Buy of the Weekend: $30k Steel Trap opens account for King’s Legacy

Cover image courtesy of Coolmore Australia

Now a Group 3 winner after a commanding 1.6l victory in the SAJC David Coles AM Stakes, Steel Trap (King's Legacy) has already earned over $180,000, a six-fold return on purchase price and the 2-year-old is only just warming up.

Trained by the Clarken and MacGillivray partnership and ridden by Jamie Melham, Steel Trap was a hot favourite for the race after impressive stakes placings in the G3 Breeders’ Stakes and Listed Cinderella Stakes at her previous two starts.

The filly showed genuine class at Morphettville on Saturday, settling behind the leaders before producing a powerful finishing burst along the inside to reel in Danny O'Brien's Brave Design (Brave Smash {JPN}), who had previously finished second to Vinrock (I Am Invincible) in the G2 Sires' Produce Stakes.

A filly full of promise

Trainer Dan Clarken said it was a satisfying win for a filly they’ve always rated highly.

“It was very nice to get that win out of the way yesterday,” Clarken said.

“We’ve always had a big opinion of this horse. Whether she was mentally there was always a little concern because I think she will get better with age. She’s got tactical speed and she ticked a lot of boxes early for a 2-year-old so we decided to press on. However, her action suggests she wants seven furlongs to a mile and you’d probably say the pedigree suggests that too. She’s been very strong through the line all of her starts to date.”

Clarken went into Saturday’s contest quietly confident after finishing runner-up behind exciting colt Legacy Bound (Ole Kirk) last start, who is on a path towards the Coolmore Stud Stakes.

“They have huge wraps on Legacy Bound, so it’s got a fair bit of upside and on the day she was coming late at him. I know they sat up on him late but she was coming strong at him through the line. We walked away and said, well if he wasn’t there we beat the rest of the field by four lengths and everyone would have been saying, wow, how good is she?”

Guineas glint in her eye

Looking ahead, Steel Trap is being pointed toward one of the spring's premier Group 1 targets.

“I’m aiming her towards the Thousand Guineas, I think that’s where she fits in,” Clarken said.

“We had a chat to Jamie Melham about it last night and she agreed that wasn’t a bad target for her. Physically she still isn’t there but she will have a little bit of a break now, although there isn’t too much in the paddock to eat but we spell at home and we will be able to monitor her all the way through. That’s the plan - Thousand Guineas and then see where it takes us, you just don’t know where you will end up.”

Feedback from Melham only solidified that spring optimism.

“After the race Jamie told us that she thinks she wants seven furlongs but was just a bit too classy today. That’s a pretty decent wrap for a horse wanting further but can run time and put a quality field to bed fairly quickly. We said to Jamie’s manager Lachie Weekley to pencil Jamie in for the spring, in very dark pencil,” said Clarken.

Under the radar

According to Clarken, the filly immediately caught his eye physically at sale and he was pleasantly surprised to pick her up at such a modest price tag.

“We liked her and her athleticism. I don’t know why we were able to get her so cheap,” Clarken said.

“I went to the Adelaide sale open-minded, and I think if you don’t do that there, then you shouldn’t be going.”

Steel Trap’s performance has also provided the stable with an encouraging early read on King’s Legacy as a sire.

“We can only judge King’s Legacy on what we’ve seen from this filly. She has always been strong through the bone, she’s always been solid and off the back of having her we have bought another King’s Legacy filly from Sydney Classic this year, Lot 420. She’s out of a More Than Ready mare and I’ll be interested to see what happens with her. She’s been broken in and is quite a nice horse.”

When asked where Steel Trap ranks among the horses he's prepared, Clarken placed her in elite company. The Murray Bridge-based trainer, who previously guided Miracles of Life (Not A Single Doubt) to Group 1 glory in the 2013 Blue Diamond and talented stayer The Map (Alpine Eagle) to a Melbourne Cup berth, noted that Steel Trap has the potential to match their calibre with time and maturity.

“She’s up there with the best I’ve trained – she’s got a few steps to take,.” Clarken said.

“If she can continue to improve up in distance, she could be. You just never know until you stretch them out.”

