Sunlight farewelled by tearful companion In these days where nearly every phone owner carries a camera, a professional photographer has shown all his skills to capture a rare gem of a picture. Queensland photographer Michael McInally is regularly used by Ontrack to photograph our young horses and he was working at this week’s Magic Millions Sale when top racehorse Sunlight went through the broodmare sale and made $4.2 million. Michael was aware that the mare’s regular strapper Sarah Rutten was looking on and he told Racenet’s Ben Dorries how his special pic came about. "Sunlight came out early before she went into the ring and Sarah was full of emotion then, she might not have been crying but you could see that a couple of hours later when the horse was going to go through the ring she was going to be very upset,” McInally said. “She has had such an incredible bond with that horse.
“I just knew I had to be here after the horse went through the ring. “It was only two minutes after - Sarah walked back from the ring into the stall, Sunlight was in a barn right next door to the ring. “I literally took a picture of Tom Magnier and then ran straight over to take a picture of Sarah. “She just burst into tears and that’s when that picture was taken,” said Michael. A regular member of the OnTrack content team, Michael documents the progress of our yearlings from sale day, to breaking, spelling and pre-training. He is a regular visitor to our Queensland farms including Kilto Park, Waverley Park and Fenwick Farm at Canungra. “Michael is a terrific photographer and nothing is ever a problem for him," said OnTrack CEO Gant Morgan. “I’m still a big believer that a picture can tell a thousand words. "Whilst many people have congregated to video content, I still prefer good still images to really display how a horse looks and is developing," said Morgan Calcareous shapes well for season opener The change of a racing season is always keenly anticipated and for Ontrack there’s plenty to look forward to. The first new horse to step on to the track may be the well named grey colt Calcareous, down to debut at the Sunshine Coast on Sunday or next Wednesday. The colt has drawn an awkward gate for his debut so a decision on a start will be delayed until the final field can be assessed. He is also a late nomination for the Sunshine Coast meeting next Wednesday. Purchased by Grant Morgan from last year’s Magic Millions QTIS Sale on the Gold Coast, Calcareous is one of the few greys by super stallion Not A Single Doubt. His colour stems from Linamax, the sire of this colt’s grand-dam Only Vanda and the name Calcareous means containing lime or being chalky as in the White Cliffs of Dover. A stylish grey horse, Linamax died in 2016 at the age of 29 after a distinguished career at stud for The Aga Khan and during his career, he was France's leading sire in 1998 and in 2004. He was the country's leading broodmare sire in 2012. Calcareous is a full-brother to the speedy filly Rotator (stakes placed at two) and the ultra-consistent sprinter Positive Peace who has won 8 of her 18 starts.
The colt is prepared by Toby and Trent Edmonds at the Gold Coast and he heads off to the races on the back of an impressive trial win on his home track two weeks back. “The colt has come through the system we have in place in South East Queensland,” said Ontrack’s Grant Morgan. “He spells with Trevor Bailey at Waverley Park and was broken in and pre-trained by Greg Bennett and the team at Fenwick Farm at Canungra. “It’s great to have such talented horsemen doing the background work on our horses and this colt is a great example of what such a system can achieve. “While this colt is going to be better with more time, he has gone to the Edmonds stable and not put a foot wrong,” said Grant Morgan. “We have a nice crop of three-year-olds who have either raced sparingly at two or who are yet to race but they will step out during the new season and we reckon there’s plenty of talent in that group,” he said. The majority of the Ontrack three year-old team are eligible for the $10 Magic Millions Race Series, including Calcareous. Many of these three year-olds will begin their build up to the rich Gold Coast Raceday which will be held in January 2021. Ontrack’s Hunter Valley Horse and Wine Tour seemed to move significantly closer with this week’s arrival of a number of shuttle stallions in Australia.
