Sejardan leads roster as Blue Gum Farm streamline interests

Cover image courtesy of Blue Gum Farm

Last week, eminent Victorian nursery Blue Gum Farm revealed their 2025 fees for their roster of three stallions, headed by Sejardan retaining his $13,750 (inc GST) fee for a third season. The success of Sejardan’s first crop weanlings this sales season has Blue Gum and Trilogy Racing principal Sean Dingwall confident he has the stallions that Victoria wants and needs this breeding season.

Off to a good start

Blue Gum Farm were the vendors for all four Sejardan weanlings at the Magic Millions Gold Coast National Weanling Sale last week, and it was a colt out of Redoute’s Choice mare Statuette, already the dam of two stakes performers, who fetched $130,000 to the bid of Kestrel Thoroughbreds. Sejardan finished the sale with an average price of $81,250, and all six of his progeny offered at the Inglis Australian Weanling Sale sold for an average of $54,000. It’s a pleasing start.

Sejardan was the most patronised first season sire in Victoria in 2023, serving a total of 103 mares. His second season book was smaller, but Dingwall notes that 2024 was a hard season across the board in the breeding sector, with the country-wide foal crop falling by approximately 1000 reported foals in comparison to the previous season and covering numbers expected to decline again.

“Not a lot of mares were served in Victoria altogether,” Dingwall said. “He (Sejardan) still held his own, and obviously now people are starting to see his progeny at the sales, and they were very well received at Sydney and on the Gold Coast. So off the back of that, we hope that we can get some good activity here.”

Of the $130,000 colt, Dingwall said, “he’s a lovely horse. No doubt he’ll be going back to the Gold Coast next year. Magics were really happy with him.”

Flying under the radar

The Blue Gum roster is filled out with Flying Artie, whose eldest crop will turn seven in August, and Oxley Road, fresh off of his first season at stud. The former will stand for a reduced fee of $11,000 (inc GST) - the price being a reflection of the state of the market and less so the stallion’s ability.

“He’s a difficult horse for people to go to, because he doesn’t produce a princess,” Dingwall said. “His offspring won’t be winning beauty contests. But from the perspective of getting winning racehorses, there’s no stallion doing a better job.”

The Group 1-winning son of a Group 1 winner in Artie Schiller (USA), and now himself the sire of a Group 1-winning stallion in Artorius, Flying Artie added a 10th stakeswinner to his repertoire in May when the 4-year-old mare In Flight took out the Listed Bright Shadow Handicap, taking her own tally to six career wins. He has produced 75 individual winners to date this season, putting him on track to math last season’s final figure of 82.

“He just continues to produce nice horses,” Dingwall said. “He has two first crop Group 1 winners, he had another stakeswinner (In Flight) a couple of weeks ago in Brisbane, and he has city winners every week. He’s probably one of the best value stallions in the country, at $10,000 plus GST.”

The Victorian breeding landscape better suits Flying Artie, Dingwall believes.

“Up north, he was getting passed over altogether,” he said. “We’re hopeful we can get more mares to him this year. We haven’t had the numbers we would have liked, but I don’t think anyone who has visited him is unhappy.

“Look at the horse he has in Hong Kong that got beaten by a nose in the Derby (My Wish), the people that own the mother sent her back, and the dam of Asfoora has been back twice. They’re all very happy with what they’ve been getting.”

Golden Child (I Am Invincible) delivered a full sister to G1 King Charles III Sprint winner Asfoora in the spring, and made a second trip down south to visit Flying Artie again. Set The Tone (Reset), dam of his son My Wish, visited the stallion in 2023 - her first trip to stud since producing My Wish - and foaled a colt in October.

“On the Gold Coast this week, one made $80,000,” Dingwall referred to Lot 1381 who sold to Hong Kong’s Tang Hong from the draft of Taghadoe Stud. “So if you’re getting a 10 times return on your service fee, you’re doing pretty well.”

Oxley Road, a multiple Group-winning full brother to Vinery Stud’s Exceedance, will be offered for $6600 (inc GST) for his second season at stud. Dingwall was pleased with the early reception for their newest recruit, who was visited by 61 mares in his debut season.

“We had a good amount of interest from the breed to race people, including some of the trainers in the north east of the state,” he said. “He’s been set up to get a good sample size of what he can throw and we can understand how they look and develop. So this year we’re hopeful of getting a good number again that will put enough foals on the ground to give him a good chance.”

Blue Gum Farm, by virtue of being owned by Trilogy Racing, own equity in a number of outside stallions that will be supported by the farm’s broodmare band this season, including Newgate Farm’s Ozzmosis, whose first in-foal mares sold this year for up to $400,000, and Widden Stud’s Jacquinot, whose first weanlings hit the sales ring this year.

