Cover image courtesy of Ashlea Brennan
In the summer of 1971, when in foal to the stallion Rego (Ire), the bonny mare Dark Jewel (Star Kingdom {Ire}) died at the age of 17. She was the dam of five stakes winners, among them Baguette, Heirloom (Rego {Ire}) and Cabochon (Edmundo {GB}).
Between them, Dark Jewel’s progeny won 28 stakes races, including Golden Slippers, Thousand Guineas and Maribyrnong Plates, and they were sharp, precocious individuals. They won at two, then at three and four years of age, setting up their dam for immortality.
Dark Jewel | Image courtesy of Scone Vet Dynasty
As such, it was fitting in 1999 when Scone Race Club announced the Dark Jewel Classic, a 1400-metre race in honour of the famous mare. Even then, over 25 years after her death, Dark Jewel was still in conversation.
The race, now a Group 3, is open to all ages of fillies and mares, and it’s an important feature of the annual Scone racing carnival each May. Among many of the old-stage racegoers, the race invites memories of that delightful 1960s/70s era when Dark Jewel progeny was the rage.
For Olly Tait, who wasn’t alive in that era, Dark Jewel is of a different importance. She is the filly his grandfather bought and put to stud, and to which the Tait family owes so much of its fame.
Olly Tait | Image courtesy of Twin Hills Stud
“Even to this day, I will meet people in a breeding context who’ll tell me they’re looking for another Dark Jewel,” Tait said, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “She was a very famous mare of her time, and I was certainly aware of that as a little boy.”
Dark Jewel was owned throughout her breeding life by Griff Tait after an ordinary career for trainer Fil Allotta in Sydney. She won three races in 25 starts, outperforming herself at stud. Her tombstone reads ‘a broodmare without equal’, and even by today’s standards, there’s little arguing with it.
“Even to this day, I will meet people in a breeding context who’ll tell me they’re looking for another Dark Jewel. She was a very famous mare of her time, and I was certainly aware of that as a little boy.” - Olly Tait
“I probably speak for my mum and dad and brother when I say that Dark Jewel has always been prominent in our lives,” Tait said. “My grandparents, Griff and Daisy Tait, have been breeding horses for a long time and very successfully, but this mare was at a different level.
“In quick succession she got the Epsom winner Cabochan and the Thousand Guineas winner Heirloom, then Heirloom’s full brother Baguette, who was the first Triple Crown winner and went on to win a Newmarket and Doomben 10,000. So she was an incredible mare and, while none of her descendants have scaled her heights, she is still an incredible mare.”
The Tait family has the Dark Jewel line still, dotted here and there among the herd. Spinning Hill (Dolphin Street {Fr}) was raced by Sandy Tait and his sister, Jill Nivison, to great sprinting victories in such races as the G1 Lightning S. and G1 Manikato S. twice, and she claimed Dark Jewel as her fifth dam.
However, as successful as the Tait family has been over the decades, it’s arguable that any horse has ever bettered Dark Jewel’s record.
Spinning Hill | Image courtesy of Sportpix
“Whisked probably came close,” Tait said. “She was the dam of Tie The Knot, and she had two other stakes winners. Whisked was a Thousand Guineas winner herself who produced an absolute champion, so there are comparisons there. But you probably couldn’t say that she reached the same heights as Dark Jewel.”
A broodmare maker
When the Dark Jewel Classic kicked off in 1999, it took only two years for it to become a stakes-producing race. In 2001, the winner was the Alquoz (USA) mare Nanny Maroon, who later produced at stud the Group 2-winning De Lightning Ridge (Tale Of The Cat {USA}).
Nanny Maroon was the first of a number of important mares to matriculate out of this race and into the breeding barn and, to date, there have been six winners of the Dark Jewel Classic foaling stakes winners.
After Nanny Maroon in 2001, Chuckle (Danehill {USA}) came along in 2003 and won the race with jockey Lenny Beasley. When she retired, she proved a very smart broodmare, foaling the triple Group winner Crack Me Up (NZ) (Mossman) and the stakes winner Hoofit (NZ) (Mossman) in New Zealand.
Nanny Maroon | Image courtesy of Sportpix
Then, in 2004, Romare (Marscay) won the Dark Jewel before later foaling the Listed Inglis Debutant S. winner Eramor (Stratum).
These three mares meant that in the first six runnings of the Dark Jewel Classic, the race had produced three broodmares of merit, and this record continued from 2006 through 2008 when a further three winners did the same.
Really Flying (Real Quiet {USA}) won in 2006 and she became the dam of the Group 3 and Listed winner Camporella (Exceed And Excel), while Rosa’s Spur (Flying Spur) won in 2007. The latter subsequently produced the stakes winner Members Joy (Hussonet {USA}), in turn, the dam of the dual Group 2 winner Pure Elation (I Am Invincible).
