'It's no surprise she's a great producer': Cristal Eyes bears latest fruit in a thoroughly Vinery family tree

Cover image courtesy of Vinery Stud

It’s been a wonderful week (and a day) for 10-year-old broodmare Cristal Eyes (All Too Hard), who has produced two Group winners in eight days in the form of last weekend’s G2 Kewney Stakes winner Sass Appeal (So You Think {NZ}) and Saturday’s G2 Ajax Stakes victor Cristal Clear (Exceedance).

It is the type of a result a breeder dreams about when sending a mare to stud, and it has been a hearty reward for her owners, who have been long-time investors in Vinery Stud, where Cristal Eyes was conceived and, in a full circle moment, where she spends her broodmare career.

An easy purchase to make

A daughter of Champagne Run (USA) (More Than Ready {USA}) - a winning daughter of G1 Coolmore Classic winner Bollinger (Dehere{USA}) - Cristal Eyes was born at Arrowfield Stud and stamped with the jockey cap and three diamonds on her nearside shoulder.

However, she was conceived just down the road at Vinery Stud, where her dam, herself a daughter of the great G1 Golden Slipper Stakes victress Bint Marscay (Marscay), visited Champion 3YO and four-time Group 1 winner All Too Hard in his second season at stud. Offered for sale at the 2015 Magic Millions Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale with Cristal Eyes in utero, Champagne Run was bought by Arrowfield Stud for $220,000 where she delivered a chestnut filly on November 11.

That foal would be set for Arrowfield’s 2017 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale draft, where she was bought for $100,000 by Echo Beach Bloodstock, the bloodstock entity of the late Alan Green, former Vinery partner and the founder of Quiksilver, and his wife Barbara Green, to be raced in partnership with Rip Curl founder Brian Singer. Singer and Alan Green, who passed away in early 2025, had raced horses together for 45 years, and it was their passion for the ocean that had brought them together first.

“The two of them met while surfing when they were 21, and the rest is history,” said Bruce Elkington, who manages the Greens’ bloodstock interests.

The name of Echo Beach Bloodstock has a surfing provenance behind it as well, being named after a type of Quiksilver board shorts.

“Vinery’s Adam White always looked at the fillies for us, and he picked her out of the sale for us,” Elkington recalled of Cristal Eyes’ purchase. “We liked her a lot, and of course she was from a terrific family, being descended from Bollinger and Bint Marscay.”

Cristal Eyes didn’t receive a name as explicitly linked to the ocean, but she proved a handy galloper regardless. Trained by the then Lindsay Park team of David and Ben Hayes and Tom Dabernig, the filly showed the gutsiness that became typical of her father’s stock when chalking up three wins in 12 starts and running second in the G3 Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes at just start number two.

“She was a good filly, she was stakes-placed and a winner at two,” Elkington said. “And then she went amiss, which is always the way.”

Time was called on the filly’s career and she returned to Vinery Stud to begin the next stage of her career.

A deeply Vinery pedigree

On page alone, it had not been a difficult decision for Adam White, then the bloodstock manager for Vinery Stud, to make the suggestion to bring the filly home to Vinery.

“She comes from a wonderfully deep family,” said White, who has been an integral part of the stud’s operation since 2000 and took up the general manager mantle in 2025. “We have had so much success with this family on this farm. Bint Marscay was here at Vinery when I joined, when she belonged to Tommy Simon.”

G1 Golden Slipper Stakes winner and Champion 2YO Bint Marscay was purchased by Dr Tom Simon, the original owner of Vinery Stud, at the conclusion of her racing career in 1994 and of her four foals, she produced three stakes winners in G3 Blue Diamond Preview (colts & geldings) winner Sheraton (Woodman {USA}), G3 Blue Diamond Prelude (fillies) winner Mannington (Danehill {USA}), and Bollinger.

Bint Marscay herself came from champion stock, being one of four stakes winners out of G3 Eulogy Stakes victress Eau D'Etoile (NZ) (Sir Tristram {Ire}) along with dual Group 1 winner and sire Filante (NZ).

“We then had her daughter Mannington here, from whom we bred Benicio, and we had Always Allison here, who won a Sweet Embrace," said White. “And obviously we had Bollinger here too.”

Cristal Eyes came with a page that has only flourished in the time following her sale. Her one-year older brother Villermont had yet to race and would become his dam’s second stakes winner, after multiple Graded stakes winner Friesan Fire (USA) (AP Indy {USA}), when taking out the G2 Sandown Guineas the spring after that Easter sale.

Her half-sister Vintage Strike (USA) (Smart Strike {Can}) would foal R. Listed Magic Millions 3YO Guineas winner Aim (Star Witness) that spring.

“Being a daughter of All Too Hard out of a More Than Ready mare makes her special too,” White said. “They are two stallions that we've had great success with, and it's a cross that's worked really well, having produced multiple Group 1 winners like Wellington in Hong Kong and Forbidden Love.”

Patronising the locals

Cristal Eyes was first sent to Headwater, whom Green had shares in, during the stallion’s fourth season, so it was only a short trip across the farm for her first date.

“It’s a magnificent property,” said Elkington. “Alan was a shareholder for Vinery for over 20 years. All our mares and foals are at Vinery, they’re always in good hands and that’s why we leave them there.”

Green had been part of the original partnership that formed around Vinery Stud in the early 2000s when Simon sought to reduce his bloodstock interests. With the other Vinery partners, he raced Headwater to victories in the G2 Silver Slipper Stakes and the Listed Kensington Stakes.