The Tour takes place October 11-15 and it seems a lot closer now that the big gun stallions have touched down. On the flight were tens of millions of dollars worth of horse flesh, including Exceed And Excel, Fastnet Rock, Justify and American Pharoah. These stallions will be on display for the Ontrack tour with Exceed And Excel joining Lonhro as the stars at Godolphin while Fastnet Rock and the US Triple Crown winners American Pharoah and Justify are headline acts at Coolmore. Moving these super stallions between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres is always a delicate act, but COVID 19 has increased the degree of difficulty by significant margin. Transporter IRT, which oversees the majority of equine imports into Australia, began working with Thoroughbred Breeders Association, Racing Australia and the federal government as soon as the COVID crisis emerged to help smooth the passage of stallions into Australia for the new season. TBA chief executive Tom Reilly said that getting horses into the country was never a major hurdle, but the issue was around how to co-ordinate the travel of humans with those horses. That’s been achieved and we look forward to getting up close to the super sires and the new prospects in October. Trainers Tony Gollan and Kris Lees have enjoyed break out seasons with a flurry of winners in 2019/2020. Queensland’s No 1 trainer Tony Gollan is knocking over records in style this season while in NSW Kris Lees brought up a rarely achieved mark. Fresh from setting new figures for the most metropolitan victories when he became the first to train 100 Brisbane winners last month, Gollan also set a new record with Solar Star’s win in the Gai Waterhouse Classic at Ipswich last Saturday. The win provided with 152.5 winners in Queensland. Gollan is now the most successful trainer in Queensland racing history, eclipsing Ben Currie's record of 152 winners on all Queensland tracks set in 2017-18. Another Ontrack trainer to make the highlights reel was Kris Lees who prepared winner number 2,000 when Killin won at the Kensington track.
It has been another successful season for Lees, who has topped 200 winners for the second year in a row and is front-runner for a NSW premiership title with 187 wins, ahead of Sydney maestro Chris Waller (174.5), with only 13 days remaining. Killin was his 210th for the current season, following on from a benchmark 249 last season. It was only a few seasons ago that his own record was 161, and he quickly erased that with 192 the following season (2017-18). Lees took out his training licence in 1996 and won his first race in September that year on his home track at Broadmeadow with Cherokee Lass, raced by his good friend Ed Throsby. He prepared only a couple of horses at the time as a side to his main role as foreman for his father Max, who died in August 2003. Though unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight taking over his father’s big stable at 32 years of age, he hit the ground running, earning $2.25m prizemoney for his owners in his first full season and clinching a Group 1 breakthrough with County Tyrone only 13 months’ after his father’s death. When it comes to developing young horses there’s few better than Hawkes Racing.
John Hawkes and sons Michael and Wayne have run a factory line turning out stakes winning colts and they appear to have another in Brazen Beau’s good looking son North Pacific. Pundits should have twigged how good he was when Hawkes Racing elected to debut the colt in the Group 2 Silver Slipper Stakes in February. He ran third behind subsequent Golden Slipper winner Farnan and then the Hawkes reverted to type by putting the colt in the paddock for a lengthy spell. The preparation was very similar to the way the Hawkes family has handled another promising colt in Doubtland, winner of his two race day starts including the Group 3 Kindergarten Stakes. North Pacific was back at the races last Saturday and overcame a heavy 8 track to score a dominant win over 1100 metres at Rosehill. Co-trainer Michael Hawkes had plenty of praise for the colt and was adamant that in spite of the classy win on a deep track North Pacific will be better on top of the ground. Ontrack purchased and managed Brazen Beau through his sparkling career and Grant Morgan believes the horse’s progeny share Beau’s dislike of rain affected footing. “The horses we have by Brazen Beau and the ones I’ve watched closely can get away with wet ground but they’re much more effective when the footing is firm. “Also I don’t subscribe to the theory that they are two-year-olds,” said Grant Morgan. “Beau made significant progress from his two to three-year-old season and his sons and daughters are doing the same. “I’m confident that they will train on and North Pacific is a prime example of this. “He had the one educational run back in February and appeared a much stronger colt when Hawkes Racing stepped him out last weekend. “There’s no doubt he will be much stronger in the spring and he’s going to be very hard to beat in the Group Ones for three-year-olds next season,” said Grant Morgan. North Pacific was purchased by Hong Kong’s Orbis Bloodstock at the 2019 Inglis Premier Sale for the sale topping $800,000. Orbis purchased Doubtland from the 2019 Inglis Classic Sale for $1.1 million. The fourth foal of his dam, North Pacific is out of an O’Reilly mare who was unraced and had not produced a winner until North Pacific. Interestingly the Brazen Beau cross with O’Reilly is the same breeding at last week’s impressive maiden winner Brazen Princess for Ontrack. North Pacific continued a great run of form by Brazen Beau’s progeny and he was also represented by Dubai Station who ran third in a Group 3 for three-year-olds over 1200 metres at Deauville. In Australia he’s had winners North Pacific, Brazen Princess, Hypersonic and Marine Belle in recent months to give him 69 individual winners from two crops. Sunshine Coast trainer David Vandyke has few peers when it comes to placing horses in the Sunshine State.
