Space Rider
He has a long way to go to match Bella Nipotina (Pride Of Dubai), but last Saturday’s Moonee Valley winner Space Rider (Zoustar) appears to be the latest budding star from a Longwood Thoroughbred Farm family that just keeps giving.
The Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr-trained colt – a $500,000 Gold Coast purchase for his trainers along with TFI and Dermot Farrington – was an instant hit last summer with a 3.2-lengths win in a quality Eagle Farm two-year-old handicap, among the lead-ups to Magic Millions day.
So high were the wraps, he started $1.14 three weeks later at the same track, but the jury went back out when he could manage only fourth of eight. Such can be the jittery ways of early two-year-old racing, though the stable also reported some less than tip-top blood test results.
Space Rider didn’t make it to the autumn, with the stable opting to let him mature, build his immune system, and put some more flesh on bone.
But resuming as a three-year-old at The Valley last Saturday he produced a slashing performance to beat a handy field in the set weights Mick Gleeson Plate (1200m), to have Price enthusing over a Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) campaign.
Carrying the colours of part-owners Kia Ora Stud, he’s on the right path to becoming the latest stakes winner from a family that began with one of three foundation mares at the start of this century.
They kicked off the breeding interests for what seven years ago became the Longwood establishment of Michael Christian, the former Collingwood premiership star who now juggles breeding horses with being the AFL’s match review officer, making calls on which misbehaving players have to answer for what.
In 2003, Christian and his mate, trainer Peter Morgan, bought a yearling filly they named Alisa Free (Favorite Trick), for $55,000. Though placed only once in four starts, she would throw as her second foal Unpretentious (Stratum), winner of two black type races including the 2013 Schillaci Stakes (Gr 2, 1000m) at Caulfield.
Around the same time Christian acquired Runaway Jesse (Rory’s Jester), who became a very moderate two-start maiden but did throw Eloping (Choisir), dam of one of Longwood’s all-time star graduates In Secret (I Am Invincible), the dual Group 1 heroine co-bred with Segenhoe Stud.
And in 2004, Christian and Morgan paid $190,000 for the yearling Bella Inez (Beautiful Crown). It was a not insubstantial sum – her full-brother In Top Swing had won the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) a few months earlier – but how richly she would pay back.
Like Alisa Free and Runaway Jesse, Bella Inez would have little to show for her racetrack efforts, but she did have ability.
After a debut fourth in a Flemington 1000-metre two-year-old handicap in January, 2005, she went to a Blue Diamond Preview (1000m) and helped ensure its first running as a Group 3 would go down in infamy.
Bella Inez was one of two horses to break through the starting gates fractionally early as the field was let go in a jumbled start. The event was declared a no-race, but enough had happened to ensure Bella Inez was injured and would never compete again.
“It was a pretty controversial day, I remember that clearly,” Christian told It’s In The Blood. “She had looked like she could gallop, but sadly when she broke through the barriers she hurt herself, and that was the end of her career.”
After buying Bella Inez’s other owners out, Christian began to breed with her. She would soon provide diamonds to atone for the stones dealt that dark day at Caulfield.
Christian had planned on sending her to Red Ransom (Roberto) in 2007, but the equine influenza crisis and its movement restrictions scuppered that. Instead, he put her to Starcraft (Soviet Star), and bred Hallowell Belle.
Bought at Melbourne Premier by Star Thoroughbreds for $170,000, she became a racetrack star, though her two stakes wins at Group 2 level were accompanied by an agonising 14 black type placings.
Five of those were at the elite level, including two seconds to a couple of smart rivals – by 4.2 lengths in Sepoy’s (Elusive Quality) Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) of 2011, and by 6.3 lengths behind quadruple top-tier winner Streama (Stratum) in the same year’s Flight Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m).
In 2008, Christian was able to go through with that Red Ransom cover. The result was Fuddle Dee Duddle.
Sold for $240,000 at Melbourne Premier, she kept the good times rolling with a Group 3 win in Perth, before Christian re-acquired her as a broodmare, then breeding five foals out of her in tandem with Widden Stud, home of Zoustar (Northern Meteor).
