Boom crop living up to billing after second juvenile stakes winner of season
Eureka’s headline stallion delivering with fifth crop upgrades as stud look to launch first yearlings by Encryption
Heading into last year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, Spirit Of Boom’s (Sequalo) current two-year-old crop were labelled the sire’s ‘best bred Booms’, and it’s a moniker that appears to be justifying itself on the racetrack at this early pre-Christmas stage.
The Eureka Stud stallion became the first sire this season to land a second individual two-year-old stakes winner, when the Proven Thoroughbreds-owned Palazzo Spirit put in a dominant performance in Saturday’s Phelan Ready Stakes (Listed, 1000m) at Eagle Farm, which added to the victory of the Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr-trained Get In The Spirit in the campaign’s opening two-year-old black-type race, the Maribyrnong Trial Stakes (Listed, 1000m).
He is also leading the way in terms of two-year-old winners this campaign on four, with Champagne Tastes, who is from the revered Redoute’s Choice (Danehill) family being a granddaughter of Monsoon Wedding (Danehill), a brother to the great champion sire, and Command Approved, who is out of the Blue Diamond Prelude (f) (Gr 2, 1100m) third Flamboyant Lass (Stratum), also among his winners.
Palazzo Spirit, an $80,000 buy for Jamie Walter’s Proven Thoroughbreds and trainers Steven O’Dea and Matthew Hoysted from last year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, is out of dual Listed winner Palazzo Pubblico (Conatus), one of a notable increase of black-type mares in his fifth crop of 149 live foals – Spirit Of Boom’s largest to date, and first conceived at a career-high fee of $55,000 (inc GST), introduced after his first two-year-olds hit the track.
After a spectacular opening crop that yielded five stakes victors among 18 individual winners, including the winners of both the Phelan Ready Stakes and Calaway Gal Stakes (Listed, 1000m) from 2017 courtesy of Ef Troop and Outback Barbie, Spirit Of Boom is on track to chase down those figures with this his most potently bred crop since.
“We’ve eagerly awaited this crop of his better-bred progeny to race,” said Eureka’s stallions nominations manager Harry McAlpine. “The stallion had obviously done a phenomenal job covering mares off a $10,000 fee, which featured 9.3 per cent stakes winners to runners in his first crop, which is pretty amazing.
“He probably hasn’t shown that brilliance with his two-year-olds since that first crop, which would have been his best-bred crop prior to these upcoming ones.
“Now he’s got all these really well bred crops coming through and he’s delivering on it pretty quickly, by the looks of things.”
His yearling crop set for auction at next year’s sales, although being conceived off a reduced fee of $44,000, will again offer several highlights.
Those offered among January’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale include a half-sister to three-time Listed winner Isotope (Deep Field), as well as a half-brother to Pippie (Written Tycoon) and a sister Outback Barbie, while the first foal out of Meow (More Than Ready) is closely related to the aforementioned, being a three-quarter sister to the four-time stakes winner.
“If he gets them, he converts them,” said McAlpine. “Pure Purrfection was probably the best mare he covered in his first crop and she was a stakes-winning mare that produced Outback Barbie.
“Of his other stakes-winning mares he covered he’s produced Simply Fly, who was second in a Listed race on the weekend, so he can upgrade a mare if he gets a well performed mare to start with.
“That’s continued all the way through since his fee increase. There’s a very high-quality line up of Spirit Of Booms to be sold at next month’s sale.”
Eureka, who at the feature Magic Millions yearling sale earlier this year sold 21 yearlings for up to $500,000 – that top lot being the Spirit Of Boom colt out of the stakes-winning Tiyatrolani (Captain Sonador), who’s yearling filly by Spirit Of Boom is consigned for January’s sale – will next month present a draft of 23 yearlings, which will include five of the 13 lots from the first crop of the stoutly-bred Encryption.
The son of Lonhro (Octagonal), who has stood his first three seasons at a fee of $13,200 (inc GST), is out of Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Guelph (Exceed And Excel).
“We stand a stallion up here for the QTIS scheme and the racing that’s available for them, so we need to target stallions that have that precocity to be able to get up pre-Christmas, which he certainly was, he was placed in two of those pre-Christmas Melbourne Group races and trained on, so he certainly fits the profile,” said McAlpine.
“He’s a pretty spectacular horse with a pretty spectacular pedigree and we’ve thrown a lot of our support behind him, as we did with Spirit Of Boom to try and make him.”
From a first crop of 88 live foals, among those consigned for the Magic Millions sale is a three-quarter brother to Listed winner Peacock (Lonhro), with dam Iridescente (Commands) a half-sister to Hong Kong Sprint (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Absolute Champion (Marauding), and South African elite-level winner Wylie Hall (Redoute’s Choice), while under his third dam appears Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m) winner Anamato (Redoute’s Choice), dam of Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Anamoe (Street Boss).
Also within Eureka’s draft is a half-brother to the stakes-placed Cochrane (Spirit Of Boom) and the Tony Gollan-trained up-and-coming Listed-winning filly Miami Fleiss (Spirit Of Boom), while the Twin Hills Stud draft possesses a three-quarter brother to WA Group 3 winner Eight Till Late (Lonhro) and Gleeson Thoroughbred Connections will sell a filly by Encryption out of Belief (Reset) that features a star-studded page, bred 3×3 to high-class Group 1-placed two-year-old Shadea (Straight Strike), who is the dam of Group 1 winners Lonhro and Niello (Octagonal).
“He’s got a half to Miami Fleiss and to Peacock in there with that big family, and they all look like runners,” McAlpine added.
“We’re spreading a few out around the country as well. There’s the half (brother) to Finance Tycoon and the half (brother) to Beat The Clock both heading down to Melbourne, so we’ll give them the same opportunity that Spirit Of Boom got.”