Sword adding to Moodie's expansive breeding legacy

Cover image courtesy of Georgia Young Photography

On Saturday, Sword Of Legacy (Too Darn Hot {GB}) added to an exciting week for David Moodie’s colours racing colours when toughing it out on a Heavy 9 Rosehill track to win her third race of the preparation for Matthew Dunn. The same colours were hoisted aloft at Grafton by fellow homebred Band Of Brothers (Omaha Beach {USA}) in the Listed Ramornie Handicap.

Both are the latest stars for families that Moodie, operating under the Contract Racing and Hesket Thoroughbreds banners, has been cultivating for over three decades, having bred both horses’ third dams in the mid 1990s. When Moodie let parts of those deep families go at the Magic Millions Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale in May, he resolved to hang on to Sword Of Legacy.

Having won her last two starts at Saturday metropolitan level, it seems like Sword Of Legacy could be worth every cent.

Worth the price

Hesket Thoroughbreds announced an unreserved dispersal with the catalogue release for the Magic Millions National Broodmare sale in April. Julian Blaxland’s Newington Farm Premium Consignment walked 20 of their fillies and mares through the ring at the Gold Coast a month later, with a 100% clearance rate and a total of $3,712,500.

Neil Jenkinson (FBAA) signed the docket for Sword Of Legacy to the tune of $425,000, but, as it eventuated, Moodie ended up buying the filly back in full.

“Matthew (Dunn) was desperate to keep her,” said Jenkinson, who is Dunn’s bloodstock agent. “And so was David. Once some of the lots we wanted went above our budget, we thought we could buy her.

“Initially we had just bought her to retain her for the stable, and then David said, ‘look, the sale has gone really well, I’d like to keep her’. We had always hoped he would keep a share, so that was even better for us.”

Also offered in the dispersal was Sword Of Legacy’s Group-performed sister Nodachi (No Nay Never {USA}, who sold for $400,000 to Mitchell Bloodstock (FBAA), and her dam Kaiken (Exceed And Excel), who sold for $425,000 to Justin Carey in foal to Castelvecchio.

The top-priced lot was stakes-performed eight-time winner Viviane (Written Tycoon), in foal to Anamoe, who sold for $825,000 to Newgate Bloodstock. She is closely related to Sword Of Legacy through her second dam Razor Blade (Blazing Sword), who appears as the latter’s third dam.

“She’s a beautiful mare whose race record doesn’t quite show her class,” Moodie said of Viviane. “She was a stakes class mare, and she’s in foal to the right stallion.”

The Gold Coast sale would be far from the first time this family has brought Moodie, and others, big rewards in the sales ring. Kaiken’s multiple Group-winning half-sister Sword Of Light (New Approach {Ire}) was bought by Widden Stud for $900,000 at the 2020 Inglis Chairman’s Sale.

She has since produced dual Listed winner Beskar (Snitzel) and two seven-figure yearlings, with Yulong purchasing her Zoustar colt for $1.35 million in partnership with Gai Waterhouse and Adrian at this year’s Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale.

Better with age

Sword Of Legacy’s success could have been someone else’s though, as she was offered as a yearling at the 2024 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale, but failed to make her $220,000 reserve.

“They’re a family that gets better with age,” Moodie said. “Historically, they have always improved as they have gotten older. Sword Of Mercy took 12 starts to break her maiden, and then when she turned four, she was beaten a length in the Oakleigh Plate.”

Sword Of Mercy (Sebring) won six in the end and picked up a smattering of stakes placings up to Group 2 level, along with over $400,000 in prizemoney.

Despite her family’s tendency to be better as older, she was stakes-placed at her second start in the G3 Chairman’s Stakes and fourth in the Listed Talindert Stakes won by Tentyris before spending the best part of a year off the scenes, with just the one start in the spring before heading further north to join Dunn’s stable.

“She got very sick, which set her back a lot,” Moodie said. “She had great 2-year-old form, and then she essentially lost a year.”

The filly is rapidly playing catch-up now.

A wonderful matriarch

The paths of Moodie and Sword Of Legacy’s family intersect with her fourth dam Coalition (Pre Emptive Strike {Can}), a 1988-born three-time winner at metropolitan level in Victoria. In the late 1990s, her page would be enhanced by the presence of multiple stakes winner Honour Code (Marscay), but Coalition had been busy forging her own upwards trajectory already after joining Moodie’s broodmare band.

“We didn’t pay a lot for her after her racing career,” Moodie said. “We only paid around $8000 for her, and she has been a wonderful matriarch for the family.”

With a rough equivalent price tag in today’s money of $19,000, Coalition would turn out to be a steal.

Born in 1994, Razor Blade was Coalition’s second foal - her sire Blazing Sword was raced and stood by Moodie - and first to the track. She proved as sharp as her name suggests, winning eight races, including three at stakes level headed by Eagle Farm’s G3 Winter Stakes - although not in Moodie’s colours.

“We didn’t like her much as a weanling,” he recalled. “It was either sell her or sell another, and we ended up selling her for $600. We bought her back for quite a bit more at the end of her racing career.”

Moodie held on to another daughter of Blazing Sword in Arctic Scent. He sold Blazing Sword to Thai interests in 1995 when the stallion’s only stakes winners were Listed winners Cut Up Rough and her. In 1996, Arctic Scent won the G1 Queensland Oaks and the G1 Caulfield Cup. A year later, Cut Up Rough won the G1 Vic Health Cup, now the G1 Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes.

