It’s all Go for Sir Owen Glenn as investment in two-year-olds seeks to pay dividends
New Zealand expat has four runners in today’s rescheduled Magic Millions 2YO Classic with Newgate colts trio joined by filly Platinum Jubilee
No stronger hand is held heading into today’s Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) than that of Sir Owen Glenn.
The philanthropist and owner-breeder, 82, features under his Go Bloodstock banner within the ownership of no less than four contenders – a quarter of the field for the $2 million race on the rescheduled Magic Millions raceday card. They include the $5 favourite, $6 second favourite and $7 joint-third favourite.
Yet this favourable position is not merely a fortuitous coincidence, but the result of a targeted program to have the Go Bloodstock brand prominently displayed on the main stages of Australian racing’s greatest juvenile showpieces.
“It’s really exciting for Sir Owen [to have four runners in the Magic Millions 2YO Classic],” said Go Bloodstock’s director Steve O’Connor.
“We targeted this two-year-old crop. Sir Owen made a plan to invest in horses at sales with Henry [Field, managing director of Newgate Farm], to retain pieces of the fillies that we sold and keep fully several homebred colts.
“The fruits of that investment is having four runners in the main race, so it’s a great outcome.”
In Empire Of Japan (Snitzel), Royal Entrance (Snitzel) and Sovereign Fund (Capitalist), Go Bloodstock features as a main partner in the Newgate Farm and China Horse Club-led colts syndicate, while the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained filly Platinum Jubilee (Zoustar) was bred by Sir Owen, being out of his Listed-winning mare Miss Debutante (Fastnet Rock). Sir Owen retained a share after her $600,000 sale to Waterhouse and Kestrel Thoroughbreds at last year’s Magic Millions sale.
Gimcrack Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m) winner Platinum Jubilee, who weaved through the field in the season-opening juvenile race to claim an impressive win in the Group 3 contest, was a mere stride away from remaining unbeaten, when just touched off by Fire Lane (Hellbent) in a two-year-old handicap at Randwick last time out.
“It’s great to see a filly out of the Go Bloodstock breeding program qualify for the race and be testament to the mares and the matings and the systems that Sir Owen has in place,” O’Connor said.
“Miss Debutante was a mare that Paul Moroney purchased as a yearling and Sir Owen raced her with Gai, but we never saw the best of her. Her first foal was Queen Of The Ball, who is a very fast sprinting filly on an Oakleigh Plate path. And her second foal is Platinum Jubilee, so she’s one of the blue hen mares in Australia at the moment.
“That’s what the aim of the breeding program is. To have these elite mares producing high-class progeny, and Platinum Jubilee is a product of that.”
Breeders’ Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) winner Empire Of Japan, who produced an equally scintillating performance to win on the first Saturday in October, finished third in the same two-year-old race at Randwick behind Fire Lane (Hellbent) and Platinum Jubilee when enduring a wide passage.
The Peter and Paul Snowden-trained juvenile is a half-brother to the $1.8 million colt by Exceed And Excel (Danehill) that sold to Kia Ora Stud during the Saturday evening session of last week’s Magic Millions sale.
Winner of the Magic Millions Wyong 2YO Classic (RL, 1100m), Sovereign Fund is one of five scorers and four stakes-performed juveniles for Newgate stallion Capitalist (Written Tycoon) this season, while Royal Entrance secured his berth in the race with victory at the Gold Coast 11 days ago, in the Gold Nugget (1100m).
“Our aim is to produce stallions, so Henry has done a great job to have not one, not two, but three chances in the race,” O’Connor said.
“From a colts’ perspective, Empire Of Japan is the talking horse. Peter Snowden has a big opinion of him, there’s nobody better at producing a two-year-old on the big day.
“Sovereign Fund, he could be anything. The wet ground, being a Capitalist, might be a concern for him, but we think he can overcome that. And the third is a tough, on-pace Snitzel, and we’ve won big races with those sorts of horses before with the likes of In The Congo.
“From a long–term view, the head is saying it would be great for one of the colts to win, but if the filly were to win, it would mean a lot to us having bred her as a yearling and raced her from a real Go Bloodstock product.”
