Femminile
The Dundeel daughters are fighting back.
And they have a leader, like an equine Boudica.
You could call her the chosen one, for when her breeder Simon Delzoppo came up with her name, he boldly took on the gods, the perceived wisdom, and even the yearling market realpolitik.
“On day one I said, ‘We’re going to be the ones who prove Dundeel fillies can run’,” Delzoppo, a Gold Coast-based IT entrepreneur, told It’s In The Blood.
The stats and the reputation surrounding daughters of the Arrowfield stallion were hurdles to overcome, which Delzoppo found when they took their filly to the sales. She was accepted into Inglis Easter, so she was a good sort, but she only fetched $150,000 – and that after concerted negotiations.
The breeder had to stay in – for 50 per cent, no less. Trainer Phillip Stokes and Rick Kennedy Bloodstock took the remaining half.
Delzoppo still had great faith.
“We could easily have kept 100 per cent of her and raced her,” said the 58-year-old ex-Victorian. “We knew how much of a type she was, and we believed she’d be able to run.”
OTI Racing came in and would supply her colours, but Delzoppo took the lead amid discussions with her team of owners about a name. This was another act deliberate and defiant, underscoring his belief in the type of horse he had.
“I wanted her to be called something very obviously feminine – to say Dundeel fillies can run,” he said.
She was named Femminile.
At Morphettville last Saturday she repaid the faith and fulfilled the prophecy, becoming her sire’s first female elite winner, beating that field’s boys and joining eight others on Dundeel’s Group 1 honour roll, by taking the South Australian Derby (Gr 1, 2500m).
Dundeel is well proven, and the talk around his fillies well known, including that they’re fizzy and take work, and not as good as his sons. The former contention, like many strands of accepted wisdom, has long begun to crumble under closer examination. The latter has been backed by statistics, but that’s beginning to change.
Arrowfield’s 15-year-old has had 25 male stakes winners and 11 female. What’s often overlooked is that 381 of his runners have been male, and only 296 female.
That does show that more boys have got to the track, for the gender of his foals is, naturally, a roughly even split.
And his stakes winners to runners ratio is still far greater for his males than females, at 6.58 percent to 3.72.
However, of Dundeel’s nine Australian black-type victors this season, six had been female.
“I understand why the perception is there,” said Delzoppo. “His colts got off to a great start. But the perception is changing.
“Dundeel fillies still aren’t the easiest to sell, and I’ve had a few now. But people are starting to appreciate them more now.”
Delzoppo – whose company Oz Registry, which he sold in 2015, is the main place to go if you want an Australian web domain – has been breeding for around a decade as Aralet P L, named for daughters Arabella and Scarlet.
It started when a hobby of racing horses with friends through Murwillumbah trainer Matt Dunn morphed into the breeding side, and Delzoppo was soon running it as a boutique business, building up to ten mares at one stage, and now down to seven.
Femminile came about through a Brisbane mare who also provided a flavour for the filly’s name in Femme Fireball (Pierro), who built a more than handy CV in the Brisbane area with trainer Rob Heathcote. She won seven out of 23, including two hat-tricks, the second one all at Doomben, and ran a Listed placing. Delzoppo’s pedigree consultant and bloodstock agent Neil Jenkinson was a fan.
“Neil had seen her racing a number of times, and she was a really good mare,” Delzoppo said. “She could weave her way through a field, or go around the outside and bolt home.
“When she retired, Neil and I went and saw her on the farm and were super impressed. She was beautiful, well-proportioned, and very strong. We’ve also always been a big advocate of Pierro and Lonhro bloodlines. We’ve got a number of mares of that lineage. So we bought her.”
Jenkinson pencilled her in for a first mating with Dundeel, then standing at $66,000 (all fees inc GST), before his current $88,000.
“It was a good physical match-up, it brought a double cross of Zabeel, which can work, but in terms of setting the mare up with a proven horse, for not crazy money, I thought he was a really good option – although I was probably not hoping to get a filly I couldn’t sell,” Jenkinson said with a laugh.
The mating effected a clean looking pedigree with a few sparkles, including three repeats of powerhouse sires early on.
There’s that gender-balanced double of Zabeel (Sir Tristram), at 3f x 5m. He’s Dundeel’s damsire and Femme Fireball’s fourth sire, through Zabeel-Octagonal-Lonhro-Pierro.
Nureyev (Northern Dancer) is well placed at 5f x 7f, 5m, as Zabeel’s damsire and through Femme Fireball’s second damsire, Peintre Celebre.
Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) comes at 3m x 5f, as Dundeel’s grandsire and Pierro’s second damsire.
And thus the super mare Special (Forli) is well sprinkled – since she’s Nureyev’s dam and Sadler’s Wells’s second dam – at 5f, 6m x 8m, 7f, 6m.
Femminile also strengthens some emerging trends regarding Dundeel, being out of a Pierro mare whose dam was by Fastnet Rock (Danehill).
When Dundeel and his son and Arrowfield barnmate Castelvecchio are crossed with daughters or granddaughters of Fastnet Rock, it’s produced two Group 1 winners from 67 runners, in Femminile and El Castello (Castelvecchio).
Plus there’s two other Group winners in Kingofwallstreet and Sunsets, both by Dundeel. With a neat bit of symmetry in consecutive years, both won Caulfield’s Norman Robinson Stakes (Gr 3, 2000m), while Sunsets then ran third in his VRC Derby (Gr 1, 2500m) and Kingofwallstreet came fourth in his.
A Listed winner in Adelaide in Cerberus (Dundeel) makes it five stakes winners from 67 at 7.46 per cent, while the stakes horses ratio is 11.9 per cent, including recent Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m) third-placegetter Polymnia (Dundeel). [With thanks to Arrowfield pedigrees consultant Peter Jenkins, of Velvet Equine, for the stats].
Duplicating Sadler’s Wells in matings with his grandson Dundeel is proving especially effective.
Femminile and Dunkel, both SA Derby winners, have it. So do Hope In Your Heart and Aquacade. Three of those four are Dundeel daughters, with Hope In Your Heart and Aquacade two whose Group 1 placings had made the wait for Femminile more exasperating.
Australian Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) winner Aeliana (Castelvecchio) also has a double of Sadler’s Wells.
Also, Dundeel over mares who are granddaughters of Lonhro (Octagonal), such as Femme Fireball, is running well, with two stakes winners from just six runners, now including a Group 1 victor in Femminile.
That filly was already a black-type winner before Saturday, taking last June’s Oaklands Stakes (Listed, 1400m), also at Morphettville, while also placing third in Caulfield’s Ethereal Stakes (Gr 3, 2000m) last October.
With both her wins, amid ten starts, coming in stakes races, it’s a healthy boost for residual value.
And Femminile’s owners are now cashing in, with the filly to be offered at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale at the Gold Coast on May 27. She will go through the ring as Lot 561.
She’s entered for the Queensland Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) four days after that – an extra carrot for her potential buyers.
“It’s a business decision,” said Delzoppo. “It was a hard decision to make, but it will put a bit of money back into our breeding business. Whoever buys her will be getting a filly who could win them a Derby four days later, or the Queensland Oaks after that.
“But if she doesn’t sell for whatever reason, we’ll keep racing her.”