It's In The Blood

Taksu
At 84, Tony McGrath knows the value of patience, and how to wait for things. For three years the breeder and real estate businessman waited at his home town of Port Douglas, far north Queensland, for Covid to do its worst in more densely populated parts before boarding a plane again. Finally, he flew to... Read More
More from It's In The Blood

Holyfield
Breeding, as many shrewd judges say, may be mostly about the mares, but there are some serious heavyweight stallions in the ring when it comes to the pedigree of Holyfield. For obvious starters there’s I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), who took another major leap towards sealing his much-anticipated maiden general sires title when Holyfield won... Read More

Johnny Rocker
And now for Snitzel’s next trick: siring sires. In 2016, the year which began the great son of Redoute’s Choice’s (Danehill) four straight general sires’ titles, he also debuted as a sire of a stallion in the first season table. It was a humble start, with Salade ending the 2015-16 season in 31st spot, after... Read More

Blue-blooded winners galore
Several planets aligned to push a rare array of thoroughbred blue blood to the winning post in a number of major races last weekend, in a vote of confidence to those adages about putting the best to the best. There were too many to limit a review to just one, but a fair place to... Read More

Sheeza Belter
They do things big in Western Australia. A few years ago, south coast boutique breeder Craig Thompson bought a boat and named it after his wife – Rosemary. That sounds very lovely, but it’s the kind of boat – not that he’d want to try this – that wouldn’t fit into the MCG. Thompson, the... Read More

Extremely Lucky
Luck is extremely important quite often in the making of a thoroughbred, and veteran South Australian hobby breeder Brenton Parker has had his share of both kinds. In 2002, he and wife Liz bought a rising two-year-old out of a paddock who became Madame Flurry (Perugino). She wasn’t up to much on the track, winning... Read More