Campaldino
Take a look at the pedigree of Saturday’s Queen Elizabeth II Cup (Gr 3, 2400m) winner Campaldino (Ghibellines) and there’s one thing that strikes you: there’s a lot going on.
It’s a fair bet Darby Racing’s New Zealand-bred four-year-old has the most intricate pedigree of any Orange Cup (2100m) winner, the race that started what became his winning hat-trick on Saturday.
But if he can take Saturday week’s Brisbane Cup (Gr 2, 3200m), which could prove a testing ground for a far bigger two-miler at Flemington in November, he’d boast one of the juicier blend of bloodlines seen on that honour roll too.
If the Waterhouse-Bott trained gelding can win one or both of those, Christchurch mortgage brokers Ricky and Anna Rhodes would deservedly be two proud hobby breeders indeed. As it stands, the success so far of their first stakes winner is testament to some carefully considered breeding.
Ghibellines (Shamardal), the Darley-bred winner of the Todman Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) among eight starts, who stands for $7,000 at White Robe Lodge way down south outside of Dunedin, has had relatively modest success, with eight stakes winners from six crops racing, his top performer being Group 1 winner Smokin’ Romans.
But he was a most alluring sire for Ricky Rhodes after his purchase of Zuzana (Shocking). She was retired after two ordinary starts, but Rhodes was led to buy her privately as a three-year-old, soon after starting his breeding enterprise almost a decade ago.
For one thing, she was from a rich New Zealand family, stemming from her fourth dam Froth (Faux Tirage), a Group 1 winner and the mother of two stakes victors including another elite heroine in Laelia (Oncidium), Zuzana’s third dam.
“It’s a classic old family, but apart from that, Zuzana had had a problem with her back,” Rhodes tells It’s In The Blood. “That meant she couldn’t run properly, although her trainer said she’d stay all day, but I was very keen on the blood. I bought her off Gavelhouse for not very much, about $4,000 from memory.”
Rhodes, who has taken notes from veteran Waikato-based pedigree planner Ken Beer, decided Ghibellines was the most suitable sire. That’s how he came to breed Campaldino, and his older full-brother by two years, Zappolino.
And the main reason strikes you immediately, in a piece of bold in-breeding: they have full siblings in their third generation.
In the top half, there’s Helsinki (Machiavellian), dam of Ghibellines’ sire Shamardal (Giant’s Causeway). In the bottom is Helsinki’s full-brother Street Cry (Machiavellian), Zuzana’s grandsire.
Having two full siblings that recently might deter some breeders, but not Rhodes. And in this case, the stats make a compelling argument.
When mares by Street Cry are bred to Shamardal – putting Helsinki and Street Cry even closer in the second remove, it’s hatched three stakes winners from 19 starters, at 15.8 per cent.
“I’m not afraid of full siblings reasonably close up,” says Rhodes, 46. “I wouldn’t go closer than where they are now in Campaldino’s pedigree, though.”
Putting Helsinki and Street Cry together of course brings some repetitions of various stallions and mares behind them, and there are some handy ones.
At 4f x 4m in Campaldino’s ancestry is the siblings’ British dam Helen Street (Troy), an Irish Oaks (Gr 1, 1m 4f) heroine and designated Reine-de-Course mare.
At 5m x 5m there’s Machiavellian’s (Mr Prospector) US-bred dam Coup De Folie (Halo), a Group 1-placed dual black type winner and another Reine-de-Course, with five stakes victors by three different sires, from ten runners.
Those include three elite winners in Machiavellian and his full-sister Coup De Genie, and Exit To Nowhere (Irish River), while the other two – Hydro Calido (Nureyev) and Ocean Of Wisdom (Mr Prospector) were Group 1 placed.
Then there’s Coup De Folie’s dam Raise The Standard (Hoist The Flag) at 6f x 6f, another Reine-de-Course mare whose winners also include El Moxie (Conquistador Cielo), sire of four elite-level victors including Hong Kong hero Silent Witness.
Raise The Standard’s dam is of course the mighty Natalma (Native Dancer), who’s sprinkled lavishly through Campaldino’s pedigree with nine mentions, all in the seventh generation, five through her famed son Northern Dancer (Nearctic), and two via Danehill’s (Danzig) second dam Spring Adieu (Buckpasser).
