Scintillation
Image: Scintillation pictured as a yearling (Credit: Inglis)
A heady couple of hours at a breeding stock auction, and the type of commitment to beliefs that such a spree demands is paying handsome dividends for Rosemont Stud.
At the 2021 Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale, the Victorian farm paid what are still its two highest prices for mares.
On the opening day, first they bought Group 1 winning sprinter Bella Vella (Commands), offered through Glenesk Thoroughbreds’ draft, for $1.9 million. A little later, as the Shadwell Stud dispersal sale began, Rosemont swooped on their first offering, paying $1.8m.
That mare was Minhaaj (Lonhro), a former flying two-year-old who’d won Flemington’s Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) by 4.5 lengths before starting in the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m).
Among four mares they purchased from Shadwell, Rosemont bought her as a rising four-year-old racing proposition. A few months later she won her first two starts for the farm, after a transfer to John O’Shea, in Randwick’s The Nivison (Gr 3, 1200m) and the Begonia Belle Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) at Flemington on Derby Day.
Four years on, Rosemont stuck to their guns again when Minhaaj’s first foal went to Inglis Easter 2025. A little undersized, the filly by I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) failed to meet her $600,000 reserve.
Her breeders held on to her, predicting substantial future development, and on Saturday the filly now known as Scintillation became a Sydney city winner by impressively scoring her second victory in three starts.
What’s more, between those wins at Gosford and Randwick, she’s enhanced her profile with a third in Flemington’s Ottawa Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m).
Prepared by the man who trained her mother – O’Shea – this time in his partnership with Tom Charlton, Scintillation is set to be among the leading candidates when she goes hunting more black type in Caulfield’s much respected Quezette Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) on August 15.
Minhaaj and Bella Vella weren’t the only purchases Rosemont made at that 2021 sale. Enhancing their broodmare band substantially, they bought 22 in total, also including three $1.35m purchases.
One of those was Fiesta (I Am Invincible), the four-time Group winning and G1-placed mare who’s since rewarded Rosemont by virtue of her first two yearlings averaging $1m.
Carnevale (Pinatubo) was sold to Lindsay Park at Magic Millions Gold Coast for $700,000, which makes him his sire’s highest-priced Australian yearling. He’s had two starts including a debut fourth in Flemington’s Maribyrnong Plate (Gr 3, 1000m).
Then came Fiesta’s colt by Dundeel (High Chaparral), bought by Coolmore’s Tom Magnier for $1.3m at Inglis Easter this year, which makes him Dundeel’s third top yearling.
Meanwhile, Bella Vella’s first foal, a colt now known as Caxton Street (Written Tycoon), fetched $475,000 when sold to Ron Wanless at Easter last year, while she now has a Zoustar (Northern Meteor) weanling filly and is in-foal to Broadsiding (Too Darn Hot).
“That was a pretty busy broodmare sale for us,” Rosemont’s general manager of bloodstock Ryan McEvoy tells It’s In The Blood. “We saw an opportunity there, with the Shadwell dispersal, but were able to secure some other good mares as well.”
As her price would suggest, Minhaaj made great appeal for race performances and bloodlines.
Kicking off with Lindsay Park, she scored at Bendigo by five lengths before winning the Thoroughbred Breeders by just half a length less. She travelled very wide and didn’t threaten in the Slipper, running last in fact, but returned in the spring with two Flemington Listed placings.
A Caulfield win in the autumn preceded Minhaaj’s sale to Rosemont, who celebrated her two G3 wins that spring, before three unplaced autumn runs saw her out.
“She’d clearly exhibited above average racecraft, and she really impressed us winning by a big margin at Flemington at two,” McEvoy said.
“Any filly who can do that down the straight as as two-year-old, I think that adds a lot of weight. She still had racing upside, which was very appealing, and it was great to see her live up to that with those Group wins in her first two starts for us.”
And then there was a pedigree packed with as much quality as you might expect of a Shadwell-bred.
Like titans standing in a row, three significant broodmare sires fortify the front line in the bottom half.
Minhaaj is by Exceed And Excel (Danehill), who’s about to finish an equal career-best third on the Australian broodmare sires’ chart, his sixth straight top 10 finish. He has 141 stakes winners as a broodmare sire, at 4.6 per cent of runners, with a 63 per cent winners ratio.
Minhaaj’s damsire is Lonhro (Octagonal), who’s been a top-10 broodmare sire for eight straight years now, is about to finish on a personal-best fifth, and has 83 stakes winners as a broodmare sire at 4.5 per cent.
And Minhaaj’s second damsire is Danehill Dancer (Danehill), not quite as prosperous in this country as the other two, but with a 4.8 per cent SWTR rate as a damsire nonetheless, through 198 stakes winners.
It’s no fluke that all three of these stallions cross well with Scintillation’s fabled triple champion sire, I Am Invincible.
Vinnie over Exceed And Excel has spawned three stakes winners at eight per cent of runners. Over Lonhro, it’s four stakes victors at 14 per cent, and over Danehill Dancer, it’s three at 16 percent – headed by none other than Fiesta. That’s I Am Invincible’s second-best nick, of more than 20 runners.
