Nichols digs deep for son of his Star I Am Invincible mare
Shane Nichols had his heart set on buying the first foal out of his Group 1-winning mare I Am A Star (I Am Invincible) but he admits the Deep Field (Northern Meteor) colt’s price tag saw him pushed to the limit.
“Eight hundred thousand is $800,000,” trainer Nichols said of Lot 125, the fifth highest-priced yearling sold during the 180-lot opening session.
“It’s hard to earn with a pick and shovel and I still have a little bit to sell, so I knew I’d have to be in that $600,000 to $800,000 range and I was just seeing how far we got pushed.
“(I Am A Star) was obviously a terrific mare for us and she’s produced an absolute cracker first go.”
I Am A Star provided the Mornington-based horseman with his biggest racing success: victory in the 2016 Myer Classic (Gr 1, 1600m) at Flemington on Derby day. She also won eight other Group races for Nichols and her owner Matthew Sandblom who bred the Deep Field colt out of his brilliant mare. The prized colt was offered by Newgate Farm, the Hunter Valley nursery Sandblom is a shareholder in.
Nichols rallied his clients prior to the sale to give himself a chance of buying the August 2020-born colt and the trainer could see some similarities between mother and son.
“There’s a couple of little traits I noticed, just his head and a few angles that were fairly similar,” he said.
“She wasn’t a big horse and he’s probably going to be a more masculine version of her, I suppose, but he is a nice neat horse. I am pretty sure he’s going to be able to run.”
I Am A Star, who is a sister to the stakes-placed winner Band On The Run, has a Fastnet Rock (Danehill) colt at foot.
Nichols hopes the Deep Field colt possesses some of the durability of his mother, who won ten races and $1.56 million in prize-money from her 31 race starts.
“Her durability (made her special in) that she could keep coming up at two, three, four and five, winning Group races, and staying sound and staying fairly focused,” he said.
“She was an easily managed horse and I watched this fella parade and there was a bit of activity and it didn’t worry him in the slightest.
“He was pretty calm about the whole thing and hopefully she gave him that trait, the ability to relax under pressure, which is an asset for any racehorse.”
Newgate Farm’s Deep Field had ten yearlings change hands on day one at an average of $253,000.