O’Briens on verge of amazing Group 1 moment with exciting American Pharoah filly
Clairden Racing’s husband and wife team hoping Pretty Amazing could win Vinery Stud Stakes
Dr Denis O’Brien and his wife Claire have been racing and breeding horses for 40 years and they have gone agonisingly close to Group 1 glory on multiple occasions.
They’ve raced numerous high-class horses, Bring Me Roses (High Chaparral) in recent times is just one who springs to mind, but the Gold Coast couple could finally be on the verge of an elusive Group 1 victory, four decades in the making.
The O’Briens’ bred and race Pretty Amazing (American Pharoah), a last-start winner of the Kembla Grange Classic (Gr 3, 1600m) at Goulburn, who is now a leading contender in tomorrow’s Vinery Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) at Rosehill and also shapes as an ideal Australian Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m) candidate.
The Chris Waller-trained three-year-old, the latest to race out of the blue hen broodmare Pretty Penny (Encosta De Lago), is $7 fourth favourite for the Vinery behind boom Queensland filly Gypsy Goddess (Tarzino) at $4.20 and the Waller-trained pair Hinged (Worthy Cause) ($4.20) and Fangirl (Sebring) ($5.50).
In a vote of confidence for Pretty Amazing’s chances, James McDonald takes the ride, having won in midweek grade on the filly at Canterbury on February 18. She will jump from barrier 13, but Clairden Racing’s O’Brien is hoping luck will be on his and his jockey’s side when the barriers open shortly after 4.35pm.
“She is pretty amazing, isn’t she? Three wins on the trot. She did it easily (at Goulburn) and you’d think there’s more petrol in the tank,” O’Brien told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“You have just got to accept what’s handed to you; you have got to accept the barriers, you have got to accept the tracks as they are, and the good luck with the bad luck.
“I never go down there (to the races) expecting them to win, I just hope they can come first, second, third or fourth.”
Clairden Racing aims to have ten broodmares at any one time (it is currently nine), but there is every chance Pretty Amazing, whether she wins a Group 1 or not, will join the O’Briens’ band of mares despite the filly’s pedigree holding significant international currency and levels of interest already fielded.
“Look, there’s been a number of approaches to ask would I sell her, but she is potentially the best filly I have ever bred and hopefully it turns out that way,” he said.
“I think she’ll be a magnificent breeding prospect because she’s such a beautiful specimen.”
O’Brien, who bred and raced the Group 3 winner and 2003 Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) runner-up Face Value (Red Ransom), his half-sister Bring Me Roses and close relation, the stakes-placed Halle Rocks (Fastnet Rock), bought Pretty Penny in 2016 for $570,000 in foal to Brazen Beau (I Am Invincible).
The mare, at that time, had already thrown Group 2 winner Sertorius (Galileo), the stakes-placed filly Fortune Of War (General Nediym), I Am Titanium (Flying Spur) as well as Group 3 winner Clifton Red (Sebring).
But after that the Tony McEvoy-trained Dollar For Dollar (High Chaparral), a Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed sprinter, emerged as did the South Australian Derby (Gr 1, 2500m) runner-up Rezealient (Sebring).
“Pretty Penny didn’t have as much black type as she’s got now with those early runners when I bought her. Sertorius was a black type and I think there was another one with some small black type, but after I bought her those other horses that Tony McEvoy had won black–type races, so the pedigree has improved significantly since I bought her,” O’Brien said.
“She was a ‘tax mare’, so I got some benefit as far as that was concerned initially, and then I got $700,000 for the (Brazen Beau) foal.”
That filly is Pretty Brazen, who was bought by Linda Huddy, went on to win twice at Group 2 level and was third in a Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and gave further rise to the already sought after family. Pretty Brazen is in foal to Capitalist (Written Tycoon) on her maiden cover.
Pretty Amazing has a two-year-old sister named Pretty Awesome who will join her sibling in training with Waller at Rosehill next week under the ownership of Clairden Racing, while Pretty Penny, rising 22, has a colt by Yes Yes Yes (Rubick) who was born on Christmas Eve.
O’Brien’s first broodmare was the aptly named grey mare Clairden Girl (Head Over Heels) who retired in the early 1980s after being trained on the Gold Coast by the late Lloyd Hickmott. Upon the mare’s retirement, O’Brien bought out his trainer to breed from her.
After years of near-misses, he hopes Pretty Amazing can tomorrow become Clairden Racing’s maiden Group 1 winner.
The O’Briens are patient people, however, and if Saturday is not the day, then they’ll bide their time for the next opportunity. They’ve already been patient with Pretty Amazing, having not raced until December before winning her maiden eight weeks later over 1500 metres at Newcastle in late January.
“Chris (Waller) always felt that she did have ability, but he was adamant that we shouldn’t race her early, that she needed time, which has proven to be the right decision, as she showed once she got over 1500 metres,” the doctor said.
“Chris doesn’t punish them on the track and her maiden win was the first time she’d been extended in the last couple of furlongs.”
While O’Brien was the first in his family to take up breeding thoroughbreds, he’d been captivated by racing well before he bought his first horse.
During his days as a medical student in Brisbane in the late 1960s – he graduated in 1970 – O’Brien spent his time at the racetrack working as a penciller for a bookmaker.
“You had to add up figures 50 or 100 long, just go down (the settling sheet) and put down a number and then you’d think, ‘that couldn’t be right’ and you’d add it up the opposite way and come to the same number,” O’Brien recalls.
“When you’re doing it all day, every week, it is amazing how your mathematical skills and adding up and taking away can improve out of sight. They were good days, I enjoyed that.”
Nowadays, retired bar for a day a week working at a private hospital where he enjoys the social interaction with his colleagues, he plays golf two to three days a week and watches the racing on Saturday, mostly captivated by the breeding rather than the punt.
“Golf is my outlet and on Saturdays I am really assessing the breeding aspects rather than the punting,” he says.
“I have a small bet, but that’s not what attracts me to racing, it’s the breeding.”
Bring Me Roses’ Fastnet Rock daughter on offer at Easter
Bring Me Roses (High Chaparral), a Tony McEvoy-trained mare who wore the Clairden Racing colours of pale blue, yellow lightning bolt, sleeves and cap, gave Dr Denis O’Brien one of his biggest thrills in racing.
Pretty Amazing (American Pharoah), of course, could top that tomorrow in the Vinery Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m), but O’Brien is excited about the place Bring Me Roses holds in his boutique broodmare band, currently numbering nine.
A Group 2 winner who was placed in a VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m), an Australian Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and an Empire Rose Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m), Bring Me Roses’ first foal, a filly by champion sire Fastnet Rock (Danehill), will be offered at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale next month.
She is consigned on Clairden Racing’s behalf by Coolmore Stud as Lot 86.
“I just got the x-ray reports for the Fastnet Rock filly and they’re all-clear,” O’Brien said this week.
“They came through today and they’re the first thing you have got to worry about. She is a very, very nice filly and I expect her to sell quite well.
“I would be quite happy to take her home and, in fact, I am very tempted to keep her and breed from her, but you have got to make it commercial. You have got to pay for these service fees every year, so that’s the reason she’s in the sale.
“You can’t keep everything.”