Ruska Roma
Death, taxes and Sadler’s Wells over Dubawi.
That last certainty has been shown to work again with a new stakes winner in Ruska Roma (Super Seth), Pinecliff Racing’s homebred three-year-old filly who took out Caulfield’s Twilight Glow Stakes (Listed, 1400m) on Saturday.
Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) runs through the top line of Ruska Roma’s pedigree via High Chaparral-Dundeel-Super Seth. And the filly’s dam Sansa is by Makfi, son of Dubawi (Dubai Millennium).
Pinecliff’s Jonathan Munz isn’t much known for a profile in the media, but his record as a breeder speaks for itself.
He remains a 20 per cent stake-holder in Waikato Stud sire Super Seth (Dundeel) – who carried Munz’s famed red and white stripes to victory in the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and more.
Munz also has the same shareholding in another son of Dundeel (High Chaparral) in Arrowfield Stud’s Castelvecchio, and he’s confident about which broodmare sirelines work with Sadler’s Wells and his descendants, including his greatest son Galileo.
“The Sadler’s Wells – Dubawi cross, and the Galileo – Dubawi cross are two of the best crosses there are,” Munz tells It’s In The Blood. “So you just say Makfi is Dubawi blood, so sending Sansa to that Sadler’s Wells line works.”
The stats are strong.
Looking at the blend on the reverse cross, where it’s most prolific, Dubawi over Sadler’s Wells as a damsire runs at 12 per cent stakes winners to runners, with six from 49. Over Galileo it’s stronger at 18 per cent – with 26 stakes victors from 139 runners – including three Group 1 winners. Those include one of the hottest young stallions in Australia just now, Darley shuttler Ghaiyyath.
Dubawi over High Chaparral has one stakes winner from seven runners, at 14 per cent.
Looking back the other way, Dundeel over Dubawi has only had three starters, but they’re all winners, and include a Group 1 victor in Chris Waller’s Militarize.
And Super Seth over Makfi now has five winners from six runners, with two black type victors. Aside from Ruska Roma, they include John O’Shea and Tom Charlton’s Queensland Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) hero Maison Louis.
Better still, Castelvecchio over Makfi has 100 per cent stakes winners to runners. It’s one from one, through Gary Portelli’s mare Verona Rose.
“The good thing about Super Seth,” Munz says, “is he can get those speed horses, he can get two-year-olds, but he’s also had a Randwick Guineas winner [Linebacker], an Australian Guineas winner [Feroce] and Queensland Derby winner.
“He’s got that versatility but he’s certainly getting the horses who’ve got the precocity and the speed.”
Munz highlights also Super Seth’s La Dorada, Te Akau Racing’s filly who won the Karaka 2YO Million (RL, 1200m) and Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m).
He also points to the colt he bred in Poetic Champion, who claimed New Zealand’s first two-year-old race of 2023-24 over 950 metres, won a 1200-metre Listed race, and has been three times stakes placed from 1100 metres to 1200 metres.
As for Ruska Roma, who’s now won two of seven for Grahame Begg, Munz went to $300,000 to buy her Chris Waller-trained dam Sansa, through Dean Hawthorne Bloodstock, at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale of 2018.
It was decent money for a Wyong maiden winner, but he was keen on the Makfi element.
“Makfi is Dubawi blood, so that’s good blood,” he says. “Makfi is turning out to be a reasonable broodmare sire, and Sansa was from a good speed family.”
As a broodmare sire, Makfi has had 26 stakes winners from 419 runners, at 6.2 per cent.
Sansa hails from a speedy line of lower level stakes victors. Her dam Rosa’s Spur (Flying Spur) won Brisbane’s Dane Ripper Stakes (Gr 3, 1400m) and Scone’s Dark Jewel Classic (Listed, 1400m), and threw as her first foal Members Joy (Hussonet), winner of the VRC Cap D’Antibes Stakes (Listed, 1100m) and Group 2-placed at 1400 metres.
