Matings mix: Parsons Creek

Cover image courtesy of Parsons Creek

If every small farm has its superstar, then Parsons Creek has Chatelaine. So far, the 22-year-old daughter of Flying Spur is the dam of two Group 1 winners.

Her foals include the G1 Coolmore Stud S. winner Headway (Charge Forward), while her most recent star is the G1 Doomben 10,000 winner Mazu (Maurice {Jpn}). She has a Toronado (Ire) colt on the farm and, for the final time, she’s in foal to King’s Legacy.

“That’s it for her then,” said Jo O’Gorman, the principal of Parsons Creek. “I know we said that last year, but that really is it for our wonderful Chatelaine.”

For the relatively youthful Parsons Creek, which began operating at Milbrodale in 2015, Chatelaine has been a star in a galaxy of planned ambition.

She cost just $54,000 when picked up from Turangga Farm at its unreserved dispersal sale in 2017, and Mazu alone was a $180,000 yearling colt when sold a few years later to Triple Crown Syndications at the 2020 Inglis Classic Sale.

Therefore, it’s with a hint of sadness that O’Gorman doesn’t have a breeding plan for Chatelaine this spring, albeit it’s hardly the end of the line. As most farms do, Parsons Creek has a succession plan in place for this important family.

The grand, old mare has a daughter, Whitula (Onemorenomore), on the farm alongside her, and Whitula will head to Maurice (Jpn) this spring to keep the family ongoing.

“Whitula is currently in foal to Maurice, which will be a three-quarter sibling to Mazu,” O’Gorman said. “It was a bit of a no-brainer to go back to Maurice, to be honest, and being she’s a half-sister to Mazu, she warrants that mating.

“It was a lot of money last year to send her there, and we’re spending a bit to get her there again, but we committed to this family even before Mazu came out to win his Group 1, so it’s exciting to have all this coming through.”

For a boutique operation like Parsons Creek, the Chatelaine family is a foundation stone. However, in close to seven years of operation, the farm has cast its net increasingly wider so that this year’s breeding plans are among its most interesting yet.

New additions

Very recently, Parsons Creek took delivery of a 10-year-old mare called Telopea (GB), a daughter of Pivotal (GB) that had a single start in France before her import to Australia in 2014.

Trained by Darren Weir through 20 starts, she was a metro winner and Group 3 placed to Ocean Embers (Beneteau) before retiring in 2017 and heading back to England for a breeding career.

Telopea’s daughter, the Frankel (GB) mare Isobel’s Locket (GB), was sold at the recent 2022 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale for $80,000. Consigned by Riversdale, she went to the Tagaloa Syndicate.

Her Frankel 2-year-old, Harry Tudor (GB), is with trainer John Thompson and he trialled as recently as Tuesday at Randwick.

Bred by Waratah Thoroughbreds, Telopea has only just arrived at Parsons Creek and she will visit Fastnet Rock this spring. In this instance, it’s simply a case of tried and trusted.

“This mare has been to Frankel twice and she’s got a 3-year-old filly (Isobel’s Locket) and a 2-year-old colt,” O’Gorman said. “She’s been really well-looked after and she is just one of the most beautiful mares. If horses could be supermodels, she’d be one of them.

“We’re going to Fastnet Rock because, even though he’s a lot older, he’s a Champion Sire and so consistent. He’s also very commercial, and I feel that the two of them will produce a really good racehorse. It’s a great cross.”

Telopea came to Parsons Creek via Dermot Farrington, who presented the mare to O’Gorman and her stud manager, Ross Bone.

“Anything that Dermot presents to us, we listen,” she said. “Telopea has came over to us from Ireland and she only arrived last Thursday, so she’s one that we’re really excited about this spring.”

Last season, Parsons Creek had 14 of its own mares to breed. This season it has 17, a number that has spiked slightly with the addition of Telopea, but also the addition of the Casino Prince mare Orabelle.

Orabelle was purchased this year at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale in foal to Kobayashi, making that resultant progeny a full sibling to Midnight In Tokyo, who was second in the G3 Ken Russell Memorial Classic in May. Via Garryard Equine, Parsons Creek paid $160,000 for the mare from the draft of Blue Sky Premium Consignment.

Orabelle will visit Russian Revolution at Newgate Farm, fresh off that stallion’s title-winning season. It’s a mating O’Gorman is particularly excited about as she saw Russian Revolution last year and banked on sending a mare in the future.

“We bought Orabelle because we’d heard that Midnight In Tokyo was showing a bit of ability,” she said. “And we ended up getting quite a good pedigree update quite quickly because Midnight In Tokyo came out and won at Randwick earlier this month.