As the 2019-2020 racing season comes to an end, statistics show that Vandyke is clearly the best strike rate trainer in the state. He’s lined up 131 starters at metropolitan meetings in the last 11 months for 33 winners and 40 placings. Last week was just another example of why Ontrack has used Vandyke’s stable since he relocated to Queensland in 2016. He had horses running at three meetings during the week and from five starters he netted three wins, a second and a fifth. And that’s been the same all season for David Vandyke as his win rate on metropolitan tracks is sitting at just under 25%. That’s nearly 5% better than his nearest rival on the strike rate table in another Ontrack trainer Edmonds Racing. And David Vandyke is just as successful when it comes to placing his horses away from metropolitan racing with a provincial strike rate of 25.4% thanks to 16 wins from 63 starters. David Vandyke is a dual Group 1 winning trainer who moved from Warwick Farm, Sydney in 2016 to train on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. Ontrack was quick to use his services and had success with the Star Witness filly Kolstar. Currently we have an unraced Brazen Beau gelding with the stable and also purchased fillies by Pride Of Dubai and Better Than Ready at the March QTIS Sale on the Gold Coast to go to him. “Ontrack is focused on horses that can win at Saturday metropolitan class and David shares that vision,” said Ontrack’s Grant Morgan. “When he first started training on the Sunshine Coast, he had two barns and a large team but soon realised that he could not give individual attention to each horse with these sort of numbers so he went back to a single barn and cut his horse numbers right back. “That sort of attention to details is now resulting in the exceptional strike rate David has been achieving and at Ontrack we like stables where our horses get individual care. “The smaller team also allows for accurate assessment of the potential of young horses because we like our trainers to make a call as soon as possible about the ability of our horses to succeed at city level,” said Grant Morgan. Kingman colt wins down under Hawkes Racing unveiled a rare commodity when Kingsheir made an impressive debut at Newcastle this week. Backed into short odds, Kingsheir ran to a domineering win over 1300 metres and provided UK stallion Kingman with a perfect Southern Hemisphere record. Kingman has had two runners in Australia with Neptune’s Fortune and Kingsheir both successful. That’s a long way behind his Northern Hemisphere career which had been nothing short of phenomenal. A son of super stallion Invincible Spirit, Kingman stands at Juddmonte’s Banstead Manor in the UK where Frankel is the most expensive resident sire at 175,000 pounds. However Kingman is not far behind after Juddmonte doubled his service fee for 2020 to 150,000 pounds. Stud director UK Simon Mockridge said: “We are very privileged to stand two of the most exciting sires in the world in Frankel and Kingman. “Kingman has had an outstanding start, with Group One winner Persian KIng from his first crop as well as Group 2 winners Calyx and Headman, Musidora Stakes winner Nausha and Hampton Court Stakes winner Sangarius. "In 2019 the only sire in Europe to have had more three-year-old stakes winners than Kingman was Galileo. Kingman has had four stakes winners from his second crop, including Prestige Stakes winner Boomer, and his third crop proved incredibly popular at the yearling sales. "Kingman averaged £317,933 for 59 sold, including colts sold for 2.3 million guineas and 1.8 million guineas at Tattersalls Book 1,” said Simon Mockridge. The Newcastle winner Kingsheir is prepared by John, Michael and Wayne Hawkes for Hong Kong based Orbis Bloodstock which paid 110,000 euro for him at the 2018 Arqana Deauville Yearling Sale. He’s the second winner from Rose Memory, a half-sister by Elusive City to Group II winner Hard Dream. The colt had a typical Hawkes Racing preparation with three trials spread over 10 months and he raced straight and true to record a perfect start to his career. Bridget Grylls back in the winners circle Kiwi rider Bridget Grylls returned to winning form in the Ontrack all gold silks when steering Brazen Princess to an emphatic win at Pakenham. Bridget was a regular in all gold silks when riding in South East Queensland a couple of seasons back and she is hoping the Pakenham win proves a springboard to greater opportunities