Extreme Choice yearlings set to be hot property at 2022 sales
Fortunate breeders to cash in with limited number available by dual Group 1-winning sprinter
They’re like owning big, valuable nuggets of gold, the progeny of Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt), a sire whose offspring are as talented as they are rare.
For the breeders and owners fortunate enough to have at least one of just 29 third crop yearlings by the Newgate Farm stallion in their paddocks, they face the prospect of buyers fighting it out to purchase one of the scarce commodities.
After all, why not return where “gold” has been found before? It is an expedition which has already unearthed Golden Slipper-winning colt Stay Inside, Group 2 winner Tiger Of Malay and exciting filly Espiona among his six first crop stakes winners from just 25 runners at a phenomenal stakes winners to runners ratio of 24 per cent.
The Ferguson family’s Bell River Thoroughbreds, who bred and sold the dual Group 1-winning sprinter Extreme Choice, have the strongest hand by the sire when it comes to next year’s yearling sales, leading to them giving great consideration about when and where to offer them.
They have three homebred fillies by the champion first season sire as well as a colt they bought in conjunction with agent Bevan Smith as a weanling to pinhook by the fertility and libido-challenged Extreme Choice.
“I actually have eight plus a pregnancy, so I am pretty chuffed with myself, to be honest. We’ve got three yearlings and we also pinhooked a colt at the Gold Coast (who will be sold next year),” Bell River Thoroughbreds’ Andrew Ferguson said.
“I’ve got four foals, one of which is (out of Group 1 winner) Bel Mer and, because of the foal, she went back and is pregnant.
“It is pretty exciting going forward; it’s about managing it (well) now to sell them.”
A filly out of Heart Of Tier (Show A Heart) will be offered by Bell River at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale while daughters of Dashie Diva (Dash For Cash) and Good Looking Mare (Medaglia D’Oro) and the $220,000 weanling purchase, who is out of Murtle Turtle (Murtajill), will be held back for the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale in February.
The third foal out of winning mare Heart Of Tier, Ferguson’s yearling filly carries the same cross as Extreme Choice’s first crop Blue Sapphire Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) winner Extreme Warrior who started favourite in the Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
“The Heart Of Tier filly is probably the most forward and precocious and she is going to the Coast. Probably two thirds of our Classic team were accepted for the Coast, but we had a long discussion and we decided to take virtually everything else to the Classic,” Ferguson said.
“I think (Classic is) going from strength to strength and as James Harron said to me earlier this year when he was under bidder on an Invader and bought the other one, ‘this sale’s stats are so good I can’t ignore them any more’ and I think that’s what’s going to happen.
“There’s two Flying Arties, three Extreme Choices, two So You Thinks, it’s a hell of a team of horses.
“It has probably helped us a little bit by Karaka pushing themselves back a bit (to March), so you’ll have the Coast and have a bit of clean air before the Classic.”
The Bell River-owned Murtle Turtle colt was one of nine weanlings by Extreme Choice traded earlier this year with the most expensive of those the $650,000 Gilgai Farm-bred colt out of Snipzu (Snippetson) who was snapped up by Henry Field and the China Horse Club colts partnership.
The Snipzu colt is the only yearling by Extreme Choice on the farm and he will not be seen at the yearling sales, instead joining the Newgate-China Horse Club racing division, a cohort which also includes Stay Inside and Tiger Of Malay, colts who will join their sire on the Newgate Farm stallion roster as soon as next year.
“It is a tragedy that Extreme Choice can’t get more in foal, but having said that, we’ve sent nine mares to him (over five years) for eight pregnancies. If it’s the vet or just good luck, I don’t know, but he has been very good to us,” Ferguson said.
“It is just a shame because … they were talking about Espiona on the radio, and one of the commentators said that Dominic Beirne has only ever had one filly rate higher than what she did (in the Desirable Stakes at Flemington) in such a short period of time and that was Black Caviar.”
Ferguson also revealed this week that he had bought into Rosemont Stud-controlled stallion prospect Extreme Warrior prior to his Coolmore Stud stakes run and already connections have their sights set on the Oakleigh Plate (Gr 1, 1100m) next preparation.
