Dirty Work and Overshare will now continue their careers at Widden Victoria, after David Moodie and Ash Hardwick’s Hesket Thoroughbreds struck an agreement with owner Antony Thompson, who told TDN AusNZ he is looking forward to standing the exciting pair in 2022.

"They are perfect for our roster. They are both highly appealing horses to us and the Australian market. They are speed sons of brilliant sires and they are both really good-looking and exciting young horses," Thompson said.

Good value

Dirty Work - a son of Champion Sire Written Tycoon - will be offered to breeders at a fee of $16,500 (inc GST), having covered 155 mares in his first season at a fee of $19,800 (inc GST) last year.

“I think at $16,500 Dirty Work represents good value for breeders. He was very popular last year at a slightly higher fee, but we thought he would slot into our roster nicely and would be well-priced. We want to continue to give him the big books of mares,” said Thompson.

“He covered a fantastic book of mares last year and we would like to continue that this year. Widden will be supporting both horses with our own mares.”

An $800,000 yearling, Dirty Work landed five of his 21 starts headlined by a win in the G2 Schillaci S. and he is out of dual-winning Maidel (Ad Valorem {USA}), a half-sister to Group 3 winner Gamay (Pierro) and Listed scorer Meidung (Bernardini {USA}), with the latter also the dam of Group 2 victor Banish (Lonhro).

Dirty Work becomes the second son of Written Tycoon to stand at Widden Stud, with G1 Blue Diamond S. winner Written By residing at the stud's New South Wales base.

Written By enjoyed good success with his first yearlings this year, selling 68 youngsters for an aggregate of $9,169,663 at an average of $134,847 and Thompson said his success gives Widden further confidence to stand another high-class son of Written Tycoon.

“Written Tycoon is a Champion Sire and very important to the Victorian industry and given the very successful year with Written By and his first yearlings it certainly gives us a lot of confidence with Dirty Work.”

Building momentum

Meanwhile, Overshare has had good success with his first runners from limited numbers, with the son of I Am Invincible having sired a pair of winners - including Group-placed filly Lady Laguna - and a placegetter from only three runners and he will become the first son of I Am Invincible to stand at Widden Victoria.

A winner of the 2018 edition of the G3 Zeditave S., Overshare covered 130 mares at a fee of $11,000 (inc GST) in 2021 and he will stand the upcoming season for the same fee.

“Overshare is obviously a horse where momentum has built on from day one, he has covered good numbers every year and he has three runners and he is off to a great start, two winners and a placegetter. He is obviously a very interesting horse and now we have seen his progeny that interest is really growing,” Thompson continued.

Hesket Thoroughbreds will look to support clients of the former Spendthrift Australia stallions as much as possible and all active nomination agreements will be honoured, be that ‘Breed Secure’, ‘Share the Upside’ and ‘Live Foal’ agreements.

Magic Millions has been entrusted with overseeing the process to find suitable new homes for proven stallions Gold Standard and Swear.

Industry in rude health

In January, respected industry real estate figure Clint Donovan was appointed to sell the 600-acre property including staff, on a walk-in, walk-out basis and he told TDN AusNZ that they had over 40 expressions of interest on the property which, given the nature of the sale, was way over what he had expected.

“We are delighted and elated by the outcome. We are grateful for the opportunity the whole team put into it to conduct the transaction. We were also realistic that we did offer up quite a complex business scenario as a walk-in, walk-out opportunity,” said Donovan.

“As much as it appeared to the outsider to take a bit of time to come to fruition, but we were satisfied with the timing.

“It is the perfect time for the breeding season and the new owners to do with the stock and the stallions what they wish. It is a good outcome and has been quite a journey, but it has also been enlightening from an Australian industry perspective. We had over 40 serious expressions of interest and enquiries on the walk-in, walk-out nature of the deal, which given the size of the transaction is huge and it is a real reflection on the health of the industry here.”

In terms of the physical assets, the property includes a four-bedroom homestead, two brand new staff houses comprising four bedrooms, two mare barns of 12 and 11 each with another 22 box-barn, which was under construction when it was put on the market. The property also boasts a four-box foaling barn, a 14-box stallion yard, a covering shed and a stallion round yard.

