Cover image courtesy of Georgia Young Photography
With only three slots officially filled for the 2026 G1 The Everest, the connections of Saturday’s G3 Heritage Stakes winner Blue Door (Stay Inside) should have a few people calling this week, especially considering her trainer Bjorn Baker put out the challenge after her impressive victory. Blue Door covered the 1100 metres in 1:02.64.
Winner of the G3 Kindergarten Stakes on debut, Blue Door is the first winner of the Heritage Stakes at Group 3 level, with the race having been upgraded from Listed status for 2026 and onwards. With recent winners like Home Affairs, Marhoona (Snitzel), Wild Ruler and Ozzmosis, the race has been a good launching pad for some big careers.
“Hopefully Blue Door can go on and win a Group 1. Certainly the way she went yesterday, she's on track to do some nice things,” Harry Mitchell at Yarraman Park Stud said.
“It’s nice to breed good horses. That's what we try to do. She was meant to go to Magic Millions, but we found a little tiny chip in a fetlock on her x-rays so we pulled her out of Magics to take that out.” The hiccup hasn’t affected her with two Group 3 wins and two group placings for her four career starts to date.
Harry Mitchell | Image courtesy of Yarraman Park
Yarraman Park Stud withdrew Blue Door from the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale and instead they offered her at the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale. Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, as well as Kestrel Thoroughbreds, paid $400,000 for her with John Singleton’s Strawberry Hill Stud and Ms J Singleton now the official owners.
Typical of the sire as a yearling
Both vendor and buyer agree that Blue Door is typical of her sire line, which is known for precocious speed and not a lot of height.
“She was a nice, neat, tidy, really good quality filly. She was very, very nice, sweet temperament, beautiful, clean, quality horse. She's not very big, but that’s typical of the sire line,” Mitchell said.
“She’s by Stay Inside out of a Pierro mare with a very good pedigree, and she’s doing exactly what she's bred to do. She's exciting, that's for sure.”
Blue Door | Image courtesy of Georgia Young Photography
Bruce Slade of Kestrel Thoroughbreds was on the buyer’s ticket for Blue Door at Easter.
“She was obviously a highly sought after filly (at the sales). She has that big Redoute’s Choice family, and it wasn’t just that she had a lovely pedigree, but also physically, she was very light on her feet, very Stay Inside as a type,” Slade said.
“She was just lovely, neat, square, great shaped filly and a really lovely mover and light on her feet. So we had to pay a bit of money for her. Singo was good enough to take her on and buy her and she’s been fantastic, hasn't she? She's a quick filly and with a lovely clean action on her and I was excited to hear that Bjorn is targeting the Everest with her.”
“She was just lovely, neat, square, great shaped filly and a really lovely mover and light on her feet.” - Bruce Slade
Blue Door is from the first crop of G1 Golden Slipper winner Stay Inside who had 12 yearlings catalogued for the 2025 Inglis Easter Yearling Sale. At $400,000, Blue Door was the third-equal topped priced yearling for her sire at that sale. The top Stay Inside was 3-year-old colt Schumacher who cost $650,000 and was a winner on debut for trainer Michael Freedman in early August.
Stay Inside | Standing at Newgate Farm
“It's not easy to go to Easter with a first crop stallion. You really need to have big pedigree on your side and then have the type to match. Otherwise it can be very, very hard for first crop horses there to be competing against all those top proven stallions,” Slade said.
Stay Inside has started well with four stakes winners and 14 winners from his first crop who are now 3-year-olds. From his second crop, Bjorn Baker-trained 2-year-old colt Out Of Bounds was a winner at the Kensington 2-year-old trials last week.
“The athleticism is the biggest thing with the whole Extreme Choice breed. You'll find the best ones are those lovely, neat, super athletic, great moving, great attitudes, great minds,” Slade said.
“The athleticism is the biggest thing with the whole Extreme Choice breed. You'll find the best ones are those lovely, neat, super athletic, great moving, great attitudes, great minds.” - Bruce Slade
“She just looks like that Not A Single Doubt, Extreme Choice, Stay Inside sire line.
“It's a great family. The mare herself wasn't that well performed, but with a bit of Pierro in there too, who was so successful in the stable at Gai and Adrian’s added to the appeal.”
Bruce Slade | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
A family worthy of massive investment
Blue Door’s dam Notting Hill (Pierro) is from the Redoute’s Choice family. Notting Hill is a daughter of G2 Magic Night Stakes-placed Monsoon Wedding (Danehill {USA}) who is a full sister to Group 1 winners Redoute’s Choice and Platinum Scissors, and a half-sister to Group 1 winner and sire Manhattan Rain, Listed winning sire Echoes Of Heaven and Group 3 winner Sliding Cube (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}).
Notting Hill is a half-sister to Group 3 winner Precious Lorraine (Encosta De Lago), dam of Listed winner Meuse (Snitzel), and to Listed winner Lucky Raquie (Encosta De Lago).