Machiavellian’s duplication brings his breed-shaping sire Mr Prospector (Raise A Native) twice, but that becomes a triple – at 5m, 5m x 5m – since Mr Prospector is the third sire of Ghibellines’ dam Camarilla (Elusive Quality).
Rhodes also went where some fear to tread by doubling Danehill in this pedigree. He comes in at 4f x 4f, the dual-female blend being the second-best way statistically to double the great stallion, after gender-balanced.
He’s Ghibellines’ second damsire, via the outstanding Camarena, winner of three stakes races including one which was postponed on Saturday, the Queensland Derby (Gr 1, 2400m).
Danehill is also the damsire of Zuzana’s sire Shocking, via Maria Di Castiglia, one of the plainer mares in this pedigree in that she’s “only” left one stakes victor in her Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) and Australian Cup (Gr 1, 2000m)–winning son.
“The double-male Danehill I definitely wouldn’t do, but the double-female I’m obviously ok with,” Rhodes says.
“Ideally, I believe double-female would go best if you’re having a filly, considering the different patterns for colts and fillies, though I don’t see it as a negative for a colt. But with this particular mating I’d have been happy with a colt or a filly.
“There are other things there that are great for a colt.”
Rhodes lists those as a 6f x 6m of the great Roberto (Hail To Reason), coming into the damlines of Campaldino’s third sire Giant’s Causeway (Storm Cat) and of Shocking, a 6f x 5m of Sir Ivor (Sir Gaylord), a 7m x 6f of Silly Season (Tom Fool), and that gender-balanced blending of full-siblings Helsinki and Street Cry.
There’s even a little more reinforcement with a 7m, 7m, 8m x 7m of American blue hen Somethingroyal (Princequillo), another Reine-de-course mare, the first two via Secretariat (Bold Ruler) and the second pair via Sir Gaylord (Turn-To).
And Campaldino also carries an 8m, 7m x 7m of another superior US mare highlighted in this column recently in Flower Bowl (Alibhai).
Campaldino’s older full-brother Zappolino won an Ashburton maiden among 15 starts. Campaldino has won five, including a Group 3, and placed in four out of 13 runs, the first four of which came in New Zealand before his private purchase by Darby Racing.
What’s made the difference? Some might point to Zappolino being a first foal. Rhodes, who says he and his wife Anna not only work together but “spend our nights going through pedigrees”, applies more of a considered theory.
He points to Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance.
But of course.
Born in 1822, Austrian biologist and mathematician Gregor Mendel conducted hundreds of experiments to derive his laws. They weren’t on horses, but on peas. Near enough.
Put simply, the laws deal with how combinations of chromosomes are passed down, and they became the core of classical genetics.
Thankfully for us journos, Rhodes breaks it down as: “With chromosomes, you’ve got to do one mating four times. You’ll get one good one, one bad one, and the other two will be somewhere else on the scale.
“With the gene gods, you need to repeat the mating a few times to have a higher probability of expressing the dominant genes.”
Which is science-speak for the great old adage – if you believe in a mating, keep doing it till it works.
“Technically, you’ve got to get four to get one of the best, but you’ll get one of the worst in that bunch as well,” Rhodes says of the laws. “And breeding, and racing, is all about probability isn’t it? If you double down, or triple down, you’re a better chance of getting a result.”
This theory had some proof in the two brothers.
“Zappolino was nice enough as a young horse, but Campaldino grew out as a better type,” Rhodes says. “He just had a bit of extra strength and class, and was definitely a stronger type.”
Rhodes keeps his three mares at Highden Park, near Palmerston North on the North Island, and gives them a year off between matings.
“They do so well that way,” he explains. “They put everything into their foal, and they hold their age. Plus, you don’t accumulate too many horses around you. I also believe the best foals come in the first six or so foals anyway.”
After Campaldino, Rhodes didn’t pursue a third and fourth mating with Ghibellines for Zuzana, as Dr Mendel would have liked, but instead twice went to Cambridge Stud’s Hello Youmzain (Kodiac).
This still brought together Helsinki and Street Cry, since Hello Youmzain is out of a Shamardal mare. It’s produced Hyzane, a two-year-old gelding who’s had two barrier trials, and what Rhodes describes as a “cracking” weanling colt.
Zuzana may go back to Ghibellines, but this spring she’s booked to cross the Tasman and be served by Darley’s Pinatubo (Shamardal), which of course puts those siblings together again.
Like peas in a pod.