There is also an office, workshop, wash bay and several storage sheds, a further staff room with accommodation and access to dams, bore and tank water.

Donovan said the Spendthrift mares and weanlings on offer at the Magic Millions National Sale were some of the best to come to market in 2022 and therefore offered a rare opportunity for buyers.

“It’s great to see Hesket Thoroughbreds keep on Overshare and Dirty Work,” he said. “It’s great for the current shareholders and supporters of those stallions for them to relocate to a farm with the brand-power such as Widden.

“It is also exciting and gives confidence to the buying bench with some really nice weanlings and top-class broodmares heading to the National Sale in an unreserved dispersal, so it is a win-win for all parties.

“There are some world-class and serious mares and some lovely weanlings by some exciting stallions, it is going to give people the opportunity to sink their teeth into some world-class pedigrees.”

Cover image courtesy of Bronwen Healy

The 5-year-old Snitzel horse Splintex, bred and raced by Geoff and Mary Grimish, has been retired to stand the upcoming breeding season at Darling View Thoroughbreds in Western Australia. It brings to a close the horse’s brilliant, 24-race career for trainer Mark Newnham, which tallied three Group victories and almost $1.2 million in prizemoney.

Splintex will join Playing God and Patronize at Darling View Thoroughbreds, and his fee will be an introductory $11,000 (inc GST). He is arguably the most commercial of Snitzel’s sons to ever retire to the west.

Brent Atwell is the stud manager at Darling View, which sits on 400 acres of former dairy country at Mundijong, south of Perth. In January, the farm lost its rising star I’m All The Talk, something which the farm is still getting used to.

“We lost I’m All The Talk at the end of the season, and since then we’ve been hunting for a new stallion,” Atwell said. “With an extremely tough stallion market to crack into, we were finding it difficult to even get close to finding a horse to purchase for over here, not least one with as high credentials as what Splintex has.”

It’s a story repeated the nation over.

Buying stallion propositions is one of the most difficult of businesses, so when Splintex was cast up for expressions of interest, Atwell, alongside a number of people that included Magic Millions’ David Houston in Perth, assembled a small group of breeders.

“We were looking for a horse that obviously had the race record and the pedigree,” Atwell said. “Usually in WA we have to miss out on ticking one of those boxes, but I was only saying to a group of breeders the other night that I believe this bloke ticks them all.”

The Splintex dart

Splintex was bred by the Grimishes at Kitchwin Hills in 2016. He was the fifth foal and first colt from the O’Reilly (NZ) mare Acquired (NZ).

Acquired is a half-sister to no less than Hips Don’t Lie (NZ) (Stravinsky {USA}), who won the 2008 Reisling S. and, since then, has produced the stakes-winning Fastnet Rock siblings Ennis Hill and Lake Geneva.

This is a very contemporary family.

Hips Don’t Lie, at Coolmore, is the dam of Acrobat, who will join the Coolmore roster this spring upcoming. At last year’s Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, an I Am Invincible daughter of Hips Don’t Lie sold for $1.95 million to Sheamus Mills Bloodstock (FBAA).

Just last week, Sia, a Fastnet Rock daughter of Hips Don’t Lie, sold at the Inglis Chairman’s Sale for $1.6 million. She was consigned by Segenhoe Thoroughbreds and knocked down to Hilldene Farm and James Bester.

After a few years of breeding from her, Grimish sold Acquired at the Chairman’s Sale of 2019. She went to Highgrove Stud in Queensland for $450,000.

At that point, Splintex was an unraced 2-year-old with Mark Newnham, and he eventually proved one of two stakes horses from the mare, the other being the Listed Starlight S. winner Invictus Salute (Exceed And Excel).

When Splintex did start racing, it was in the familiar steel grey and black silks of Geoff Grimish. The horse was third on debut at Kensington, and then won his next two juvenile starts, defeating no less than eventual Group 1 winner and now Vinery Stud sire Exceedance.

As a 3-year-old, Splintex was third in the Listed Gosford Guineas before edging out the brilliant Flit (Medaglia D’Oro {USA}) to land the G2 Arrowfield Sprint at Randwick. As a 4-year-old he won the G3 Hall Mark S. and, as a 5-year-old, the G2 Bobbie Lewis Quality, in the latter getting the better of Away Game (Snitzel).

