Cilacap
The greatest family of the late George Altomonte’s Corumbene Stud yielded more stakes success when Cilacap (Written Tycoon) lifted Saturday’s Queen Of The South Stakes (Gr 2, 1600m) at Morphettville.
Grahame Begg’s four-year-old took another step on her black type progression with her fighting 0.3-length victory, which followed her Listed stakes breakthrough last February and a Group 3 success two starts later.
The mare could be considered lucky to be alive at all, given her dam Falkenberg (More Than Ready) missed six times from her first eight covers, with Cilacap the result of the fifth.
And thus her stakes wins make Cilacap an even more precious commodity than she already was, hailing as she does from the family that produced the jewel in the canny Altomonte’s breeding crown – Falkenberg’s Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m)-winning full-brother, Sebring.
The mare is also the latest star from Written Tycoon’s highly successful nick with More Than Ready (Southern Halo). It’s yielded four stakes winners at 11 per cent of runners, but the stat grows an extra leg considering Cilacap is the only one of the four who’s not a Group 1 winner, the others being Coolangatta, Southport Tycoon and New Zealand’s Luna Rossa.
Cilacap’s story began in 2004 when Altomonte bought the five-year-old mare Purespeed (Flying Spur), for $70,000 at the Inglis Broodmare Sale, via bloodstock agent Vin Cox.
It was a shrewd purchase which was clearly based mostly on pedigree. Bred by Yarraman Park and associates, Purespeed had raced 17 times in the first three years of this century, for best returns of three third placings, from 1100 metres to 1550 metres.
Yet she wasn’t hopeless, with those placings coming in Sydney, and with trainer Paul Perry – flying at the time with Choisir (Danehill Dancer) at his peak – considering her good enough for three tries in stakes grade.
Those came in succession in the spring of 2001, and hinting at the stamina to come from some of Purespeed’s descendants, they involved middle distances. The best of the three was her sixth, beaten four lengths in the Spring Champion Stakes (Gr 1, 1800m) of 2001.
Still, it was the type of race record that meant $70,000 was probably the upper limit, when Altomonte secured his Flying Spur (Danehill) mare.
“George was looking to upgrade his stock,” Cox recalls, “and he was pretty active in the market, buying weanling fillies, yearling fillies, and mares. It was a good model, and he ended up with some very nice racehorses.
“I reckon we bought half a dozen mares at that sale, and this one he knocked into shape really well, obviously, being the mother of a Golden Slipper winner who became a very good stallion in Sebring.
“George was a very passionate pedigree guy and matings guy. Over a long period of time he bred some very prominent horses,” Cox added of Altomonte, the car sales baron who also bred Golden Slipper-winning filly and stakes producer Overreach (Exceed And Excel), and who died in 2024 aged 89.
Despite her modest track record, Purespeed did have class behind her. Her nine-years-older half-brother – out of Sydney winner Lady Moulin (Luskin Star) – was Surtee (Memento), who won no fewer than nine black type races in four states, capped by the 1992 AJC San Domenico Stakes (Gr 2, 1000m).
And Purespeed’s second dam was Willowy (Better Boy), a high-quality 1973 throw who won what’s now the Listed Fernhill Handicap (1600m) at two before three principal race placings, including a third in the modern Group 1 of the Flight Stakes (1600m).
Willowy also threw a filly who attained quite a degree of fame – Giostra (Imperial Prince).
Giostra won the STC Silver Slipper Stakes (Gr 2, 1000m) and was the dam of two stakes placegetters, but that wasn’t why she became well known. It was because she started out – and won the Silver Slipper – as “Merkin”, before the racehorse names authorities, seemingly light on for giggling schoolboys, were told what that was.
Her colourful trainer Dr Geoff Chapman reluctantly changed the name to Giostra, Italian for “carousel”, in a nod to the roundabout dealings with officials over the name.
Back further, Willowy’s dam Far Vista (Rego) won a modern Melbourne Listed event and was placed in two others, all at two.
So despite Purespeed’s modest race record of three placings from 17 starts, there was enough in her background to lead Altomonte to swoop.
The mare was in-foal to American stallion Peintre Celebre (Nureyev) at the time, which produced nothing to write home about. In fact, it’s hard to reconcile that the mighty Sebring’s only older sibling, a half-brother called Flingitnow, would have as his highlight from 23 stars a 2010 maiden win at Merriwa, NSW.
But breeding’s a funny game, and Altomonte was a master at it.
Once that first foal was born and out of the way, Altomonte went to work, picking out for his first mating with Purespeed – in October, 2004 – the American shuttler More Than Ready, then in his fourth season at Vinery Stud.
It was a prescient move. More Than Ready’s first crop was just hitting the tracks, and in a few months they would include a handful of black type winners, headed by AJC Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) queen Carry On Cutie. That earned the stallion a fee bump for 2005 from $16,500 to $44,000.
And a few weeks after Purespeed bore her colt, his father More Than Ready would show his versatility when his son Benicio won the VRC Derby (Gr 1, 2500m).