Clarken added that the filly had come through Saturday’s run in terrific order.

“One thing about her is she is tough. She came home and ate everything last night," he said.

“After a second-up run you’d think she might be starting to jade off a bit but she is going to the paddock not knocked around. She will get every opportunity to put her best foot forward in the spring.”

Timely update for a rising page

Steel Trap is the first foal of the winning Lonhro mare Lochita, and her breakthrough Group 3 victory has added a valuable upgrade to a pedigree that traces back to quality. She becomes the first stakes winner in the family since her granddam, Arborea (Imperial Prince {Ire}), who captured both the G1 VRC Oaks and G1 Thousand Guineas.

That boost in black type comes at the perfect time, with her full-brother by King’s Legacy catalogued as Lot 84 in the upcoming Magic Millions National Weanling Sale. Steel Trap was initially passed in for $34,000 as a weanling before being sold for $30,000 at Adelaide.

Phoenix Broodmare Farm’s Damian Gleeson, who bred and sold the filly, said she had always been underestimated.

“She was always a nice filly but she was hard to sell,” Gleeson said.

“I still, to this day, don’t understand why people didn’t like her. She was a good sort of filly at both sales. Maybe if she was a colt it would have been different but they just weren’t on her. She has proven everybody wrong.

“I didn’t think she was going to be a high-priced weanling or anything but I thought she would have sold with our moderate reserve.”

Now with a stakes win to her name, interest is sure to surge in her younger brother.

“We liked her, the mating suits and so we bred her back to King’s Legacy and we have a colt that is going to the Gold Coast for the Weanling Sale. He’s similar to her in some ways but in others not. He’s quite a robust colt and probably has a bit more scope than her, he’ll probably be a bit bigger horse,” he said.

Lochita, who was purchased off the track by Gleeson for $60,000 from Gooree Park Stud at the 2021 Magic Millions Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale, is now proving to be a valuable commodity.

“Lochita is just a good sort of mare. We were actually looking at some photos of her last night when we bought her and she was just a good type. Lonhro mares are hard to buy. The family was probably a little bit light at the time – I probably paid a little too much in hindsight given the family was a little light but now the page looks good,” said Gleeson.

Another one for Phoenix Broodmare Farm

Steel Trap is also a major milestone for Gleeson and Phoenix Broodmare Farm’s operation who moved from Euroa to Wingham in 2021.

“I think this is our first stakes winner since moving the farm,” Gleeson said.

“This has been our first full crop through the farm from conception which is fantastic.”

And Steel Trap is not the only recent success for the farm.

“We’ve had three stakes winners from 40 foals; Steel Trap, Ripcord and Elliptical. Which isn’t a bad effort,” he said.

He also mentioned another promising juvenile to be produced off the farm to keep an eye on.

“There’s a So You Think filly that we sold for $400,000, out of Marquise Da Rossa called Getta Good Feeling,” he said.

“She ran a really impressive third at her first start at Geelong and she is being targeted at stakes races in the spring as well. She’s a three-quarter sister to Elliptical. We have very high hopes for her.”

Gleeson added that Getta Good Feeling is also targeting the Thousand Guineas, which could see Phoenix Broodmare Farm with two runners in the spring feature.

King’s Legacy’s stocks on the rise

King’s Legacy is beginning to find his stride at stud, and Steel Trap’s Group 3 win could hardly have come at a better time. From just 19 runners, the dual Group 1-winning son of Redoute’s Choice has now produced four winners, including three stakes performers and Gleeson believes the stallion is just getting started.

“It’s good for King’s Legacy. It’s interesting, if you go and look at the sons of Redoute’s Choice, most of them come good as their progeny reach their 3-year-old year,” Gleeson said.

“At this stage, earlier on, they were knocking Alabama Express, they were knocking The Autumn Sun, but now they have come good and King’s Legacy is probably in that vacuum at the moment; where he is ready to start producing winners. I think we are too quick to judge horses on their 2-year-old crop in this country,” he said.

King’s Legacy will stand this spring at Coolmore Australia, Jerry’s Plains, for a fee of $16,500 (inc GST).