glorious Goodwood’, where the British would move to Sussex for the week, and race the whole week from here. It is a social event, a happy holiday place and it requires crowds to be that.”

The racecourse is expecting a bumper crowd of 25,000 on Saturday, and has enjoyed lively attendance throughout its opening days.

Road map out of COVID

The return to regular racing, with its jaunty faces in the grandstand, was appreciated by the jockeys too. Frankie Dettori rode Angel Bleu (Fr) (Dark Angel {Ire}) to victory on the opening day in the G2 Unibet Vintage S., and he was visibly at home.

And, it’s worth noting that the festival is open for business without masks or conditions of social distancing. There is even a vaccination hub on-course for patrons that are still in need of their Pfizer or AstraZeneca jab.

“There’s no testing, no restrictions on hospitality or anything,” FitzGerald said. “And that was always part of the government’s road map. For the last three or four months, we’ve worked on the meeting being absolutely normal.”

It’s an inspiring mantra for Australian racing right now, with much of New South Wales locked down and the major spring carnivals of The Everest and Melbourne Cup around the turn.

It's also a respectable, and impressive, fact that Goodwood's prizemoney this year, £4.8 million (AU$9.2 million), has returned to its 2019 level, despite the hit that it took with empty stands last year.

FitzGerald added that the Goodwood festival has always enjoyed an Australian presence, especially in the last few years with visits from the likes of Magic Millions’ Barry Bowditch and Clint Donovan, and Arthur Mitchell and Henry Field among others.

“The attention to detail at Goodwood is phenomenal,” she said. “They put on events really well, and have done for a long time. The Estate has the Festival Of Speed and the Goodwood Revival, as well as Glorious Goodwood each year.”

The Festival Of Speed, which occurs annually in early July, is a celebration of motor racing, while the Revival is a three-day event each September that pays homage to the halcyon days of motor racing, and is hosted in full period costume of the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s.

“I love coming back for Goodwood each year,” FitzGerald said. “It’s great to be involved with such a forward-thinking racecourse like this, and I enjoy coming back each summer for it.

"I think the European flat season is really unique in that there are festivals and they’re all unique in their own way, from Royal Ascot to the July Cup at Newmarket and then Goodwood. I love it, it’s the best of both worlds being in Australia for the majority of the year and then coming back for this.”