Aviatress aims to take flight in the Missile Stakes

Image: Aviatress (Credit, Sportpix)

The twin strategies of training and trading horses are very closely aligned in Liam Ruddy’s business model and the ambitious horseman is hopeful those two worlds can collide at Randwick this Saturday, when Aviatress (Smart Missile) contests Sydney’s first stakes race of the new season.

Despite bemoaning the fact that this year’s Missile Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) has attracted one of the strongest fields of recent times, with the markets headed by multiple stakes winners Angel Capital (Harry Angel), Gangsta Granny (Written Tycoon) and Ninja (Farnan), Ruddy is content to chance his arm with a mare he and his partner Emily purchased for $360,000 from the Vinery draft at this year’s Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale.

Together with his $350,000 acquisition of Aviatress’ fellow stakes winner Melody Again (Your Song) at the same sale, the investment represented a significant outlay for the Scottish ex-pat who only decided to venture out on his own late last year as the latest product to emerge from the long conveyor belt of training talent nurtured by Ciaron Maher.

Fortunately, Ruddy was flushed with cash from the profit he turned on Chris Waller’s last-start Group 1 hero Tron Bolt (Toronado), whom he and Cade Hunter of Hunter’s Lodge jointly picked up for $250,000 at the 2025 Inglis Australian Easter Sale, before selling the colt for $900,000 to Hermitage later that year at the same auction house’s Ready2Race Sale.

That bonanza, and several other successful forays into the world of bloodstock trading, has enabled Ruddy to upscale his Scone operation at a rapid rate, with almost 50 horses in work and the prospect of 10 more to enter the stables next week – thereby edging closer to his current capacity of 65 boxes.

Realistically, that impressive initial growth can only continue if Ruddy is able to churn out city winners on a relatively regular basis, which is precisely where Aviatress comes in.

The mare already has three stakes victories to her name, all while in the care of her former conditioners Richard and Chantelle Jolly; but if she could sneak into the placings on Saturday or bag another black type triumph over the course of the upcoming campaign, Ruddy could reasonably expect to receive a return on his investment when she is re-listed for sale next year.

“It’s a very strong field so we know we’re up against it, but she’ll take a lot of improvement from her first-up run [in the July Sprint] when she absolutely hated the Heavy track that day,” he told ANZ News.

“She only had a very short break so she’ll probably be the fittest horse in the race, with most of the other runners resuming, so that should give us an edge and maybe we could catch a few of the big guns napping. She’s a big strong mare and even though she didn’t handle the conditions last time, she didn’t shirk the task and still ran the quickest time between the 600 and 400 [metres] of the meeting.

“So she’s humming along nicely, but there might be some potential superstars in the race. We’ll probably look at a more suitable fillies and mares race like the Sheraco Stakes next month, and if she could knock off another stakes race then she will have done her job for us. Saddling up a Group 2 runner on a Saturday is the best advert I can have for my stable so early in my training career, but trading bloodstock is also a big part of the business.

“We bought both mares at the Magic Millions sale with a view to reselling them in 12 months’ time. If it all works out and we can win a nice race or two with them, I’ll look like a champion – and if not I’ll have egg on my face. The really good mares are obviously very hard to buy, so we need to shop around the edges a bit more and hopefully that policy can pay off for us.”

Ruddy was very active at the sales right across the year, signing for a total of 19 yearlings with some to be onsold next year and others designed to give his embryonic training career an early uplift.

It is undoubtedly a balancing act and Ruddy concedes that mistakes are an inevitable part of building any successful business, but his grounding with Maher and a keen eye for an equine athlete should both stand him in good stead.

“I trade a lot of yearlings at the breeze-up sales, and have done pretty well out of that so far,” Ruddy told ANZ News.

“Unless you’re winning big races on a regular basis, there’s not a great deal of margin in training so I have to find other sources of income to keep the ball rolling. I don’t want to be seen as a trader who trains horses, I’d rather be a trainer who uses the trading side of the business to pay for things and open doors.

“Our facilities here at Scone are top notch, but they cost an awful lot of money to run. Trading horses has enabled me to put two high-class mares into my stable, so hopefully they can win some prize-money and put the stable on the map, which might lead to other owners coming through the door.

“We have scaled the business pretty quickly in a fairly short space of time, which takes a lot of hard work but also a lot of money. So hopefully the horses can start to bring in some returns, and it would be handy if Aviatress could pick up a nice cheque for us on Saturday.”

If Aviatress is very much for the here and now, Ruddy has identified a precocious daughter of Hellbent (I Am Invincible) he acquired for $100,000 from the Middlebrook Valley Lodge draft on the Gold Coast as a horse to follow in the future.

The filly, whose dam Hold On Tight (Cape Blanco) is a half-sister to champion New Zealand sprinter Turn Me Loose (Iffraaj), was initially passed in at the sales but a chance conversation with her breeder – and Ruddy’s friend – Lindsay de Souza (of Magus Equine) led to her changing hands for some $60,000 lower than her reserve price.

“I think I’ve got a very strong juvenile team ready to go this season,” said Ruddy.

“There are some lovely two-year-olds in the stable that are showing plenty of promise, which is very exciting. I really like our Hellbent filly out of Hold On Tight, she’s a ladies’ syndicate horse so she’ll be chasing that Magic Millions bonus and I’d be shocked if she doesn’t get to some of the better juvenile races early in the season.

“We paid $100,000 for her when Hellbent’s service fee was $25,000, and he went up to $55,000 not long after we bought her. Lindsay is a good friend of mine, we were chatting at the bar after the sale and I told him the best I could do was $100,000.

“Begrudgingly he sold her to me for that price, and I always make sure that I send him all the trainer updates. He tells me I still owe him big time, so hopefully she can hit the ground running and I’ll be able to shout him a drink or two next time we meet.”