Eagle-eyed perusers of the Magic Millions sale results will have noted Go Bloodstock’s name featuring among the listed buyers for the first time within the Newgate Farm and China Horse Club colts syndicate.
Go Bloodstock has been a participant in the lucrative syndicate since purchasing into Russian Revolution (Snitzel) in 2016, becoming a prominent member of the group thereafter.
O’Connor confirmed the presence of Go Bloodstock on the buyers’ sheet was not as a result of increased equity by Sir Owen Glenn in the syndicate, but more a reflection of the owner-breeder’s active role in the group and desire to expand the Go Bloodstock brand.
“We’re making an active effort to get the Go Bloodstock name out there a little bit more. It’s important to Sir Owen that the brand is recognised at all levels, whether it’s breeding, racing or selling and buying. We do it all at the moment as a commercial operation, so the listing of Go Bloodstock on the buyers’ sheet was more a brand awareness exercise,” O’Connor said.
“We take pride in the decisions that we take and the horses we race and breed. We want to make sure everyone knows that when they’re buying a Go Bloodstock horse, be that as a yearling or when they’ve finished racing, they’re buying a good product.
“Sir Owen is 83 next month and he’s up on the Gold Coast, out at the sale each day speaking to partners and clients. He’s keen to get to the races, planning trips to Melbourne Cups, Golden Slippers and he takes an active role in the day-to-day running of Go Bloodstock. He really enjoys his racing and his horses and going to the Hunter Valley to plan his matings.”
Aside from their involvement in the Newgate colts fund, at last week’s Magic Millions sale Go Bloodstock purchased a son of I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) for $425,000 on the advice of Paul Moroney and Catheryne Bruggeman, and were one of the underbidders on the $1.6 million I Am Invincible colt out of Tumooh (Fastnet Rock), the first foal out of the daughter of Golden Slipper winner Mossfun (Mossman).
“Paul Moroney has been a loyal bloodstock agent to Sir Owen for many years and they’ve had plenty of success, going all the way back to Sir Owen’s first ever horse he purchased, Second Coming, who ran in a Melbourne Cup,” O’Connor said.
“This colt by I Am Invincible was a horse that Paul really liked that could be a sharper type and he’s a horse that he recommended to Sir Owen and we were happy to back his judgement.
“We are trying to select top stallion prospect colts in addition to Henry’s fund, and we’re always looking for that type of horse to supplement what we have with the homebreds.”
One such homebred, who will now be on a Golden Slipper path, is last weekend’s impressive two-year-old winner Red Resistance (Russian Revolution), who, in the yellow Go Bloodstock silks, defeated fellow Go Bloodstock-bred juvenile Steel City (Merchant Navy) to win at Rosehill.
The winning colt is out of Group 2–scorer Heatherly (Lonhro), the mare purchased for $1.6 million from the 2018 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale in conjunction with Moroney.
“He was super. He’s been on an upward curve for the last 12 months,” O’Connor said. “Physically he’s a big, imposing horse with a very good mind and he’s very tractable. We’ve always liked him, but as a big horse we didn’t push him and looked to target the autumn.
“He’s a very exciting horse for us and he’s a very good example of what we’re trying to achieve when you buy a good mare by Heatherly. Bred on stallion equity [Go Bloodstock part-own Russian Revolution], if you get any kind of result, it’s a win-win situation.
“We’ll give him every chance of getting to the Golden Slipper. He ran good numbers and he’s very tough. He’s the kind of horse that Gai thrives with.”
O’Connor confirmed that yearlings out of Heatherly (I Am Invincible colt), Miss Debutante (Written Tycoon filly) and Group 1–winner Ruud Awakening (Snitzel filly), whose $1.7 million two-year-old daughter of I Am Invincible, now known as Kundalini, is set to make her debut for Ciaron Maher and David Eustace at Randwick on Saturday in the Fairway Thoroughbreds silks, will be retained to race by Go Bloodstock.
“Having a lot of horses racing is what excites Sir Owen,” O’Connor said. “He loves getting up on a Saturday and looking at the schedule and seeing what’s there, what the aim and objectives are. He loves being part of that discussion and that’s what it’s all about.”