in Victoria. Brazen Princess was Grylls' second winner since relocating across the Tasman with partner Joe Waldron, who trains at Mornington. "When my partner moved to Melbourne from New Zealand, I just followed and I didn't want to give up riding because I enjoy it too much, so I thought I may as well give it another crack in Victoria," said Bridget. "It is quite hard just with the number of jockeys and how competitive it is, but it is good to be here and I'm enjoying the racing. "I'm just trying to ride as much work as I can. It's just so competitive. You've just got to do the best that you can and the opportunities I am getting I'm trying my hardest on." Brazen Princess provided further evidence that the progeny of her sire Brazen Beau improve with age when scoring a gritty maiden win at Pakenham. Brazen Princess is from Brazen Beau’s first crop to race and the rising four-year-old was having only her third race start when she handled the synthetic track to win over 1200 metres fresh up. Purchased by Ontrack Thoroughbreds’ Grant Morgan from the 2018 Inglis Premier Sale for $150,000, Sistine Princess has only had three starts and showed considerable benefit from a patient programme. Brazen Beau was a talented juvenile but showed significant improvement at three to win two Group Ones (Coolmore Stakes and Newmarket Handicap) in Ontrack’s all gold silks. “While many of Brazen Beau’s sons and daughters show form at two, history shows that they train and he’s leaving plenty of winners from his first crop,” said Grant Morgan. “Brazen Beau showed significant progress from his two to three-year-old seasons and there’s plenty more in store for his progeny as they turn four. “This filly is a prime example of a horse benefitting from plenty of time. She’s a big girl and she’s strengthened significantly from her first racing preparation and she demonstrated how much better she’s been with time with her winning return at Cranbourne,” said Grant Morgan. Trained by Chris and John Meagher at Mornington, Brazen Princess is a full-sister to a colt purchased at the 2019 Inglis Melbourne Sale for $560,000 by the Hong Kong based Orbis Bloodstock. The colt has been named Imposing Beau and is an unraced two-year-old being trained by Hawkes Racing. Brazen Princess is a daughter of super broodmare sire O’Reilly and is closely related to some hardy gallopers including Jukebox, but her toughest relative has to be the big grey Ihtsahymn who was a Group One winner of the Kingston Town Classic in Perth before a stunning run of wins last winter which included the Darwin Cup carrying 60.5kg. Congratulations to our owners: Ontrack Thoroughbreds No 1 (Syndicate),Meagher Racing Syndicate, Bill and Glenys Knobel, Vin Harink, Mark Zeller, Geoffrey and Lesley Moar, David and Sue Worthley, Geoff Farren-Price, M Farren-Price, J Fitzpatrick, David Fitzpatrick, S Randle, Ted Randle, Peter Ivanovski, Erin Barclay, Michael Hackett, P Hinton, Barry Menzies, Peter Miles, Joe Oltvanyi, Gerald and Antoinette Pacholec. Charm Spirit on the rise for leading New Zealand nursery New Zealand’s Windsor Park Stud has long been home to leading stallions and it’s shuttle sire Charm Spirit is enjoying great success in both hemispheres. Windsor Park has been a leading New Zealand nursery for 30 years and the Schick family are always great hosts on the Ontrack New Zealand Horse and Wine Tour each November. Their shuttle stallion Charm Spirit recently sired his 8th Black Type winner when Time Scale proved a cut above her rivals in the Listed Betway Empress Fillies’ Stakes (1200m) at Newmarket in the UK last Sunday. Time Scale races in the familiar claret and gold colours of Qatar Bloodstock and looked a very smart prospect when winning her maiden by 6 lengths mid-June and took the step up to black-type company in her stride, scoring by nearly 4 lengths in the Empress Stakes. As well as leaving 8 stakes winners in his young career, Charm Spirit is also Australasia’s leading NZ based First & Second crop sire in all categories. Founded by Nelson and Sue Schick, and home to champion stallions such as Star Way and Volksraad the farm is these days managed by son Rodney and in the 2020 breeding season Windsor Park will offer seven stallions. While young guns Charm Spirit and Shamexpress are the stars of the Windsor Park roster, this season has seen the resurgence of and old boy in Rip Van Winkle, sire of Group One winners Te Akau Shark and Jennifer Eccles.
