On the rich Darling Downs west of the Gold Coast, Eureka Stud is readying for its first sale of the year. The McAlpine family, now five generations into the game, has 23 yearlings on their way to Magic Millions, which is about average for this very old, very established breeding operation.
At a glance, the draft is exactly what most will be expecting.
There are 12 youngsters by in-house sire Spirit Of Boom, another five by new resident Encryption, and the remaining yearlings are by Hellbent, Exceed And Excel, Epaulette and Brazen Beau, plus a pair by local stallions Better Than Ready and Jungle Cat (Ire).
Gallery: Eureka Stud-based sires represented at the upcoming Magic Millions Sale
It’s a superb collection of young horses, one that has grown out on the sloped, black soils of the Darling Downs. The yearlings are what buyers have come to expect from Eureka Stud – sound and tough future racehorses.
This farm has, in its recent past, produced the likes of Group 1 winner Pippie (Written Tycoon), multiple stakes-winner Outback Barbie (Spirit Of Boom) and recent Magic Millions Wyong winner (and former Group 3 winner) Wisdom Of Water (Headwater).
On the top shelf, both Spirit Of Boom and his half-brother Temple Of Boom emerged from Eureka Stud.
Harry McAlpine, the farm’s head of stallion nominations and the son of studmasters Scott McAlpine and Grania McAlpine, said the 2022 Magic Millions draft was a bountiful crop after a very good year on the Darling Downs.
Harry McAlpine
“We’ve had amazing rainfall this year so the place is looking really good,” he said. “We’ve had a little breather with the breeding season wrapping up, but of course the yearlings have come in for January, for the Classic Sale in February and for Melbourne Premier. And then there are the 30 to 40 that will come in for the Magic Millions March Sale, so we’ll be running around like mad then.”
The Booms
With half of Eureka Stud’s January draft representing him, Spirit Of Boom has a strong hand among the 23 yearlings on their way to the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
Overall, the stallion has 40 youngsters in the catalogue, and they come from as local as the Darling Downs and as far flung as Westbury Stud in New Zealand (with four).
Spirit Of Boom | Standing at Eureka Stud
“We support Spirit Of Boom very heavily here at Eureka,” Harry McAlpine said. “With his ascension in service fee and stats, we’ve had a bit more time to keep finding better mares for him, and we’re always on the hunt for better quality because he’s earned that.”
The rise of Spirit Of Boom has been an extraordinary story for the farm.
The stallion stood his first season at Eureka in 2014 for $11,000 (inc GST) and, with unprecedented first-crop success, his fee rocketed to $55,000 (inc GST) by 2018. He stood for $44,000 (inc GST) thereafter until he levelled off at $33,000 (inc GST) this spring.
Speaking to TDN AusNZ earlier this year, McAlpine said that Spirit Of Boom was sitting perfectly within his market.
“All his supporters that we’ve spoken to believe that he slots in well in the market, as it’s a very competitive price point for a proven stallion who throws good sale-types at a high conversion rate,” he said.
McAlpine said the Spirit Of Boom stock was only getting better off Eureka Stud, and the 2022 Magic Millions draft was an example of that.
Gallery: Some of Spirit Of Boom's progeny represented in Eureka Stud's draft | Images courtesy of Magic Millions
“We’ve got a pretty big representation but it’s a strong one,” he said. “We’ve got a half to Pippie (Lot 883) and a full sister to Outback Barbie (Lot 400). We’ve got the second foal from Tiyatrolani (Lot 631), who was a stakes winner and stakes placed, and a son of Defiant Dame (Lot 906) who was a Gimcrack winner. There’s also a son of Diva Dee (Lot 916), who was a Group 2-year-old. It’s a pretty strong line up of Booms.”
Tiyatrolani (Captain Sonador) produced the best result for Eureka at this Sale last year, topping the draft with a $500,000 Spirit Of Boom colt that went to Aramco Racing.
Eureka’s lifeblood
In eight seasons at stud, Spirit Of Boom has covered triple-figure books every year. This spring, he covered 178 mares at Eureka Stud.
McAlpine said it’s taken them a few years, as it does with any stallion, to work out which mares work best, even if the stallion's has a penchant for upgrading everything.
Density (Spirit Of Boom x Tiyatrolani) as a yearling, Eureka Stud's draft-topper at the 2021 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale | Image courtesy of Magic Millions
“Most of his stakes winners have come off the farm because between us and our clients we supported him right from the start,” McAlpine said. “I don’t think there’s any great trick to it. If you send him a good-looking, fast mare, not much else really matters.
"He’ll generally convert that, and he probably didn’t get that many of those really good, well-performed mares to start with, but he converted so many of them into stakes horses.”
“I don’t think there’s any great trick to it. If you send him (Spirit Of Boom) a good-looking, fast mare, not much else really matters.” - Harry McAlpine
McAlpine said they would continue to follow that pattern with Spirit Of Boom. He’s been a bankable stallion from the get-go so there was no need to reinvent the wheel with him.
