Frankel filly Steinem’s chance at Group 3 success 11 years in the making
Dance’s Royal Ascot trip the catalyst for breeding Maher and Eustace’s Auraria Stakes favourite
Saturday’s Auraria Stakes (Gr 3, 1800m) in Adelaide wouldn’t immediately become front of mind for most racing fans given the Group 1 extravaganza in Sydney and significant prize-money up for grabs around Australia and New Zealand, but the race still commands great interest.
A key lead-up to the Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m) at Morphettville a fortnight later, the race has attracted a capacity field of promising middle-distance fillies, the majority of which are Victorian-trained, including the unbeaten daughter of Frankel (Galileo) Steinem.
The prospect of a Group 3 victory – and a “major” two weeks later – is the result of breeder and co-owner Darren Dance’s long-term investment in breeding mares to elite international stallions to southern hemisphere time.
Steinem, a $400,000 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale purchase by co-trainer Ciaron Maher in 2019, is the second foal and first bred by Dance out of European mare Thai Noon (Dansili), a private purchase from Sara Cumani negotiated by UK agent Johnny McKeever.
“It all started the day I was at Royal Ascot (in 2012) when Frankel won and Black Caviar won in the same week,” Dance recalled yesterday.
“I saw Frankel in the mounting enclosure and I couldn’t believe what a strong, outstanding specimen he was and then I watched him win by nine or ten lengths, I couldn’t believe it and I thought ‘when he goes to stud I’d love to send a mare to him’ and that is how the whole thing started.
“I just have this theory about breeding our own internationals rather than buying them for top dollar all the time and that’s kind of how I got started on the international breeding programme.”
Five years since Steinem was conceived and the filly is on the verge of valuable black type success, a reward for Dance’s foresight and patience, having scored impressively at Pakenham on March 18 and backed it up with another win at Sandown 13 days’ later.
Jye McNeil, who rode Steinem at her first two starts, will travel to Adelaide to ride the filly who has drawn barrier 20 (16 after emergencies).
“She will go back, Jye McNeil knows her. Ciaron said she’s improved and if she runs to her last start, you’d expect her to be right there, but it’s a funny game – anything can happen,” he said.
“To be honest, you’d rather draw wide than barrier one with a filly who gets back and ends up four back the fence and gets cluttered up. From a wide gate, he can sit three-wide with cover if he wants to and peel out when he wants to.”
Dance, who now has a number of international mares in foal to the likes of Frankel, Camelot (Montjeu) and Night Of Thunder (Dubawi), deliberately kept Thai Noon in the UK for two years and again mated her with Frankel at Juddmonte Farm in 2017.
“Thai Noon stayed at New England Stud, got in foal to Frankel and then she had the filly and we put her back in foal to Frankel (in 2018) and when she was pregnant we brought the whole package home,” he said.
“I do that with all my mares because of … the cost of bringing them into Australia. With the amount of money you are investing, if you can leverage the asset by two offspring, it makes economic sense.
“Whereas, if you just get a mare in foal and bring her home, you’ve got all your eggs in one basket. If you don’t get a foal you can’t really get a free return.
“If the mare is good enough to go once, she is good enough to go twice.”
Steinem’s two-year-old brother Serlik, who made $500,000 at last year’s virtual Easter Round 1 sale, is in training at Ballarat with Michelle Payne and he too appears to have ability, having won a Cranbourne barrier trial on March 9.
“He was really strong and looked a bit earlier than the filly,” Dance said.
“He won the trial well and the horse that ran second (Crystal Bound) came out and won at the Valley pretty well by six lengths, so the form’s there but I am just not sure where Michelle is up to with him.”
Thai Noon has a late November-born Pierro (Lonhro) filly and, as a result, she was not covered in 2020.
“I know she’s an end of November foal but the Pierro filly is a bold type and Thai Noon’s a big mare, so she has good size foals,” he said.
“There’s a lot riding on what happens in the next month with Steinem. It determines where the Pierro will be sold and it determines what stallion the mare will go to later in the year.”
But for now, Dance’s focus is on this weekend where he also has shares in Raise The Colours (Raise The Flag), a Paul Preusker-trained filly who also runs in the Auraria Stakes, Sydney Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) runner Southern France (Galileo), The Showdown (1200m) contender Literary Magnate (Written Tycoon) and Capriccio (I Am Invincible).
The Dan Bowman-trained Capriccio, a three-year-old who is accepted for the Redelva Stakes (Listed, 1100m) at Morphettville and the $150,000 VOBIS Gold Dash (1100m) at Caulfield on Saturday, was also bred by Dance.
He sold her to the Warrnambool trainer for $300,000 at the 2019 Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale.
“To have fillies that you’ve bred contesting big races and fillies you’ve bought into running in big races, it’s why we’re in the business and it’s why owners are with us because that’s their dream,” he said.
“They want to run in these big races and that’s where they want to be. That’s the bottom line.
“We have got all our big guns in on Saturday, so it will either be boom or bust.”