Rip Van Winkle shuttled from Coolmore in Ireland since 2011 before making Windsor Park his permanent home 2017 and the form of horses such as Te Akau Shark, Jennifer Eccles and Sydney filly Subpoenaed mean his career is back on track after some quiet seasons. Ontrack’s Grant Morgan said the team at Windsor Park always provide a memorable day on the New Zealand tour. “The Schick family are great people and great horse people and they’ve got wonderful support from people such as General Manager Steve Till and Marketing Manager Michael Moran. “Might And Power and So You Think are two of the many great horses to come off Windsor Park and guests on our New Zealand tour love the enthusiasm Rodney, Steve and Michael bring to their roles. “Another feature at Windsor Park is always a basket of magnificent strawberries grown across the road which Rodney always provides for the Ontrack party. “It comes as no surprise to see Charm Spirit leave nice horses as he’s a son of Invincible Spirit and there’s no hotter stallion line in world racing at the moment with another of his sons I Am Invincible dominating in the Southern Hemisphere,” said Grant Morgan. Charm Spirit's female pedigree also links back to our own Brazen Beau, adding further appeal given the nick with I Am Invincible's own sire Invincible Spirit. Listed victory within reach for Price/Kent sprinter Ontrack’s speedster Tavisan is looking for his first win at Headquarters tomorrow. The $125,000 Victorian Sprint Series Final over 1200 metres is Tavisan’s target at Flemington and it will be his third run on the track. As a three-year-old he had his first run down the straight when a brave third in the Group 2 Danehill Stakes, beaten a length by Encryption and Thorondor. His only other run at Flemington was during last year’s Melbourne Cup Carnival when he ran sixth in the Listed Century Stakes behind Soothing over 1200 metres. Tavisan heads to Flemington tomorrow in good form with Ben Melham again in the saddle. He won on him two starts back when Tavisan was the only horse to lead and win at Caulfield over 1100 metres at the end of May. Since then he ran a brave third over 1200 metres at Moonee Valley when he was pressured in the lead and faded late to be beaten by just over one length. Trainers Mick Price and Michael Kent Junior have followed a well worn path with Tavisan, sending him to Monomeith Stud on the South Gippsland Highway.
“He had a week at Monomith where he goes on the aquaciser each day, spends his days in the paddock and is boxed at night,” said Mick Price. “It freshens him up and keeps him ticking over without having to put any concussion on his joints and the breaks do him the world of good. “He’s fit, sound and healthy and the three weeks since that Moonee Valley run should prove ideal. “The Flemington straight suits the horse and he ran well down the straight when placed in the Danehill Stakes so this race should suit perfectly. “He did a super job at Moonee Valley and Flemington will suit him as they tend to sit up a bit early and then sprint. “There’s not likely to be a lot of early pressure, so it looks a nice race for him and he’s fit and happy so we are confident he will run well,” said Mick Price. |
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