“She was bred by Craig Bernick and he obviously paid quite a lot of money for Notting Hill. We took her to Easter and she was purchased there by Gai and Adrian and then for whatever reason, she had a change of stable before she raced and ended up with Bjorn (Baker),” Mitchell said.
“She was bred by Craig Bernick and he obviously paid quite a lot of money for Notting Hill.” - Harry Mitchel
Craig Bernick breeds a few select mares in Australia as Armitage Australia, while the majority of his bloodstock portfolio is in America where he has run his grandfather’s farm Glen Hill Farm since 2008.
Notting Hill was a $1.4 million yearling purchase by James Harron Bloodstock and De Burgh Equine at the 2016 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. After winning two of her four starts, she was sold at the 2018 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale to Newgate Farm for $950,000.
Notting Hill as a yearling | Image courtesy of Magic Millions
Sent to America, she again went through the sales, this time the Keeneland November Breeding Sale of 2019 where Glen Hill Farm paid US$700,000 (AU$995,000) for her. She was covered by War Front (USA) and foaled a filly in America, who is now winning mare Maroon Bells (USA), before arriving in Australia in mid-2020.
“Craig has a few mares with us here in Australia. He mainly has horses in America and in Europe. It’s been a good result. He got a lot of money ($1.8 million) for the Vinnie filly out of the mare who was called Thaletris, and Bella Corazon, one of her early fillies has won four or five races. She’s got a nice I Am Invincible colt and she’s just foaled a nice Too Darn Hot filly," Mitchell said.
“Everything seems to be going pretty well with Notting Hill. It’s a great pedigree and she was a very expensive mare to buy but it’s a serious page.”
Craig Bernick | Image courtesy of Keeneland
The Redoute’s Choice family and the presence of five-time Group 1 winner Pierro up close was also part of the appeal for Slade.
“She’s got that interesting aspect of her pedigree where she's got that inbreeding to Shantha’s Choice, the dam of Redoute’s Choice. It’s a nice duplication of a top mare,” Slade said.
Shantha’s Choice (Canny Lad) appears as Blue Door’s third dam on her tail female line, and also as the dam of Redoute’s Choice, the sire of Not A Single Doubt, making Blue Door 5mx3f to Shantha’s Choice.
“Pierro is a lovely outcross. He brings class and also speed that can be carried over distance. He's particularly appealing for me as he himself did so well with that Redoute’s Choice line.”
“Pierro is a lovely outcross. He brings class and also speed that can be carried over distance. He's particularly appealing for me as he himself did so well with that Redoute’s Choice line.” - Bruce Slade
Pierro is the sire of six Group 1 winners and three of them, Levendi, Arcadia Queen and Regal Power, are out of three different Redoute’s Choice mares. Group 2 winners Action, Furore, and Dragon Leap are also all out of different Redoute’s Choice mares.
As a broodmare sire, Pierro has 12 stakes winners with three of those at Group 1 level being Jacquinot, Fireball Miss (Bivouac) and Femminile (Dundeel {NZ}). He surprised many as a juvenile, running much earlier than expected from his pedigree. He's a son of Lonhro from a fairly stout European family being out of Miss Right Note (Ire) (Daylami {Ire}) who is out of a Sadler’s Wells (USA) mare.
Pierro | Standing at Coolmore
“He had a lot of class. Gai was jumping him over jumps leading into the Breeders Plate, which is incredible for a 2-year-old colt but it helped get him switched on. And he only just won the Breeders’ Plate (on debut), it took him the whole length of the Randwick straight to run down Hidden Warrior,” Slade said.
“That's where Gai got the confidence to declare him the Slipper winner with how he was built and how much he was going to improve and then he won the whole Triple Crown.”
Pierro won his first eight in succession including the juvenile Triple Crown of the G1 Golden Slipper, G1 Sires’ Produce Stakes and G1 Champagne Stakes. He placed in both the G1 Caulfield Guineas and G1 Cox Plate as a spring 3-year-old, and won two more Group 1 races in the autumn.
A big day for Yarraman Park Stud
Not only was Blue Door raised and sold by Yarraman Park Stud, but their resident sire Hellbent added a new group winner on Saturday with 3-year-old filly Hawea winning the G3 Gold Trail Stakes.
“It’s probably the best start to a season we've ever had. Vinnie's flying. He's doing incredibly well and his fertility's great. Same with Hellbent and Brave Smash. All our stallions are churning out the winners and they've got nice books for mares that suit them,” Mitchell said.
“All our stallions are churning out the winners and they've got nice books for mares that suit them.” - Harry Mitchell
Hawea | Image courtesy of Race Images
“Hellbent had a nice Group 3 winner yesterday in New Zealand. I think he's had a stakes winner every week for the last 3 weeks.”
Hawea was bred by New Zealand Bloodstock’s John Cameron and partners, out of Lonhro mare Idlewild.
“Idlewild has a nice full sister to Hawea going to Karaka. Hellbent has got a lot of big upgrades in mare quality coming along, so it's going to be an exciting next few years.
“It's nice to nice to be breeding good horses and nice to see your stallions doing well. It's a hard game, so it's nice to have them going well.”
