Bridal Waltz
Bletchingly Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) winner Bridal Waltz (Snitzel) could fit the “one last good one” plea of her veteran breeder Des Pope, 89-and-three-quarters, of Melbourne.
She also maintains a piece of breeding lore that had become as reliable as Melbourne rain up until the recent passing of her great sire.
The Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman–trained Bridal Waltz continues the most successful line produced by Pope and family, who were last year named Victoria’s Small Breeders of the Year, being out of the Lonhro (Octagonal) mare Charleston Dancer.
Pope sent the 900-metre Murray Bridge maiden winner to Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) with the aim of bringing the four-time champion sire into that black type family of his, but he also stumbled on some Snitzel gold in doing so, with Lonhro mares a particularly potent nick for the stallion.
Snitzel over Lonhro is running at 25 per cent stakes-winners-to-runners, with five from 20. It’s bettered among Snitzel nicks, with at least 20 runners, only by the six from 20 (30 per cent) of Elusive Quality (Gone West).
And there is some outstanding quality amongst them.
While Bjorn Baker’s ex-Godolphin Group 3 and Listed winner Sandpaper is the highest earner, just behind him comes exciting New Zealand-based two-year-old Return To Conquer, Te Akau’s winner of four from four including Ellerslie’s Sistema Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
Bruckner, the Group 3-winning Widden Victoria stallion who was second to Home Affairs (I Am Invincible) in the Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), is also in the nick, as is Flemington Listed winner Wayupinthesky, who’s now a broodmare.
Bridal Waltz rounds out the quintet, having become a stakes winner the start before the Bletchingly, in Flemington’s Creswick Stakes (Listed, 1200m). Three starts earlier, she’d signalled her quality in April with a Mornington three-year-old fillies’ 1200-metre handicap win in a class record time of 1:09.06 – just 0.16 seconds off the track record – which is one of her five wins from just 12 outings.
There’s more backing behind the initial nick, as well. Snitzel over Bridal Waltz’s second damsire – the formerly Pope-owned sire Rubiton (Century) – has a stakes-winners-to-runners ratio of 33 per cent. Granted it’s from three runners, but what a stakes winner it hatched in dual Everest (Gr 1, 1200m) (then non-black type) hero Redzel.
While the Pope family, who retained Bridal Waltz to race outright, have almost by chance profited from the Snitzel-Lonhro nick, it was a shrewd move to go in quest of a Snitzel filly, from a breeding perspective.
Snitzel has surged among broodmare sires this season. After finishing ninth on that table last season, he’s currently third in this one, with his highest earner this term being Growing Empire (Zoustar).
“We went to Snitzel because we knew we wanted to breed him into our line,” says Pope’s daughter Deanna, who’s at the forefront of the family’s breeding enterprise alongside her father.
“We were hoping to get a Snitzel filly who’d later become a Snitzel broodmare. I knew they were pretty good broodmares. I’d had one before in Platinum Angel, who was stakes placed six times, and it was about finding the right mare to go to Snitzel. Out of the mares we had, Charleston Dancer was the best match at the time.”
In fact, the Popes tried it twice – and now have both offspring. Deanna says they now have Bridal Waltz’s “bigger and stronger” full-sister Eyes Of Blue, about to turn three, also in the Moody-Coleman stable.
“We went back twice because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “We sent a mare to Zoustar twice and got a colt and a filly, but with Snitzel, we were lucky enough to get two fillies.
“Keeping Eyes Of Blue wasn’t really the plan, but I think Dad just couldn’t let her go, so we ended up keeping her and Bridal Waltz.”
Deanna does the talking, but Des Pope is highly active, still planning his matings, and still running his major packaging company from home three months shy of turning 90 on Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) eve. Pope Packaging runs a function on Plate day each year for their staff, and it may yet become a birthday celebration this year.
“Dad’s still going pretty strong. He still works, mainly from home, selling and keeping the sales reps in line,” Deanna says. “He bought himself a treadmill for his 80th birthday, and he still uses that.
“Between the horses and the business, he’ll be doing both till his last breath.
“He keeps saying, ‘I just want one more good one, one more good one’. I think he might have found it.”
The trail that leads to Bridal Waltz has been a merry dance indeed for the Popes.
It began when Des Pope ventured into a paddock in the early 1990s and bought Bridal Waltz’s fourth dam Voodoo Gleam (Voodoo Rhythm), taking advice from his main trainer Brian Mayfield-Smith, after she’d retired following four wins from 36 starts.
Pope’s little breeding venture was about to become far larger.
