Benagil
It’s a good thing for Phil Campbell, and a few others, that he makes a plan and sticks to it.
In 1999 Campbell and his father Graham, who founded Blue Gum Farm, paid $32,000 for a Listed-winning broodmare named Delgara (Delgado), and from her they bred a filly by Umatilla (Miswaki).
In 2006, the filly went to the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale with a reserve of $60,000. Bidding drew tantalisingly close to the desired mark, at $55,000, but Phil Campbell wasn’t for budging.
She was passed in, he took her home, and racing as Inkster for the Mick Price stable, she would win the VRC St Leger (Listed, 2800m), three other Melbourne city staying races, and run third in Morphettville’s South Australian Oaks (Gr 3, 2500m).
Campbell then took Inkster to the 2011 Inglis Easter Broodmare Sale, in-foal to Encosta De Lago (Fairy King), who had stood at Blue Gum until his big-money transfer to Coolmore in 2004. The bidding reached $250,000, but Campbell had set a $300,000 reserve, so he took her back home again.
Four years later, he took Inkster’s third foal to the Premier sale, setting a $100,000 reserve for the filly by War (More Than Ready). Bidding rose to $75,000, and stopped. Again Campbell, while known as a selling breeder, took this one home, inviting three friends to share in her career.
Racing as Des Moines for Mike Moroney, the sizeable filly didn’t inherit her dam’s staying prowess – nor her ability in general – with one win over 1200 metres and just one run beyond that distance in 17 starts.
But in 2020, Campbell put her to Blue Gum’s then resident stallion Manhattan Rain (Encosta De Lago). It would be among his final breeding moves in his 40–year span at the farm, before it was sold in 2022 to racing and breeding venture Trilogy.
And what a move it was.
As the foal was being reared at Blue Gum, under the watch of new co-owner Sean Dingwall, Campbell and his wife Patti enjoyed some of their newfound freedom on a holiday to Portugal, where daughter Natalie was working. They stayed in a coastal town which to Campbell “sounded like a good name for a filly”: Benagil.
And last Saturday the filly Benagil – borne of two mares who Campbell tried to offload but could not – became just the second elite winner the 63-year-old has bred when she took the Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m) at Morphettville.
“It was a bloody huge thrill,” Campbell tells It’s In The Blood. “To come all this way after my old man and I bought Delgara, in a tried sale at Oaklands Junction, is just fantastic.”
Oaklands itself has a special resonance for Campbell. His father, when general manager of the old Dalgety Bloodstock International, had overseen the purchase and development of the site which became the auction facility.
It’s a little ironic that while its purpose is to sell horses, two yearlings Campbell took there but opted not to sell have led to one of his family’s other finest creations, in Benagil.
“Delgara was a nice, stakes-winning filly,” he said of the daughter of American import Delgado (Hoist The Flag), who earned her black type with a win at Adelaide Listed level for local trainer Ricky Bruhn.
“But she was a bit of a headcase. I reckon Ricky would’ve trained her out of a paddock or yard, because she didn’t like being confined. At that broodmare sale, she never stopped walking in her box. She was entitled to make more than she did, but we liked the family so we took the punt.
“We bred her to Umatilla and got a whopping great filly named Inkster who I took her to Premier. I was a bit cheeky. I put a pretty reasonable reserve on her, but she didn’t sell.
“She did well as a racehorse, a good metro staying mare who won a St Leger, but she hasn’t been as good a broodmare as a racemare.”
With four winners from eight foals, Inkster retired from breeding in 2023, but the Campbells now have her final foal, a yearling filly by Kermadec (Teofilo).
In contrast to Inkster, Des Moines looks like being a better broodmare than racemare. The talent, and the staying power, appears to have skipped a generation to land on Benagil.
“We sent Inkster to War in his first season, and he did a beautiful job with the progeny. He tidied Inkster up and put a really nice quality mare on the ground in Des Moines,” Campbell says.
“There was plenty of her, but she was beautifully proportioned. She’s got a lovely big strong shoulder, her hindquarter is equally impressive, she’s got a quality head and a great length of rein. She’s an absolute stunner.
“I took her to Premier, too, and she was pretty popular. I was cheeky with her too, and set a pretty good reserve.
“With both Inkster and Des Moines I had my ears back. It was, ‘That’s the price, or they’re coming home’. They both ended up coming home.
“To be honest, we’ve always been sellers and we’ve had a good reputation for being sellers. It was something you had to do to get credibility. And we concentrated on Melbourne Premier. Everyone knew we took our best horses to Oaklands, and that they were priced fairly.
“But every now and then you breed a filly you think might be worth having on the racetrack and putting back into the broodmare band. Inkster and Des Moines fitted that bracket.”
Campbell didn’t bother taking Benagil to a sale. Instead, he and Patti race her with their partners and her co-breeders, Richard and Anne Byrnes and their son-in-law Tony Doyle.
Keeping the storylines entwining, she was prepared initially by Des Moines’s trainer Moroney and partner Glen Thompson, and – two months after Moroney’s death – became Thompson’s first solo Group 1 winner.
