Diamond prepares for Golden Slipper tilt with an arsenal of six
G1G Racing and Breeding gang tackles $3.5 million two-year-old race with help of Harron and Field
Gary Diamond has shares in six horses who will line up in tomorrow’s second coming of the 2021 Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) at a rain-sodden Rosehill, but the Gold Coast-based owner can’t take any credit for his good fortune and nor does he want to.
Diamond does, however, give himself the best chance of receiving some “racing luck”, he says, by associating with successful industry people.
They are primarily agent James Harron and Newgate Farm’s Henry Field – the men responsible for Diamond’s Slipper runners – who have respectively sourced Kalashnikov (Capitalist), Glistening (Zoustar) and Captivant (Capitalist) as yearlings and Profiteer (Capitalist), Artorius (Flying Artie) and Stay Inside (Extreme Choice) early in their careers.
The Peter and Paul Snowden-trained Kalashnikov, a last-start Black Opal Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) winner, and the Richard and Michael Freedman-trained Glistening, the Reisling Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) winner, were both purchased by Harron as yearlings while the Newgate-China Horse Club syndicate has sale graduate Captivant in the race after finishing third in the Skyline Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m).
The other colts were purchased privately in recent months by Field and his partners. Diamond spreads his risk by taking small shares in horses – he has close to 60 two-year-olds under his G1G Racing and Breeding banner this season – with a range of trainers and partnerships.
He says: “If you can join up with them you are already halfway there because they have success for a reason and I sit back and do a lot listening.”
And the policy has already served Diamond well, having experienced success with Harron’s syndicate through the likes of Capitalist (Written Tycoon), last season’s dual Group 1-winning colt King’s Legacy (Redoute’s Choice) and others, while he also raced Group 1-winning colts such as Russian Revolution (Snitzel) with Field.
A familiar face at the Australian sales throughout the year, Diamond steadfastly maintains a hands-off approach when it comes to the selection and management of his horses, perhaps a rare trait for someone whose investment in the industry is far from modest.
“I love going around looking at the horses at the sales. That is my highlight of the year,” he said this week.
“I have been fortunate for the past few years to go around with James and I have done a little bit with Henry as well, but we stick to one golden rule.
“I will go around with people like them and other people who I respect, but I will only go around with them when they are having their first look at horses.
“Maybe sometimes second looks are OK, but when you start getting down to the third and the final looks I never go with them because I want to stay neutral.
“I want to stay independent and then no one can ever say that ‘Gary Diamond said that James Harron loved that yearling’.
“They can say it, but James knows it’s not true because I never know what they are going to bid on until they have bought it. We have stuck to that rule and we will never change.”
Kalashnikov was a $600,000 Magic Millions purchase, Captivant made $550,000 and filly Glistening fetched $260,000 at the Gold Coast.
Diamond had given assurances about his willingness to buy into the trio before they were purchased, but he was unaware of their identity until the hammer fell.
“If James or Henry bought a horse and their name is called, that is the first time I knew it was on their final list and it has got to stay that way because if someone asks if James likes this horse I don’t have to lie to them because I don’t know,” he says.
“Most people who know what a particular agent is going to buy and at what budget is because they only work with that agent, so therefore, they get that extra buzz coming into the ring because they are associated with them.
“I’m missing a little bit (of the sales ring experience) but I would still prefer to keep it that way rather than being caught in an awkward position where someone said, ‘Gary said something’.”
Given Diamond’s belief in Harron and Field, it was no surprise that he committed straight away when the opportunities arose to buy into the Newgate-led syndicates in Profiteer, Stay Inside and, more recently, Artorius after he won the Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
He will also have no qualms about digging into his pocket again to pay his share of the substantial “kickers” on the line if one of the three colts takes out tomorrow’s $3.5 million race.
“I think of it like this: yes, they might have been more than the unbelievably well-bred yearling with the perfect physique, but when you spend $2 million on a horse in the ring, you have no idea if it can or it can’t run,” he said.
“At least with these horses, on what Henry negotiated with kickers and things like that, you are buying into horses you know can run. The extra you pay for them, in my mind, was justified in the fact that they can run.
“You might be paying a bit more than the top yearlings sell for, but in 2019 look at Setanta – Merchant Navy’s brother. They are still hopeful with him, they haven’t given up, but look at what he cost ($2.3 million) when he wasn’t even broken in.
“His breeding was perfect, his conformation was perfect and Ciaron (Maher) loved the horse and that’s why you go in them, but then you get something like these (two-year-old colts).
“Henry has got speed-figure people to ascertain whether, all things being equal, if they stay sound, they are going to run in the Slipper based on what they have done to this point of time.”
He added: “For a few years now we have stuck to the same plan in that we are looking for the nice horses at a fair price. With Henry and James, because I have such faith in both of them, everything they buy, we go in.
“I know the criteria they go through, the work they put into it to find these early (running) horses and the time and effort they put in is second to none and that is why we are happy to go in each one that they purchase.”
Diamond also has Wild Ruler (Snitzel), a Newgate-China Horse Club-managed colt, running in The Galaxy (Gr 1, 1100m) at Rosehill tomorrow.