Cover image courtesy of Newgate Farm
Tassort wasted no time in getting his own race career off to the perfect start, winning the Golden Gift on debut by an emphatic 5.3l, and the son of Brazen Beau has made a similarly auspicious start to life at stud, siring a pair of impressive 2-year-old winners on Saturday that look more than capable of mixing it with the best of their generation.
Having already made winning debuts earlier this month, Perth-based youngster Onemoretwomany and Queensland-based juvenile Astapor maintained their unbeaten records on Saturday with the minimum of fuss, posting winning margins of 1.8l and 3l respectively to cement their status as the most promising 2-year-olds in their respective jurisdictions.
It’s a title that Tassort himself held until injury brought a premature end to a racing career which promised so much, but it is exactly that promise which prompted Emirates Park, who own a 50 per cent stake in the stallion, and Newgate Farm, where he stands in the Hunter Valley, to take a gamble on the twice-raced Godolphin star.
“He was an outstandingly talented horse himself,” Newgate’s Henry Field told The Thoroughbred Report. “James Cummings said publicly when he was a 2-year-old that he was something special, and that was the year Godolphin had the trifecta in the Golden Slipper.
Tassort | Standing at Newgate Farm
“Godolphin is without question one of the most powerful racing operations in Australasia, and they made it very clear that he was the benchmark of the crop. James put that in the public record in the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Tassort also rated through the roof with Daniel O’Sullivan, who works on a retainer for Newgate and is one of the leading ratings analysts in Australia. That, coupled with the opinion from the powerhouse Godolphin stable of his natural ability and his huge pedigree - being out of the best mare at Godolphin, if not the best mare in the country - made us confident he was a great bet.
“It’s very early days, but it’s very hard to do what he’s doing.”
Both ends of the spectrum
Tassort’s electric start with his first crop of 2-year-olds has been equalled by only one other member of this year’s first-season sires, with Yulong’s Alabama Express boasting an identical record of three winners, five wins and one stakes winner from just five runners to date.
In addition to Onemoretwomany and Astapor, Tassort’s trio of winners to date also includes G3 Gimcrack S. heroine Manaal, who is being treated as a candidate for the G1 Golden Slipper S. following her gutsy debut success for owner-breeder Emirates Park.
Manaal, winner of the G3 Gimcrack S. at Randwick on September 30 | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
While Manaal, who hails from the US stakes-winning mare Red Lodge (USA) (Midshipman {USA}) is bred in the purple, like Tassort himself, the stallion’s other two winners to date hail from far more modest beginnings.
Bred by Kingstar Farm, whose owner Matthew Sandblom is a shareholder in Newgate, Onemoretwomany was pinhooked by Premium Bloodstock Services Pty Ltd as a weanling for just $12,000 before fetching a much healthier $70,000 to the bid of Fantail Holdings at the Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale, a figure that was undoubtedly helped by his half-sister Wollombi (Extreme Choice) landing the G3 Vanity S. a week before the auction.
Astapor, meanwhile, was secured by owner Rodney Hay under his Livistona Grazing Company banner for just $38,000 during Book 2 of the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, and is the first named foal out of the winning Lonhro mare Black Mink, whom Telemon Thoroughbreds purchased in foal to Tassort for just $25,000 at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale in 2021.
To be able to produce quality horses out of mares from both ends of the spectrum is a sign of a hugely promising stallion according to Field, who is well positioned to pass judgment having already launched the stallion careers of Capitalist, Russian Revolution and Extreme Choice to great effect.
“The thing that’s a real credit to him is that the Gimcrack winner is obviously out of a very good Emirates Park mare, Red Lodge, but the other two were inexpensive yearlings, so he’s doing it with all cross sections of mares,” Field said of Tassort.
“It’s small sample stuff, but he’s got the best 2-year-old in Queensland, the best 2-year-old in Perth and a Gimcrack winner in Sydney. It’s a pretty remarkable thing to do for a horse that’s the most inexpensive stallion we’ve ever stood at Newgate.
“It’s small sample stuff, but he’s (Tassort) got the best 2-year-old in Queensland, the best 2-year-old in Perth and a Gimcrack winner in Sydney. It’s a pretty remarkable thing to do for a horse that’s the most inexpensive stallion we’ve ever stood at Newgate.” - Henry Field
“To be starting off his career in this fashion is quite extraordinary, but it doesn’t surprise us, because he was a horse with so much ability. We, hand on our heart, felt that, had Tassort been able to fulfill his potential, he would have been a proper Group 1 horse like his brother and sister.”
Tassort is one of the most regally bred stallions in Australia and hails from Godolphin’s blue hen mare Essaouira (Exceed And Excel), making him a half-brother to Darley’s Group 1-producing sire Astern and Champion 3YO Filly Alizee (Sepoy).
Even with such a top-class pedigree behind him, the decision to stand a stallion with only two race starts to his name was a huge gamble, but Newgate, Emirates Park and all of Tassort’s early supporters are now starting to reap the rewards for the faith they placed in the Godolphin-raced blueblood.
Henry Field | Image courtesy of Ashlea Brennan
“In reality he had one start, because he went amiss on his second start, but we would never take a chance on a horse like that if we didn’t genuinely believe that he was a legitimately Group 1-talented horse,” Field said.
