The blend of burgeoning Australian breed-shaper Fastnet Rock (Danehill) and American legend Storm Cat (Storm Bird) has produced another Group winner with Imperialist’s (Churchill) victory in Saturday’s Rough Habit Plate (Gr 3, 2000m) at Doomben. Bred by Gordon Cunningham of New Zealand’s Curraghmore Stud and Arkle Bloodstock’s Demi O’Byrne, the gelding was bought for $170,000... Read More

The Dundeel daughters are fighting back. And they have a leader, like an equine Boudica. You could call her the chosen one, for when her breeder Simon Delzoppo came up with her name, he boldly took on the gods, the perceived wisdom, and even the yearling market realpolitik. “On day one I said, ‘We’re going... Read More

It’s a good thing for Phil Campbell, and a few others, that he makes a plan and sticks to it. In 1999 Campbell and his father Graham, who founded Blue Gum Farm, paid $32,000 for a Listed-winning broodmare named Delgara (Delgado), and from her they bred a filly by Umatilla (Miswaki). In 2006, the filly... Read More

You think of the sons of Street Cry (Machiavellian) enjoying success at stud and you think Pride Of Dubai, Per Incanto, Street Boss and of course Hualalai. Whoa. Huala-who? He’s a ten-year-old, he’s had only 16 runners, and on Saturday he became Australia’s newest stakes-winning stallion when his first-crop five-year-old Volcanic Express swooshed home from... Read More

Gavin O’Dea is an accountant and small-time breeder from Hawera who at 77 and having been breeding for 40 years has seen a thing or two. But he hadn’t before seen the like of what happened at Trentham in March last year when a horse he bred, Sergeant Major (Proisir), contested the Sires Prelude 2YO... Read More