“Her first foal by Zoustar did well at Melbourne Premier, selling for $360,000, but she was sold to South African interests so we didn’t get to see her,” Christian says of Boomps A Daisy, who won four of 17.
“She started $1.70 in a stakes race but bled, and she never raced again.”
After three foals by other stallions, Fuddle Dee Duddle went back to Zoustar and things worked better; she bore a colt who fetched $1 million at the Gold Coast. He was bought by a posse headed by the Victorian Alliance, led by Rosemont Stud, which likes to name horses after AFL stars.
This time, they chose Brereton, after Dermott, Hawthorn’s flamboyant star forward Christian had played on several times during their days as centre half forward and centre half back, respectively.
They also ended up as teammates when Brereton had a season at Collingwood, so it’s fitting Christian would do well with a seven-figure colt named in honour of ‘The Kid’, as Brereton was known.
Brereton the horse would see early track success, taking Flemington’s Maribyrnong Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) at start number two for Peter Moody.
“So Fuddle Dee Duddle’s first foal by Zoustar, who was standing for $44,000 at the time, was a beautiful filly who made $360,000,” Christian says. “Her second foal by Zoustar was such a good sort he made a million dollars.”
You can see where this is going.
After one visit to Trapeze Artist (Snitzel) for the (unremarkable) foal after Brereton, Fuddle Dee Duddle has gone back to Zoustar for five straight years, and will make it six this spring.
The first of those hatched a filly bought by Sheamus Mills for $1.45 million at the Gold Coast in 2023, now known as Rambling, and a six-start maiden so far.
The second produced Space Rider, and the third a colt bought by Newgate’s stallion syndicate at the Gold Coast this year for $675,000. He’s now in training with Chris Waller and is named Lorax, but will hopefully move faster than the chubby Dr Seuss character after which he’s named.
And the fourth of those Zoustar visits has yielded a yearling filly Christian will sell next year.
Back to Bella Inez, Christian’s foundation mare only had four foals – all fillies – and the fourth was Bella Orfana (Star Witness). Christian had tried to create a next-best-thing mating to that with Starcraft that had produced Hallowell Belle, going to that stallion’s son Star Witness instead.
Bella Orfana was no star on the track, retiring a six-start maiden, but her first foal was the undoubted star of the Longwood operation Bella Nipotina, winner of The Everest (Gr 1, 1200m) among 11 race victories that helped her net $22.7 million in prize-money.
Christian paid $4.2 million to buy out his fellow owners in Bella Nipotina at this year’s Inglis Chairman’s Sale, and it comes as no surprise she’ll be going to Zoustar this year, in hope of continuing a family in which Space Rider is the latest exciting product.
“I guess it’s what breeders dream of, to have a family that keeps on producing like this one from Bella Inez has,” said Christian, understandably a huge fan of the Zoustar-Fuddle Dee Duddle mating.
“When you’re on a good thing, stick to it.
“She’s not an overly big mare, but she’s beautifully balanced and proportioned, and Zoustar puts a good bit of size and substance into the foals.”
Although ironically Zoustar over Red Ransom runs at a moderate three winners from eight runners – with one stakes winner in Brereton – the mating that’s produced Space Rider, Brereton and their siblings, rates highly on pedigree match-ups.
Danzig (Norther Dancer) is the only duplication in the first five generations, at 5m x 5m via Danehill, Zoustar’s dam’s grandsire, and Chief’s Crown, Bella Inez’s grandsire.
Deeper in, there’s an enticing doubling of Nearctic (Nearco) at 6m x 5f. Northern Dancer is Zoustar’s fourth sire, while the bottom mention of Nearctic comes through Christmas Wind, Red Ransom’s second dam.
Northern Dancer comes in five times in the first eight generations, and his dam Natalma (Native Dancer) six in nine, but the pedigree looks to have particularly strong historical backing from British super mare Selene (Chaucer).
She’s there ten times in columns eight and nine through two daughters and three sons – that trio being her most famous offspring Hyperion (Gainsborough) and full-brothers Pharamond (Phalaris) and Sickle.