“The opportunity came up for us to go into Extreme Warrior before the Coolmore and he had a little niggle. He loomed up to run a clear second and then laid in under pressure. It was a tad disappointing, but he has shown his ability and it’s exciting going forward with him,” he said.
“In my humble opinion, he is the pick of the colts on pedigree. He showed a lot of potential as a two-year-old but didn’t quite do it and there were some mitigating factors for that and he showed his true ability against Profiteer that day (in the Blue Sapphire Stakes).
“Trainers Mick Price and Mick Kent Jnr were genuinely shell shocked what he did that day.”
Bowness Stud’s John North is another to have successfully bred to Extreme Choice, sending him five mares in his first season, while he also supported him in years two and three.
His third crop comprises 13 colts and 16 fillies and North has one of each on his southern NSW farm, a colt bound for Magic Millions who is out of Exceed And Excel (Danehill) mare Egyptian Melody, herself a daughter of US Grade 2 winner Sherine (Precise End), and a filly out of six-time winner Corsa Rosa (Dubawi) who will be offered at the Classic sale.
“I don’t tend to have too much trouble getting mares in foal to him. I don’t know why everyone else does. I never had trouble getting mares in foal to Menari, Criterion or any of those horses that they seemed to have trouble with,” North said yesterday.
“I guess it’s just a case of getting a good fertile young mare and the timing. I think travelling also helps because we’re six hours away. The mares usually ovulate on the truck and I think all those things put together seem to work for us.”
A second crop Bowness-bred filly by the boom sire sold for $240,000 at the Magic Millions National Yearling Sale in June, five months after passing her in for $37,000 at the Gold Coast in January.
“That’s a $200,000 turnaround I guess on the back of the results of him siring the winner of the Slipper and those sorts of races,” North said.
“The colt out of Egyptian Melody is a bigger, stronger, more robust horse. He’s a nice horse. He’s not a weak, light-boned Extreme Choice. He’s got a bit more grunt about him.
“Hopefully we can get a result with this one, too. Probably the only regret I’ve got is that I didn’t send more mares to Extreme Choice. It is always easy in hindsight and we live to fight another day. We’ll look for the next one.”
Another Extreme Choice colt earmarked for Inglis Classic is the Neil and Denise Osborne-bred colt out of six-time winner To Dubawi Go (Dubawi), while a $70,000 filly out of Rowdy Belle (Bel Esprit) who was bought at the Inglis Great Southern Weanling Sale by Merricks Station’s Ben Cooper and agent Mathew Becker of Group 1 Bloodstock, will head to Inglis Premier.
Another heading to the Melbourne sale is Musk Creek’s pinhook colt out Wahini Miss (Ocean Park), herself a three-quarter sister to New Zealand Group 2 winner Sacred Park (Thorn Park). They paid $150,000 for him at the Great Southern Sale.
A number of breeders who bought mares in foal to Extreme Choice in 2020 are in for a big payday, with mares selling for as little as $7,000 online at the height of uncertainty due to the pandemic and prior to the stallion’s first crop juveniles setting the racetrack alight.
“Whoever has got stock by him, honestly, they are sitting pretty. They are in an ideal position because he is a horse who could eclipse every first season sire’s statistics,” Newgate Farm director of stallions Tony “Tubba” Williams said.
“For any stallion to have 30-odd foals and to be having six stakes winners so far out of his first crop, a Slipper winner and another filly (Espiona) who is potentially a Group 1 winner, as well as Extreme Warrior, who they believe is a proper horse and he could be a Group 1 winner as well.
“There’s not many stallions who get off to the start that this stallion has.”
Extreme Choice is restricted to shareholders and breeding right holders only and Williams, unfortunately, can not foresee that situation changing.
“His fertility might have improved marginally, but not by much,” he said.
“We are always going to be up against it. He’s going to be a frustrating horse because I can’t see that he will ever have a service fee attributed to him going forward.”