Six years after Razor Sharp came Country Lodge (Grand Lodge {USA}). She won the G3 Vanity Stakes and notched up a number of placings at stakes level, including splitting Special Harmony (Spinning World {USA}) and Sky Cuddle (Snippets) in theG2 Kewney Stakes.

Country Lodge produced several winners, but of the pair, Razor Blade was the sharpest in the covering shed. From 10 foals to hit the race track, Razor Blade produced nine winners, and four of them at stakes level. Exceed And Excel gelding Flamberge was the pinnacle of the group, winning the G1 Goodwood Handicap, the G1 Oakleigh Plate, and the G1 William Reid Stakes. Seven of his 11 victories were stakes wins, which aided him in earning over $1.8 million in prizemoney.

Durendal (Medaglia D’Oro {USA}) won twice at Group 3 level, while Sunburnt Land (Scenic {Ire}) won the G2 Caulfield Sprint and the Listed Straight Six Handicap - which was also won by half-sister and dual Listed winner Curtana (Exceed And Excel), the dam of Viviane.

Despite his eight wins and a third placing in the G1 Patinack Classic, Sunburnt Land never got the chance to show his best.

“He was spelling after winning the Caulfield Sprint and he got struck by lightning,” Moodie recalled. “There were 10,000 kangaroos on that property and the lightning had to strike him.”

Joyeuse (King’s Best {USA}) was Razor Blade’s fifth stakes performer and was a five-time metropolitan winner as well. Amongst her six winners from eight to the track are the aforementioned Sword Of Light, Listed Tattersalls Members’ Cup winner Sword Of Justice (Medaglia D’Oro {USA}), and Kaiken.

Returning to roots

The reason for Hesket’s dispersal, which continued on the Magic Millions Digital sales platform in June, is a focus on another family that Moodie has carefully cultivated for generations. From Palace Glow (Palace Music {USA}), Moodie bred dual Group 3 winner Nediym’s Glow (General Nediym) in 2003, and from her daughter Phosphorescence (Lonhro), he bred General Beau.

Moodie retained all 30 foals born in his 2018 crop and the son of Brazen Beau was one of the best. General Beau was a two and a quarter-length Flemington winner on debut in the September of his juvenile season, and ran second in the Listed Maribyrnong Trial just 10 days later.

He won both the colts and geldings’ editions of Listed Blue Diamond Preview and G3 Blue Diamond Prelude before running fifth in Artorius’s G1 Blue Diamond Stakes to conclude his 2-year-old season.

Racing until he was five, General Beau also won the Listed Always Welcome Stakes and consistently found the placings in Group company, including running third in September Run’s (Exceed And Excel) William Reid.

When the entire bowed out of racing in April 2024, Moodie fended off interstate stud offers to give the stallion his own Victorian launchpad. Moodie and Cotton On co-founder Ash Hardwicke - who is also in Hesket Thoroughbreds, along with David's wife Jenny - purchased Spendthrift’s Victorian farm in 2022 when the Stateside enterprise withdrew from Australia. They installed Luke and Mags Anderson’s Maluka Thoroughbreds to stand General Beau for his ownership syndicate.

“General Beau is a beautiful looking animal,” said Adrian Hancock of Hancock Quality Bloodstock (FBAA), who has been involved with Moodie since the days of Blazing Sword and assisted him with procuring mares for General Beau. “He is quite well credentialed as well. He has Blue Diamond form in a year that has produced some very, very good colts.”

Returning to the model that led to him breeding stars like Razor Blade, Moodie has retained his 20 foals from the stallion’s first crop and will race them in his colours.

“He’s got a very good temperament, and he has passed his strength on into his stock,” Moodie said. “They are all strong like him and they all have his good temperament.”

“David has really fallen in love with his first foals,” said Hancock. “General Beau has left an impression that has really captured his imagination. That’s given him all the reasons to stop worrying about being commercial, so now he’s going to concentrate on General Beau, like he did in the days of Blazing Sword and Raami.”

“We have been to see General Beau’s foals this year, because David told us what he has been doing, and they are actually a really impressive bunch of foals,” said Jenkinson. “You could go look at them at a sale and think, ‘that’s a really nice foal’.”

“You never know where a good stallion will come from,” Hancock said. “David is prepared to support him and give him all the mares he can to give him his chance. From his first crop, he’s got half a dozen that could walk into any yearling sale, regardless of pedigree.”

Improving with age

True to her breeding, the hope is to see Sword Of Legacy continue to improve with age.

“She is quite a keen filly, so Matthew has been working on getting her to settle and save her energy for late,” Jenkinson said. The filly had been entered to run up at Doomben on the same day, but the team had opted for Rosehill instead.

“The big sway of Sydney over Brisbane had been using Nash Rawiller again,” Jenkinson said. “He won on her previously (at Eagle Farm), so he had a good knowledge of her already. We knew she was good enough to win the race. The only worry we had was about 58.5kg on a Heavy 9 - she’s only a little filly, as is typical of the sireline.

“But she was terrific. She had plenty of opportunities to think about it when she straightened, but she put her ears back and had a real go.”

Moodie confirmed the filly had headed for a well earned spell after her Rosehill win.

“She should keep improving, like the rest have,” he said. If she can turn up the heat and score a stakes win, she will be a very valuable addition to the family indeed.