Kurrinda Bloodstock come out firing at Classic
Back at the sale where they struck gold when buying Private Harry (Harry Angel) three years ago, Kurrinda Bloodstock flexed its increased buying muscle with a pair of top shelf purchases at Inglis Classic on Monday.
Sean Driver’s syndications group went hard for one that went early – Lot 15 – paying $260,000 for New Zealand farm Windsor Park’s colt by hot young stallion Sword Of State (Snitzel), in tandem with new partner Ciaron Maher.
Kurrinda then teamed with Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott and Kestrel Thoroughbreds, paying $300,000 for Monarch Stud’s Lot 124, a filly by Too Darn Hot (Dubawi) – sire of the Kurrinda-Tulloch Lodge stakes-winning two-year-old filly Shiki.
Driver bought Private Harry’s half-sister last year with that stallion’s trainer Nathan Doyle for $220,000. In 2024, also at Classic, the same pairing bought a half-brother by Anders (Not A Single Doubt) for $100,000.
On Monday, Driver didn’t make it four siblings in the end when another half-brother by Zousain (Zoustar) came under the hammer. That colt went from breeders Rheinwood Pastoral to Team Archibald for $300,000.
Still, done for the day with his two purchases, Driver reflected on the successes that have allowed Kurrinda to move up the budgetary ladder in recent times. This includes buying an I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) colt at Magic Millions Gold Coast last month for $480,000, again with Waterhouse and Bott and Kestrel, and going to $420,000 for Shiki with the same trainers at that sale a year earlier.
And while Kurrinda enjoyed a windfall last March when Yulong bought half of Private Harry in a deal understood to be worth more than $8 million after his win in The Galaxy (Gr 1, 1100m), Driver said that hadn’t acted as any trigger towards greater spending.
“It’s got nothing to do with Private Harry’s sale – that’s a completely separate issue,” Driver told ANZ News. “It’s just the way we’ve grown. We’re very calculated.
“We paid $115,000 for Private Harry three years ago. We were probably only getting up to the $200,000 mark back then.
“But with time, you need to adjust. Things cost more. It’s inflation, right? The horse world’s the same.”
Kurrinda, which prepares its new yearlings and spells its horses on its own 40-acre farm near Cessnock, has also been buoyed by a wave of non-Private Harry results in recent times.
Aside from Shiki, who’s earned $265,000 from two wins, Kurrinda’s white with the pale blue star have been carried by Doyle’s Roman Consul Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) hero Hidden Motive (Capitalist), Matt Dale’s Caulfield stakes winner Boston Rocks (Hellbent) and his lightly-raced city-winning stablemate So You Pence (So You Think), among others.
“At the end of the day the results are there on the racetrack, so hopefully it continues,” Driver said.
“We’re also getting great support from our trainers. When we purchase a horse, the trainers are all staying in the horse, so they trust our systems. The horse spells with us, and it’s educated by us, which is really good for us, because not only do we get to control the first part of their career but it shows the trainers have a lot of trust in us.
“So it [spending power] is just about the way we’ve grown.
“We’ve had a great year on the rack, whether it’s been Hidden Motive or So You Pence, Boston Rocks, Private Harry and Shiki.
“It’s across the board with different trainers. Those trainers want to be a part of that success. They’re hungry, they’ve got the athlete mindset, and we want our horses to be in the best systems too, especially if you’re spending that sort of money. It’s going to give the horse every opportunity.”
Kurrinda has grown its number of trainers. While the group started predominantly with Dale, and then added Doyle, it now also has horses with Waterhouse and Bott, David Pfeiffer, Richard and Will Freedman and Queensland’s Stuart Kendrick.
And in a few weeks it will have its first horse in the Victorian stables of Australia’s largest trainer numerically – Maher – in its Sword Of State colt.
“Ciaron’s a big stable, he gets results nationwide, so I’m excited to be a part of it and I’m looking forward to seeing how that relationship evolves,” Driver said.
“It’s about relationships. You need to be able to work together – that’s the key. Whether things are going well or bad, you need to work together.
“I expressed that I want this horse [Lot 15] to go through our system, so that horse will arrive at our farm tomorrow. Once the horses are in work with the trainers I don’t interfere too much. I let them do their job.
“Now we’ve got seven trainers. As long as the horse is going to that right system, that’s what it’s about. When we purchase a horse, we know where that horse is going to.
“The key is – where would this horse succeed? For example, if a trainer is keen on a certain horse but I don’t think the horse suits their model, I’m not interested.
“And if we and the trainers are all keen on the same lot number, that’s key. Obviously, we’ll then go quite aggressively to get it.”
While it’s expanded its trainers list, Kurrinda is content to stay at its current size, with racing stock numbering in the 50s.
“We’re pretty happy with the numbers we’ve got,” Driver said. “We don’t want to get too big. We’re very hands-on at the farm. I’m there three or four days a week, our farm manager lives at the farm and my wife Genevieve does everything else behind the scenes.
“We want to just focus on quality over quantity.”
Driver was enthusiastic about Maher’s new Kurrinda colt, whose Cambridge Stud sire Sword Of State (Snitzel) has begun in strong style with a stakes victor among four winners from ten starters. His winners include Bjorn Baker’s Warwoven, who’s unbeaten in two starts.
“The colt just moved so well, and we’ve had success at this sale going on type,” Driver said.
“To me, he was in the top three of the sale. I just loved the way he moved, carried himself, and he had a good attitude.
“Warwoven is arguably the most exciting two-year-old in the country. The stallion’s doing a fantastic job, it [Windsor Park] is a great farm, so he ticked a lot of boxes.”
Driver and Waterhouse and Bott will be hoping their new Lot 124 can emulate their strong start with their other Too Darn Hot filly.
“We’ve had the luck there with Shiki by the same sire, and this one just moves so well,” he said. “Just the athleticism and how she carried herself was fantastic.
“As soon as we looked at her, we had her as the top filly at the sale. Biomechanically, she rated very highly and as a type she was right up there.
“She’s bigger than Shiki, stronger as a yearling; she’s probably already taller than Shiki. She’s a lump of a filly for a Too Darn Hot, but she’s definitely precocious – that’s one similarity to Shiki.”