Rosa’s Spur was a handy mare, but even her record pales alongside the mare that won the Dark Jewel in 2008. Sung, a daughter of Anabaa (USA) bred by Woodlands Stud, and in 2016 produced the smart colt Microphone, who won the G1 ATC Sires’ Produce S. and two further Group races before retiring as a Godolphin sire.
Sung | Image courtesy of Sportpix
Sung was the sixth mare in 10 years of the Dark Jewel Classic to be a broodmare of merit. It was a remarkable record for the young race, but one not all that surprising, according to Olly Tait.
“It’s a nice statistic and it’s appropriate, given who the raced is named after, but at the end of the day, it’s been a point of ability for the next generation in racing,” he said. “It’s a Group 3 race at a meeting where people want to have runners and winners, so it’s natural the field will be of good ability and therefore able to go on to be good broodmares.”
“It’s (the Dark Jewel Classic) a Group 3 race at a meeting where people want to have runners and winners, so it’s natural the field will be of good ability and therefore able to go on to be good broodmares.” - Olly Tait
Dark Jewel winners haven’t produced any stakes winners since Sung in 2008. However, the race hasn’t lacked talent, with such pedigrees among its winners as Arctic Flight (Flying Spur) in 2013, a daughter of that great producer Scandinavia (Snippets).
And, it’s still early days for such later winners as the G1 Coolmore Classic hero Daysee Doom (Domesday), as well as Con Te Partiro (USA) (Scat Daddy {USA}), the latter exported by SF Bloodstock for a breeding career in America.
All the Talk for Lees
This weekend, the race has a capacity field of 16, with three emergencies. Among the favourites is the Brad Widdup mare Short Shorts (NZ) (Iffraaj {GB}) and the Joseph Pride-trained Expat (NZ) (Makfi {GB}).
It’s a typically open and robust field, with no contenders under the age of four. They’re also widely raced, including the Kris Lees 5-year-old Never Talk, a daughter of No Nay Never (USA) on lease by Lees from Yarraman Park.
Gallery: Current favourites for the G3 Dark Jewel Classic this weekend
Never Talk comes with a substantial pedigree. She is from Palace Talk (NZ) (Street Cry {Ire}), making her a half-sister to Shuffle Dancer (I Am Invincible), a recent winner of the G2 Angus Armansco S. The female family here is very good because Palace Talk throws straight to Eljazzi (Ire) (Artaius {USA}).
Earlier this year, we spoke to Anthony Rogers, studmaster of the Kildare-based Airlie Stud, about this family. The Rogers family had bred Eljazzi and sold her, regretting the sale as the family blossomed.
They had spent 15 to 20 years looking to buy back into it, which only occurred when Harry Mitchell offered Anthony and his mother Sonia a half-share in Shuffle Dancer.
The first emergence of this line in Australia was via Fayfa (Ire) (Slip Anchor {GB}), Never Talk’s third dam, who was imported by Coolmore in 1997. Via Shuffle Dancer, it has come to life, as Anthony Rogers said it would.
The Mitchell brothers bought Palace Talk via Boomer Bloodstock (FBAA) in 2017 at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale, buying her from Newhaven Park for $140,000.
Palace Talk (NZ) as a yearling | Image courtesy of Magic Millions
Never Talk was her first foal, retained by the Mitchells and leased to Lees Racing. The mare has so far won six races in close to 30 starts, with $580,000 banked in prizemoney.
She was unplaced in the G3 Hawkesbury Crown at her last start, but previous to that she was second to Zapateo (Brazen Beau) in the G2 Sapphire S. at Randwick. She has been a useful sort, the kind of mare that could fit well with the way the Dark Jewel has historically played out.
“We’ve always thought she would race well here,” said Kris Lees, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “She’s run well at Scone previously. In a perfect world, we’d have softer ground than what we’ll get on Saturday, but she’s finally drawn a soft barrier and, if she can run midfield, she’ll get a chance.”
“We’ve always thought she (Never Talk) would race well here... she’s run well at Scone previously. In a perfect world, we’d have softer ground than what we’ll get on Saturday, but she’s finally drawn a soft barrier and, if she can run midfield, she’ll get a chance.” - Kris Lees
It’s likely that Never Talk will be retired to Yarraman Park this spring, while three of the mares in the Dark Jewel field will be heading to the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale later this month. The race is a common path to the Gold Coast sale, with Meg (Sebring), Riduna (Fastnet Rock) and Air To Air (Smart Missile) in the current catalogue later this month.
“It will be a typical Dark Jewel,” Lees said. “It’s a big, open race with a number of chances, and luck in running will play its part. It’s been a traditional broodmare-making race, and hopefully that will transpire again.”
