Cellarmaster (NZ)

From one of New Zealand breeding’s most storied families – the famed “Belle Line” – comes Cellarmaster (Bivouac), the brood’s latest stakes winner after taking Saturday’s Winx Guineas (Gr 3, 1600m).

His tail female line’s history reads like a weighty chapter of New Zealand breeding itself; at times told in sepia, with a dash of heartache, but always with touches of gold and some tales of astonishing glory.

Cellarmaster was bred by Marie Leicester, who’s 88, and still conducts her breeding affairs from her retirement village near Cambridge, which she says is a well-laid out place.

“I was watching Cellarmaster in my villa, and I was yelling at him all down the straight,” she tells It’s In The Blood of his thrilling late dive for victory. “It’s good here – we’re a bit spread out – so I can yell and scream at the TV as hard as I want to.”

Leicester, not to sound patronising, remains as sharp as a whip and full of zest for the caper. Breeding is the mental – sometimes infuriatingly mental – puzzle that helps keep her mind buzzing.

She spends a lot of time organising her seven broodmares – six of whom are of the Belle line – who are kept at Haunui Farm. As with Cellarmaster and his a younger half-brother by another Darley stallion in Anamoe (Street Boss), this often involves sending mares across the Tasman.

“It’s something that keeps the mind active, and I love every minute of it,” she says. “In fact, I sent a half-sister to Moet Belle (Cellarmaster’s dam) across to Anamoe on the plane on Monday night – My Annie Belle.”

Leicester, daughter of famed New Zealand breeders and Belle line founders James and Annie Sarten, still attends the races regularly and enjoys the odd small bet on one she’s bred – “three dollars the win and two dollars the place” – aside from that never-ending punt of putting mares to stallions.

Remembering the lengthy “Belle” chain that leads us to Cellarmaster is another favourite mental pastime. The story’s as old as she is, but she barely misses a beat.

Its beginning came with Belle Star, a daughter of an imported German stallion who was already a sixth generation New Zealand mare.

That trail had begun with the importation of an 1844 Australian called Emma, who’s simple name was outstripped by her deeds at stud in her new country, where she threw three stakes winners including two who claimed the CJC Derby Stakes, the modern New Zealand 2000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m).

Skip ahead almost a century and six Kiwi-bred mares, and we see Leicester’s father come into contact with the line via that 1926 throw Belle Star.

“Dad used to look after her on his farm for a butcher in New Plymouth,” Leicester says. “One day he said to Dad, ‘You’ve been looking after her for years – do you want to use her for a year?’”

James Sarten put her to the British-bred stallion Foxbridge (Foxlaw) in 1937, and … nothing happened. But after that miss he tried again the following year and the result was Belle Fox – Cellarmaster’s seventh dam.

“Belle Fox won five races, I think. It was during the War years, so things were pretty scarce,” Leicester says.

The mare indeed won five, from 18 starts, but achieved greater fame in the breeding barn. She only had five foals but one was the outstanding Supreme Court (Fair’s Fair), who won 16 races including the 1956 edition of what’s now the Group 1 Railway Stakes (1200m).

Belle Fox also threw Belle Rosa (Instinct), a stakes-placed city victor who threw the great 1960s mare Star Belle (Summertime), who won 12 stakes races. This included four modern Group 1s across both sides of the Tasman, and in the summer and autumn of 1966-67 she became the only filly to claim the “Great Northern” Triple Crown of the Guineas (Gr 2, 1600m), Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) and St Leger (Gr 2, 2800m).

“Mum and Dad spent the spring of 1967 in Melbourne, where Star Belle won the Liston, the Craiglee and the Turnbull,” said Leicester, who was busy at home with three small children at the time, but recalls the superb mare also placing in the Underwood (Gr 1, 1800m) and Memsie stakes (Gr 1, 1400m).

Belle Fox also left the city-winning Belle Time (Summertime), Cellarmaster’s sixth dam and one of the greatest progenitors among many in this line.

Belle Time threw four Group winners including two at the top level. One of those was 1970 drop Asgard (Hermes), who won six Australian principal races headed by what’s now the ATC Spring Champion Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m).

The other was Honey Belle (Better Honey), Cellarmaster’s fifth dam, a remarkable animal who won seven New Zealand black type events including what’s now the Thorndon Mile (Gr 1, 1600m) in 1970.

Honey Belle only threw two Listed placegetters among 11 foals, but was one of Leicester’s favourites. James Sarten left her to his daughter in his will when he died in 1981, and she lived out her days on the family farm, where Leicester’s husband Nelson conducted his Romney sheep-breeding and grazing business.

“Nelson bred the sheep and I bred the horses,” Leicester says of her husband, who died 12 years ago.

