Features

Gonnadancealot 

When Gonnadancealot won the 1800m first race at Flemington last Saturday, it heralded the start of not just one but perhaps two exciting Australian careers – that of the two-year-old filly, and her sire Sir Prancealot.  The Irish-bred 11-year-old is a stallion who, in a way, may have slipped through some cracks on his way... Read More

Hong Kong connection fires Stanley Chin’s Macau Derby hopes

When a smart three-year-old with Hong Kong connections places top-four in an Australian classic, what follows is often exportation to the Pearl River environs and a targeted Derby campaign. That is exactly what prominent owner Simon Kwok did with his homebred Beauty Bolt (Redoute’s Choice), and yet, rather than take the conventional route to Sha... Read More

Money-balling the 2021 Spring Carnival and a likely Covid-hit Melbourne Cup

Moneyball is the entertaining 2011 movie based on the Oakland Athletics baseball team’s success in building a team of undervalued players based on data analysis. Baseball, like cricket, is very much data analysis and statistics driven. Much more so than horse-racing despite the vast array of factors assessed, consciously or subconsciously, every time we look... Read More

Second for Air Force Blue

New first season sire winners Air Force Blue (pictured) Coolmore’s Air Force Blue (War Front) landed a second winner from his one and only southern hemisphere crop as Forceful Matilda (2 f ex Matilda’s Dance by Danehill Dancer) recorded a two-and-a-half-length win at Toowoomba in the two- and three-year-old maiden over 1200 metres. The filly... Read More

Realities of rehoming

In the depths of winter, training, riding and managing any type of horse is challenging and expensive. In the thoroughbred world, the off season is a prime time for decisions to be made to either race on or breed. Some put the cue in the rack and truck loads of horses are offered on the... Read More

Libiamo

Written Tycoon filly Libiamo gave further proof to the strength of her female line in winning the first race at Caulfield last Saturday, an 1100-metre handicap for two-year-old fillies.  Libiamo was a $170,000 purchase at last year’s Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale by her trainer Grahame Begg. She is out of the Casino Prince mare... Read More