Takeko
When you first look up the breeders of Takeko (Saxon Warrior), who became a dual city winner at Moonee Valley last Saturday, you might think you’re barking up the wrong family tree.
You’re taken to the website of James Balfe and Sarah Wills’s farm Killeenfarna, which breeds Connemara ponies. They’re horses, Jim, but not as we know them – a mostly grey breed which might be beautiful but aren’t all that fast, not Moonee Valley six furlongs fast anyway.
But it turns out that aside from annually producing three or four such horses each year, mostly bound for the show world, expat New Zealander Wills and her partner Balfe, late of Killeenfarna, Ireland, also dabble in thoroughbreds.
They have two such mares, but will soon be down to one when Takeko’s remarkable dam Predestined (King’s Best) bears her final foal, by Artorius (Flying Artie), this spring, at the age of 23.
A good Connemara – named for the region where Balfe grew up – might fetch around $8,000-$10,000. Takeko raised a little more, but not that much, when sold as a weanling via Inglis Online in 2021, falling to her current part–owner Paul Roach for $25,000.
Wills and Balfe were happy with that amount but, aside from needing to pay for some fencing on their eight acre farm near Scone, money wasn’t really the point. Now looking at Takeko – who won her fourth from nine by two lengths for Grahame Begg on Saturday and could be stakes bound – as well as some recent stars in her family, it’s heartening to see sentimentality can win out.
The five-year-old mare’s dam Predestined was purchased privately in 2018 by Wills. She was already 16 and had had six foals for Victoria’s Musk Creek Farm. The best was her third, If Not Now When (Artie Schiller), who won her first two starts in 2016 – beginning with Bendigo’s lucrative Vobis Gold Rush (1000m) – but never won again in 23 more tries.
But Wills believed she was meant to own this broodmare – predestined, if you will.
Her father was Cambridge trainer and breeder Bill Wills, who bred Predestined’s dam Hard Rider (Maroof), out of Mrs Clancy (Shannon), and had bred and prepared members of the family for several decades.
Mrs Clancy was a half-sister to the dam of Hello Dolly (Mi Preferido), who in 2001 became Bill Wills’ one and only top–tier winner by taking Trentham’s Captain Cook Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m).
A few months before that, Sarah Wills, a former long-term employee of Coolmore Stud, had brought Mrs Clancy to Australia to breed from, without any great success.
Then 17 years later she was similarly moved to buy Predestined, and the result is not only Takeko but her year-older half-sister Ballinderry Sal (Dissident), who Wills and Balfe race under Scone trainer Rodney Northam, and who became a city winner four months ago in claiming a Randwick Highway over 1400 metres.
“Dad had that family for 50 years. He trained and bred the odd one, and he bred from the same family,” Wills told It’s In The Blood.
“Predestined came up for sale as an older mare with a couple of winners and not much else, and I was very interested in getting some of the family, more as a sentimental than a commercial venture – just to have her as part of my father’s legacy, and to breed something to race ourselves.
“When Takeko was born, she was a cracking filly, and we had her in a foalshare with Coolmore, so I was obliged to sell her – plus we needed some extra cash because we needed to do some fencing. In the end, we were very pleased to get $25,000 for her as a weanling online.”
Who says sentiment can’t win?
On top of the form of Takeko and Ballinderry Sal, other success in the family has arrived to greatly bolster the value of Predestined’s brood.
If Not Now When’s son Title Fighter (Lean Mean Machine) became a black type winner in May, taking Flemington’s The Straight Six (Listed, 1200m) for Clayton Douglas.
But far better yet, speaking of straight success, Predestined’s second foal Golden Child (I Am Invincible) is the dam of Asfoora (Flying Artie), winner of five stakes races capped so memorably by last year’s King Charles III Stakes (Gr 1, 5f) up the Royal Ascot straight.
“When I bought Predestined, she’d only had a couple of winners. She had an interesting pedigree, but it just seems to have got better and better,” said Wills, whose other thoroughbred mare is Lindisfarne (City Zip), bought after throwing multiple city winner Disneck (Trapeze Artist).
After Takeko, Wills gave Predestined two years off – “I really just thought she wasn’t that commercial” – before wins by her earlier foals Newson (Stratum) and Destiny’s Son (Husson) convinced her to try again.
After slipping in 2023, she last year bore a filly by Tassort (Brazen Beau) who’ll most likely go to Inglis Classic, before her final cover from Artorius.
“She’s been a wonderful mare,” Wills said. “She’s lived a good life, and had been well looked after by the people we bought her from.”
Takeko, like Predestined, packs an interesting pedigree, which has chunks of familiarity and dashes of the obscure.
She’s from the first Australian crop of Saxon Warrior, the Japanese-bred son of the legendary Deep Impact (Sunday Silence) who won two Group 1s in England and shuttled to Coolmore for four seasons until 2022.
Things haven’t quite sailed for the ten-year-old in Australia, where he has 44 winners from 85 runners and no stakes victors – compared with his 15 stakes winners from 415 runners worldwide, at 3.6 per cent.
Similarly, damsire King’s Best (Kingmambo) – winner of Britain’s 2,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1m) in 2000 – shuttled to Australia for three seasons but made no deep impact, with none of his 68 stakes winners occurring here.
But putting Predestined to Saxon Warrior created at least one intriguing duplication of a superior mare not often seen here: Takeko has the British-bred Allegretta (Lombard) at 5f x 3m, via her two best offspring.
Despite a career–high of running second at Group 3 level, Allegretta became a Reine-de-Course mare, thanks partly to her star son, the aforementioned King’s Best.
And her daughter Urban Sea (Miswaki) – the Prix de l’Arc De Triomphe (Gr 1, 2400m) winner of 1993 – is of course the dam of Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), Saxon Warrior’s damsire.
Takeko also has Danzig (Northern Dancer) duplicated, including through one of his less common lines, at 5m x 4m. The great Danehill is Saxon Warrior’s second damsire, while former New Zealand-based American stallion Maroof fills that hole for Takeko.
The not-often-seen Busted (Crepello) – England’s 1967 Horse of the Year and sire of 48 stakes winners – comes in at 5f x 6m. He’s the sire of Deep Impact’s second dam, and of Maroof’s damsire.
And a second Reine-de-Course mare in the highly influential Special (Forli) is there at 5f x 6m via Fairy Bridge (Bold Reason) – dam of Galileo’s sire Sadler’s Wells – and through her other famed son Nureyev (Northern Dancer), damsire of King’s Best’s sire Kingmambo (Mr. Prospector).
The latter affects the bottom half of a 6m x 4m of Mr. Prospector (Raise A Native), the top being Galileo’s damsire Miswaki.
Takeko hails from a long New Zealand female tail. Predestined was bred in Australia, but before her comes a line of 14 Kiwi mares stretching back to 1840.
Blending the Japanese-bred Saxon Warrior with the American-influenced Predestined brings not the most standard of pedigrees seen in Australasia, but it seems to be working well in Takeko – a fitting reward for Wills letting the heart rule the head.
“I just love having Predestined, and keeping Dad’s legacy with that family going,” Wills said. “She was bought to have a home for life at our place, which she will do.”