“Honey Belle lived on our farm, and she ruled the roost. All the farm dogs were scared to go into her paddock. If they did, she’d just kick them out.

“She was a real character. She lived until she was 32, and the night she died, I went out and I was sitting with her. She didn’t want me to touch her, but I had to be sitting beside her. If I went to go, she’d whinny, so I had to stay. She was an amazing horse.

“Then when we were digging her grave, all of the farm dogs sat around in the shape of a horse shoe – sat on their haunches and watched us bury her. It was amazing to see the respect they all had for her.”

Honey Belle’s contribution to Cellarmaster came through one of her Listed placegetters Imperial Belle (Sovereign Edition), who won three times in Melbourne. She threw only one Listed placegetter, but also 1987 filly Empress Belle (Sir Tristram), Cellarmaster’s third dam – and second dam of another Leicester-bred elite winner, Romanoff (Belardo).

“She was a bigger mare thanks to Sir Tristram,” Leicester says, “and she’s left that extra size in her progeny, and as a result put the size into Cellarmaster.”

Imperial Belle emulated her mother’s longevity, throwing four stakes horses from 16 foals. She bore Cellarmaster’s second dam Meleka Belle (Iffraaj) as her last foal at the grand old age of 22, which helps explain why an impressive 50 years is spanned by Cellarmaster’s first four dams.

The chain hit top gear again with Meleka Belle, who might have only won one of six starts but threw as her first foal the great Melody Belle (Commands). The 14-time elite winner and dual New Zealand Horse of the Year (among seven Champion or similar titles) was Leicester’s greatest product, and helped her to the Breeder of the Year award in her home country.

Meleka Belle – who won Broodmare of the Year – also threw Tutakaka (Tavistock), who won two Australian Listed races and ran sixth in the 2021 VRC Derby (Gr 1, 2500m).

And his year-older full sister was Moet Belle, Cellarmaster’s dam.

“I like the Tavistock breed, and they were doing very well at the time,” Leicester says. “Some friends of mine had a share in Tavistock, so I used their share for the mating, and then the horse (Moet Belle) had to go to the sales and I bought her back.”

Thanks to her star half-sister, Moet Belle cost a hefty $NZ300,000 at Karaka. Then came one of few regrets for Leicester.

“She got badly hurt in a stable accident when she slid over and got badly cut. She got better, but I should never had let her go to the races, because she wouldn’t go through the pain barrier again,” the veteran breeder says.

Moet Belle had only two, unplaced, starts before she was sent to the breeding barn, and she’s made a far better first of things there so far, with a stakes winner from her first foal in Cellarmaster.

Leicester is stumped for the first time in recalling this journey, on why she chose Darley freshman Bivouac for Moet Belle’s first mating. But she had enough confidence in him to shelve one of her old rules.

“I’d normally put old mares to new stallions and vice-versa. But I liked Bivouac’s performances, and I thought he could get the mare started nice and early, because of his two-year-old form,” says Leicester.

“And Cellarmaster was a lovely foal. I remember seeing him at a couple of days old, and he was a curious foal,” she says. “He’d come up to you, and he loved having his backside scratched. He’s just taken a bit of time, but he’s looking pretty good now, and hopefully he’ll have a big spring.”

There’s just a little dab of inbreeding in the gelding. Both his sirelines start with Northern Dancer (Nearctic), who’s at 5m, 5m x 5m. He accounts for 15.2 per cent of the blood while Danehill (Danzig), who’s doubled in Bivouac, has 15.6 per cent.

And American stallion Gone West (Mr. Prospector) is at 5m x 5m, as sire of Bivouac’s second damsire Elusive Quality, and as the grandsire of Maleka Belle’s father Ifraaj.

The mares underpinning things are Natalma (Native Dancer), who has 11 spots from generations six to nine, and Selene (Chaucer), who has nine in the eighth and ninth removes.

And the influential American mare Somethingroyal (Princequillo) is at 8m, 9m x 8m, 7m, doubled in Elusive Quality and Meleka Belle, via her two most famous sons Secretariat and Sir Gaylord each time.

Nearco (Pharos) takes the stallion honours with 16 spots, one more than his son Nasrullah and Native Dancer (Polynesian).

Overall, Leicester still pinches herself over the success of the Belle family, which can also count Anamoe as a member, since his fifth dam is Cellarmaster’s sixth one, Belle Time.

“My father said to me when I first kept asking him for a horse, ‘Look here my girl, you’ll have two things before anything – bills and disappointments’,” she says with a laugh.

“You do get disappointments, but I’ve had a lot of fun and I’ve enjoyed every moment.

“The Belle family has been one of the better ones in New Zealand, and I’m very proud of them all. It’s been a very good family for a very long time.”