Ridgmont’s bold Shoko investment could be about to pay off

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I Am Invincible son of million dollar mare a highlight at Inglis Easter sale

Two years ago, on the eve of the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale, Andrew Dunemann announced that he and his business partners had purchased Glastonbury Farm in the Hunter Valley.

A month later, rebranded as Ridgmont Farm, the group of Dunemann, Neil Douglas and Gary and Lorilie Cunningham and their son Mitchell then made a major statement at the Chairman’s Sale, stumping up $1 million for Group 3-winning mare Shoko (Sebring).

The champagne was flowing and the blackjack tables were packed with punters at Inglis’s “night of nights”, reminiscent of an old school pub lock-in at Riverside with the invite-only crowd in attendance as Australia grappled with Covid lockdowns.

Ridgmont Farm, however, was there for serious business.

They went to seven figures for the former John Sadler-trained mare Shoko, a half-sister to Mimi Lebrock (Show A Heart), the dam of Black Opal Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) winner Barbaric (I Am Invincible) and the stakes-placed Diddles (Snitzel), herself sold for $1 million as a broodmare prospect at the Magic Millions National Sale only weeks after her three years older sibling went through the ring.

Shoko was in foal to I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), who would be crowned champion Australian sire in 2021-22, and the September 12-born colt has the star factor as part of Ridgmont Farm’s select 2023 Easter draft.

Although it was a significant capital investment to buy Shoko, Dunemann said “we don’t regret that we did.”

He told ANZ Bloodstock news yesterday: “She’s created a beautiful yearling who is at this sale and she’s in foal to Vinnie again.”

“It’s very rewarding because, as we all know, it’s very hard to get a horse to the sales with good x-rays, good scopes and conformation and I think he ticks all those boxes, so hopefully he’ll come here and sell really well.

“We’re really happy with what she’s produced and what she’ll produce in the future as well.”

The athletic I Am Invincible colt, who is catalogued to go through the ring on Tuesday as Lot 358, is an athletic horse who Dunemann believes will appeal to a range of buyers.

“He’s not one you look at and think you’ll have to geld him straight away. He’s got some great scope there, he’s a nice horse as it is, and he’s a really well-balanced horse,” the breeder said. 

“Without looking at everything else on the complex, I do know that we have a nice colt.”

The son of I Am Invincible is not on his own in the Ridgmont Easter draft, with the six yearlings brought to Riverside from the Segenhoe farm all by proven sires.

Dunemann will also consign two fillies by Zoustar (Northern Meteor), a colt and a filly by So You Think (High Chaparral) and a colt by champion sire Exceed And Excel (Danehill), whose son Cylinder is the $2.25 favourite for tomorrow’s ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) at Randwick.

Ridgmont’s powerful Exceed And Excel colt, whose dam Urban Rocket (Siyouni) was bought for $440,000 at the 2021 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale by Ridgmont Farm, Boutique Thoroughbreds and agents Jim Clarke and Suman Hedge Bloodstock, is one Dunemann is optimistic buyers will gravitate towards.

“He’s my kind of horse. He’s short coupled, he looks like he’ll go early, he’s precocious and he’s out of a very good European family,” he said. 

“He is out of a Siyouni mare, a three-quarter to a proper Group 1 horse [Maarek], and I love the colt, so it’s been good to be able to bring him to the sale.

“He’s a nice colt, as is the Shoko. They’re two very different colts but I’m sure they’ll both have their admirers.”

With the colts fund buyers, such as Coolmore, the Newgate Farm-China Horse Club partnership, Tony Fung Investments and the Rosemont Alliance all in attendance, Dunemann understands why some investors may be intimidated by the force of the respective groups but he said potential owners and trainers should remain open minded.

“A lot of people are coming to see the colts and saying, ‘they’ll be too dear’ but if I was one of those people I’d be there for them because, as we know, if the big stallion syndicates get on them, they will make money, but [if they’re not] it’s what is under that,” he said.

“A great example is we had a Vinnie colt here last year who they thought was going to make big money but he ended up going off the [colts syndicates] lists, so we ended up getting $450,000 for him. 

“He became a ‘buyable’ horse and I think there will be a lot of them at this sale, particularly the colts.”

Newgate Farm’s Henry Field, who is operating as both buyer and seller at the Inglis sale, said interest in the Easter yearlings had been good so far ahead of the opening session on Monday.

“Our draft has been busy and it’s a sale where you get fewer inspections than you do at another sale,” Field said. 

“It’s a sale where the big players are more involved, so you get fewer smaller syndicators and smaller trainers.

“The right people seem to be out here and that’s what matters.”