Itchintogo
What’s gone around has come around for Queensland’s Lucas Bloodstock as they celebrate their first stakes winner – and a duck-breaker for stallion Sun City (Zoustar) – in Itchintogo, winner of Saturday’s Phelan Ready Stakes (Listed, 1110m) at Doomben.
Ben Lucas not only bred the two-year-old gelding but his dam Itchintowin (Nothing To Lose), who was from a mare named Tichiba (Straussbrook) who was purchased by his father – Willowbend Stud’s David Lucas – to help Ben launch his business some 15 years ago.
Sold as a yearling, Itchintowin scratched that itch five times, including twice in Brisbane city class, before being moved on for $6,000 at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale of 2016 to Kingstar Farm.
After three foals there for little reward, she was put online and Lucas bought her back, for $1,600 in-foal to Lord Of The Sky (Danerich), a mating that produced Stylish Prince, who’s had two Victorian placings from four starts.
Lucas’s first move with Itchintowin was to send her to Sun City, then standing down the road at Telemon Thoroughbreds for $7,700. The following year, when his fee was $4,400, he sent Itchintowin back to him again. It was a fairly natural thing to do – since Lucas is a shareholder in the stallion – but he was pleased with the match-up on type in any case.
“I thought the two horses would benefit each other,” said Lucas. “Sun City is a lovely animal, and Itchintowin was a decent sized mare as well. You weren’t trying to fix shoulders or strengthen a hindquarter or anything like that. They were both pretty equal, conformation wise.”
The first foal of that mating is Switch The Stars, a now three-year-old who’s spelling after an unplaced debut for Tony and Maddysen Sears.
But the second – Itchintogo – has hit his straps from day one, leading on last month’s debut in 1200-metre Doomben two-year-old handicap before weakening into second, then sitting second in the run before taking the Phelan Ready by 0.4 lengths. In so doing he went one better than his sire, with Sun City having run second in the race in 2018, behind his current Telemon barnmate The Odyssey (Better Than Ready).
The Tony McEvoy-trained Sun City then won the BJ McLachlan (Gr 3, 1200m) to put himself among the favourites for the rich Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m). However, Tony Gollan says Itchintogo will likely miss the McLachlan, and not start again before the Gold Coast feature.
Switch The Stars and Itchintogo are graduates of the Magic Millions Gold Coast March Yearling Sale. The former fetched $12,000, and Itchintogo sold for $60,000 to Glenhuntly Lodge, who sent him to Gollan.
Itchintogo would be missed at Lucas Thoroughbreds.
“He was the whole team’s favourite horse,” said Lucas, who now owns ten mares and houses another 15 for clients on his 250-acre farm near Boonah, south of Brisbane.
“He was a real cheeky character, was very smart, and had a real spirit about him too. We’d be standing there holding him and he’d put on a really exaggerated yawn, or stick his tongue out or something just to be a part of it all.”
Still, he had to go, and when he did, something disguised as bad luck kicked in.
He was prepped for that sale last March when south-east Queensland was forced to batten down the hatches as Cyclone Alfred hovered about the coast. The sale was delayed by two weeks.
“By the time he got to the sale, he looked perfect,” Lucas said. “Two weeks earlier, he wouldn’t have looked as good. The ideal thing is to have them peaking on sale day, and he did. And had the sale been two weeks later, he would have been a bit overdone.
“We blew a fortune in cancelling the accommodation for our team when the sale was postponed, but we might have made it back in the sales ring.”
Itchintogo hails from a moderately performed family. All the class lies in his Kiwi third dam Alberton Lass (Adios), who was placed, and who had seven winners from ten runners including three stakes victors. They were Sir Alberton (Red Tempo), who won a Group 2 and two Listeds in New Zealand and was twice Group 1 placed, Group 2 winner Alberton Star (Stylish Century) and Listed victor Straussbridge (Straussbrook).
It’s a vote of confidence in Sun City that Itchintogo – his only third crop runner so far – clearly has ability, reflected in his $15 quote for the Magic Millions 2YO Classic.
Bought by McEvoy Mitchell Racing and David Redvers for $520,000 at the Gold Coast, Sun City began by looking as promising as another offspring of Zoustar (Northern Meteor) who’d entered the McEvoy stable a year earlier in Sunlight, winner of the Magic Millions 2YO Classic and later three Group 1s.
With a similar ownership ticket, including Qatar Bloodstock, Sun City debuted with a second in Flemington’s Maribyrnong Trial Stakes (Listed, 1000m) before his Phelan Ready second and McLachlan success. He may have been around the top of the market for the Magic Millions 2YO Classic, but some bad luck of the completely undisguised kind took hold.
“He tried to jump the crossing when he won the McLachlan,” says Telemon owner Dan Fletcher. “He twisted a fetlock, the joint became infected and they had to flush it. So it went from something innocuous to major surgery. Any time you get an infection inside a joint it’s a big issue.
“It was terrible luck for the team. They were optimistic he’d go the same way as Sunlight. But after that joint infection, they never really got him back.”
After nine months off, Sun City raced three more times for a Benchmark third, and a second-last and last in Adelaide Listed class. An association between Fletcher and Qatar Bloodstock helped line his path to Telemon.
From limited opportunities – he’s averaged 50 mares over his five seasons – the nine-year-old now has a stakes winner from 39 runners, and 18 winners. He has two more stakes placegetters in Brisbane Group 3 runner-up Sun Worshipper, and New Zealand’s Sierra Leone, who’s run a Listed second.
Enhancing Itchintogo’s stakes win on Saturday was the fact it was the second leg of a Doomben double for Sun City, with Sun Worshipper having taken the first event, over 2000 metres.
“I reckon he’s done a really good job,” Fletcher says of Sun City, whose results led to a doubling of his service fee last year, to $8,800.
“He’s never had the benefit of a syndicate of shareholders behind him so he’s never covered big books as such, but from the numbers he’s had he’s done an exceptional job.
“He’s a son of Zoustar, and Zoustar’s pretty expensive these days, so if people don’t have the money for that, here’s a next best thing.
“He’s good because it gives everyone a bit of hope when stallions at that level can take you to the carnivals, can get you a stakes-winning two-year-old, and take you where everybody wants to be, and you don’t have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on service fees to do it. He’s great to give breed to race people or people on limited budgets hope that they can still be in the game.
“He was champion first season sire of Queensland, he’s thrown good, solid two-year-old winners, and a horse in New Zealand in Sierra Leone who’s a really nice individual who was in the mix for the Karaka Millions.
“If you pull his numbers apart, he’s running at in excess of 10 per cent stakes horses to runners. I know it’s a small sample size, but just the fact he’s put a marker down and shown he can do a good job is great. Where we’ve got him, he’s still really good value.”
Itchintogo’s pedigree is fairly short on nicks and tricks. It contains only one bit of inbreeding, with an Australian flavour. Bletchingly (Biscay) is repeated at 5m x 5m, via Sun City’s second damsire Canny Lad in the top half, and through second dam Tichiba’s grandsire Opera Prince.
While Sun City has double Danehill (Danzig), Itchintowin is Danehill-free. In any case, Fletcher believes the fact Danehill is back at 4m x 3m in Sun City’s pedigree reduces any worry of mating with mares also carrying Danehill.
Natalma (Native Dancer) is the most repeated mare with nine spots, only one of which is in the bottom half. Hyperion (Gainsborough) is the dominant stallion with 20 mentions, ahead of 17 for Nearco (Pharos).