Dingwall and the Trilogy team liked what they saw of the dual Group 1-winning stallion’s first crop; they partnered with Suman Hedge Bloodstock (FBAA) to purchase a colt out of Showcasing (GB) mare Show Me More (NZ), a daughter of dual Listed winner Misstrum (Stratum), from Pepper Tree Farm on the Gold Coast.

“We’ve got a few at home as well, and there’s some good horses amongst them,” Dingwall said. “So we’re more than happy with what he is throwing.”

Playing at the top end

Since acquiring Blue Gum Farm in 2022 and making the leap to standing stallions the following year, the strategy Trilogy Racing has remained relatively the same; a focus on quality over quantity, and giving their stallions every opportunity to succeed.

“We’ll make use of our equity, and we will support our own horses heavily, and with good quality, as we have done for the last couple of years,” Dingwall said. The business’s focus on streamlining their broodmare band and improving its quality is “a long term, not a short term, goal”.

“We’ve chosen to stand stallions again, whereas the Campbells had chosen to stop when they put the property on the market,” Dingwall said. “So we obviously want to support them and give them a chance.

“It’s just a matter of looking at the market now and how things are evolving. If you're not playing the top end of the market, you're really not playing.”

Trilogy - whose directorship also includes Dingwall’s wife Cathy Dingwall and Jason and Melanie Stenning - have long been playing at the top end, routinely buying yearlings in association with China Horse Club, Newgate, and Go Bloodstock.

Besides Jacquinot, they’ve also been part of the ownership of Newgate stallion In The Congo, multiple Group 1 winner Militarize (NZ) (Dundeel {NZ}), and G3 Rough Habit Stakes winner Tannhauser (Dundeel {NZ}). This season, they have interests in the exciting Group 3 winners Beadman (Snitzel) and North England (Farnan).

Gallery: Horses Blue Gum Farm has an interest in

The Trilogy name has appeared less on the buying bench this sales season, and Dingwall has put this down to a refining of their interests.

“We’ve scaled back a bit,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of horses in work, and we’ve acquired a lot in a short time. At the end of the day, the costs don’t go down, so this year we have mostly been a vendor.

“We’ve got a lot of two and 3-year-olds, so we need to get them through the system and see whether any of them are going to measure up. Either they’re up to bigger and better things, or it’s out the door.

“We are not in the habit of trying to push them beyond what they are up to doing, and we've got a lot of horses that are more likely to be staying types. They need to be given to the bottom of their 3-year-old year to see whether they've got any ability or not, or it doesn't work.”

While there certainly appears to be a growing trend in 2-year-olds and younger 3-year-olds appearing on the market - and there continues to be a voracious appetite for tried horses, both domestically and internationally - Dingwall is adamant that the horses that Trilogy has invested in get the time they need to flourish.

“Otherwise, you’re wasting your money,” he said. Trilogy and partners have been spending no small figures on yearlings over the years; this year, they have signed for $2.765 million worth of yearlings, either independently or as a partnership, and last year their name was associated with $17.555 million in yearling purchases. It’s not cheap to play at the top.

A look into the future

Key personnel additions to both enterprises will, Dingwall hopes, help keep them on the right course, after a sales season that he describes as “tumultuous”.

“There's been a lot of up and down all over the place,” he said. “We had a very good sale at Melbourne. We struggled at the Gold Coast a bit, then Inglis Classic was very good, and then the lesser sales have been very ordinary.”

Blue Gum sold 20 yearlings this year for $100,000 or more, led by their $420,000 Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale graduate; a colt by Camelot (GB) out of juvenile winner Mrs Bannock (Ire) (Shamardal {USA}), who was snapped up by Eddie Hirsch of Woodside Park Stud.

“Again, the weight is still at the top end, where they’re still buying all the better quality stock. There are just not as many orders coming in as usual. Everyone’s being more selective.”

Colum McCullagh, previously the racing and bloodstock manager for Snowden Racing, joined the Trilogy team earlier this year in the racing and bloodstock role, and has brought a new dimension to the team’s knowledge base with his appointment.

“He’s been great for the business,” Dingwall said. “His focus has been more on the racing side, so it’s been good to have a different point of view, which has only helped us grow.”

Heading into the breeding season, the Blue Gum team also last week announced the appointment of Phil Marshall as the stud’s nominations and sales manager. Marshall joins them having dedicated over two decades to the Australian thoroughbred industry at Eliza Park, Sun Stud, and most recently Widden Victoria.

“We’re very excited to have him join us,” Dingwall said. “He’s very highly regarded in the industry.”

Marshall and McCullagh are welcome recruits in the face of potentially another difficult breeding season ahead.

“We will be working all the harder to convince people to use our stallions this year. That’s all we can do.”