“He beat Exceedance as a 2-year-old, and he’s been a Group winner at ages three, four and five,” Atwell said. “And he raced on, which isn’t something we often get to see with these colts. He raced against the best when he was going around, and arguably against the best sprinters in the world right now.”

It’s an accurate observation.

As an older horse, Splintex faced Classique Legend (Not A Single Doubt), Gytrash (Lope De Vega {Ire}), Eduardo (Host {Chi}) and Nature Strip (Nicconi). They’re a no-nonsense set of sprinters that have shuffled the wares between them across many seasons and, in many of these top sprints, Splintex was in arrears by just a length or two.

“He really is a huge coup for us,” Atwell said. “And it’s a real coup for Western Australian breeding too.”

The speed horse

Splintex has finished his career on the racetrack. He departed Newnham’s Randwick yard on Monday, awaiting a flight to Perth. Atwell expects the horse at Darling View Thoroughbreds by the end of the month.

The stud manager, who is fresh from picking up Joy Toy, the Encosta De Lago half-sister to More Joyous (NZ) (More Than Ready {USA}), at Riverside last week, is still savouring his luck at landing the son of Snitzel, admitting that it isn’t ever easy to grab a commercial prospect for the west coast.

“At the end of the day over here, we’ve only got a broodmare market of between 1300 and 1400 mares that are covered yearly,” Atwell said. “So you have to find the right horse that’s not going to break the budget and that will suit pedigrees over here.

“In the end, Snitzel is the best stallion in Australia and he’s got some great sons at stud now, but it still feels like a bit of a dream that we’ve got hold of him. He’s done that well on the racetrack, not to mention his pedigree. Only the other night, a mare from this family (Sia) made $1.65 million in Sydney.”

Atwell is certain that Splintex is a good fit for the local industry. It’s something that any studmaster must consider before bringing a stallion into Western Australia.

The horse will be just the third son of Snitzel standing in the west, the others being Bondi, who stood at Lynwood Park Stud for $5500 (inc GST) last season, and Ducimus, who won the Listed Talindert S. before standing his third season at Rivercrest Park last year for $4400 (inc GST).

“Over here, people will always be sending the better mares east to visit the better stallions,” Atwell said. “We wanted to find a horse that could help breeders with the rising services fees in the east and the rising transport costs.

“We think this horse can give WA breeders the chance to leave their mares at home and, to be honest, I think Splintex could have stood anywhere on the east coast.”

When Splintex arrives at Darling View Thoroughbreds, he will join two other stallions this spring upcoming.

The farm’s headline act is Playing God, who will stand for $27,500 (inc GST) this season, a significant spike on last year’s fee of $16,500 (inc GST). The second of the resident stallions is Patronize, a son of Redoute’s Choice who will stand for $4400 (inc GST).

“Splintex will fit in beautifully to our roster,” Atwell said. “Playing God has got the stakes winners but he's more of a miler cum middle-distance type of sire. He'll get you your Classic winners.

Gallery: Darling View Thoroughbreds other stallions to stud in 2022, images courtesy of Darling View Thoroughbreds

“This bloke, Splintex, is pure speed, which I think really fits the WA mould. A lot of our racing is focused around two- and 3-year-old racing with Westspeed Platinum bonuses, which is really lucrative over here, so that’s a big reason why we chased Splintex, because of the speed in his pedigree.”

Atwell said he’s expecting Splintex to get healthy numbers this spring.

“Our biggest book last year was 128 mares, and that was for Playing God,” he said. “I think Splintex can reach the heights of 100 mares in his first season, which would be excellent.”

Gone west

David Houston, the Perth-based manager of Magic Millions in Western Australia, had a hand in negotiating the purchase of Splintex for the west. He too was surprised when they acquired the horse.

“We’d been actively looking for a stallion over here, and while I had Splintex in my mind, I thought he would certainly have been spoken for,” Houston said. “When the advertisement came up for him, I swooped on the opportunity to call Mark Player.”

Houston’s role in the negotiation was representative. He wanted to secure something positive for western breeders.

“There are groups of breeders over here looking for new stallion prospects, either because of existing stallions getting old or because of losing a stallion like I’m All The Talk,” Houston said. “We need to refresh our stocks, so I’m actively looking all the time, and hopefully I can engage people with some interest in new horses.”

