‘I’m hoping it’ll be a brilliant season’
If the first week of the season is any guide, 2025-26 will be a big and busy one for Star Thoroughbreds.
Denise Martin’s enduring syndicating company began with a bang on Saturday by taking Melbourne’s first race of the new term, with promising three-year-old Crossbow (Better Than Ready) breaking through at start No.4 in a 1410-metre benchmark 70 at Flemington.
On Tuesday – weather permitting – Star’s undoubted flagbearer Aeliana (Castelvecchio) is due for her second barrier trial of a campaign set to kick off in the Winx Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) on August 23, and target the spring majors. The Caulfield Cup (Gr 1, 2400m), Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) and Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) are all on the table.
And later on Tuesday, Star and owners will watch their computers closely as their triple Group winning – and Group 1-placed – mare Olentia (Zoustar) goes under the hammer at the Magic Millions Virtual Sale, where she’ll likely top the auction for a seven-figure sum.
It’s a week that has all the hallmarks of the typical modus operandi for a syndicator that’s been celebrating regular and heady success, for inexpensive outlays, for more than three decades now – a pattern Martin has strong grounds to believe will continue this season.
“I’m hoping it’ll be a brilliant season,” she told ANZ News.
“The season just gone was a reasonably successful one for us, with Aeliana the major highlight.
“In the end, it wasn’t one of our top three or four years overall, but when you have horses like Crossbow, who you know are going to develop into talented horses, like Aeliana did in the latter part of last autumn, you realise that sometimes it’s worth the wait.
“And I’m sure we’ve got some really talented horses who’ve been worth the wait who’ll emerge in the coming few months.”
Crossbow, trained like all Star’s horses by Chris Waller, fits the syndicator’s pattern to a tee.
Bought for $160,000 at Magic Millions Gold Coast – by Star and their long-term associate Brett Howard’s Randwick Bloodstock – he debuted as a January two-year-old with a modest sixth at Rosehill, albeit in decent company in a race won by a more notable debutant in Wodeton (Wootton Bassett).
Returning in June after being gelded, he ran two close Sydney city seconds before being sent south for Saturday’s 1.25 length success.
“It was an eye-catching win with a progressive horse,” Martin said. “He looks to have a really decent future, so it was a lovely start for Chris to have his first Melbourne winner in the new season with one of our horses.
“Chris suggested maybe a race at Moonee Valley for him in a couple of weeks. If he was successful there, then maybe we’ll have loftier ambitions for him.
“When you’ve got young horses who are sensible and concentrate on the job at hand, it’s a big head start, especially over other younger horses.”
Crossbow started the new campaign on a high for Better Than Ready (More Than Ready), fresh from being crowned Queensland’s champion stallion for the third time, and in as many seasons.
Lyndhurst Stud’s 16-year-old had his finest season to date. He finished 13th on the Australian general sires’ table – the same as in 2023 and with the same amount of winners, at a personal best of 144. But he sired four stakes winners, one up on his previous high, and his progeny earnings just shaded 2023’s by $80,000.
Better Than Ready finished six spots above his old rival, Queensland’s four-time champion stallion Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo), on the general sires’ table, and ranked tenth in the nation for winners.
“He’s quite an underrated stallion, Better Than Ready,” Martin said. “He’s been champion sire in Queensland for some time now, and he produces good quality horses who are tough horses, who do a very good job on the track.”
Martin doubled down on Better Than Ready at the Gold Coast last January, paying $190,000 for a brother to another Star performer in Chrysaor, the Group 2 and Listed-winning five-year-old gelding who’s earned $1.2 million so far.
Star and Randwick Bloodstock paid $115,000 for Chrysaor at the same sale in 2022, again fitting neatly into budget.
They parted with $190,000 there for Espiona (Extreme Choice) in 2020, taking a punt on a first season-sire who’s turned into a phenomenon, and watched the filly blossom into a $3.3 million earning Group 1 winner. This time last year she was also sold via Magic Millions online, for $4.15 million.
Olentia was bought at the upper end of the Star budget, for $310,000 at the Gold Coast, before earning just less than $1 million, and with probably more than that awaiting in Tuesday’s sale.
Aeliana – who became a headliner of the autumn in slaying her male rivals with her 5.16-length victory in ATC Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) – fitted more into Star’s wheelhouse, costing $180,000 at Karaka in 2023. But Martin and Randwick Bloodstock went further at the same auction this year, paying $300,000 for her half-sister by Proisir.
“To win the Derby with Aeliana was clearly our highlight of last season,” Martin said.
“The sale of Espiona was also a wonderful result for her owners. She earned over $3 million on the track and sold for $4.15 million, so she was a $7.5 million earner off a $190,000 purchase price.
