Litzdeel
Did we see two Melbourne Cup winners on Tuesday?
And will we see two Melbourne Cup winners out of the one dam?
At 3.00pm most of the nation stopped what it was doing to watch Half Yours (St Jean) become the latest hero of this country’s greatest race.
But a little bit earlier, racegoers might well have been watching next year’s winner, as four-year-old mare Litzdeel (Dundeel) took the Australian Heritage Cup (2800m) like an extra 400 metres wouldn’t bother her at all.
Packing a wonderful-looking pedigree, the Danny O’Brien trained four-year-old gives the impression she’ll stay all day. You’d expect her to, sharing a mother with Vow And Declare (Declaration Of Way), who won the Cup “for Australia” – and O’Brien – in 2019.
On that note, for the supposed dearth of Australian-bred stayers, and the very real tide of imported Europeans and visitors each year, the locals haven’t been doing too badly in our grand distance test.
Half Yours is its third winner with (AUS) beside its name in the past seven editions. And we’ve gone back-to-back, after little Aussie bolter Knight’s Choice (Extreme Choice) got up last year.
Throw in New Zealand-bred Verry Elleegant (Zed) in 2021, and the “locals” have been doing well each first Tuesday of November to punch above their weight and confront the perception that our stayers are inferior to Europe’s. Well, it’s a reality really, but it’s been shown, to borrow a touch from David Bowie, that we can breed heroes, on that one special day.
Queensland breeder Paul Lanskey was hopeful when he took the yearling Litzdeel to the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale of 2023. Not only was she a half to the Cup winner of three-and-a-bit years earlier, her oldest half-sibling Lycurgus (Star Witness) had been a stakes winner too.
Also trained by O’Brien, Lycurgus took Caulfield’s 2017 Galilee Final (Listed, 2400m) in a career of six victories up to 2520 metres, and $460,000 in prize-money.
But stayers aren’t sexy in sales rings, especially small ones, and particularly those carrying the burden of perceptions that Dundeel fillies are hot and inferior to his colts – as debunked as those have been in the past year or two.
She was passed in, Lanskey kept her, syndicated her among friends and family, and sent her to O’Brien.
Litzdeel won her second start over 1600 metres at Bairnsdale, and in her sixth outing ran a most encouraging 0.25-length second in the VRC St Leger (Listed, 2800m). She franked that form by winning the SA Fillies’ Classic (Gr 3, 2500m) next-up, and now four runs later she’s a winner on Cup day at Flemington.
The four-year-old will now spell ahead of a light autumn, aiming towards the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups of next spring, Lanskey says, reminiscent of another mare who was slightly built in her younger days.
Makybe Diva (Desert King) – whose sire is Half Yours’ damsire incidentally – was unbeaten from starts two to seven as a spring three-year-old, the last being when she gave her all in a run that was almost one too many, winning the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Gr 2, 2500m) by 0.1 lengths to lock in for the following year’s Cup.
The pressure of qualifying removed, she had only two runs the following autumn, mostly for some more experience, and won the first of her three Cups that November.
Lanskey told It’s In The Blood that O’Brien envisages probably three autumn runs for Litzdeel, including Flemington’s Roy Higgins Quality (Listed, 2600m), where victory would seal her Cup ticket.
Now, were Litzdeel to win the great race, it would bring an extremely rare tick for Geblitzt (Testa Rossa), dam of Litzdeel and Vow And Declare.
Only two mares have thrown more than one Cup winner, and the latest was 127 years ago.
Nimblefoot and The Quack won in 1870 and 1872 – both from Quickstep.
Gaulus and The Grafter won in 1897 and 1898 – both from Industry.
“Well that would really be something, wouldn’t it?” Lanskey said.
It would indeed, considering there are many time more mares in the gene pool now than before Australia was Australia.
Litzdeel is currently at $51 for next year’s Melbourne Cup, if you want to back Geblitzt to make it a club of three – sadly a little too late for her, after she died from complications following a paddock accident a month ago, two weeks shy of her due date with a foal by Zousain.