But the More Than Ready-Purespeed colt would prove to be all about what his mother’s name suggested. The mating didn’t contain much of Altomonte’s renowned trickery – the only inbreeding was a 4m x 4f of Mr. Prospector (Raise A Native) and a 4f x 5m of Northern Dancer (Nearctic) – but it certainly worked.
Raced by Star Thoroughbreds, Sebring became the highlight of Altomonte’s long and storied career. He won his first five starts including the 2008 Golden Slipper – AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) double. He then came within 0.1 lengths of the Triple Crown in the Champagne Stakes before a premature, injury-enforced retirement. He of course then became a highly successful sire, with eight Group 1 winners before his also premature death in 2019, aged just 13.
Purespeed’s next mating worked a treat as well, with Altomonte picking another American stallion in Tale Of The Cat (Storm Cat) – which again effected inbreeding only to Mr. Prospector and Northern Dancer – to produce Pureness.
That gelding created some almost Sebring-like excitement by winning his first four starts, all in Sydney but non black type. He later won the 2011 ATC Ajax Stakes, but that remained his only black type victory.
Purespeed had to wait a few seasons for her next quality foal, with Falkenberg coming along seven years after her famous full-brother.
Raced by Corumbene with Peter Snowden, the filly showed more stamina than Sebring had – though we didn’t have the chance to see whether he could stretch out. Falkenberg won twice, including over 1600 metres at Warwick Farm, before her career highlight of a third in the Queensland Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m) of 2016.
Retired to stud, Falkenberg’s first mating produced Wingstofly (Not A Single Doubt), retired after two city placings amid four starts. There followed three misses, before a successful cover from the redoubtable Written Tycoon (Iglesia)-produced Cilacap.
“It’s a proven cross, and if you’ve got a proven cross, it’s a bit of a no-brainer,” says Tommy Altomonte, who learned breeding from his grandfather and now runs things at Corumbene, including overseeing its recent move from its long-term home at Dunedoo into the thick of the action near Scone.
“My grandfather had a certain way of doing things. He loved Flying Spur mares, for example. There was Purespeed, and we’ve had success with a lot of other Flying Spur mares.
“But with Cilacap, it was probably more just an element of a proven cross, which is why we went that way.”
After Cilacap, three more straight misses followed for Falkenberg, before the 2024 cover from In The Congo (Snitzel) that has produced her third offspring, a weanling colt. The joys of Cilacap’s win on Saturday, however, were tempered on Wednesday by news Falkenberg had slipped once again, this time to Switzerland (Snitzel).
The four-year-old Cilacap – who made $300,000 at Inglis Easter – appears to have inherited some of the stamina of Falkenberg, with two of her stakes wins coming over 1600 metres and the other 1400 metres. Written Tycoon has had just six stakes winners beyond 1600 metres, among his career haul of 82.
“Putting that speed influence of Written Tycoon over Falkenberg created that good balance, and that’s why Cilacap is such a strong miler,” Altomonte says.
“She was a rangier, scopey type as a yearling, which is why she went to Easter. Of the three we took that year, she was the pick of them.”
What stands out most about Cilacap’s pedigree – aside from that potent Written Tycoon-More Than Ready nick – is a possible bit of Altomonte craftiness in that both the sire and the dam hail from female lines begun by that pillar or Australian breeding, Better Boy (My Babu). He’s the third damsire of both Written Tycoon and Falkenberg.
Northern Dancer’s 5m x 5f is the only other piece of inbreeding, with twin Northern Dancer sirelines narrowly avoided. He’s Written Tycoon’s fourth sire, but in the dam’s side he’s only the damsire of Southern Halo, More Than Ready’s father.
It’s a very Australian pedigree. The first ten dams were born here, stretching back to Red Streak (Wallace) in 1901, and that great force of Australian breeding Star Kingdom (Stardust) is highly prominent.
He’s at 6m, 7m, 8f x 6m, enticingly through four different offspring. He’s tripled powerfully in Iglesia’s (Last Tycoon) dam Yodells (Marscay) through Biscay, Noholme and Yodells’ fourth dam Fairy Dream. Down below, Purespeed’s dam Lady Moulin hails from the Star Kingdom sireline of Kaoru Star-Luskin Star.
“My grandfather was a very big fan of colonial stallions,” Altomonte says. “When we’d go to the broodmare sales, if it was a fast, colonial family, that was his bread and butter, versus international pedigrees. He was very huge on the fact that if we’re breeding Australian racehorses, let’s have them from families of good Australian racehorses.”
Cilacap’s pedigree’s first nine removes contain lashings of influential mares, with Nogara (Havresac) the most represented with 13 spots and Mumtaz Begum (Blenheim) there 12 times. There’s also six for Selene (Chaucer), five for Natalma (Native Dancer) and four for La Troienne (Teddy).
Nearco takes the gong for dominant sire, with a hefty 19 mentions.