Champion Cox Plate–winning stallion Rubiton (Century) had been at Mike Willesee’s Trans Media Stud near Cootamundra for a few years but had come up for sale. Pope bought the controlling share and transferred him to his long-time associates Graham and Margaret Campbell at Victoria’s Blue Gum Farm. Standing there from 1995 until his death in 2005, Rubiton sired four of his career total of seven Group 1 winners at Blue Gum, including dual Cox Plate hero Fields Of Omagh.
Another was Rubitano, one of around ten stakes winners bred by the Popes to date. Mayfield-Smith trained the gelding to two 1200-metre Group 1s up the Flemington straight in 2002, in the Newmarket Handicap and Salinger Stakes, among six black type wins.
From Voodoo Gleam, Des Pope had bred first foal Bright Gleam (Jugah), who won four times, thrice in Adelaide, and was twice Listed–placed.
For her first four covers, Pope sent Bright Gleam to Rubiton. In 1999, the second of those produced something outstanding – Bridal Waltz’s second dam, Innovation Girl.
Pope had tried to sell her as a yearling but had been unsuccessful, so he kept her.
He had never been a fan of two-year-old racing.
“Give ‘em time, give ‘em time,” was his mantra, according to Deanna. “But Brian Mayfield-Smith was adamant this one was ready, so Dad raced her.”
Ready? She won her first three starts before Christmas at Bendigo, Caulfield (by 4.3 lengths) and Moonee Valley, and was among the favourites for the 2002 Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
But plans went awry when she was withdrawn from the Blue Diamond Prelude (Gr 3, 1100m) due to an elevated temperature. Mayfield-Smith felt this had set her back too much to proceed to the Blue Diamond. But instead, she raced again a week before that Group 1 – in Listed class at Caulfield over 1100 metres – and showed her class again in running a 0.1-length second to a good one, eventual triple Group 1 victor Yell (Anabaa).
While missing the Blue Diamond might have led to some misgivings and an amount of second guessing, Innovation Girl largely compensated for it. She would win ten of 15 all up, seven at stakes level.
They included what in 2002 was still known as the Ascot Vale Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m). Somewhat agonisingly, it was four years before what’s now the Coolmore Stud Stakes achieved top–tier status.
Adding to the pain, Innovation Girl claimed two Caulfield 1400-metre Group 1 placings in the autumn of 2003 – third in the Orr Stakes and second in the Futurity, with Yell winning both – before her career was ended by a cracked cannon bone, before she could break through for a Group 1 win.
But she continued her success for the Popes in the breeding barn.
First foal The Original (Dehere) won at Moonee Valley and was Group 3-placed in Adelaide before winning twice in Singapore. Third foal Original Choice (Redoute’s Choice) threw a Listed winner – and four-times stakes-placed – in Larimer Street (Brazen Beau), but it was Innovation Girl’s sixth throw who shone the most.
Chloe In Paris (Exceed And Excel) won a Flemington Listed sprint amid three city wins and two stakes placings. She later threw a black type winner herself, with Bold Bastille (Brazen Beau) scoring twice at Listed level, with the Popes staying in the ownership. Bold Bastille was sold for $810,000 on Inglis Digital late last year to Yulong concern Walnut Farm.
Innovation Girl’s 11th and last foal also perpetuated the Brazen Beau link, with that stallion’s son Ideas Man winning the rich Inglis Banner (RL, 1000m) at Moonee Valley on debut, before contesting the Blue Diamond of 2020. He’s since become a favourite in the Top End, winning nine times in Darwin.
In between Chloe In Paris and Ideas Man, the Popes bred Charleston Dancer – named for Pope’s late wife Valerie’s love of dancing that particular step – who despite her modest racing record has made a great start at stud.
Her first foal was She Dances (Street Boss), who’s won at Group 3 and Listed level in Melbourne, and who was bought at May’s Inglis Chairman’s Sale for $775,000, by David Redvers and Widden Stud.
Second foal Bridal Waltz has become another dual stakes winner so far, while the third is Eyes Of Blue.
Charleston Dancer bore a full-sister to She Dances in 2023, but almost died in the process, before some skilful vets swiftly mended her torn uterus. The foal survived and sold for $140,000 at Inglis Premier this year, bought by Gaire.
Having had 2023 off from breeding, Charleston Dancer is now in-foal, in a bid to replicate that cross, to Street Boss’s son Anamoe, and will be covered by him again this spring.
Sales like those of Bold Bastille and She Dances, as well as the wins of the exciting Bridal Waltz, fill the Popes with pride, as do some other achievements in their breeding journey.
“Seeing sales like that stamps our breeding,” Deanna says. “Even though we don’t always own them, we love to see them race and win and then go on to be broodmares. It all comes back to our breeding.
“And then to get the small breeder award last year – it was a surprise and was really nice for Dad. Breeding can be hard and you can get a lot of disappointments, so it was a good bit of validation that you’re making the right decisions.”