Connections hoping to hit the right note with Berkeley Square
Territories gelding in the hunt to make Group 1 breakthrough in open looking Caulfield Guineas
Hulking gelding Berkeley Square (Territories) might not do much for the stallion trade if he wins today’s Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) but he would give a timely boost to his owner-breeder, his small-time trainer, and his unfashionable sire.
On top of that, it would cap a remarkable rise for the imposing bay, who grew to his 17-hand dimensions despite a long and dire battle to cling to life before he turned one.
Berkeley Square’s owner-breeder is raced by 76-year-old South Australian David Peacock, who’ll likely have to watch the race from hospital in Adelaide, where he’s being treated for kidney failure.
He’s prepared at Ballarat by Dan O’Sullivan, a trainer taking on the bigger stables today with 27 horses in his books, and who still seeks his maiden Group 1 after 25 goes for three thirds.
And he’s by Territories, the Invincible Spirit (Green Desert) stallion brought here for five seasons by Darley in hope of tapping the fervour around his sire’s most famous son, I Am Invincible, but who left after covering 23 mares at $11,000 last season and hasn’t been invited back.
Berkeley Square is the second foal and second stakes-winner of the Peacock-O’Sullivan mare Bahamas (Teofilo), after her first offering Senor Toba (Toronado), a Group 3 winner in Sydney last year and Hong Kong this year.
And he was last night a close second favourite at around $4.60 as he seeks to bring Territories a first Australian Group winner – let alone Group 1 – and his second top-tier success worldwide, after outstanding French filly Rougir.
Heading the market is Godolphin’s James McDonald-ridden Golden Mile at around $3, a colt out to boost another lower-ranked $11,000 Darley sire in Astern (Medaglia D’Oro), and make up for the withdrawal of his other exciting son Aft Cabin after bleeding.
Berkeley Square, who jumps from gate seven under Craig Williams, has earnt his short quote through three wins from four starts. The latest was a breathtaking last-to-first in Flemington’s Exford Plate (Listed, 1400m) on September 10, where he dived through a narrow gap at the 75-metre mark to score by half a neck, with today’s third-favourite Tijuana (American Pharoah) third.
O’Sullivan has had Group 1 thirds with Cosmic Strike (Made Of Gold) in the 2002 Salinger Stakes (1200m) at Flemington, and in Morphettville’s Australasian Oaks (2000m) of 2015 and 2020 with the Peacock-bred pair Bahamas and her half-sister, from the Black Hawk (Nureyev) mare St Trinians, Affair To Remember (Toronado).
A former long-term assistant to John Sadler, O’Sullivan has only had three city starters this season, and Berkeley Square has been two of them. His numbers have been down partly due to the infamous staffing issues plaguing the industry – which he feels acutely amid the greater recent competition from more and bigger stables at Ballarat, but which he hopes will ease with more itinerant workers post-Covid this summer.
And O’Sullivan feels he hasn’t had a greater hope for that potentially life-changing success at the top level than today.
“I’ve thought I’ve had some good chances before,” he told ANZ Bloodstock News. “But realistically, this is the best chance I’ve had.
“It would be terrific to win one. This is what we strive for – good prize–money in races like this.”
It’s been a long battle to arrive at today’s grand stage. Bahamas had a rocky start, refusing to eat in the environs of a city stable when with Phillip Stokes in Adelaide, before enjoying O’Sullivan’s roomy paddocks at Ballarat. Even then her career was truncated by a pastern injury after just seven starts – for one win and three stakes placings.
And soon after Berkeley Square was born, it didn’t look like he would live, let alone become near-favourite for a Caulfield Guineas.
“Poor bugger,” recalls Peacock. “He was born, and within a few days he got the strangles. We got him treated, then sent him home with mum, but he just didn’t come good.
“We sent him to Mill Park, and the Watson family had him there, but month-in and month-out, he suffered from chronic diarrhoea. He just couldn’t put on weight, and he was just skin and bone for many, many months. A couple of times I thought he’d have to be euthanised, but then all of a sudden, Chris Watson said he came good.
“There wasn’t any miracle cure about it. I just think it was sheer guts, something in-built in him. And now he’s grown into this lovely, big-sized horse. But he’s very gentle, a real kids’ horse.”
As he quite dramatically grew, the next step – before breaking in – was the procedure that could render the Guineas’ “stallion-maker” tag a little hollow today.
“He was a 17-hand horse. He wasn’t nasty, but at that size he was going to get far too big to be sold if he was left a colt, and most likely no good as a racehorse,” O’Sullivan said.
Peacock, a lawyer who’s kept up to ten mares at his Shady Grove Lodge stud and bred the likes of 2013 Australasian Oaks winner Maybe Discreet (Shamardal), had chosen to send Bahamas to Territories for more than just the I Am Invincible link.
He wasn’t averse to new Darley stallions, having bred Bahamas in 2010 from an unsung second-season sire of theirs named Teofilo (Galileo).
“Territories was a bit of a funny choice I know,” Peacock told us from hospital. “Yes, he is by Invincible Spirit, but also he won a very prestigious Group 1 in France [Chantilly’s Prix Jean Prat], and I thought, ‘There’s got to be something here with this horse’.
“He was unknown, but I’ve got a great personal friend at Darley in Alastair Pulford, and he said he was worth a shot. We’d gone to all the good stallions. We just wanted a left-field choice, so we took him and it’s turned out alright.”
Peacock’s a major music fan, hence Affair To Remember, and Bahamas fourth foal, a smart-looking two-year-old filly with O’Sullivan called Another You (Frosted), who he named for recently departed Seekers’ singer Judith Durham.
“Many years ago I took our mother to London for the last time ever,” Peacock says, “and I took her to a little square in Mayfair I knew, and showed her the sign – ‘Berkeley Square’. So she and I sat there and sang Vera Lynne’s version of A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square.
“So It’s nice to have a horse who looks pretty good with this name. I’ve never had a runner in the Guineas before, so it’d be a big thrill. I’ll make a fair bit of noise to be let out of hospital so I can watch the race.”
Territories won’t be the only former shuttler hoping to notch a first Australian Group 1 success in the Guineas, with American Pharoah’s (Pioneerof The Nile) flag flown by the Eureka Stud-bred Tijuana, the Team Hayes colt who took the Stutt Stakes (Gr 2, 1600m) last start. US Triple Crown-winning American Pharoah did not return to Coolmore this year after five shuttle seasons, and has 44 winners from 105 runners in Australia, including three stakes winners.
Two other, surging, sires have strong chances, with Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) runner Meridius at $19, and Bank Maur, potentially the latest star from the Maurice (Screen Hero) production line, at around $20.
Still, stats have framed this as a Guineas which may hatch a hero rather than already be bulging with them, with Golden Mile the highest-rated at 88.
Since 2004, only five winners have been rated lower than 88 – Long John (Street Cry), Divine Prophet (Choisir), Weekend Hussler (Hussonet), Super Seth (Dundeel) and Mighty Boss (Not A Single Doubt), who won at $101 in 2017 with just a maiden to his name. His trainer Mick Price is hoping for a similar trick today – though at a far shorter $14 – with Amenable (Lonhro), who won a Sandown two-year-old open handicap on debut in March, and comes in off a third to Aft Cabin and Meridius in the Guineas Prelude (Gr 3, 1400m).