Cover image courtesy of Edinburgh Park
It’s been two years since the Manning Valley breeder Edinburgh Park consigned a draft to the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale, but this week the farm is back at Riverside with a neat, promising set of seven yearlings.
Each is by a different sire, from Charm Spirit (Ire) to Zoustar and Medaglia D’Oro (USA), but there’s a pattern among them on closer inspection.
Exactly four of the seven horses hail from one singular family at Edinburgh Park, a family that now runs very deep through the farm. It’s the family of Darling Alice (USA) (Northern Flagship {USA}), a North American broodmare.
Gallery: Some of the sires represented in the Edinburgh Park draft at the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale
Fifteen of the 50 or so broodmares at Edinburgh Park these days hail from her important page, and it’s something that studmaster Ian Smith has done deliberately across the last near-decade.
“It all goes back to when I bought Gainesville, who is the dam of Rose Of Cimmaron, Mica’s Pride and Money Begets Money,” Smith said. “I bought her in foal to Bite The Bullet off the guys that owned Kingmaker Farm, which was standing Bite The Bullet at that time.
“I had hoped for a filly from that, and obviously I got Rose Of Cimmaron, who I kept and raced and she won some nice races in town with Anthony Cummings. From Gainesville, I got a couple of nice foals but Rose Of Cimmaron was the only filly, so I ended up selling her (Gainesville) on.”
Rose Of Cimmaron when racing | Image courtesy of Sportpix
Smith kept Rose Of Cimmaron (Bite The Bullet {USA}), and her first foal was the Fastnet Rock Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed Bull Point, who now stands at Kingstar Farm.
For Smith, Bull Point topped the 2012 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, a strapping colt that went to Demi O’Byrne and James Bester for $960,000.
Rose Of Cimmaron’s third foal was the Fastnet Rock stakes winner Siege Of Quebec so, by good assumption, this was a family worth the investment.
Bull Point | Standing at Kingstar Farm
But it didn’t stop Smith from selling his valuable mare to the late Dr Edmund Bateman, and Rose Of Cimmaron is still in the care of Belinda Bateman to this day.
“I got a very good number for her,” Smith said. “But after that I went seeking other branches of the family in America because I knew everything was pretty much taken in Australia. I knew what I was looking for and, with the help of a few bloodstock agents and contacts in America, we were able to buy a few.”
The Alice
The few that Smith bought were the broodmares Alice’s Smart (USA) (Smart Strike {USA}), Smokin’ Alice (USA) (Smoke Glacken {USA}), Quiet Kitten (USA) (Kitten’s Joy {USA}), Nothin But A Dream (USA) (First Defence {USA}) and Piacenza (Ven) (League Of Nations {USA}).
Each of these five mares was a direct descendant of Darling Alice, either a daughter (as in the case of Alice’s Smart, Nothin But A Dream and Smokin’ Alice), or a granddaughter, as were Quiet Kitten and Piacenza.
Piacenza (Ven) at Edinburgh Park with Ian Smith | Image courtesy of Edinburgh Park
Their connection to Gainesville (Can) (Afleet {Can}) and her daughter, Rose Of Cimmaron, is that Gainesville was a half-sister to Darling Alice.
The relevancy of this family in the current Australian market is that the G2 Bill Stutt S. winner, Glenfiddich (Fastnet Rock), is a son of Nothin But A Dream. Glenfiddich, a lightly raced 4-year-old with Peter Moody, has won close to $500,000 in prizemoney and is approaching a return.
From Smokin’ Alice has come the three-time Magic Millions Carnival winner and Group-placed Eleven Eleven (Fastnet Rock), plus the stakes-placed Greg Hickman gelding War Memorial (Fastnet Rock).
The relevancy of this family in the current Australian market is that the G2 Bill Stutt S. winner, Glenfiddich, is a son of Nothin But A Dream... From Smokin’ Alice has come the three-time Magic Millions Carnival winner and Group-placed Eleven Eleven.
“The first mare I bought was Alice’s Smart,” Smith said. “She was the first and she was a gorgeous mare, so that gave me the encouragement to look for others. Alice’s Smart had gone to Keeneland and sold for something like US$45,000 (AU$60,000), and Steve Brem came up to me after I sold Bull Point at the Magic Millions to tell me a close relation had gone through a sale in America recently.
“I offered her new owners significant upside before they sent her to whatever stallion they were deciding on, and her destiny was changed forever from going to stallions that were probably nowhere near the quality of what I was prepared to send her to.”
Smokin’ Alice arrived in Australia in late 2013 and, since then, Smith has dipped in and out of the United States for the others.