“Benagil has always been a stunning filly – a cracking first foal, a ten out of ten physical,” Campbell said. “I knew if I took her to a sale, I probably wasn’t going to get offered what I thought she was worth as an individual.
“Richard and Anne and Tony loved having racehorses, and we thought, ‘What the hell – we’ll keep her and give her a try’. And now we’ve got a Group 1 winner.
“To see the thrill Richard, Anne and Tony are getting is wonderful. I don’t think they ever expected it. Neither did Patti and I, to be honest.”
You can’t expect success in breeding, but Campbell hoped he was maximising his chances with the twinning of pedigrees that produced Benagil, rather than it merely being a case of supporting his own farm’s stallion.
The stats don’t lie. Manhattan Rain, rising 19 and now standing at Western Australia’s Geisel Park stud for $8,250, has had 19 stakes winners from 446 runners. Benagil has become his third Group 1 victor. That’s three more than a lot of stallions, and they include a Big Four heroine in Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner She Will Reign, but Benagil is his first elite success since her two in 2017.
Still, something clicked in Des Moines’s only visit to Manhattan Rain, and Campbell would put money on it being the duplication of the hugely influential broodmare Dancing Show (Nijinksy), whose second dam is one of the world’s finest blue hens, Best In Show (Traffic Judge).
Similar to Des Moines in winning just once in 12 starts, American import Dancing Show is close and strong in Benagil’s pedigree at 3f x 4m. She’s the dam of Manhattan Rain’s mother Shantha’s Choice (Canny Lad), and of Benagil’s second damsire Umatilla.
“I was very keen on the duplication of Dancing Show,” Campbell said. “If she’s not the most influential broodmare we’ve had in Australia, she’s bloody close to it.”
Dancing Show threw two Group 1 winners in Umatilla and Hurricane Sky (Star Watch), but her grandest contribution is Shantha’s Choice. While merely a “winner” who was metro placed, she threw five stakes winners from ten runners.
Three of them were successful at the top level – Manhattan Rain, Platinum Scissors (Danehill) and, best of all, the breed-shaping triple champion sire Redoute’s Choice (Danehill). A fourth was Group 1 placed in Echoes Of Heaven (Encosta De Lago).
Furthermore, the first four of Dancing Show’s six daughters produced stakes winners, with Show Dancing (Don’t Say Halo) throwing two including Group 1 hero and successful sire Al Maher (Danehill).
Interestingly, one of Manhattan Rain’s strongest nicks is with his half-brother, Redoute’s Choice, a cross bringing an up-close 2m x 3m duplication of Shantha’s Choice (and a 3f x 4f of Dancing Show). The cross has two stakes winners from 20 runners, and 11 winners. It’s best example is the triple stakes–winning mare Jamaican Rain.
The double Dancing Show was again seen in stark relief recently, with Marhoona (Snitzel) carrying a 4f x 4f duplication of the mare to Golden Slipper glory.
Campbell said he wasn’t fussed that Benagil’s Dancing Show duplication was gender balanced – just as long as it was there.
He achieved it again with Des Moines’s next throw, a 2023 filly Campbell is also keeping by a son of Redoute’s Choice in King’s Legacy. The filly has Dancing Show at 4f x 4m.
And Campbell has done it again, with Des Moines now in-foal to Rubick (Encosta De Lago), who has Shantha’s Choice as his second dam.
Elsewhere, Benagil’s pedigree is powered by a 5f x 5m of the great Mr Prospector (Raise A Native), and a 6m x 7m of influential American broodmare Lalun (Djeddah), through Bold Reason (Hail To Reason) and Never Bend (Nasrullah).
An imposing unit, at some 570 kilograms, Benagil is one out of the box in more than one respect. After putting Des Moines to Manhattan Rain for this first foal, Campbell and co kept racing her, for four more starts, up until she was around 100 days pregnant.
This brought two placings over 1200 metres at Caulfield, before two unplaced efforts at boosting her CV in Group 3 races.
“If you speak to a lot of the old timers,” Campbell says, “they’ll say if mares race pregnant, the foal will be smaller and a more ordinary type.
“Well, Benagil was an exception to that rule. From day one she was a cracker.”
Despite selling out from the full time breeding game, Campbell has been enjoying some of his finest years. Having waited so long for a Group 1 winner, he’s now co-bred two of them in seven weeks, with Return To Conquer (Snitzel) taking New Zealand’s Sistema Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
That colt fetched $1.3 million when sold from Blue Gum Farm’s draft at last year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast sale, to Te Akau’s David Ellis. Two months later, the Campbells topped the Premier sale when their Snitzel filly out of Jestajingle (Lonhro) was sold for $925,000 to Dean Hawthorne Bloodstock.
“Patti and I are really loving it at the moment,” said Campbell, 63. “We haven’t actually bought a home yet since selling the farm. We’ve enjoyed being here, there and everywhere. After having the same place and daily routine for 40 years, we’re enjoying a more nomadic lifestyle.
“We’ve still got the interest with racehorses and a couple of mares, but we’re really enjoying just being owners and letting someone else do the hard yards.”
Cheeky indeed.