Ruska Roma’s third dam Rosa’s Joy (Rory’s Jester) won her first three starts, all over 1000 metres, including a Flemington Listed and a Caulfield Group 3.
Aside from her third foal Rosa’s Spur, she threw a second stakes victor in first foal Rosarino (Perugino), a filly who won the VRC Talindert Stakes (Listed, 1100m) in 2003. Rosarino bore Indian Pacific (Zoustar), a three-time Listed winner who ran a 0.2 length second to Zoutori (Zoustar) in the VRC Newmarket Handicap (Gr 1, 1200m) of 2021.
Ruska Roma’s fourth dam Rosa Linda (Three Legs) was a well proven producer of four stakes winners. Aside from Rosa’s Joy, she left Group 3 winner Rosa’s Image (Rory’s Jester), plus Rosa’s Path (Rory’s Jester) who won one Listed race, and Cohort (Marauding), who won six of them.
Rory’s Jester, in fact, is a force in Ruska Roma’s pedigree, along with Danehill (Danzig).
The first thing that catches the eye is those two stallions are duplicated – and in the same spaces in the fourth generation. Both Super Seth’s dam Salutations (Redoute’s Choice), and Sansa’s dam Rosa’s Spur, are by a Danehill sire out of a Rory’s Jester dam.
This means double Danehill at 4m x 4m, and double Rory’s Jester and 4f x 4f.
“Obviously they’re two really good broodmare sires and really good stallions as well,” Munz says.
“Rory’s Jester is where the speed’s coming from. A double-up of Rory’s Jester is not a negative. On the dam’s side, that’s why it’s a fast family, and it’s the thing that gives Super Seth horses that precocity that a number of them have had.”
The double Danehill is double male, the statistically least successful of the three ways of doing it, but Munz is happy with where it sits in the pedigree.
“That double Danehill will work,” Munz says. “You can say it’s sex balanced, because the Danehill in the dam’s side is not the broodmare sire, so that’s not a problem.”
As mentioned here previously, fears of doubling Danehill appear to be on the ebb tide as he in turn recedes deeper into pedigrees.
“There’s certain times where you’re concerned about doubling up,” Munz says.
“The only times you start really worrying about double-ups is, one, when the broodmare sire is doubled up, though there are exceptions, and, two, if the stallion that’s reinforced on both sides, and up close, has a temperament problem.
“There are certain stallions historically – not so much now – who used to be very hot. If you’ve got a hot stallion close-up on both sides of the pedigree you might say, ‘Hang on a sec’.
“But in this pedigree everything works.”
While there’s no other in-breeding to Ruska Roma than Danehill and Rory’s Jester, influential stallions Shirley Heights (Mill Reef) and Sir Ivor (Sir Gaylord) are repeated in the sixth remove.
Shirley Heights is doubled in strong spots at 6m x 6m via Darshaan and Deploy, the damsires of High Chaparral and Dubawi.
Sir Ivor’s at 6m x 6f, 6f through Sir Tristram, sire of Dundeel’s damsire Zabeel, Foreign Courier, dam of Makfi’s damsire Green Desert, and Grand Luxe, second dam of Sansa’s damsire, Flying Spur.
For historically influential broodmares, America’s Lalun (Djeddah) is at 7m, 9m x 9m, 8m, 8m – with the first spot through Sadler’s Wells’s damsire Bold Reason (Hail To Reason), and the other four through Never Bend (Nasrullah).
Natalma (Native Dancer) is the most present broodmare, with 12 appearances from columns six through nine – ten through Northern Dancer (Nearctic) and two via Danehill’s granddam Spring Adieu (Buckpasser). Nearco takes the stallion gong with 19 spots from seven through nine.
Sansa, who died in August, was put to Super Seth once (for Ruska Roma) and his sire Dundeel four times.
When purchased as a broodmare, she was carrying Smile And Wave (I Am Invincible), who won at Flemington and Mornington over 1000 metres in a five-start career for Munz. After Ruska Roma, she bore Gallonetto (Dundeel), who was due for her first start at Geelong on Thursday before being scratched.