Houston knew that Darling View Thoroughbreds was in the market after losing I’m All The Talk, and the tender process for Splintex was straightforward, albeit stressful, as it usually is for invested parties.

“We looked the horse upside down and inside out with all the potential wherefores and why-fores,” Houston said. “And that was all before putting in a tender which, luckily for us, was successful.”

Like Atwell, Houston feels that Splintex is a superb fit for Western Australia. A large part of that is the Snitzel legacy, which has worked so well for speed up and down the country.

“In Splintex, we have a very fast horse by a Champion stallion and from a wonderful family,” he said. “He was a tough, sound racehorse that competed against Australia’s elite in Nature Strip, Eduardo, Gytrash and Classique Legend. Many stallions going to stud these days have never even heard of those horses, let alone raced against them.”

Cover image courtesy of Magic Millions

Two days after Easter, and for the first time in as many years, Magic Millions’ David Chester boarded an international flight to southeast Asia. In a normal year he’d do so every few months, skirting through Hong Kong or South Korea as Magic Millions’ sales director, but since COVID took hold in 2020, Chester’s been largely grounded.

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“It was my first time getting back to Asia in over two years,” he said, speaking this week to TDN AusNZ. “I was a bit worried about getting COVID, to be honest, because I’ve managed to avoid it all this time.”

Chester’s luck was in.

Through a four-day mission to the Philippines and Singapore, he successfully avoided COVID, and it was almost like old times as he renewed acquaintances first in Manila, and then in Singapore.

Chester’s whirlwind visit was in aid of welcoming his Asian clients back to Magic Millions for the upcoming National Sale Series this month, their first physical presence at the Sale since 2019.

“Some of these buyers from Manila and Singapore have been buying online through our sales for the last two years,” Chester said. “But it’s not the same as having them here at the Gold Coast.

“They add to the excitement of the Sale and it makes our vendors feel better. They can see Asian faces walking around the Sale looking at yearlings and broodmares. It just gives everything a bit of a lift, even for the local buyers to see they’ve got competition and opposition.”

Klub Don Juan

The Magic Millions relationship with its Asian market is an important one.

While Chester admits that COVID-era sales hardly skipped a beat, bringing back Asian faces to the Gold Coast is a priority for the company, both for the upcoming National Sale and the 2YOs In Training Sale later in the year.

In Manila, Chester spent time with Klub Don Juan, an important collection of Filipino horse buyers.

“There’s actually three owners’ clubs over there, but Klub Don Juan is one that is very close to us,” he said. “They hosted a dinner for me over there, and we had about 25 people come along to that. I had a talk about the Sale and about having them come over to it, and we’ve got about 35 to 40 of our Manila buyers coming over now.”

Klub Don Juan de Manila is made up of important local businessfolk.

Some have banana plantations and some are property developers. A lot of them have breeding farms, and Chester has been fostering a relationship with them since as far as back as 2004, when he made his first trip to the Philippines.

“They’ve been regular buyers with us since I started going there all those years back,” Chester said. “I was told I was wasting my time back then, that they wouldn’t spend big money on horses, but that proved totally wrong because what the Filipinos have been doing, long before I started going there, was paying quite a bit of money for broodmares and stallions from America.”

From 1898 to 1946, the Philippines was a territory of the United States and, as such, its racing is heavily influenced by the American model. Horses race on dirt, and the local scene follows the American sport much more than that of its much closer neighbour, Australia.

“That’s something I’m trying to change,” Chester said. “They place a lot more importance on the Kentucky Derby, for instance, than any of our important races here because all of their tracks are dirt. So they like buying those dirt-track horses, which of course don’t sell as well in Australia.”

The American focus

With this in mind, Chester travelled to the Philippines with a particular sales pitch. He needed a National Sale catalogue that had something to offer.

“The horses with dirt-track pedigrees don’t sell as strongly in Australia as they do in America,” Chester said. “And that’s why they love coming here now, because they can buy horses that would be two or three times more expensive in America by the same sires.”

Chester said his Manila buyers are interested in anything that has an American flavour, and lately that has included the Japanese sires.

