Blue Gum Farm open a new chapter at Classic
Victorian-based Blue Gum Farm are gearing up to sell their first draft of horses at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale and co-owner Sean Dingwall is looking forward to offering nine youngsters at the auction which gets underway in Sydney on Sunday.
Blue Gum was sold by Philip and Patti Campbell to Sean and his wife Cathy and Jason and Mel Stenning of Trilogy Racing in December 2022 and they will be hoping the decision to enter the Classic yearling market will pay dividends.
The farm consigned their first Magic Millions draft in 2023 and while their home auction, the Inglis Premier Sale, remains their main focus, Dingwall told ANZ Bloodstock News that the sheer yearling numbers meant they could present their own draft at Classic in 2025.
“We have more yearlings to deal with than Philip had and because of that we need to place them around in different sales. We also want to get an earlier use of the money and want to be able to get horses sold before we get to Melbourne where we have a full draft of horses,” he said.
“This year has been a particularly difficult year to get them in and Classic has always been a great sale when we’ve sold through other drafts at this sale.”
Their draft is made up of nine yearlings by nine different sires and is split in favour of fillies five to four.
The Classic sale comes hot off the heels of Magic Millions where Blue Gum sold ten yearlings for an aggregate of $1,760,000, results which were headed by a Blue Point (Shamardal) colt who was bought by Ciaron Maher Bloodstock and David Redvers for $400,000.
Dingwall said he feels they have brought the horses best suited to the Classic market, a sale which last year averaged $92,566 and recorded an aggregate of $56,280,000.
“It is a bit of a gut feeling – you try and place horses where they can get in and also where you feel they are best suited,” he explained.
“For us, we have bought a draft of horses where we feel they are reasonably well suited to his particular sale. We’ve also experimented with the yearlings we have bought here – we’ve got a couple of staying type fillies just to see how they go – it’s a bit of a suck and see in the first year.
“We have to play along with the game and see where we end up and we’re not to know in this market where we are going to end up.”
Blue Gum’s graduates from last year’s sales series have already begun to fire, with the farm having sold Return To Conquer (Snitzel) to David Ellis for $1.3 million at the Gold Coast. The Te Akau-raced son of Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) is unbeaten in both of his starts, having taken out the Challenge Stakes (Listed, 1100m) on debut in December and was most recently seen impressively landing the Colin Jillings 2YO Classic (Gr 3, 1200m) on February 1.
The farm also sold, under Dingwall’s former banner, Caithness Breeding, Bliss Bomb (Tassort), who has had two starts, finishing third in the first and was last seen getting off the mark in eye-catching fashion in an 1100-metre contest at Seymour on January 16.
Queen Of Clubs (Maurice) is another of their graduates and the Gary Portelli-trained filly finished eighth in the Gimcrack Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m) on debut, before finishing seventh at Rosehill. With Trilogy in the ownership, Dingwall revealed the filly is nearing a return and expects her to be quick out of the blocks.
“Our drafts last year across the sales, we’ve had three two-year-old runners including Return To Conquer, who is two from two in stakes races, Bliss Bomb who won on her second start and the third to run was a Maurice filly called Queen Of Clubs who has had two runs before Christmas and is about to come back and will win quickly,” said Dingwall.
“The horses are all standing up and coming out and winning. I can’t believe that we got a Maurice out of a Redoute’s Choice mare to the races for a Gimcrack. Clearly their bones and structure are very good and they’re standing up. We are thrilled with the start we have had this year with our two-year-olds.”
Among their Classic draft is a colt (Lot 175) by Darley’s shuttling sensation Too Darn Hot (Dubawi). The colt is out of New Zealand-bred mare Dragon’s Kiss (Divine Prophet) and hails from the same family as Group 1-winning duo Kidnapped (Viscount) and Hauraki (Reset).
“He is not a big horse and that might go against him in this market, but then again Too Darn Hots can be smaller types. He is a very correct horse who walks beautifully,” said Dingwall.
“He has a lovely style and quality to him, but whether his size plays a part in what he makes remains to be seen.”
In Australia, Too Darn Hot has sired 37 winners from 74 starters and they are spearheaded by six stakes winners including Godolphin’s star multiple Group 1-winning colt Broadsiding.
This year’s first season sires have been well received by the buying bench and none more so than Newgate Farm’s Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Stay Inside (Extreme Choice), whose 34 yearlings on the Gold Coast realised $295,147, while his best result was a Eureka Stud-consigned colt who was purchased by James Harron Bloodstock Colt Partnership and Tony Fung Colts for $1 million.
Blue Gum will offer a colt (Lot 263) by the stallion at the Classic sale. The youngster is the first foal out of Group 3-placed five time-winning mare Great News (Uncle Mo) – a mare Trilogy bought for $230,000 on Inglis Digital in September 2022.
Trained by Kim Waugh, Great News finished second in the Toy Show Quality (Gr 3, 1100m) and was also placed in the Tibbie Stakes (Gr 3, 1400m) and Mona Lisa Stakes (Listed, 1350m). The fact the mare raced so well in New South Wales was one of the main reasons Blue Gum decided to offer her first foal at Classic.
“He is a first foal, so he’s not an overly big horse, but he’s a very athletic horse out of a very good mare,” Dingwall said.
“He was a horse that we brought here because of the New South Wales influence with Great News being trained at Wyong and having raced so well in Sydney and Stay Inside was obviously a Golden Slipper winner, so we thought selling in Sydney was the best option.”
Stay Inside’s barnmate Brutal (O’Reilly) is also represented by a filly out of Alexana, a dual-winning British-bred mare by Al Kazeem (Dubawi), whose two victories came over 1m 3.5f and 1m4f respectively.
From the same family as Irish St Leger (Gr 1, 1m 6f) winner Duncan (Dalakhani) and Group 2-winning stayer Gregory (Golden Horn), the daughter of Al Kazeem was bought by Armando Duarte and Paul Moroney for 70,000gns at the Tattersalls December Mare Sale in 2019.
Blue Gum were delivered a brilliant result last year when Alexana’s Toronado (High Chaparral) yearling was purchased by SV Brown Racing for $420,000 at Premier and they are expecting another good result when the Brutal youngster goes through the ring as Lot 11 on Sunday.
“Her half-sister made $420,000 in Melbourne last year which was an unbelievable price for a Toronado filly,” Dingwall said. “We thought that the stallion [Brutal] had had more runners north in New South Wales and Queensland which is why we brought her up here. This filly is a really good type – she’s absolutely beautiful.”
Dingwall also has high hopes for the filly by Widden Stud resident Nicconi (Bianconi) and she will be offered as Lot 432. The youngster is out of six-time winner Miss Norway (Reward For Effort), a $100,000 purchase for Trilogy Racing on Inglis Digital in January 2023.
The mare was bought specifically for Blue Gum’s new stallion Sejardan (Sebring) carrying the Nicconi foal and with a Blue Point filly at foot that was sold to Lisa Latta for $80,000 at last year’s Premier sale.
“She is an outstanding type and is the right sort of horse for this sale,” said Dingwall. “She is out of a very fast, good racemare who was early.
“At the end of the day, Nicconi’s were selling well on the Gold Coast and this filly is just a queen and I would expect her to also sell quite well. We got $80,000 for the Blue Point filly at Premier who she had at foot and this filly was in her belly, so she has been well-mated.
“We bought her specifically to go to our own horse, but it would be great if this filly gives us a good earner. I said to someone the other day: ‘She is the female version of Nature Strip and looks enormous’.”