Ross hopeful Mishani Aloha can cause McLachlan upset
Dual Doomben-winning daughter of Kobayashi attempting to become her Aquis stallion’s first stakes winner
Colourful Queensland trainer Les Ross is confident one of his 50 Mishanis – the $4,000 yearling Mishani Aloha (Kobayashi) – is “a live chance” of upsetting some far more expensive two-year-olds in today’s BJ McLachlan Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) at Eagle Farm.
And if she can, the dual Doomben winner would provide a first stakes success for her sire Kobayashi (I Am Invincible) and stall the stunning progress of boom first season stallions Alabama Express (Redoute’s Choice) and Tassort (Brazen Beau), while also overcoming the Sydney raider who’s a raging odds-on favourite.
Storm Boy (Justify) was last night around the $1.40 mark ahead of his five rivals in another disappointingly small field for a Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) lead-up, albeit still laced with intrigue.
The Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained colt, who heads both the market and the pricelist in the race as a $460,000 Gold Coast buy from the Coolmore draft, would give that stud’s shuttle sire Justify (Scat Daddy) a first Australian juvenile stakes-winner of the season if he can repeat his go-to-whoa Rosehill debut success of December 2, over subsequent Caulfield victor Traffic Warden (Street Boss).
Yulong Stud’s Alabama Express – a runaway leader on the first-season sire and two-year-old by earnings charts with three winners from six runners under his belt already – would become the first sire on either table with two stakes winners if $160,000 yearling Poster Girl can score. After a debut win and a game second in two Sunshine Coast two-year-old handicaps, the Chris Munce-trained filly was around the $10 mark last night, with Eagle Farm a soft 5 and overcast skies forecast.
Mirroring Alabama Express, Tassort – standing at Newgate in partnership with Emirates Park – has three winners and a stakes-winner, from eight starters, to sit second among debutant sires and fourth by earnings and third by number of the winners respectively on the juvenile table. He too will have a second stakes victor today if $38,000 colt Astapor ($4.20) keeps his perfect record intact, after wins at his home base Rockhampton and Eagle Farm.
But it is Kobayashi who would break the longest black-type drought if Mishani Aloha can prevail at around $19. Aquis Farm’s sire, in his third season with progeny racing, has had a robust 37 winners from 63 runners. He has just completed sixth season in the breeding barn and stood this season for a fee of $8,800 (inc GST).
The first son of the all-conquering I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) to stand in Queensland, Kobayashi has stealthily made his way to second on this season’s two-year-old sires’ table. His juveniles have earned $536,975, well behind the $978,675 of Alabama Express, but also clear of third-placed Brazen Beau’s $388,965.
And in fact, Kobayishi leads two-year-old sires by winners – thanks to his perfect five from five.
Yet the nine-year-old is still without a stakes success, with the long head second of Midnight In Tokyo in last year’s Ken Russell Memorial Classic (Gr 3, 1200m) the closest he’s come.
As for his five two-year-old winners this season, all of them have won in south-east Queensland, all are trained by Ross, and all are called Mishani something, like all bar six of the 56 horses Ross has on his books.
“It does get a bit confusing sometimes,” Ross told ANZ Bloodstock News. “I go a bit better with numbers, rather than names, so whatever number box they’re in, that’s what I’ll refer to them as.”
For those who’ve wondered having heard it countless times in Queensland races – often through several horses in the same contest – its root lies in the owner of all these horses, and breeder of most of them, Mike Crooks, for whom Ross is virtually a private trainer.
“Mike used to have trotters and his wife Patty used to name them Mishani something too – the first bit from Mike, and the second from their daughter, Shani,” Ross said. “When they got into gallopers they kept it going. Patty sadly died a few years ago, but it’s still continuing.”
A look down Ross’s alphabetical stable list can get a little dizzying, and a touch humorous. Around the middle there’s a pair deliciously in order called Mishani I Am, and Mishani Invincible. Better still, neither are by the supersire you’re imagining. They’re by Sidestep (Exceed And Excel) and The Mission (Choisir) respectively.
Ross, a 59-year-old from Cunnamulla who learnt his craft on some dusty bush tracks alongside a slightly younger boy from up the road named Peter Moody, sold his stables last year aiming to retire. But an untimely divorce and some convincing from Crooks means he’s still at it, keeping ten boxes in two separate locations behind Doomben.