“We’re hoping to do similar things this week with Olentia. She’s by Zoustar, the new champion sire, and she has a wonderful pedigree and she’s a gorgeous looking mare.”
The future is seemingly unbounded for Aeliana.
She’s been in the vanguard of the powerful start to stud life of her sire Castelvecchio (Dundeel), who had the second-most stakes wins among Australia’s second season sires in 2024-25, with six to the ten of sophomore champion Too Darn Hot (Dubawi).
Martin had perhaps too vivid memories of Castelvecchio storming home to relegate Star’s Accession (Brazen Beau) to second in the $2m Inglis Millennium (RL, 1200m) of 2019.
But she was led to buy Aeliana mostly because she was out of a half-sister to another Star success story in Invincibella (I Am Invincible), the $185,000 Gold Coast yearling who earned $3 million and sold as a broodmare for $1.3 million.
“I received a call from Chris saying there was a relative to Invincibella on offer. I didn’t need much convincing,” Martin said.
“When Aeliana arrived, she was very immature. She didn’t look like a Group 1 winner in the making, but very often young horses don’t. But by the time she was late in her two-year-old season, we knew she was a filly who seemed to have a lovely future.
“Chris likes to allow the horses to mature. Had we tried Aeliana as a two-year-old, I don’t think we would’ve had anything like the success we’ve had with her now, as in, being able to perform at that level as a two-year-old.”
Held up to debut on the day she turned three, Aeliana won three of her first five starts capped by Randwick’s Reginald Allen Quality (Gr 3, 1400m) and, against male rivals, Flemington’s Carbine Club Stakes (Gr 3, 1600m).
She then ran in the Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m), where Martin’s worst fears about Sydney horses’ first look at the tricky Caulfield circuit were confirmed, Aeliana dropping out from a wide gate and pushing home for a gallant 0.4-length second.
In the autumn Aeliana ran a desperately close second to the outstanding Broadsiding (Too Darn Hot) in the Rosehill Guineas (Gr 1, 2000m), confirming another bout with the males in the Derby rather than the ATC Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m).
In so doing, she avoided a clash with Treasurethe Moment (Alabama Express), who would win her eighth straight race in the Oaks. But by the strength of Aeliana’s Derby romp – while Treasurethe Moment scrambled to a 0.39-length win in the Oaks – it’s a fair bet she’d have won either.
“Some of the ownership group may have felt it was quite a significant ask for a filly to compete with Group winning colts and geldings, but it was just a stunning performance,” Martin said.
Aeliana is in a 1000-metre Group-class trial at Randwick on Tuesday along with Australian Group 1 winners Lady Shenandoah (Snitzel) and Gringotts (Per Incanto), and with Yulong’s Canadian top-tier winning mare Full Count Felicia (War Front). She’s back after a one-start first Australian preparation when fourth in Rosehill’s Ranvet Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) behind the all-conquering Via Sistina (Fastnet Rock).
A high class Randwick trial program also features appearances from the unbeaten mare Autumn Glow (The Autumn Sun) and dual Group 1 winner Jimmysstar (Per Incanto) in heat three, Group 1 winners Via Sistina, Another Wil (Street Boss) and Fangirl (Sebring) in heat one.
Another trained by Waller, Via Sistina is also set to resume in the Winx Stakes.
“We’ll have a better understanding of where we’re at with Aeliana after that race. It looks like being a very high quality field,” Martin said. “But it does seem like we have an emerging high quality staying mare.
“Whether she goes to the Caulfield Cup this year, or the Cox Plate, we’re not sure. The Melbourne Cup is also on the radar. We’ll be guided by Chris, who is a master of working out the best plans.”
With Aeliana, Crossbow and three-year-old filly Chatterley (Snitzel), who’s Listed-placed among two starts, at the forefront of Star’s battalion of more than 50 horses Martin has high hopes for a strong 2025-26. There’s also 22 new two-year-olds bought at the yearling sales earlier this year, who Martin hopes will continue Star’s model of success.
“The horses you’re looking to buy are sometimes very difficult to buy. The stallion syndicates have become very prominent so the high-end colts are out of reach,” Martin said.
“But look at Aeliana, Espiona, Invincibella – all bought for under $200,000. You buy these horse knowing they mightn’t be by the most fashionable sires, or they might take a bit of time.
“We’re not in the market outlaying hundreds of thousands of dollars for our horses, but through more than 30 years of operation, we’ve got a great supporting group, who’ve been with us for a very long time, and our owners have owned horses like Sebring, Invincibella, Foxplay, Kiku, Espiona and Aeliana.
“When you have amongst your portfolio horses like that, you know you’re in the minority of owners winning at that level on a regular basis.
“It’s like any business, you need to work at it all the time and we do. But having so many people who’ve been with us for such a long time, and who respect what we do, like Brett Howard and Chris Waller, is really helpful.”