Given that Rosemont had also just bought Fiesta an hour before Minhaaj entered the ring, the bloodlines were topical.
And McEvoy said I Am Invincible was something of an obvious bet for Minhaaj’s first mating, on physicals and pedigree.
“Minhaaj being by Exceed And Excel and out of a Lonhro mare out of a Danehill Dancer mare, she had a very nice pedigree behind her,” McEvoy says.
“Vinnie over Exceed And Excel and the larger Danehill line was working beautifully, the same with Lonhro.
“And we’d just bought Fiesta, a Danehill Dancer mare, and that nick with Vinnie had been shown to work well.”
McEvoy added there “wasn’t a lot of rocket science” behind picking out Yarraman Park’s super sure for Minhaaj’s first mating.
“When you’re dealing with such a high profile, expensive mare, ensuring her first mating or two are appropriate is very important,” he said. “We felt Vinnie ticked most of the boxes.
“He’s just a magnificent style of stallion. I’m not sure I’ve seen a stallion who’s produced such a consistent type, in terms of quality, as Vinnie. And he’s got a great record with maiden mares.
“You can just see that Vinnie quality in this filly. She’s more a medium-sized filly but she’s got that Vinnie shape to her, his shoulder and girth, and the Exceed And Excel power is evident.
“When she let down on Saturday, she really looked like one of those smart Vinnie fillies who can let down in the straight and hit the line hard.”
Still, when it came to trying to sell Scintillation, even the last major sale of the season came a little too early to stir sufficient interest for her to meet reserve.
“She was a filly we obviously wanted to present to the market, and for a filly of that pedigree and style, it was an appropriate reserve,” McEvoy said of the $600,000.
“But she probably just delayed her growth spurt until beyond that sale. You could see it coming. Even throughout her Easter prep, you could still tell that in another three to six months, she’d be really where you want her to be.
“She sat high across her hind relative to her wither, and there was still a lot of maturity and development to come.
“So we kept her, and that’s exactly how it’s played out. After that sale she had a growth spurt and became the filly we expected. And in the last three to six months now, she’s really developed and furnished into the style of filly you envisaged.”
There’s quality deeper into Scintillation’s female line.
Magic Harmony, that third dam by Danehill Dancer who threw Minhaaj’s country maiden winning mum Telaawa (Lonhro), also left G3 winner Charmed Harmony (Hussonet) and Suyoof (Magic Albert), who won two black type events in South Africa.
And NZ-bred fourth dam Imposing Life (Imposing) spawned some imposing life indeed, throwing two multiple stakes winners in Life’s A Bounty (Bahamian Bounty) and Miss Prospect (Rory’s Jester), the latter of whom left Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) hero Reward For Effort (Exceed And Excel).
Scintillation is powered by no fewer than three Northern Dancer-Danzig sirelines, including the two main ones.
Up top, the pair flow into Green Desert-Invincible Spirit-I Am Invincible, while the maternal sireline runs Danehill-Exceed And Excel-Minhaaj.
And then there’s Danehill into Danehill Dancer to produce third dam Magic Harmony.
Thus Scintillation has Danzig at 4m x 4m, 6m. Northern Dancer (Nearctic) crops up six times – only once in the top half – at 5m x 5m, 5m, 8m, 7m, 7m, through four different sons.
Danehill contributes 15.6 per cent of the blood in the first nine generations overall, Danzig 14 per cent and Northern Dancer 11.3 per cent.
Scintillation also has a 5m x 6f of key British stallion Sharpen Up (Atan) in strong positions through Kris – Invincible Spirit’s damsire – and Mira Adonde, Danehill Dancer’s dam.
Northern Dancer’s blue hen dam Natalma (Native Dancer) has eight spots – for a fourth-highest blood contribution of 7.6 per cent. Selene (Chaucer) is the most common mare with 13 appearances, but they’re far deeper in.
Hyperion (Gainsborough) takes the sires’ honours with 17 appearances which, though they’re in generations seven through nine, give him 5.8 per cent of the blood, equal fifth-most.
And if omens count for anything, Scintillation is the second horse of that name to attain black type, and the first was by Danehill. That Scintillation was a well performed gelding who won five in a row in Hong Kong in 2004, and ended up winning five stakes races in the territory among 12 career victories.
Meanwhile Rosemont – celebrating the birth of their stallion Schwarz’s (Zoustar) first foal on Tuesday night, a colt out of Glitter ’N’ Gold (Choisir) – report Minhaaj is likely to continue the I Am Invincible link by going to his son Home Affairs at Coolmore this spring.
She’s currently in-foal to Harry Angel (Dark Angel) and has a weanling colt by Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj), while her yearling filly by Zoustar (Northern Meteor) had to be withdrawn from Inglis Easter this year and retained, due to a minor setback.
Rosemont will be hoping that turns out as fortuitous a twist as they’ve had with her older half-sister.