It’s In The Blood – Tron Bolt

That old sage Rick Jamieson has been at it again, with the boss of the Gilgai Farm production house creating another intriguing smash hit pedigree that’s brought yet another Group 1 winner.

From the maker of Black Caviar (Bel Esprit), All Too Hard (Casino Prince), Ole Kirk (Written Tycoon) and more, comes the feelgood colt of the winter – Tron Bolt (Toronado) – winner of Saturday’s JJ Atkins (Gr 1, 1600m) at Eagle Farm.

Jamieson prefers to divine his pedigrees in private these days, politely declining requests for interviews to explain the magic, and to be left alone in his dream-weaving studio.

But some tell-tale traces of his work are evident in the bloodlines of Tron Bolt, who’s living up to his price tag for Chris Waller and Hermitage, having been bought by the latter for $900,000 at Inglis’s Ready2Race sale last October, after initially fetching Gilgai $250,000 at Inglis Easter.

More on said traces later.

The headline for Tron Bolt’s lineage is that he continues the run of phenomenal success for his second dam Meerlust (Johannesburg).

And for fans of Johannesburg (Hennessy), this is the second time in three weeks in Brisbane that he’s shown his worth through his daughters, with Kingsford Smith Cup (Gr 1, 1300m) hero Headley Grange (Exosphere) also having a second dam by the son of Hennessy (Storm Cat).

Incidentally, Johannesburg as a broodmare sire runs at 4.7 per cent stakes winners to runners, and 8.5 per cent stakes horses to runners. That’s comparable to Fastnet Rock (Danehill), who’s about to win his third straight Australian broodmare sire title and bats at 5.8 per cent and 10.9 per cent in those categories.

Meerlust had a modest track record, though restricted to only five starts, with her only win coming on debut at Grafton in 2011. But the Emirates Park-bred mare – bought as a yearling by old mates and boutique breeders Matthew Irwin and Peter Harris for just $22,000 at the Inglis Scone sale of 2009 – became pure box office post-racing.

She had just seven named foals – the first six being fillies – from 15 covers, and three were stakes winners for Irwin and Harris.

Duais (Shamus Award) won thrice at the top level, in the Australian Cup (Gr 1, 2000m), the Tancred Stakes (Gr 1, 2400m) and the Queensland Oaks (Gr 1, 2200m).

Philia (All Too Hard), four years Duais’s junior, won a Group 2 and a Listed in Brisbane last winter.

And before both of those mares came Baccarat Baby (Casino Prince). She won a Group 3 and a Listed at the Sunshine Coast, but has now eclipsed those feats as a mum, since she’s the dam of the Group 1-winning juvenile Tron Bolt.

Meerlust left us last September aged 18, found dead in her paddock of a suspected heart attack, but earned the honour of being named HTBA Broodmare of the Year in 2022. That was the same year that Irwin won the Thoroughbred Breeders NSW Breeder of the Year award, thanks to Duais and Baccarat Baby – and well before Philia was on the scene – despite having less than five broodmares.

The Irwin-Harris partnership bred Meerlust’s last foal, a colt by Hellbent (I Am Invincible), who was born in 2024. He’s in work with Brad Widdup, who also trains for them Meerlust’s previous foal Waerea (Bivouac), a three-year-old gelding who’s had a Kembla Grange win and three placings from five starts.

Irwin and Harris had more cause to thank their lucky stars for Meerlust only last month, when Philia became the fourth-top lot at the Inglis Chairman’s sale, bought by Northern Farm’s Katsumi Yoshida for $1.4 million.

That took the returns for Irwin and Harris – in prize money and sales proceeds – from their $22,000 purchase of Meerlust to around $7.5 million. 

And that’s only the publicly declared stuff.

They also sold $4 million earner Duais privately as a triple Group 1 winner to free-spending Yulong, so their haul thanks to Meerlust can be assumed to have hit eight figures.

No wonder she has a special place in their hearts.

Back in 2021, Irwin and Harris also cashed in on Baccarat Baby four months after her last race, selling her at the 2021 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale for $650,000 to Spendthrift Farm.

It was a decent price, swollen by her half-sister Duais having won the Adrian Knox Stakes (Gr 3, 2000m) and placed second in the ATC Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m) one month earlier. But it was close to having been considerably more, since 11 days after the sale, Duais became an elite winner in the Queensland Oaks.

After Spendthrift Australia closed down less than a year later, Baccarat Baby changed hands again, bought at the American operation’s dispersal sale for $900,000 by Dermot Farrington Bloodstock.

She was soon in the Gilgai brood, and after slipping on her first cover from Dirty Work (Written Tycoon), Jamieson put her to Toronado (High Chaparral), and the result was Tron Bolt.

On Saturday, he became the seventh Group 1 winner among 52 stakes victors for Toronado, who’ll stand at Swettenham Stud again this year for an unchanged $88,000 (inc GST).