“Headwater was doing quite well at the time, and Adam White advised that it would be a good mating. He gives us his recommendations every year of what would suit the mare, and then we decide who we want to go to.”

The resultant foal, Hydrometer (Headwater), was twice a winner in provincial grade and ran a number of placings in the city for Tracey Bartley.

Next, the mare visited Vinery Stud’s newest first season sire Exceedance - in whose racing ownership Green also shared - to produce Cristal Clear.

“We were trying to get mares to Exceedance in his first year with good, deep pedigrees, which she certainly has,” said White. “Her being a resident mare and Alan being a partner in Vinery, it was a good idea.”

Sent down to the Inglis Ready2Run Sale in the draft of Noorilim Park, Cristal Clear was a $50,000 purchase for Group One Thoroughbreds and Annabel Neasham Racing - and just last month, someone recognised the potential the 4-year-old gelding had and paid $25,000 for a 5% stake in him via the Inglis Digital Late February Online Sale.

Setting a mare up right

While Exceedance was a G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes-winning sprinter, So You Think (NZ) was quite a different style of horse for Cristal Eyes’ next mating.

“He was a very good stallion, So You Think,” said White. “He had proven that he could get you a very good middle distance horse, and after going to Exceedance the previous year, it was decided that she needed to go back to a proven sire. She went to him and had a lovely filly.

“Exceedance has done a terrific job with his first crops to the track, but to set a mare up properly, you have to make sure that she goes to a proven stallion early in her career to give her the best chance.”

“So You Think was the suggestion we liked most the following year,” Elkington said. “He was on the up and doing a good job at the time, so we sent her there. That filly then went to Melbourne and Danny O’Brien bought her for $120,000.”

A price that looks to be a steal for the now dual stakes winner Sass Appeal, who won the Listed Desirable Stakes in the start before her Kewney victory.

“They were both good buys for their owners,” said Elkington. “And now they have provided our mare with two great updates to her page.”

“We have been very fortunate that both of the matings have produced stakes winners,” White said. “It is hard enough to win one Group race, nevermind two across two weekends.”

Cristal Eyes delivered an Ole Kirk colt in 2025 before returning to Exceedance, a move that is looking all the more promising with time, as Cristal Clear is now set on a path to the G1 Doncaster Mile.

“It was Adam’s recommendation to head back to Exceedance, because Cristal Clear was such a striking individual, and that’s been a good move now,” said Elkington. “She is a mare that throws a great type. All three of her foals that I have seen grow up have been very good types, and have matured into very good-looking yearlings. She is throwing the right kind of horse and they are doing it on the track too.”

White is proud to see Cristal Eyes continue the legacy of her family while grazing the Vinery paddocks.

“It is a real, deep pedigree that we have known for generations,” he said. “It has been great to see her step up and carry on that great family tradition on this particular farm. When you look at her page, it is no surprise that she has become a great producer herself.”

A legacy in racing

After the recent results of Cristal Eyes’ offspring, the discussion would have to be had about retaining the colt - or the following foal - to race.

“We will have to sit down with a bottle of wine and discuss it,” he said. “The Greens and Brian are normally sellers, but they love racing as well. They race more than they breed. They have won three Melbourne Cups, two Sydney Cups, two Adelaide Cups they’ve won the Victoria Derby, and they won the Australian Derby with the first horse they owned in 1981.”

That horse was Venus And Mars, a chestnut son of (then principal race) Caulfield Cup winner Sobar (NZ), and he had been given to Elkington and his father Meggs to train in 1980. The colt ran third in the G1 Victoria Derby as well as scoring in the G1 WATC Australian Derby.

“That’s how long I have known them,” said Elkington, who also trained the likes of G1 Caulfield Guineas winner Vitalic, G1 South Australian Derby winner Celtic Spirit (NZ), and G3 Tasmanian Derby winner Palomine (Exalt {GB}).

“When I retired from training in 2015, Alan said, ‘why don’t you come over and give us a hand with the bloodstock’. They were more interested in surfing than running the accounting sides of the horses, so I took care of all that for them.

“Barbara is a very passionate race goer, so she has kept Echo Beach Bloodstock going now with Brian, which is wonderful.”

The Greens have shared in the ownership of three G1 Melbourne Cup winners between 2016 and 2020 - Almandin (Ger) (Monsu {Ger}), Rekindling (GB), and Twilight Payment (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) - as well as the top racehorses Samaready (More Than Ready {USA}), Afleet Esprit (Bel Esprit), and Victoria Derby Benicio, who makes an appearance on Cristal Eyes’ page as a fellow descendant of Bint Marscay.

Green has also bred the likes of G2 Caulfield Autumn Classic winner Stokehouse (Anabaa {USA}), G3 Festival Stakes winner Outrageous (All Too Hard), Listed winner and stakes producer Malasun (Red Ransom {USA}), and dual Group 2 winner Roots (Press Statement).

Looking forward, Elkington is excited to see how Cristal Eyes’ two Group-winning offspring continue to perform on the track, and what they can add to Alan Green’s breeding legacy.

“I have read that Sass Appeal is off for a well-earned spell, so I look forward to what she does when she returns in the spring,” he said. “And hopefully Cristal Clear can keep flying the flag for her too. They have had a lot of handy broodmares over the years, but this mare is probably one of their best, so it might be time to look at keeping one or two of them out of her.”