Idle Flyer
There are always some things – axioms, beliefs, shards of received wisdom – in racing and breeding that are held by many as gospel but don’t stand up to close examination.
Dundeel (High Chaparral) fillies have long laboured under a not-so-flattering reputation, dealing not only with temperament but their performance compared to his sons. The girls have been building away from it in recent years, but the mud takes some removing.
Yet the Arrowfield Stud stallion had ten stakes winners last season, and seven of them were female. And of his past 13 stakes victories, fillies and mares have accounted for 11 of them.
Two came along within an hour on Saturday – two of his three stakes winners this season – when Matt Smith’s four-year-old mare Idle Flyer took Rosehill’s Emancipation Stakes (Gr 2, 1500m), and Team Hayes’s three-year-old filly Stung won Morphettville’s Clare Lindop Stakes (Listed, 1600m).
It’s true, Dundeel’s boys have supplied him with more stakes winners overall – with 26 to 14, and with eight of his nine Group 1 victors – the female exception being last season’s South Australian Derby (Gr 1, 2500m) queen Femminile. That top-tier picture could change by the end of the autumn, with Idle Flyer and Stung aiming for elite targets in the Queen Of The Turf Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) and Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m) respectively.
But given Dundeel’s spate of female black type victors since the start of last season, the balance is shifting dramatically. The story was similar with Dundeel’s sire High Chaparral (Sadler’s Wells) in Australia, with his females catching up to his males over time, and many believe that with both sires, this was down to breeders better learning how to breed to them.
One breeder has built a proud record in this area with Dundeel. Of his 14 female stakes winners, Torryburn Stud has bred – or had a hand in breeding – three. And that’s from only five Dundeel fillies they’ve produced.
The Hunter Valley Farm bred Idle Flyer – who now has a Group 2 to go with her other black type victory in last spring’s Angst Stakes (Gr 3, 1600m).
Torryburn also advised associate Alex Illes on the breeding of triple Group winner Hope In Your Heart, recommending Dundeel as the right choice especially at his then fourth-season fee of $27,500 – far short of the $88,000 (inc GST) he commands now.
And Torryburn are the breeders of Mare Of Mt Buller, who claimed Randwick’s Epona Stakes (Gr 3, 1900m) last autumn.
“It’s a shame Dundeel fillies have this reputation, because they’re brilliant racehorses. Some of them can be a bit quirky, but once you get on the right side of them, they’re fine,” Torryburn’s Mel Copelin told It’s In The Blood.
Copelin has her thoughts on the ideal type of mare for Dundeel physically, saying: “You want a good, big strong mare, and Dundeel puts the athleticism into them.”
That’s the type of mare Torryburn acquired when they bought Idle Flyer’s dam Progressive (Street Cry) for $325,000 at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale of 2016.
She’d won four times, twice in Sydney, and was from an esteemed family stemming back to her fourth dam, American blue hen Best In Show (Traffic Judge). Second dam Twyla (Danehill) was a half-sister to Australian great Shantha’s Choice (Canny Lad), and thus Twyla is a three-quarter sister to the great Redoute’s Choice and his fellow Group 1 winners Al Maher and Platinum Scissors – all by Danehill (Danzig).
And Progressive’s dam Movin’ Out (Encosta De Lago) was a three-quarter sister to another of Shantha’s Choice’s Group 1 winners in Manhattan Rain, plus his fellow black type victors Niagara and Echoes Of Heaven, all three also by Encosta De Lago (Fairy King).
“Progressive was a lovely Street Cry mare and I loved her physically,” Copelin says. “You could see that it was – pardon the pun – a progressive family.
“She had a beautiful pedigree with Dancing Show and Special there, and all those stallions like Redoute’s Choice, Platinum Scissors and Manhattan Rain. It was a beautiful branch of that Twyla family.”
Looking at the mating that produced Idle Flyer, having Encosta De Lago as her second damsire effected an enticing nick, bringing together those famed full-brothers Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) – Dundeel’s grandsire – and Fairy King, in the third and fourth removes.
“We always look for full relations like that,” Copelin says. “A lot of people will tell you a lot of champions have got them duplicated in their pedigree.”
There was similar going on with Hope In Your Heart – a doubling up of Sadler’s Wells, at 3m x 3m, since his son Montjeu is Hope In Your Heart’s damsire.
Femminile also takes advantage of Dundeel having Sadler’s Wells, with that sire doubled in her pedigree at 3m x 5f, the bottom mention coming as Sadler’s Wells is the second damsire of Femminile’s damsire, Pierro (Lonhro).
As Copelin mentioned, Idle Flyer draws considerable influence from the key American mare Special (Forli), the second dam of those brothers Sadler’s Wells and Fairy King through her daughter Fairy Bridge (Bold Reason).
With Dundeel inbred to Special, she’s in Idle Flyer’s pedigree at 5f, 6m x 6f, with the middle one being Nureyev (Northern Dancer), Zabeel’s damsire.
At play the other way in the first six columns is that other powerful, and more common, American blue hen Natalma (Native Dancer), at 5m x 6f, 6m. Her fabled son Northern Dancer (Nearctic) is the sire of Sadler’s Wells and Fairy King, while the daughter in that blend is Raise The Standard (Hoist The Flag), second dam of Street Cry’s sire Machievallian (Mr Prospector).
Street Cry’s surging CV as a broodmare sire in Australia received a double boost on Saturday. Not only is he the maternal grandfather of Idle Flyer but also Storm Leopard (Ghaiyyath), who took the Tulloch Stakes (Gr 2, 2000m).
As a result, Street Cry sits fifth on the Australian broodmare sires’ table, with his top representative being Tom Kitten (Harry Angel), winner of the All Star Mile (Gr 1, 1600m) in March. That’s off a personal best finish of third in 2024, but his top earning grandson then came from non-Australian stock in the form of Hong Kong raider Romantic Warrior (Acclamation) and his Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) triumph.
Coincidentally, Storm Leopard also has a doubling of Sadler’s Wells, at 4m x 5m, though that’s of course nothing to do with Street Cry. It comes via Ghaiyyath’s (Dubawi) damsire Galileo, and In The Wings, the grandsire of Storm Legend’s granddam.
Back to Idle Flyer’s dam Progressive, Torryburn have done reasonably well out for their $325,000 outlay on her. At Magic Millions 2022, her colt fourth foal by The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) was bought by Chris Waller and Guy Mulcaster for $400,000. Racing as Influential, the now five-year-old has won twice and run fourth at Listed level and fifth in a Group 3.
At the Gold Coast this year, Torryburn netted $200,000 for Progressive’s filly by Harry Angel (Dark Angel).
In between those two, however, came Idle Flyer. Possibly with the Dundeel filly reputation at play, she’s been the cheapest of all of Progressive’s six sold yearlings, knocked down to Smith and Randwick Bloodstock Agency for just $70,000, at Inglis Classic in 2023.
She’s now reaped almost $600,000 in just 14 starts.
Meanwhile, another Dundeel female brought a windfall at this week’s Inglis Easter sale in Victoria Quay – who was the stallion’s first female stakes winner in fact, taking the 2020 Wakeful Stakes (Gr 2, 2000m).
Her highly promising career was sadly restricted by injury to just six starts, but she’s rewarded her owners Iskander Racing with her colt second foal by Home Affairs (I Am Invincible) who fetched $1.3 million on Sunday, sold from Milburn Creek’s draft to Ted Huglin and Clarke Bloodstock.
Dundeel also had a $1.3 million seller himself, in Widden Stud’s colt out of quadruple Group winner Fiesta (I Am Invincible), bought by Jamie McCalmont for Tom Magnier.