Geblitzt was bought by trainer Mick Price on Lanskey’s behalf from Amarina Farm’s draft at Magic Millions Gold Coast in 2008 for just $20,000, before being transferred to Brisbane and Steven O’Dea.
She won five times, but only up to 1400 metres. Yet Lanskey has had seven of her eight named foals genome tested, and four have come back as “T:T”, or best suited beyond 2400 metres, including Vow And Declare and Litzdeel.
So where does all this stamina come from?
Geblitzt’s dam Aim For Gold (End Sweep) won once, in city class, at 1200 metres for trainer Clarry Conners, though she did run second in the 2003 Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) at two, behind Hasna (Snippets).
Aim For Gold’s dam Young Vic was unplaced in one run in England, before coming to Australia to breed.
Aside from the Group 1-placed Aim For Gold she threw two black-type winners in Irongail (Canny Lad) – who took a 1500-metre Sandown Listed and was Group 2-placed over the same trip – and Walking Or Dancing (Falvelon), who won the Newcastle Newmarket (Gr 3, 1400m) of 2010.
But it seems the real staying power comes from the appropriate-sounding Old Vic (Sadler’s Wells) – Young Vic’s sire.
Old Vic won two 2400-metre Group 1s in the Irish Derby (Gr 1, 1m 4f) and the Prix du Jockey Club (Gr 1, 2400m), in 1989. He didn’t meet with huge success as a sire – not on the flat at least – but did leave 379 jumps winners including the outstanding Kicking King, who claimed 12 races including the Cheltenham Gold Cup of 2005, over just the 5300m if you don’t mind.
And so here’s Old Vic coming in loud and clear into the pedigree of Litzdeel – like Vow And Declare – as the third damsire.
No wonder that, blended with Dundeel (High Chaparral), we’ve got a stayer on our hands, who’s allowing Lanskey to dream big.
“You’d sort of have to think you’d be in the mix,” the Noosa-based retired construction executive said of next year’s Cup.
“On Tuesday, if you looked at her time [2:58.26], if you add another 400 metres to the trip she ran, she was pretty much bang on the mark with the Cup time of Half Yours.
“As an owner, you can get a bit carried away but … she was born on November 4, so on Tuesday she won on her birthday. We did have her nominated for this year’s Cups, but Danny thought it was a step too far. She’s a bit immature and not a big mare, so he said let’s wait till she’s bigger.
“She’s quite short, but she’s got a big ticker, and an enormous stride. When she ran second over 2400 metres at Caulfield two runs back, her rider Blake Shinn said she’d struggled to get around the turns. He said she’s so suited to Flemington, which is good news.
“One thing about the family is that all of them have always put in when they go to the races, very consistently. We’re doing well to have three stakes winners out of the one mare. Imagine if we got two Melbourne Cup winners!”
Litzdeel has a pedigree whose intricacies hint at success.
First grabbing the eye is a 4m x 4m inbreeding of the wonderful American broodmare Fairy Bridge, via Dundeel’s grandsire Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) and Perugino (Danzig), sire of Geblitzt’s father Testa Rossa.
But with Sadler’s Wells doubled at 3m x 5m, the latter being Old Vic, we have Fairy Bridge at 4m x 4m, 6m.
Fairy Bridge’s also superior dam Special (Forli) is also triplicated, at 5f, 5m x 5f, with the male being Nureyev (Northern Dancer), sire of former Australian broodmare of the year Lady Giselle, dam of Dundeel’s damsire Zabeel.
For extra good measure there’s a third all-time great mare in the mix, at 6m, 8m x 6m, 8m. The second of those is Never Bend (Nasrullah), the other three her other influential son Bold Reason (Hail To Reason).
Litzdeel hails from two Northern Dancer (Nearctic) sirelines, taking that GOAT at 4m x 5m amidst five mentions overall, in a pedigree in which Nearco is the dominant sire, with 21 mentions.
Lanskey also has high hopes for Geblitzt’s three-year-old filly by Too Darn Hot in Kissattack, who’s had one barrier trial for O’Brien, while her final foal is a yearling daughter of Tiger Of Malay.