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Rogers proud of his golden run with Roll The Dice
Paul Symes
ANZ News
As the man who first identified the Guest House’s (Home Affairs) vast potential, Jeremy Rogers drew immense satisfaction from the colt’s Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) weekend success but the bloodstock agent is not resting on his laurels as he begins the exhaustive search for his next star at Inglis’ Riverside Stables sales complex this week.
Rogers has formed a formidable partnership with the Roll The Dice Racing syndicate by converting modestly priced yearlings into equine excellence, with Guest House the latest in a long line of astute purchases which also include fellow stakes winner turned Newgate stallion Profiteer (Capitalist) and Group 1 heroine Krone (Eurozone), who were acquired for a combined $285,000.
While the $270,000 Rogers, Roll The Dice and Mick Price Racing paid to secure their Slipper hero could not reasonably be categorised as a bargain basement buy, it is unlikely that fee will be enough to secure any of the seven Home Affairs (I Am Invincible) colts on offer at the Inglis Easter Sale, which gets underway on Sunday morning.
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That won’t stop Rogers from at least trying to source the next Guest House, who is already the subject of a heavyweight tug-of-war with many seasoned observers putting his valuation as a stallion north of $25 million.
Given that he doesn’t own even a meagre share in Australia’s most exciting two-year-old, those sort of head-spinning figures are fairly academic to Rogers but his ability to source a savvy purchase certainly won’t harm his efforts to expand his existing client base.
The 50-year-old, who mixes his bloodstock business with his day job as Archie Alexander’s racing manager, had pegged Lot 402 at last year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale as a $350,000 colt, so to secure him for $80,000 less than that was bordering on daylight robbery.
“I loved him from the very first time I saw him, I looked at him another three or four times and he just came out and did his job, so he was a real professional,” Rogers told ANZ News.
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“He was a big strong colt with a beautiful action and a great brain, so I put two stars next to him in the catalogue. A good friend of mine, Guy Woods, was parading him for Newgate and he kept telling me what an amazing temperament he had. He really impressed me but I didn’t think we’d have enough money for him, to be honest.
“Home Affairs had such a big boom on him and the colt was out of a stakes-placed mare, so I thought there was no way in the world he would sell for under $300,000. We started bidding more in hope than expectation, so we were very lucky to get him for what I thought was a very fair price.”
Despite not investing any of his own hard-earned cash in the colt, Rogers was still kept abreast of the youngster’s progress and the early reports were nothing short of glowing.
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Given that co-trainer Mick Price is renowned for his forthrightness – any owner with a horse in his care becomes accustomed to his straight-talking very quickly – the fact that the experienced horseman had nothing but praise for his young charge was perhaps prescient.
And so it proved, as Guest House shed his maiden status at the first time of asking and, following back-to-back placings in both the Blue Diamond Prelude (Gr 3, 1100m) and Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), he announced himself as the country’s best juvenile with an exhibition of unbridled power in last Saturday’s $5 million feature.
“All along Mick [Price] has really talked this colt up, he calls a spade a spade so you always know where you stand with him but you could tell he had such a big opinion of the horse,” said Rogers.
“Even though [stablemate] Big Sky was the favourite for the Blue Diamond before he was withdrawn, Mick said that if he could only keep one of the two, he’d choose Guest House every day of the week. So that gave everyone a fair bit of confidence and even though he didn’t win the Blue Diamond, he still ran very well and all the results heading into the Slipper suggested that the form would hold up.
“But I still didn’t expect him to win like that and it hasn’t really sunk in just yet, to be honest. The neighbours must’ve wondered what was happening when I was watching the race on the TV, there was that much screaming and some fairly colourful language. It all seemed so surreal, you dream of winning a Golden Slipper with a horse you’ve bought but you don’t expect those dreams to come true.”
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Aware that with great success comes even greater expectation, Rogers is now tasked with buying another winning lottery ticket at this week’s Inglis Easter extravaganza at Warwick Farm.
With more than 450 lots to get through, inspections are a test of endurance as well as expertise but Rogers is nothing if not dedicated. After running the rule over Arrowfield’s draft first thing on Tuesday morning, he polished off a steak sandwich lunch in double quick time before continuing a process which should be close to completion by mid-afternoon on Thursday.
At that point, he will present his long list to Rob Norton, Leigh Saville and Steve Travaglia, the triumvirate of powerbrokers at Roll The Dice whose budget may have expanded following Saturday’s $2.95 million bonanza.
In fairness, the trio will need to open the shoulders – and wallet – if they are to leave the Riverside complex with any of the 14 Home Affairs progeny up for action.
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“The stallion has been very good to me so far, so we’ll definitely be in the market from some of his stock but I would say they will be pretty expensive now,” Rogers told ANZ News.
“I haven’t caught up properly with the Roll The Dice Racing team because I think they’ve been out celebrating the last few days, so I’m not sure if their budget has gone up but we’ll go through what they can and can’t afford later in the week.
“We’ve built a great association, I’ve been working for them since 2017 but I suppose our success really started with Profiteer. Back then their budget was probably around $30,000 to $40,000 for a yearling, so they’ve come a long way since. They still don’t have really big money to spend because they want to get good value for money for their clients, but I think they made a conscious decision to buy some better-bred horses in recent years, and they’ve definitely been well rewarded for it.
“I remember driving to the Classic Sale in Sydney in 2020, I was talking to Steve on the phone and when I mentioned I really liked a Written Tycoon colt, he said I should bid on him even though I had him priced around $200,000. I nearly drove off the road, because I didn’t think they’d be in the market for a horse at that price.
“As it turns out we were the underbidders to Greg Hickmott on that colt, but the next day we did pick up a lovely Capitalist colt for $165,000, and he turned out to be Profiteer. The Written Tycoon didn’t turn out to be much good, whereas Profiteer ended up winning over $1.5 million in prize-money. Every time I see Greg I tell him I owe him a beer, I don’t think I’ve bought it for him but maybe I’ll do it this week.”
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