“We’re talking about stallions like American Pharoah,” he said. “They couldn’t buy them before because they were so expensive, but now those horses have come back to their price bracket. American Pharoah is just one stallion that’s on their radar, but there are others.

“Our catalogues always have a few American-bred mares, or mares out of American families that have won on the dirt tracks over in America, and they love buying those horses.”

According to Chester, his Filipino clients will pay up to $40,000 for a broodmare. He said they’re not competing with the big, local players, and there are additional criteria to consider. The Filipinos want mares that are foaling later in the year because the cargo flight to transport them back will depart in July.

“Our charter flight to the Philippines goes in July, so they’re looking for mares that will foal later,” Chester said. “Anything that is foaling in August and September, even early October, can’t go on the plane.”

The Philippines is one of the very few Asian nations with a local breeding program. South Korea also has one, but Chester said the Philippines has some very good thoroughbred farms that, on setup alone, would rival any Australian situation.

“They breed a lot of horses there,” he said. “Their racing is largely restricted to what they call ‘island-bred’ horses, but they’re starting to open things up a little bit more where they’re allowing races for island-breds and imported horses, so they want to buy more imported horses if they can.”

As such, the Filipino buyers at the National Sale this month will be after breeding stock and yearlings, the latter they’ll refer to as ‘runners’.

Chester said their yearling budget hovers around $20,000 for each horse, which isn’t reflective of budget. It’s reflective of a local economy.

“Even though they have a lot of racing there, they’re racing for under $3000,” Chester said. “So prizemoney is pretty poor, but they’re hoping that a new government over there will foster racing a little bit more, which has really suffered under the taxation system.”

One flight a year

During trips such as these, Chester wears many hats.

He met with the Australian trade commissioner at the embassy, and he had a meeting with the Philippine Racing Commission. He offers advice on pedigrees and considers the export challenges. He works with charter-flight complications and he has to be across the visa situations with inviting his Asian clients into Australia.

In Manila, he works closely with the locally based Ancy Palmer, who used to work for Austrade and who plays a critical role in hosting the Filipino clients at Magic Millions.

“There are so many arms to it,” Chester said, “and you do have to be across all things. But the people involved in racing over there, they’re quite wealthy people. They race as a hobby. It’s not really a business over there the way it is here. There’s not a lot of money in it but they do it because they love racing and they love horses.”

Already, a number of Chester’s clients have bought horses through Magic Millions Online. Those purchases will join any horses bought at the National Sale this month, and all will board the charter flight in July.

“Our flight will take up to 50 horses, and we’ve got about 15 to 20 already on it,” Chester said. “Cameron Croucher’s Equine International Airfreight is the only outfit that will ship to the Philippines, and there’s only one charter a year that heads there.

“And this is why the Filipinos love the National Sale. They can come out at the end of May and their horses are on a shipment in July, and it suits them because the cost of holding horses here in Australia can be very high.”

Singapore returns

After Manila, Chester flew to Singapore on a similar mission. He met with Mr Lim Siah Mong of the Lim’s Stable, and that operation’s racing manager Mick Dittman and trainer Danny Meagher.

“It’s been two years since I’ve been anywhere, and this was my first trip back at it,” Chester said. “I’ve met some very good people in all these countries over the years, and they’ve become personal friends. It will be great to have them back here at the National Sale because it’s been a 20-plus year project to get to this stage.”

Chester said the cross-relations between his clients in the Philippines and those in Singapore were stronger than ever. Several of his Filipino buyers would be sending their National Sale purchases to race in Singapore, which could number up to a dozen horses.

“I didn’t go to the races while I was in Singapore because the races weren’t open to the public, but I went to trackwork and I saw most of the trainers,” Chester said. “We’ve got a record number of seven Singapore trainers coming to the National Sale, which we haven’t had for many, many years, even before COVID.”

Chester confirmed that Mr Lim would be coming, as would Meagher. All up, it’s a quick and promising bounce-back from COVID, even if quarantine problems will scupper a large contingent from Hong Kong.

“I think the Hong Kong buying bench will largely be online,” he said. “There are two or three still coming, but not as many as we’ve had in the past. We’re still working on South Korea, so while it still hasn’t picked up fully, we’re hoping that by the 2YOs In Training Sale in late October, there’ll be a lot more of those guys physically able to come.”