A tale Well Written: How Benji and Harry King unearthed a Group 1 gem

Cover image courtesy of Ajay Berry (Race Images South)

If you were attempting to produce a star, you couldn’t go far wrong by following Harry and Benji King’s set recipe. Look out for the affordable, proven sire, raise their offspring at one of New Zealand’s best nurseries, and if it’s meant to be, it will happen.

The sons of Nick and Anne-Marie King have had their formula vindicated by the exploits of 3-year-old filly Well Written (Written Tycoon), who continued her unbeaten streak with a two and a half-length win in the G1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas on Saturday at Riccarton Park. And it all started with one wintery weanling.

A proven sire

Bought under Benji’s Foxhill Thoroughbreds banner at the Inglis Great Southern Sale, Well Written had been well priced for the Kings at $32,500. She was being offered by Lemrac Lodge on behalf of breeder David Digney, who had bred the filly on a foal share with Written Tycoon shareholder Sheriff Iskander out of Mozzie Monster (Sebring), a dual Listed-placed daughter of G3 How Now Stakes winner Valentine Miss (Danetime).

The value of the ticket was one reason the Kings were hunting at Victorian weanling sale.

“The Great Southern Sale is a super sale to buy out of if you can look past a foal that comes out of the box a bit wintery,” said Harry. “There’s a lot of value to be had at that sale.”

“She (Well Written) was a filly that I thought could get a lot of improvement,” Benji said. “I was of the opinion that she wasn’t really enjoying the Melbourne winter. She had a nice frame and she maybe lacked a little substance, but we thought she would do a lot better on a bit of New Zealand grass.”

The brief for the Kings had actually been to select horses for Benji’s burgeoning training business, which kicked off in the 2022/23 season, and Well Written had fitted the bill for both of them.

“Benji gave me the brief that we should try to fill the stable up with nice horses, so we went to the various weanling sales and landed on her,” said Harry. “What drew me to her was being by a proven stallion, from a nice family - something that could, if she could get a bit of black-type in New Zealand, have some residual value for our own broodmare band in New Zealand or to sell on.

“In terms of what you can control about these horses, you can control what page you buy. She’s out of a Sebring mare, which plays on the already exceptional More Than Ready–Written Tycoon cross, and we also know that Danehill goes very well with Written Tycoon. So that’s two big ticks for me on the page.”

A proven sire was another “big tick” for the duo, who decided they would rather look for the proven sire at a value rate than spend over the odds on a young unproven gun.

“I don’t think you can put a price on proven, and deciding that cut out half the catalogue,” Harry said. “To get her at that price by a proven stallion that’s one of the best in the world, that's another thing that would have drawn us to her.”

Written Tycoon joined the Yulong ranks in the same season as Harry, who is the operation’s sales and nominations manager, and his familiarity with the stallion’s offspring, and the offspring of some of the country’s best race fillies, meant that Harry could envisage what the future might hold.

“I’m in a pretty envious position at Yulong where I get to see these top-end broodmares in our paddocks and what they produce,” he said. “I’ve been able to make a note of three or four traits that are consistent across the best of them, and I felt she had some similarities to them as a foal.”

Similarly, he could draw on his experiences growing up at Brighthill, where he was exposed to the likes of future G1 Vinery Stud Stakes heroine Hiyaam (NZ) (High Chaparral {Ire}).

“This filly reminded me a lot of Hiyaam as a foal,” Harry said. “Not a big, boisterous looking thing, but one that looked like she would be light on her feet. An athletic looking filly, in the same mould as Treasurethe Moment, Verry Elleegant, they’re all physically pretty similar.”

A proven system

Once the docket was signed, Well Written was brought across to New Zealand to grow out at the family’s farm Brighthill, managed by the King’s father Nick King. A boutique farm in Hamilton, Brighthill is the home of the stallions Eminent (Ire), Dalghar (Fr), and Preferment (NZ), and was the perfect place to develop a top flight prospect, with previous notable graduates also including the G1 1000 Guineas winner Aloisia (NZ) (Azamour {Ire}).

Having the ideal nursery to grow out the filly took a lot of the pressure off. A bit of New Zealand sun and spring grass transformed Well Written in the near 12 months between her appearances in sales catalogues.

“The transformation is down to the elite job done by dad at Brighthill,” Harry said. “He managed her physically and put the work into her. We can’t give him enough credit for how she grew into herself before the sale at the back-end of the yearling sale season. Dad and his team have been producing these Group 1 fillies time and time again - the amount of top-end 3-year-olds to come off of the property certainly has them, pound for pound, punching above their weight. It’s exceptional.”

“Dad is quite stallion-orientated, so usually what’s on the farm is all he has to work with,” Benji said. “So taking a filly like this home helps to keep building his profile, and this result is great for the Brighthill team.”

Brighthill is where the King boys cut their teeth, before Harry headed off around the world to experience the running of studs in both hemispheres and Benji was drawn towards educating and producing horses to race. Their other brother Charlie was a graduate from the Godolphin Flying Start program in 2023 and now works for Airdrie Stud in Kentucky.

“Mum and Dad have been elite to learn off of,” said Harry. “Dad’s a terrific horseman and a very, very good farmer. A lot comes down to the farming side of things as well. The pasture there is top end all year round. All these systems have worked to build a small farm to produce these sorts of 3-year-olds every second year.