And the knockabout trainer, also known for the odd highly entertaining after-dinner engagement, feels Mishani Aloha – or “four” as he calls her – has a strong chance of becoming one of the finest to bear that prolific prefix: right up there with Mishani Sniper (Your Song), who last May won Doomben’s Chief De Beers (Listed, 1110m), and Mishani Honcho (Jet Spur), who took the McLachlan in 2014 as the race solidified its place as a key Magic Millions 2YO Classic lead-up.
The fourth foal of dual country-winning mare Hawaiian Princess (Refuse To Bend), Mishani Aloha was fourth on debut over 1000 metres at Eagle Farm before claiming two Doomben two-year-old handicaps over 1200 metres on rain-affected going, the latest on December 2. A week later her four-year-old sibling Alakai Swamp franked the breeding by winning on debut at the Gold Coast, for boutique trainer Kelly Purdy.
Mishani Aloha has now won $187,300 to push Kobayashi to just off the pace on the two-year-old sires’ earnings table. And all this after going through the Gold Coast National Yearling Sale for just $4,000, bought back by the breeder, Crooks’s Mishani Enterprises.
Ross explains that “most of the Mishanis are buy-backs – that’s why they’re so cheap”. Crooks, a pools magnate (think swimming, not Sangster) puts his horses through Magic Millions sales to qualify them for the company’s lucrative races. The business plan is working well.
“This year, we’ve had 39 horses go through the system, and they cost $150,000 in service fees to breed. Not all have raced but of the 39, we’ve had ten winners and netted a million dollars,” said Ross. “That means we break even by Christmas, which was the plan. Anything else now is a bonus.”
Ross unequivocally states: “I don’t train expensive horses”.
“I always believe if you go to the sales and buy a horse, you want to make money on it, not spend money on it. If you buy a $300,000 horse, how are you going to make money on them? And if you go and spend $2 million, you’ve got to win a $3 million race just to break even,” he said.
He conceded, however, that “you can’t win the big races buying cheapies”, but he may yet prove himself wrong. He’s hoping to have as many as four such horses vying for riches in the $3 million Magic Millions 2YO Classic on January 13 – which would beat his three from 2022, of whom Mishani Warfare (The Mission) ran sixth at $101.
On current order of entry for the field of 16 and five emergencies, his quartet are Mishani Aloha (sixth), Mishani Ego (18th), Mishani Express (22nd) and Mishani Fire (30th).
Of his prime candidate today, Ross said he “couldn’t be happier”.
“She’s a live chance. She’s fit and healthy and has a bit of ticker. A lot of horses don’t have that,” he said. “Hopefully she runs a good race, although I saw the Waterhouse horse work at Eagle Farm on Tuesday, and he’s a big, strong colt.”
Storm Boy’s rivals will have hoped for a large field and more pressure on the likely leader. Munce is one of them, but he gives Poster Girl a chance after her two 1000 metres efforts at the Sunshine Coast – the first a long neck win over subsequent city winner Barbie’s Sister (Spirit Of Boom), the second a length and three quarter second under adversity.
“She got caught on the wrong part of the track up the inside, pulled a shoe and finished with two black eyes,” Munce said, presuming Poster Girl was struck by clods of dirt on the soft 5 surface. “Considering that, it was a good run, and her first start was good too, when they went very quick.
“She’s a nice filly. She’s good sized, very leggy, and she’s going to be big when she’s finished growing. I mightn’t have expected her to be racing as a two-year-old, but it’s been a nice surprise.
“The small field makes things a bit interesting. If they let Gai’s colt go half-pace, he’ll be hard to run down. But my filly is well, the step up to 1200 metres is no problem, and I’m hoping she’ll run well.”
Storm Boy’s co-trainer Adrian Bott yesterday had bad news for rivals of the colt, who’s currently 12th on the 2YO Classic entry list.
“He’s travelled up great, he’s had enough time to settle in, he had a nice look around the course proper on Tuesday morning,” Bott told RSN.
“In Sydney he’d shown some nice improvement off the back of that first up run. Hopefully we can see that from him on Saturday and he can give us a nice indication of where he’s at.
“He couldn’t have done any more on debut, and it’s good to see those formlines be franked already [by Traffic Warden].”