The horse is coming into his sixth crop of racing-age foals this season, and he’s had 16 stakes winners for 23 stakes wins so far, headed by the likes of the ageless Jonker, who won the G1 Manikato S. recently, and topical Listed winner Miami Fleiss.
Gallery: Some of Spirit Of Boom's stakes-winning progeny
“He’s the lifeblood and the heart of the farm,” McAlpine said. “Everything runs around him, and we couldn’t operate as we do without him.”
Pretty Fly
As far as highlights go in the draft, McAlpine mentioned the half-brother to Pippie (Written Tycoon) in Lot 883 and the full sister to Outback Barbie (Spirit of Boom) in Lot 400, but there are others.
Among the draft is Lot 235, a colt by freshman sire Encryption from Madame Fly (Excites), making this colt a half-brother to the aforementioned Miami Fleiss, a recent winner of the Listed Eureka Stud Classic at Doomben.
Miami Fleiss won her stakes race after the catalogue was released, delivering a significant page upgrade.
Lot 235 - Encryption x Madame Fly (colt) | Image courtesy of Magic Millions
Owned in partnership by the Black Soil Bloodstock group, she’s a racy mare with hardly a blemish to her record. Miami Fleiss has won five of seven races, running second in another and unplaced in the only other over a Heavy 9. She’s won close to $400,000 for trainer Tony Gollan.
“Madame Fly is a mare I bought for Brian (Siemsen, of Black Soil Bloodstock) for $3000 while I was working for Inglis,” McAlpine said. “She’s proved to be one of their best mares.”
Among this family are the stakes winners Chapter And Verse (Rothesay) on the second line, and Boomsara (Spirit Of Boom) on the third. It’s an evolving family with very good Queensland credentials.
It’s (Lot 235) an evolving family with very good Queensland credentials.
Unfortunately, Madame Fly passed away this spring after foaling a filly by Spirit Of Boom. The filly survived with a foster mare, making her and her half-brother (Lot 235) something of a limited edition.
History repeating
Lot 235 is one of five yearlings by Encryption in the Eureka Stud draft, and the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale will see the very first progeny of this new sire hit the sale ring.
Encryption was raced by Godolphin through his sprinting career, which resulted in wins in the G2 Danehill S. at Flemington and G3 Black Opal S. at Canberra. In and around those were placings in the G3 Maribyrnong Plate, G3 Blue Sapphire S. and G1 Oakleigh Plate.
Encryption when racing | Standing at Eureka Stud
“We were quite lucky to get a hold of a horse of his calibre because it’s hard to get good horses up here in Queensland to match with those Hunter Valley farms,” McAlpine said. “We were lucky enough to do a deal with Vin (Cox) and Godolphin, and we made it very clear to them that we had a lot of mares here to support the horse.”
With Spirit Of Boom climbing the fee ladder, McAlpine said Eureka Stud was in a very good position to support another stallion coming through.
“I don’t think we could have found a better option than Encryption,” he said. “He’s incredibly well-bred as a son of Lonhro, who we love, and he’s very good-looking . He was also a sharp, precocious 2-year-old, which is important for what we stand here in Queensland.”
“I don’t think we could have found a better option than Encryption... He was also a sharp, precocious 2-year-old, which is important for what we stand here in Queensland.” - Harry McAlpine
Encryption covered 135 mares in his debut book and 133 in his second. This spring on Eureka Stud, he was there or thereabouts with 120.
In the upcoming Sale he has 13 yearlings from vendors like Eureka, Twin Hills Stud, Oaklands Stud and Kenmore Lodge. There are also representatives from Raheen and Gleeson Thoroughbred Connections.
“He’s syndicated up with breeding-right holders, and Godolphin and ourselves have supported him heavily,” McAlpine said. “And we intend to do the same with him as we did with Spirit Of Boom in taking the yearlings around the country, trying to spread them out and get them into stables everywhere.”
Gallery: Some of Encryption's progeny represented in Eureka Stud's draft | Images courtesy of Magic Millions
McAlpine said the number of Encryption yearlings in the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale is probably on par with what Spirit Of Boom experienced in his debut year.
“The first crop of Spirit Of Boom's were at a similar number, from memory,” he said. “And then with them, we took two to Melbourne and one of those ended up being a stakes winner.”
That horse was Kinky Boom, who won the 2018 R. Listed Inglis 2YO Classic, while the McAlpines took an additional two first-crop yearlings by Spirit Of Boom to Adelaide, which again produced a stakes winner in Heaven’s Deal.
They took a similar strategy at Karaka when selling a pair of horses, one of which resulted in the Group winner Spirits Aubeer.
Harry, Scott, Angus and Charlie McAlpine | Image courtesy of Eureka Stud
“We’ll do the same thing with Encryption,” McAlpine said. “We’ll take a couple to Sydney and three to Melbourne, including a half to Finance Tycoon, and we’ll take one to Adelaide. It will be very much the same scenario.
“Being Queensland-based, you’ve sometimes got to beat the other farms on their home ground for them to pay attention to you, and of course you’ve got to give the stallion every chance.”