“I’m a big believer in letting horses be horses. Put them in the paddock, let them be tough, and feed them plenty of good food and quality grass. Growing up at Brighthill, our yearling and foal preparations were quite natural. They’re not mollycoddled or treated like show ponies, they’re tough and they produce it on the track.”

The winning bid

Although Well Written had been bought for Benji’s stable, ultimately the Kings parted ways with her in 2024, offering her in the New Zealand Bloodstock National Online Yearling Sale on Gavelhouse Plus.

“She already had a bit of residual value, and Written Tycoon had just sired the Karaka Million winner Velocious and the Slipper winner Lady Of Camelot, so Benji elected to put her online and test the market a bit,” Harry said. “This one probably did look a little bit similar to Velocious in terms of her head and type, actually.”

The decision was in a large part financial. Starting from humble beginnings and funding the venture himself, Benji saw the benefit of letting go of what was in his view the stable’s best asset.

“We'd obviously bought this filly in mind to get through the stable and try and boost our profile,” he said. “And we actually ended up buying another one in January, which obviously, as a young trainer, put a little bit of financial pressure on us. Although we did put a pretty significant number on Well Written - she topped the sale - she was also there to help keep us in training, basically.

“And she's done that - she kept us going for a long time. She's done all sorts for us. She's put us on the map and kept us going financially.”

The filly initially passed in, with the Kings setting a reserve that understood her value, before ultimately being bought by Group 1-winning trainer Stephen Marsh and his bloodstock agent Dylan Johnson for NZ$80,000.

“Stephen rang up quite quickly when the sale ended and, since we’ve got quite a good connection with him, I thought it was the right thing to do,” said Benji. “So it was a win-win for everyone. I say to everybody, unfortunately, as a young trainer, I probably wouldn't have gotten her to the level she's got to, so she’s definitely been given the best chance to succeed - which she has done.

“That’s probably the most exciting part for us, is how quickly she’s gotten to this level. We definitely still feel like we've had a big part to play in her success.”

In the green and white

Part of Harry’s job entails keeping track of the offspring of Yulong’s stallion roster, but he has always paid a little extra attention to Well Written, who won two juvenile trials in April before being put away for the autumn. She resumed in August with third in a heat before priming for debut with a trial win.

Eleven days later, the filly burst onto the scene with a three-length victory and followed it up a month later with a near seven-length demolition of the G2 Soliloquy Stakes. She was already on Harry’s radar when the Yulong team made a bid to buy a 50% stake in her after the win.

“I’ve followed her from the start, having had a relationship with her already,” Harry said. “When a horse comes out and wins two in row, especially when she wins a Group 2 by that distance, and is by a stallion that the boss absolutely adores, she’s going to get the team’s attention. She’s a very sharp 3-year-old filly.

“For me, she was always one that I thought would end up at Yulong as a broodmare eventually. She would have crossed paths with Yulong at some point, with her performances.”

She certainly has earned her place in the paddocks of Nagambie now, having added an 18th Group 1 winner to her sire's tally.

The main thrill is having that Group 1 win in Yulong’s silks, granting Stephen Marsh his first win the race, and delivering a second career top flight win for jockey Matthew Cartwright - but there’s a feel-good factor for the people involved in each step of delivering Well Written to the barriers on Saturday.

“It was very, very exciting to get that win yesterday for Yulong, but also for Stephen, who dad, Benji, and myself have always had a great relationship with,” Harry said. “He’s someone we respect highly, he and his team consistently punch above their weight. He has a terrific eye for a horse and we're seeing the fruits of that now.”

All eyes now turn to the autumn, where the lucrative Karaka Millions race day beckons, as does a spot at the start in the NZ$3.5 million NZB The Kiwi in March which provides a golden ticket into the $10 million Golden Eagle next spring.

Meant to be

In a way, Benji considers the sale of Well Written to have always meant to have happened.

“I think we were at the right place at the right time to get her as a weanling,” he said. “The way I think about it, she was meant to be sold, she was meant to go to Stephen, and Stephen was meant to have a stellar year. Although she was bought for me, she’s been given her best shot with Stephen.

“It’s great to feel like we’re on the right track. We’re only just starting out, we've got great people behind us who support us the whole way and give us guidance, but we put our own money that we work hard for into these decisions. It’s been a great confidence boost.”

It has also been a huge result for Digney, whose mare has a Group 1 winner with her first foal. Mozzie Monster has a Shamus Award 2-year-old still to run, and produced a colt by Nicconi last month.

“Looking at the whole carnival as a whole and taking the Thousand Guineas, it’s been a terrific carnival for the small breeders,” Harry said. “David Digney who owns Mozzie Monster is a terrific gentleman that loves his matings and his pedigrees. We can look at Martin Falvey who bred Strictly Business (G1 VRC Oaks winner), he’s another small breeder who’s giving it a crack and he’s doing a wonderful job with his matings. The carnival has really shown that you can put in and be rewarded.”

That’s not to mention the carnival’s other stars, like G1 Melbourne Cup winner Half Yours (St Jean {Ire}), whose sire stood for $3300 (inc GST) at the time of his conception.

“And Benji and I, we backed our eye and pinhooked this filly and took her to Brighthill, which is again another small farm to produce a result for. She’s a filly that’s got so many stories surrounding her from everyone who’s been involved with her. It’s a great thrill for everyone.

“We've obviously landed a good one. which gives us a bit more confidence to reload next year and go again.”

As the yearling sales start to appear around the corner, it’s onwards and upwards from here.