’Can-do attitude towards Written Tycoon filly could pay off for Baystone

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Bill Carter-placed juvenile turns a full circle in return to Magic Millions after New Zealand stint

Certainlycan (Written Tycoon) arrived at the Gold Coast sales complex yesterday for the third time in three years, but this time around her value is likely to be significantly higher than what it was in 2021.

The two-year-old, a stakes placegetter at Doomben on Saturday, may be overshadowed by an array of other headline-making fillies and mares to go through the ring on day one of the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale, but she remains an intriguing prospect nonetheless.

The race fillies and mares session, which starts at midday tomorrow, has attracted the likes of Group 1 winners and sure-to-be seven-figure mares Snapdancer (Choisir), Forbidden Love (All Too Hard) and last-start Surround Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) winner Sunshine In Paris (Invader). 

Baystone Farm’s Dean Harvey, who is consigning 19 mares at this week’s sale, has been associated with Certainlycan since she first went through a sales ring and he and owner Shane Morrissy have been forced to be more patient than they originally intended with their trade filly.

A $250,000 Magic Millions weanling purchase by Harvey for Morrissy, the filly was passed in as a yearling eight months later, necessitating a plan B which involved her heading to New Zealand to be trained by Tony Pike.

Tomorrow, 16 months after the disappointment of being unable to sell the well-bred filly, Certainlycan goes back through the sales ring as a first-start Bill Carter Stakes (Listed, 1200m) placegetter.

That gallant performance occurred on Saturday at Doomben for Tony Gollan.

“She had four trials in New Zealand, winning her past three, and she only arrived in Australia last week, had one gallop going into the race and did it pretty tough. She was three wide the entire way and still got home quite hard for third,” Harvey said yesterday.

“She has arrived at the [sales complex] fit and well and she looks like she didn’t even race, so it is pretty exciting to see how we go with her.”

Bred by Sheriff Iskander, Certainlycan is out of the stakes-placed winner Lucky Can Be (Nadeem), herself a half-sister to Group 1 winner Ofcourseican (Mossman) and South African Grade 1 winner and top flight sire Gimmethegreenlight (More Than Ready). 

Despite Certainlycan’s desirable pedigree, Harvey can understand why she failed to attract as much interest as expected when she was a yearling.

“We bought her as a foal here for $250,000 and we reoffered her but she hadn’t quite grown enough, so we passed her in and sent her to New Zealand,” the Victorian-based vendor said. 

“She was always going to get traded at some stage, but the timing of the race [Bill Carter] and the sale meant we thought we’d have a crack at that race because we knew she had really good ability.

“She performed really well, so we were rapt.”

Meanwhile, imported mare Promise Of Success (Dansili), a winner of the Emancipation Stakes (Gr 2, 1500m), is closer to the end of her race career than Sunshine In Paris and Certainlycan but Rosemont Stud’s Ryan McEvoy believes there is still significant racecourse upside for her potential new owner.

The John O’Shea-trained seven-year-old, who was sourced by Hannah Wall and David Redvers with Rosemont Stud for 27,000gns from the 2020 Tattersalls December Mares Sale as a four-start maiden, has returned $1.4 million since being sent Down Under and she will given the chance to add to that haul in Saturday’s Kingsford-Smith Cup (Gr 1, 1300m) and in the Tattersalls Tiara (Gr 1, 1400m) three weeks’ later.

Her sire Dansili (Danehill) has had a phenomenal influence internationally as a broodmare sire, producing 119 individual stakes winners including Australian Group 1 winners Magic Wand (Galileo) and Arapaho (Lope De Vega).

“The exciting thing with Promise Of Success is that she’s as sound as a bell. She has never had a sick day in her life,” McEvoy said yesterday.

“She’s been targeted at the Tatts Tiara for a while now. She’ll be accepted for the Kingsford-Smith Group 1 weight for age on Saturday and I think the Tattersalls Tiara will set up perfectly for her after that.”

With Tweenhills’ Redvers, Wall and Rosemont Stud sharing in the ownership, McEvoy confirmed Promise Of Success would definitely be sold tomorrow as Lot 620.

“I think her best form is between six and seven furlongs and a trademark for a mare like her is her big, powerful turn of foot,” Rosemont’s general manager of bloodstock said. 

“She is a mare who Hannah Wall purchased in the UK with a view of being a mare who would come down here and be a mile to a mile and a quarter mare.

“When John O’Shea gave her her first gallop, he came to us and said, ‘I think she’s going to be one of the best 1200, 1400-metre mares in the country’. 

“It was a big statement after having her for a week and she proved that in the $2 million The Invitation [last year] where she beat Group 1 winners Forbidden Love, Espiona, Nimalee, She’s A Belter and a few others.

“She’s been a great story for everyone and I am looking forward to seeing how the market reacts to her on Tuesday.”

The Magic Millions Broodmare Sale will be preceded by a 15-lot stallion nomination charity auction in which proceeds will be donated to the family of late jockey Dean Holland and the National Jockeys Trust.

The nomination auction will start at 11.30am.