Newcomers Nxt Level hope to strike early
Syndications newcomer Nxt Level is hoping to strike early black type and provide stallion Starspangledbanner (Choisir) more elite success on the last stakes day of the Australian season at Eagle Farm today.
Established in 2019 by Chris Andersen, Gold Coast-based Nxt Level will cheer home Elliez Star (Starspangledbanner) as she steps up to 1400m and Listed class in the Tattersall’s Life Members Stakes for two-year-olds.
The filly will also be striving to put Hall of Fame trainer Lee Freedman back among Australian black type, a year after his return to the country after four seasons in Singapore.
Third-starter Elliez Star, who surged late to win impressively over 1200m in the Sunny Coast Jobs Two-year-olds Handicap last time out, has a chance to provide Starspangledbanner his second Australian stakes-winner for the season. The first was Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) victor State Of Rest, who franked that form superbly by taking the Prince of Wales’s Stakes (Gr 1, 1m 1f) at Royal Ascot last week.
State Of Rest’s Cox Plate has helped Starspangledbanner to 30th on Australia’s general sires table, with 35 winners from 93 runners. That’s his career-best rank in Australia, but ironically comes after his ownership decided not to shuttle the rising 16-year-old to Victoria’s Rosemont Stud this spring. He’ll instead have the season off to stay at Coolmore Stud, Tipperary.
One race after Elliez Star, Rosemont will also be urging on another daughter of the dual-hemisphere, quadruple Group 1–winning Starspangledbanner, when Brooklyn Hustle contests the Tattersall’s Tiara (Gr 1, 1400m) in hope of finally winning at the top level at her last start before a likely spring mating with Widden’s Zoustar (Northern Meteor).
The late-flashing five-year-old mare, who’s contested 14 G1s with her best results a trio of fourth placings, was last night rated a $13 chance for the season’s last top-level event. Emerging Price-Kent mare Annavisto (Reliable Man) headed the market ahead of the badly-drawn Snapdancer (Choisir), winner of Morphettville’s Robert Sangster Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) last month.
Elliez Star, a daughter of Yorkshire Oaks (Gr 1, 1m 3f) winner Quiff (Sadler’s Wells), whose dam Wince (Selkirk) won the 1,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1m) in 1999, does face a steep class rise today, and was last night around the $51 mark in a 15-horse field headed by Johnny Rocker (Jukebox) and Stroll (Snitzel).
But Andersen is confident that whatever happens today, the filly has shown she stands a strong chance of putting herself and Nxt Level in the headlines in the future.
“We’re very excited to see how the weekend pans out,” said Andersen, who paid what he calls a bargain price of $60,000 for Elliez Star at the Magic Millions Gold Coast sale.
“She won like a classy filly last time. She got boxed in a fraction in the straight, so to get out and come home as she did, it was a terrific run. Put it this way: Lee Freedman texted me within 30 seconds of the race and said she’s a classy filly, and he’s obviously a man who knows what he’s talking about.
“Given her breeding, her three-year-old season is where we’re expecting her to be at her strongest. She’s a bit on the small side and has some growing to do, but the dream is she might become an Oaks filly.
“But she won so well last start, and this race bobbed up. There was a 1350m race at Ipswich last week we could have gone for, but we thought the 1400m looked ideal. It’s tougher class, but we’re confident that hopefully she’ll have a good run, and get some black type for her owners.”
Rosemont principal Anthony Mithen last night confirmed that the plan to leave Starspangledbanner in Ireland this spring – first reported by ANZ last month – remained in place, despite recent interest in the son of Choisir (Danehill Dancer), who stood last year for $16,500 (inc GST).
“He’s almost certain to return to us next year, given the high demand now for him,” Mithen said. “It seems plenty of breeders want to use him now that they can’t, which is funny, but in reality, he would fill a widening gap in the market, being a proven speed stallion at an affordable price.”
Mithen said Widden’s Zoustar – whose service fee has risen to $198,000 (inc GST) from $154,000 (inc GST) for the coming season – would almost certainly be the sire for Brooklyn Hustle’s first mating, after Rosemont’s “good bit of luck” with his two-year-olds Millane and Brereton this season.
Meanwhile, Nxt Level is making impressive early strides, with more than 20 mostly two-year-olds and yearlings spread through three stables and with an owner list numbering around 300. The Maher-Eustace team trains the bulk of their gallopers, while Freedman Racing and Sydney’s John Thompson are also involved.
Nxt Level made a notable splash in pairing with Ciaran Maher to pay $1.2 million for the yearling filly who’s become Greece (I Am Invincible). She is spelling after an unplaced debut on a Heavy 10 in the Reisling Slipper Trial (1200m) at Randwick in March, following two impressive barrier trial wins on good going.
“We’ve had a few black-type starters, probably not as many as I would have liked, but we’re a brand new company getting into the market that’s pretty saturated from a syndicates’ point of view, and things have been going well,” said Andersen.
“There’s a lot of excitement at the moment. There’s a lot of horses starting to hit the track and getting ready to hit the track, so we’ve got a good few horses who hopefully should start getting a few wins and getting our name out there a bit more.”
Andersen grew up across the road from the Gold Coast track. His father Sean has for decades been a small-time trainer, relocating in recent years to Beaudesert, where he prepares one of Nxt Level’s campaigners, former Maher-Eustace-trained gelding San Antonio (Snitzel).
Another of the Nxt Level team is Avila (Written Tycoon), almost certainly the last daughter of the great Makybe Diva (Desert King) to go to sale, having been bought for $500,000 at the Gold Coast in 2020. Like her mum, she’s a late bloomer, and is being steered towards a first start as a rising four-year-old, with her breeder, Makybe Diva’s owner Tony Santic, retaining a slice of ownership.
On its website, Andersen’s firm pledges it is “taking racing syndication to the Nxt Level”, with an accent on horse welfare, philosophies he says spurred the former high-rise-glass businessman to start syndicating.
“I’d been involved in a few horses as an owner and I felt like the updates and information owners were getting wasn’t really fit for what we were paying for these horses,” he said.
“I felt there was a space in the industry from a syndicate point of view to be able to make sure we service our owners as best as we can, and make them feel involved every step of the way.
“We’ve just tried to have a strong focus on our horse welfare and our clients’ point of view; make sure we give them the best information. We’re confident with where we are at the moment. A lot of our owners have come across to us from other trainers and syndicators and have stuck with us now.”
While horse welfare has become a catch-cry of recent years, Andersen says Nxt Level’s commitment shows through various means, including investment in some 16 E-Trakka saddle blanket devices, which relay vital data, including horses’ heart rhythms, in order to pre-empt and prevent possibly catastrophic injuries.
Nxt Level uses a 55-acre farm near Beaudesert, which is instrumental in its rehoming programmes. Andersen says this is a core factor of the company.
For example, the syndicator paid $125,000 for a Real Impact filly at Inglis Classic in 2020, only to see her develop chronic arthritis which would prevent her from racing.
“We moved her owners out of that horse into other horses. We absorbed the entire cost of that filly, and we’ve got her in the paddock we’ve had her in every day since 2020, because she can’t be rehomed,” he said.
Named Hay Princess, the now three-year-old is in-foal to Pierata (Pierro), with Andersen assuring vets are monitoring closely.
“We’re more worried about the horse and making sure they’re not just another number,” he said. “They care for us when they give us the excitement and the happiness that owners get involved for, and in return we’ve got to make sure we care for them at all stages.”