Artorius’s sire Flying Artie to stand at Blue Gum Farm

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Victoria’s pre-eminent stud to be new home of Group 1-producing stallion

Flying Artie (Artie Schiller), the sire of yesterday’s electric Canterbury Stakes (Gr 1, 1300m) winning sprinter and dynamic Group 1-winning two-year-old Artorius, will relocate to Blue Gum Farm in Victoria this year.

In a vote of confidence for the Victorian breeding industry and Trilogy Racing’s Jason and Mel Stenning and Sean and Cathy Dingwall, who purchased Philip and Patti Campbell’s revered Blue Gum Farm late last year, Flying Artie will be the first stallion to stand at the Euroa property under the new management in a joint venture deal.

Also the sire of Oakleigh Plate (Gr 1, 1100m) –placed speed machine Asfoora, Flying Artie will remain under the ownership of his existing shareholders, including Newgate and China Horse Club, when he moves to the southern state.

Sean Dingwall said standing Flying Artie at Blue Gum Farm, a long-time stallion operation with the Campbells at the helm, would ensure the legacy of the stud continued under the new management.

“The fact that we can bring a horse of this quality back to Victoria is a real bonus for the industry as he’ll make a lovely stallion,” Dingwall said.

“Artorius has been his flagbearer, being a Blue Diamond winner, and even now as an older horse winning at the highest level and there’s horses all around the place by him that are running and it’s a great time for him to come back.”

Artorius is slated to retire to Newgate Farm later this year, but not before a return visit to the UK where he was placed in the Platinum Jubilee (Gr 1, 6f) and the July Cup (Gr 1, 6f) during the last northern hemisphere summer, and Newgate’s Henry Field said the decision to reach a deal on Flying Artie with the Stennings and Dingwalls was in the best interests of both horses. 

Trilogy Racing has fostered a strong relationship with Field over the past two years, having joined the powerful colts partnership led by the Newgate managing director and China Horse Club.

“Flying Artie is a really good stallion – and probably an underrated stallion – and to have sired even in the past few weeks a horse as good as Artorius, who won a high-class Canterbury Stakes, as well as Asfoora, who ran a huge race in the Oakleigh Plate, shows he is a proper Group 1 stallion,” Field told ANZ Bloodstock News last night. 

“He was a Coolmore Stud Stakes winner himself and we felt, with Artorius coming to Newgate this year, that splitting them up was a really good play.

“We’ve built up a wonderful relationship with Jason and Mel Stenning and Sean and Cathy Dingwall at Blue Gum, a pre-eminent stallion farm in Victoria, and they’ve got the energy and the passion to make it really great.

“It’s a great fit, they were really keen to get the horse and I have no doubt that Flying Artie will be phenomenally popular at Blue Gum this season.”

Dingwall said ensuring Blue Gum Farm remained as a stallion operation was part of Trilogy’s long-term plan for the stud.

“Part of our growth strategy for the farm was to get back to stallions and to create the whole enterprise as we want to run it and this opportunity is through our great partnership with Newgate,” Dingwall said. 

“The fact that Henry has got the confidence in us to send the horse down is a tribute to the farm and the overall feeling that the farm has in the industry nationally.”

Flying Artie, the 2016 Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner who was also runner-up to Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) in that year’s Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) and third in the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) behind Capitalist (Written Tycoon), covered 795 mares in his six years at stud in the Hunter Valley. 

As well as being the sire of dual hemisphere sprinter Artorius and the Henry Dwyer-trained Asfoora, who will tackle The Galaxy (Gr 1, 1100m) in Sydney at her next start, Flying Artie is also the sire of stakes winner Giannis and Flying Crazy from three crops of racing age. 

He has sired 82 individual winners from 160 runners. He has 127 foals on the ground, his second biggest crop since retiring to stud, which will go some way to ensuring the momentum the nine-year-old stallion has generated can be maintained.

Trained by Mick Price in just seven race starts, which netted three stakes victories, Flying Artie is out of stakes-winning mare Flying Ruby, whose sire Rubiton (Century) was a mainstay at Blue Gum Farm for a decade from 1995 to 2005.

Flying Ruby has produced seven foals to race for seven winners, with Bel Flyer (Bel Esprit) a stakes-placed sprinter among them.

Manhattan Rain (Encosta De Lago) and Turffontein (Johannesburg), Blue Gum’s most recent stallions on the roster, were relocated by the Campbells early last year to Western Australia and Tasmania respectively.

A service fee for Flying Artie, who stood for $22,000 (inc GST) in 2022, will be confirmed at a later date.