“So we figured that Orabelle warranted a bit of a step-up with a stallion, and I remembered what I’d said when I saw Russian Revolution last year. He impressed me in the same way as Stay Inside and I was really keen to get a good mare to him when I could.”

A Capitalist family

Along with Chatelaine, Parsons Creek is fortunate to have another star in the shape of 6-year-old Ineffable (Smart Missile), a young mare that’s a half-sister to Capitalist.

Ineffable was unraced on the track, although she trialled through 2018, and she was bought by the farm from Newgate for $375,000 at the 2019 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale. It was providence because, within months, Capitalist’s first crop included Profiteer, Captivant and Kalashnikov.

Ineffable was carrying to Written Tycoon when she was sold to O’Gorman, a foal that eventually made $350,000 when sold at the 2021 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale to Greg Hickman Racing. Since then she’s had a Zoustar colt, which was passed in at this year’s Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, and she’s due to foal another Written Tycoon this spring.

That mating occurred when Ineffable slipped to the stallion and required a free return. She had been initially planned for Ole Kirk, something that will now transpire this season upcoming.

“Ineffable has a really strong female family through the Golden Slipper winner, Merlene,” O’Gorman said. “It’s a family that we love on the farm and Ross (Bone) particularly loves it. Ole Kirk also has a strong female family and that gave us a lot of confidence, and he’s also by Written Tycoon which is a great outcross for her because she has double-Danehill in her genetics.”

O’Gorman recently went to see Ole Kirk at Vinery Stud. It wasn’t her first visit to the stallion but it confirmed her affection when she saw him this time.

“He’s let down so well and you’ve got to remember he was an awesome racehorse,” she said. “As a second-season sire it’s always a little bit risky, but I wanted to follow through with this mating, even though it’s a year later.”

O’Gorman admits that Ineffable’s half-brother, the boom sire Capitalist, has been a bit quiet this season as against his efforts last year, but it’s not causing her to worry about the family.

“It’s been a hard year for racing, let’s be honest,” she said. “The tracks have been awful, and whether that can be an excuse, I don’t know. I still have a good feeling about Capitalist because he’s been getting some extraordinary mares and I’m confident he’ll pick up again.”

The long haul

The rest of Parsons Creek’s mares are booked to the likes of Bivouac, Wootton Bassett (GB), Captivant and Farnan. A mare called Platinum Angel (Snitzel), owned in partnership with Fernrigg Farm, is likely to visit Deep Field.

O’Gorman admits she isn’t reinventing the wheel with her matings this year because she considers she’s still new to the game.

“I feel like I’m still learning,” she said. “As I get to know more people and see them around or chat to them at the sales, I start to take pieces of everyone’s advice, and there’s so much advice being thrown at you.

“But one of the best things I was told was that, with my mares, if they’re unproven and young, you’re best to try and breed a racehorse that you want to keep. In that instance, if I had a young mare who was a maiden or who’d had just one foal, I’d breed her to something that was proven to get the best chance of breeding a good racehorse.”

It’s straightforward advice but O’Gorman said it’s easy to be tempted by exciting first-season stallions.

“I’m trying to stick to this now, going to proven sires until she’s proven herself, because we’ve made mistakes in the past where things haven’t quite worked out,” she said.

However, O’Gorman admits it’s difficult to digest some of the service fees these days.

“I think we’re all a little overwhelmed by stallion fees,” she said. “I’ve only been picking stallions for the last five years, but first-season sires have almost doubled. It’s tough for small breeders and it’s tough for any breeder because you can’t see how you can get that money back at the sales. I think there are a lot of us out there saying the fees are a bit subordinate at the moment.”

In the five short years that Parsons Creek has been mating broodmares, things have moved quickly.

The farm has bought at the Inglis Chairman’s Sale and Magic Millions' National Sale Series, it has consigned weanlings and yearlings for the first time and imported mares from Europe, and all this with a starting point of just two mares.

“Breeding horses is a long haul, as we all know,” O’Gorman said. “We’re probably at that point now where we have some really lovely mares, but whether we’re breeding to race or breeding to sell, ultimately the mares need to perform and that happens through producing really good racehorses.”

Table: Some of the matings Parsons Creek is planning for the 2022 season

Whether you're breeding to race or breeding to sell, we'd love to hear from you! Over the coming weeks we'll be featuring a selection of mating plans for 2022. To be featured, reach out to Lydia at lydia@tdnausnz.com.au