Five of the 16-year-old’s elite winners have been bred in Australia, where he has had 30 stakes winners at a solid 4.7 per cent of runners.

The Toronado-Casino Prince cross which produced Tron Bolt is running well from limited exposure, with two stakes winners from eight starters, making it comfortably Toronado’s best nick of more than six runners. Its other black type winner is Tasmania’s Still A Star, who won seven stakes races – five in her home state, but also the VRC Rose Of Kingston Stakes (Gr 2, 1400m).

In Tron Bolt’s pedigree, the main eye-catcher is the Canadian wonder mare and blue hen Fanfreluche (Northern Dancer). She comes in strongly as the colt’s fifth dam, and Baccarat Baby is inbred to her at 5f x 4f, since she’s also the third dam of Casino Prince’s sire Flying Spur (Danehill).

Fanfreluche – who for the record was Canada’s Horse of the Year and Champion 3YO Filly of 1970, its Broodmare of the Year in 1978 and a designated Reine-de-Course mare – of course crops up in many quality pedigrees.

And her presence in this one puts Tron Bolt firmly on the right path for a future stud career.

There’s a young stallion making waves at present who also has Fanfreluche as his fifth dam – Coolmore’s champion first-season sire in-waiting Home Affairs (I Am Invincible) – who also starred in the Waller stable.

Another champion debutant sire, 2022’s Russian Revolution (Snitzel), has Fanfreluche as his fourth dam, as does dual champion sire Encosta De Lago (Fairy King). Flying Spur, champion sire the year before Encosta’s back-to-back titles, is also in the club, as we’ve seen, with Fanfreluche his third dam.

As for the blends at play in Tron Bolt’s pedigree, there are only two bits of inbreeding.

Mr. Prospector (Raise A Native) lends a hand in strong places at 5m x 5f, 6f. He’s the third sire of Toronado’s dam, the damsire of Flying Spur, and the second damsire of Johannesburg. Plus the ever-present Danzig (Northern Dancer) is at 5m x 5m, as the grandsire of Toronado’s second dam, and as Baccarat Baby’s fourth sire.

But elsewhere, Jamieson has designed a mating that would have warmed the heart of Leon Rasmussen, with his penchant for repeating superior females.

One old Jamieson favourite – Sex Appeal (Buckpasser) – is at 6m x 6m via her two most famous full-brother sons El Gran Senor and Try My Best (both by Northern Dancer). The former feeds into Toronado’s damsire, the latter into Casino Prince’s.

Foaled in 1970, Sex Appeal is also doubled in the sixth remove in another Jamieson-bred Group 1 winner by Toronado: Masked Crusader. In this column’s examination of that sprinter a few years back, the Gilgai boss was also enthused by his tripling of Sex Appeal’s sire Buckpasser. Tron Bolt has even more of him, with Buckpasser at 7f, 6f x 7f, 7f, through three different daughters.

Aside from the ubiquitous Natalma (Native Dancer), whose nine appearances in a three-six split should never be underestimated, there are three other heavily influential Reine-de-Course mares repeated in Tron Bolt that catch the eye – all of them born in the USA in 1952.

Lalun (Djeddah) is at 6m, 8m x 8m through her two most famous sons. Bold Reason (Hail To Reason) takes the strong first spot as the damsire of Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer), who’s Toronado’s second sire, while Lalun’s other two appearances come through Never Bend (Nasrullah).

Flower Bowl (Alibhai) is at 8m x 7m via her two star sons by Ribot (Tenerani) in Graustark and His Majesty, the latter of whom has a feted position in Baccarat Baby’s sireline, as the damsire of her third sire Danehill.

And Somethingroyal (Princequillo) is at 7m, 9m x 8m, 8m, 7m via her two best known sons – Secretariat (Bold Ruler) three times, and Sir Gaylord (Turn-To).

Nearco (Pharos) is by far the most common sire in the pedigree with 22 appearances, accounting for 7.6 per cent of the blood, although the great Northern Dancer (Nearctic) has a bigger say with nine spots for 15.8 per cent – the highest ratio of any horse in the pedigree. Plus his first position is relatively recent for him, as Tron Bolt’s fourth sire.

Meanwhile, Gilgai also bred Tron Bolt’s yearling full brother in 2024, but Baccarat Baby then slipped after a third cover from Toronado, and missed to Castelvecchio (Dundeel) last spring.

Seeing this family unfold has been a wonder for Irwin, and a highly lucrative one at that, including this latest success with Tron Bolt, which came as a salve to the recent loss of Meerlust, which he calls “a very sad day” for his and Harris’s families.

Just what someone was doing in 2009, selling them a filly with Fanfreluche as a third dam for $22,000, remains anybody’s guess.

“We’re just thrilled to see Meerlust, the horse that keeps giving, being behind more success,” Irwin tells It’s In The Blood. “She could end up proving to be one of these blue hen mares, like Fanfreluche.

“We and the Harris family are very proud to see Baccarat’s first foal doing so well, and we’re excited to see all the progeny coming through.”