Sheamus Mills visiting Smokin' Alice (USA) at Edinburgh Park | Image courtesy of Sheamus Mills Bloodstock
It’s been a significant and expensive exercise, and not without its troubles. When he got Piacenza into Australia in 2019, assisted heavily by Sheamus Mills, he had plucked her from a civil war in Venezuela.
“Some of these mares were even purchased in claiming races, and to go through all the pedigrees in claiming races, I just didn’t have the time for that,” Smith said. “But my advantage was that I knew exactly what I was looking for, and all these mares were appearing at the right time.
“When we got Piacenza, the civil war in Venezuela was going on and it was very much that old school of business... handshake agreements and lots of trust. There was a time there where we thought we might have done our money, and I can tell you there were a lot of people that we had to please to get the job done.”
Stacking the draft
The jigs, reels and handshakes for Smith have resulted in four of these five mares having progeny in this week’s Easter catalogue.
Lot 322 is a filly by Exceed And Excel from Nothin But A Dream, while Lot 347 is a Medaglia D’Oro filly from Piacenza. By Zoustar, Lot 370 is a colt from Quiet Kitten, and Lot 430 is by Trapeze Artist from Smokin’ Alice. Only the broodmare Alice’s Smart isn’t among them.
Gallery: Some of Edinburgh Park's yearlings to be offered at the Inglis Easter Sale, images courtesy of Inglis
It’s a significant achievement that so many of the family are in an Easter catalogue, and Smith knows he has a good hand this week.
“The Exceed And Excel filly (Lot 322) is a half to Glenfiddich, and Glenfiddich is on the comeback trail,” the studmaster said. “He shouldn’t be too far off a start, and Peter Moody has looked after him really well. We should probably see him back racing in the next two to three weeks.
“The other standout in our draft is the Trapeze Artist colt from Smokin’ Alice, and he’s a half-brother to Eleven Eleven. He’s a big, strong colt and Eleven Eleven, as he was described the other day, is a modern warhorse. He steps up and delivers every time, and he’s won over $2.8 million at this point for his owners.”
“...he’s (Lot 430) a half-brother to Eleven Eleven. He’s a big, strong colt and Eleven Eleven, as he was described the other day, is a modern warhorse. He steps up and delivers every time, and he’s won over $2.8 million at this point for his owners.” - Ian Smith
As for the Medaglia D’Oro filly (Lot 347), she is something of a limited edition, with young progeny of that stallion relatively thin on the ground. In this week’s Sale, she is one of only two on offer, the other a colt from the Widden Stud draft (Lot 239).
That leaves just the Zoustar colt from Quiet Kitten to talk about (Lot 370).
“This is a nice colt too,” Smith said. “His half-brother sold at Magic Millions last year to Peter Moody for $450,000, and he’s looking like he has ability too. So there’s lots happening in this family.”
Return on investment
Back at Edinburgh Park, Smith is correct. There’s a lot happening in his Darling Alice family.
“There is plenty in the pipeline,” the studmaster said. “Alice’s Smart has had stakes-placed horses in Spencer, who’s still running, and Miss Wonderland, who is now owned by Widden and clients. Her first foal made $500,000 as a yearling at Magic Millions (when selling to China Horse Club and Newgate Farm last year).”
Another of Alice Smart’s fillies, the 2015 foal Wonderbabe (Snitzel), was sold by Edinburgh Park as a yearling for $400,000 to Andrew Williams Bloodstock.
Wonderbabe when racing | Image courtesy of Sportpix
She was an Inglis Easter yearling but, just two years later, Smith bought her back from Glastonbury Farms at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale for $200,000.
He got that back with a little bit of change earlier this year when he sold Wonderbabe’s first foal, a filly by Written Tycoon, to Amanda Turner Racing for $220,000 at the Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale.
“We’ve bought into a few other aspects of the family, so there’s probably about 15 mares on the farm that carry this bloodline for us,” Smith said. “That’s out of about 50 mares, so it’s absolutely the most significant family we have because it’s been successful for us. They’re sound animals and the market absorbs them well."
“...there’s probably about 15 mares on the farm that carry this bloodline for us. That’s out of about 50 mares, so it’s absolutely the most significant family we have because it’s been successful for us. They’re sound animals and the market absorbs them well." - Ian Smith
Smith said his draft this week was an opportunity to get among it, which wasn't always easy with families of this calibre.
“We’re offering these four yearlings this week and you don’t often get the opportunity to get your hands on these sorts of families, particularly the fillies.
“And all these mares are sitting back at the farm in foal to the likes of Written Tycoon, Zoustar, Snitzel and So You Think. The list goes on, but the success we’ve had with this family only makes us want to push on with it.”
