Future bright for South Australian Grantham and her new stallion Nostradamus
Springfield Farm near Adelaide to be home to sire of In The Boat and Clairvoyance
Talented young South Australian horsewoman Eliza Grantham could not have predicted the impression her family’s nondescript gelding of the mid-2000s Foolish Lad (Blevic) would have on her and her choice to pursue a career in the racing and breeding industry.
Grantham, 23, alongside her brother Lewis and father Rick, will soon become a studmaster at the family’s Springfield Farm, about 50 kilometres south east of the Adelaide CBD.
The Granthams’ property at Gemmells, between Strathalbyn and Mount Barker, will be the new home of multiple stakes-winning stallion Nostradamus (Medaglia D’Oro) from 2022 as the ambitious Grantham, a Thoroughbred Breeders Australia-run Fast Track program graduate, embarks on the next stage of her equine education.
The sire of talented Perth mare Clairvoyance and the Lindsey Smith-trained In The Boat, stakes-winning four-year-olds who have both won seven races from 11 starts, Nostradamus will relocate from Rosemont Stud in Victoria to Springfield Farm where he will stand for a fee of $4,400 (inc GST).
“I just think he’s exactly what South Australia needs, a proven breed-to-race stallion who can throw a nice sprinter,” Grantham told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“South Australia was lacking another stallion for choice. He’s already got two stakes winners on the board and, for the numbers he’s been serving, it’s pretty good. Five years ago, we needed something like him to tick over for people who wanted to race their own who have the SA Racing Rewards attached and he will fill that box now.”
While a stint at Newgate Farm in the Hunter Valley opened Grantham’s eyes to the intense commercial side of thoroughbred breeding, as did working at numerous yearling sales for vendors such as Sledmere Stud, she is well aware of where Nostradamus sits but is hopeful South Australia’s loyal breeding community will embrace the Racing Rewards-eligible stallion.
“We’ll keep our sights low at this point, but hopefully we can get some outside mares, quality over quantity, and get him some runners in South Australia to get his name out there,” Grantham said.
“Eventually, once we start getting some runners on the ground here, I think people will support him more and, if you have a nice enough mare, you’d definitely get into the (Magic Millions) Adelaide sale and we’ll look to race as many as we can.
“We will also sell a few to get them out there as well. With the increase in the Racing Rewards in SA, it is an incentive to buy an SA-bred horse and race it here and hopefully SA trainers jump on board and we’ll get a few Nostradamuses in their stables.”
The fact that In The Boat won the inaugural $500,000 Discovery (1100m) at Sale last week, Victoria’s first race meeting conducted on Good Friday, was an important confidence booster for Grantham, a reminder that she had made the right call in chasing Nostradamus from Rosemont Stud.
She said: “Unfortunately for Rosemont, he beat their horse (Brooklyn Hustle) but it was good for Nostradamus. I sent Ted Mithen a text saying, ‘Onya, Nostra’.
“They still love Nostradamus, so I think they were still happy that he’s got a nice horse, but he did beat their favourite mare.”
By Nostradamus, who is a half-brother to Star Witness (Starcraft), In The Boat is out of Sydney city-placed mare Almost Crystal (Snitzel), who hails from the family of three-time Group 1 winner Humidor (Teofilo).
“We were thinking of a fee of $4,400 and be negotiable on that figure for multiple mares and, at this point, for Snitzel mares to try and replicate the cross of In The Boat,” Grantham said.
“We want to be nice and fair in the market for South Australian breeders.”
Grantham’s entry into breeding, and soon-to-be training, was courtesy of her father, a stockman-turned-miner who spent time managing cattle stations in northern South Australia, which allowed him to dabble with “slow racehorses” targeting gymkhanas and outback race meetings.
The best of them was Foolish Lad, a gelding who was sent by Grantham Snr to be trained by Shane Oxlade as a seven-start maiden. From 66 subsequent starts the horse would win 12 races and run a further ten placings. Foolish Lad, as a rising 22-year-old, is still alive and well on Springfield Farm.
“He ended up winning a Port Adelaide Cup for us and he should have won an Adelaide Cup, but in unfortunate circumstances a horse broke down in front of him when he was in the clear, he won a couple of Strathalbyn Cups for us and he really ignited the passion when I was a kid,” she said.
As for taking on Nostradamus, the stallion became part of Grantham’s grand plan after breeding “a beautiful first foal” out of Don’t Doubt It (Good Journey), and she is excited about the challenge ahead.
“It will be interesting to see how it goes, but I’ve previously worked for a trainer Greg Lewsnikowski who had a stallion called Terango (sire of stakes winner Terbium) and then I did a year at Newgate, so I have been around stallions and know how the process works,” she said.
“Hopefully Nostradamus likes the change in scenery and we can find some mares that cross well with him.”
Training horses will also add to Grantham’s workload but it’s clear her family aren’t afraid of the long hours.
“When we got the farm, we could indulge my bad habit of buying mares online and breeding our own, so we could race a few,” she said.
“We also thought we’d try and sell a few yearlings, so to be a bit more commercial over the last couple of years we sent mares to a few interstate stallions. Then my brother Lewis got his trainer’s licence and I’ve done all my paperwork for my trainer’s licence as well.
“It will enable us to race as many as we can and that way we will be supporting Nostradamus by breeding to him and racing a lot of his progeny.
“There’s the three of us who do the horses together. It keeps us busy.”