“In reality he (Tassort) had one start, because he went amiss on his second start, but we would never take a chance on a horse like that if we didn’t genuinely believe that he was a legitimately Group 1-talented horse.” - Henry Field
“We were really confident he was a horse worth taking a gamble on and full credit to Hussain Lootah and Bryan Carlson for being shrewd enough to broker a deal to have the horse. Nobody has supported the horse more than they have.
“Godolphin have got a big holding of breeding rights in the horse too, so to have them, Newgate and Emirates Park, who have been great breeders for decades, really sets the horse up for a very good career. I think we’re in good shape.”
Bucking the trend
Tassort has covered healthy books in all of his four seasons at stud thus far, but off the back of such an electric start with his debut crop of 2-year-olds, it should come as no surprise that the Golden Gift winner has covered his largest book to date in 2023, with 185 mares and counting heading his way.
The stallion’s largest crop of 131 live foals is also just months away from hitting the yearling sales, and with Emirates Park sending a number of “beautiful” Tassort yearlings to Magic Millions in January, his momentum shows no sign of stopping, especially if Astapor manages to deliver him a first-crop winner of the R. Listed Magic Millions 2YO Classic.
“Tassort has been unbelievably popular this year and so he should be,” Field said. “It’s rare for a stallion that starts at $100,000 to kick off the way he has, let alone a horse that started at $10,000.
“It’s rare for a stallion that starts at $100,000 to kick off the way he (Tassort) has, let alone a horse that started at $10,000.” - Henry Field
“Like all these horses that stand for small money, he’s going to have to do it the hard way, but he’s a horse that has covered bigger books every year for his first four years, and that’s an unusual feat.
“Generally a $10,000 stallion would cover their biggest book in year one and then decline, but he’s actually gone the other way, and I think that’s testimony to the quality of his stock. He is producing very correct stock with his magnificent body shape.
“You genuinely wouldn’t see a better bodied horse in the Hunter Valley than Tassort. In fact, James Bester, who has supported the horse very heavily, was quoted as calling him Assort not Tassort, and that probably sums up how beautifully balanced the horse is.”
Tassort in the paddock | Standing at Newgate Farm
Bester is just one of many of Australia’s most prominent breeders that have thrown their support behind Tassort, with Newgate having offered an array of lifetime breeding rights to the stallion to some of the farm’s biggest backers.
That has made Tassort’s early success even sweeter according to Field, who understands the importance of client satisfaction more than most.
“The thing that we’re most excited about is that we put him into our Share The Upside program for breeding rights, and dozens of our loyal, long-term clients that have been with us since we started Newgate bought a lifetime breeding right in the horse for a small amount of money,” he said.
“That to me is just fantastic. It’s really important that you can give your clients a piece of tangible upside in the horse, and I’m really happy that with Tassort it looks like everyone is going to be very handsomely rewarded.
“When your clients are winning, you have got the foundation for a very successful long-term business.” - Henry Field
“He’s a grandson of I Am Invincible and we saw the breeding rights that were sold in that horse change many people’s lives. Whilst we’re a long way from that, if we could see Tassort change people’s lives, that would be the dream.
“When your clients are winning, you have got the foundation for a very successful long-term business.”
Spreading the success
Whilst Tassort understandably grabbed the headlines on Saturday, several of his Newgate Farm barn mates did their utmost not to be upstaged by the son of Brazen Beau, with proven stallions Russian Revolution, Capitalist and Extreme Choice all registering metropolitan winners across the Eastern Seaboard.
Russian Revolution got the ball rolling at Canterbury on a productive Friday night for Newgate, with his well-regarded 3-year-old Tannenburg breaking his maiden in eye-catching fashion for the Chris Waller stable only half an hour after the farm’s $550,000 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale graduate Sensory (I Am Invincible) broke her maiden in similarly impressive style.
Triple Crown Syndications’ multiple Group 2 winner and Group 1 placegetter Revolutionary Miss kickstarted a fruitful Saturday for last year’s runaway Champion Second Season Sire with an effortless victory in the Fillies and Mares Pendant at Cranbourne, before Darby Racing’s progressive 4-year-old Insurrection (Russian Revolution) made it four wins from his last five starts with a dominant display in the $300,000 The Warra at Kembla Grange.
Newgate flagbearer Extreme Choice then got in on the act courtesy of the his exciting daughter Extremely Rowdy, who looks destined for stakes grade following her impressive Cranbourne victory, before Capitalist’s resurgent mare Comrade Rosa capped off a terrific day for the Aberdeen-based nursery by notching up stakes win number three of her career in the Listed Tattersall’s Classic at Doomben.
“Russian Revolution had four winners over the weekend and I’m told the horse of Chris Waller’s (Tannenburg) is a very talented horse,” Field said. “I understand they’ve had a very high opinion of that horse for a while.
“Russian Revolution has been Champion First and Second Season Sire, and it’s bloody hard to do that, so he’s a very important young stallion for the farm.
“It was a great day for Capitalist too with Comrade Rosa, who is quickly developing into one of the best mares in Queensland, and Extreme Choice had an impressive winner for the Gelagotis stable, so it was just a great day for the farm.
“But to see Tassort really put his hand up as a stallion that the market will take notice of was something which was really great.”
