Buy of the Weekend: Half Yours returns his purchase price in handful of starts

Cover image courtesy of Trackside Photography

This week’s Buy of the Weekend has a somewhat unusual six-figure price tag, but the performance of Half Yours (St Jean {Ire}) since his purchase more than justifies the spend.

Bred for the late Colin McKenna’s Halo Racing Service, the rising 5-year-old was the second most expensive lot sold in Halo Racing’s unreserved dispersal sale in one of last November’s Inglis Digital auctions.

The gelding, a dual winner at country level, fetched $305,000 when knocked down to Belmont Bloodstock and McEvoy Mitchell Racing - and he has since managed to earn of all that back in five starts for his new stable, topped off by a win in the Listed Caloundra Cup on Saturday.

Justifying the spend

Clearly the ability has always been there in Half Yours, but the gelding has flourished under Tony and Calvin McEvoy’s tutelage, having now won three of his last four starts and recording two close second placings in addition.

“We’re always scouring Inglis Digital, and we knew that there was a few progressive horses that were going to be sold due to the late Colin McKenna’s dispersal,” Calvin McEvoy told The Thoroughbred Report.

“Ryan Moore, our racing manager, and myself, we saw this horse and we liked his couple of runs. We knew he would be fairly popular, but also he was a bit too old for Hong Kong so that cancelled out that part of the competition. Buying him for $305,000 was an aggressive play for a Benchmark 64 winner, but thankfully it’s looking like it was a good decision.”

Including the $174,000 earned on Saturday for his maiden stakes win, the 4-year-old has raked in $311,450 since debuting for the training partnership in March - neatly offsetting the purchase price.

McEvoy had spotted the gelding at the Ballarat course when training, but not paid too much attention to him until the sale in November.

“I made sure to call David Eustace, who used to train him (with Ciaron Maher), he said that he was a lovely horse and they'd given him quite a bit of time. He's a very big, scopey individual and when he arrived to us, he arrived in very good order and certainly we had plenty of work with. He’s very raw, but very straightforward.”

Getting the distance

It was always apparent that Half Yours would need more galloping room than just 1400 metres, so the narrow second placing at his first start for the McEvoys over the distance came as a pleasing surprise.

“We bought him knowing he wasn’t solely a wet tracker, but he was certainly better when he could get his toe in the ground,” McEvoy said. “We ran him first over 1400 metres at Sandown on a Good 3 and he stormed home to just miss by an inch.”

Half Yours went almost a month between runs second up, but not through any fault of his own; lightning called off a Sandown meeting as he was entering the mounting yard, and he was scratched from another potential start due to a drying track.

“He went to Seymour for a Benchmark 64, he was $1.60, and we just expected him to really win impressively, but he fell in. And that sort of confused us a bit, but we're still getting to know the horse. He’s so raw, he's still working out the caper, and I think we saw that day at Rosehill when Dylan Gibbons made the long run around them just how much ability he really has.”

After a six week break, the gelding struck in an 1800-metre Benchmark 78 on a Heavy 8 track at the end of May, winning by 3.5l over the more seasoned galloper Walking Painting (GB) (Siyouni {Fr}), before coming second to Freight Train (Shamus Award) by less than 0.5l when stepping up to 2000 metres a fortnight later.

The Sunshine Coast’s Caloundra Cup was his first punt at 2400 metres, and the gelding’s dour pedigree relished being stretched out further, scoring victory by 4.5l over Bear On The Loose (Ire) (Footstepsinthesand {GB}).

Caulfield Cup in the crosshairs

The dream, for McEvoy, is a start in the G1 Caulfield Cup. Half Yours has been sent out for a fortnight’s rest on the water walker before his spring plans begin.

“It's (the Caulfield Cup) still a pie in the sky thing at the moment, but not many horses really go out of Benchmark racing straight to stakes company and do what he did on Saturday,” McEvoy said.

“He's really grabbed the attention of a lot of the industry and probably the professional form guys, I've had a number of messages from well-respected form guys that have made it clear how impressive he was.

“So I look forward to going through all the facts and figures and times.”

McEvoy can draw a line from the G1 Metropolitan Handicap to the Cup a fortnight later as the perfect setup for the horse.

“He's obviously very good on that leg, and they generally can get a soft track there,” he said. “So potentially aiming him for the Metropolitan and then to the Caulfield Cup would be a nice plan.”

Perhaps it will in time be appreciated that you can source horses like Half Yours closer to home - his sire St Jean (Ire) boasts a $3300 inc GST service fee - with McEvoy admitting it can hard to buy imports with the level of competition overseas.

“We'd like to do a lot more of it (investing in stayers),” he said. “It's something that has become quite expensive, especially going to Europe, and trying to buy them is near impossible now, unless you've got a really strong solid support base. That's something we're trying to build.

“We've bought a number of horses out of New Zealand over the past couple of years and they've ran to a good level, but we're certainly keen to be a player in the big staying features in Australia.”

Pedigree of notes

Pedigree wasn’t forefront of mind for McEvoy when making the bid on Half Yours; the gelding is from the third crop of G3 City Of Auckland Cup winner St Jean, which only numbered 10 live foals.

A son of Godolphin’s Teofilo (Ire) and Italian Group 1 winner Oriental Fashion (Ire) (Marju {Ire}), St Jean justified his export to Australia after breaking his maiden by 16l in a 2400-metre contest at his third start and picking up fourth place in the G3 Ballyroan Stakes at Leopardstown.

Purchased by Highflyer BS from Shadwell Stud for 65,000gns ($149,000) at a Tattersalls Horses In Training sale in 2013, he recorded four wins in Victoria for Aaron Purcell, before raiding New Zealand in early 2017. Half Yours is his first stakes winner.

“I was a little bit nervous when we did get the final bid at that sort of money, knowing that he's by St Jean and I had to then explain to our owners that I was selling into this horse, who that stallion was,” McEvoy said.

“I did have a chuckle, but they all get a good horse, don’t they? And it looks like this horse is his. He looks like he can make his own pedigree.”

Teofilo shuttled to Australia on and off from 2009 to 2017, and produced a number of stakes winners down under including multiple Group winner Alegron, although his three G1 Melbourne Cup winners were all conceived in the Northern Hemisphere. In the last 10 years, he is the only stallion to sire more than one Melbourne Cup winner - further back, he shares honours with Monsun (Ger) and Zabeel (NZ) as sires of multiple winners.

Two other sons of Teofilo have sired stakes winner in Australia; Victorian resident Kermandec (NZ) and Massaat (Ire), sire of Group 3-winning Coco Jamboo (Ire). Vandeek (GB), a grandson of his son Havana Grey (Ire), will be the latest Teofilo descendant to stand in Australia when he shuttles to Arrowfield Stud this spring.

Half Yours is also the best offspring from five to race out of Desert King (Ire) mare La Gazelle, who is a half-sister to G3 Queen’s Cup winner Moudre (Blevic) and 11-time winner Knock Knock (Anyone Home). La Gazelle’s second best offspring replicated the same cross as her half-brother Moudre; Emil (Blevic) won seven races out to 2050 metres and retired at the tail end of his 8-year-old season. Let's not forget the role Desert King played in the pedigree of Makybe Diva (GB).