Studmasters poised with stage set for Australia’s stallion-making race
Newgate Farm will field up to six runners sired by their stud residents in today’s Golden Slipper Stakes at Rosehill
The revolutionary rise of Newgate Farm is poised for another leap forward today with the burgeoning Hunter Valley stud holding a powerful hand in the nation’s greatest stallion-maker race, the Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
Newgate sires will have up to six starters in the 16-horse field for the $5 million Rosehill Group 1, while three starters for the 1200-metre sprint have been raised at the farm.
Fresh from claiming top vendor status at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale for the first time, Newgate will be cheering likely second-favourite She’s Extreme (Extreme Choice), Revolutionary Miss (Russian Revolution), Russian Conquest (Russian Revolution), Rise Of The Masses (Russian Revolution), Sebonack (Capitalist) and first emergency Sweet Ride (Deep Ride) if he gains a run. That appeared likely last night amidst the threat of more rain for a soft to heavy Rosehill, and an injury cloud over Joe Pride’s Shalatin (Shalaa).
Bookmakers last night assessed the Anthony Cummings-trained, Rob Crabtree-owned She’s Extreme as a $7.50 chance to carry the Newgate flag to victory and provide yet another laurel for the farm’s mercurial stallion Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) – and a second straight Slipper for him after Stay Inside’s victory a year ago.
Having burst into calculations with a sterling victory when forced wide in last week’s Magic Night Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) over this trip on a Heavy 9 surface, She’s Extreme shares second rung in betting behind long-time favourite Coolangatta (Written Tycoon) at $4.50 with Gary Portelli’s Sejardan (Sebring).
But it is Russian Revolution (Snitzel) – the runaway leader on Australia’s first season sires’ table – who holds Newgate’s strongest numerical band, with Revolutionary Miss ($15), Russian Conquest ($16) and Rise Of The Masses ($41) flying the son of Snitzel’s (Redoute’s Choice) flag.
The Team Hawkes-trained Sebonack, tackling soft going and clockwise racing for the first time as well as drawing wide, is around the $25 mark as he seeks to give Newgate’s $99,000 (all fees inc GST) top biller Capitalist (Written Tycoon) the Slipper victory which would emulate his own from 2016.
Sweet Ride was last night around $66 as the first emergency sweated on a run in hope of boosting his sire Deep Field (Northern Meteor), at $88,000 Newgate’s second-ranked public stallion, with the sub-fertile Extreme Choice now booked only on private terms to his shareholders.
With the Snowden-trained Russian Conquest reared at Newgate along with key associate Sir Owen Glenn’s pair Rise Of The Masses and Queen Of The Ball (I Am Invincible), Team Newgate were last night optimistic of having still something more to cheer from today’s Rosehill feature.
“The whole team are incredibly proud,” Newgate’s Henry Field told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“We bought our farm ten years ago and to have got where we’ve got to, with six horses by our stallions likely in the final field, and three of the 16 raised on Newgate, it’s quite surreal to have got here at this point in our farm’s life.
“We’re in a great position and we’re just thrilled that our sires are doing so well, and this shows they’re really doing on the track what we’ve set them out to do.
“With having the trifecta in the first season sires table last year, with Extreme Choice, Capitalist and Flying Artie, and having Russian Revolution the likely champion this year, it’s what it’s all about.”
She’s Extreme’s Group 3 victory last Saturday boosted Extreme Choice to a stunning 18.9 per cent stakes-winners-to-runners career ratio, from his limited number of just 37 starters.
Russian Revolution is off to a flying start in his stud career. With two-time winner Russian Conquest his highest earner after running Coolangatta to a neck second in the Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m), the dual Group 1-winning sprinter tops the first season sires’ list with progeny earnings of $1.35 million, double that of second-placed The Mission (Choisir), based in Queensland at Aquis Farm.
While standing any stallion involves a degree of hitting and hoping, Field said Russian Revolution had flourished in a manner anticipated by his owners, who apart from Newgate include China Horse Club, Matthew Sandblom and Sir Owen Glenn.
“We were genuinely very bullish about his prospects,” Field said. “He was a horse that Peter Snowden rated the fastest horse in his stable when he was in training. He’s by a champion sire and from a very good female line. So we really got behind him and put our belief in him, and it’s nice to see our confidence is being repaid.
“If he had one Slipper runner we’d be delighted. To have three is quite extraordinary, especially considering he didn’t even race until June of his two-year-old season.
“Our expectation wasn’t really that he’d have super-early two-year-olds, but I guess potent stallions are able to achieve things outside the ordinary and it seems like he’s doing that at.
“His stock are very naturally fast horses, and they’ve got great constitutions. Even though I’d expect them to mature as they get older, horses that are naturally fast and have great constitutions are exactly the types who make up a Slipper field.”
Only two other stallions this century have had three Slipper runners in their first crop. One was Russian Revolution’s barnmate Capitalist last year, while Fusaichi Pegasus achieved the feat in 2003.
Russian Revolution is certain to have a major service fee boost this year, but how much higher than last year’s $44,000 may depend on results today, and how Newgate organises its stallion roster. That will increase from its 2021 tally of 11 by at least four stallions this year with Stay Inside, Wild Ruler (Snitzel), Profiteer (Capitalist) and Tiger Of Malay (Extreme Choice) all set to take up residency in the Hunter.
With Profiteer and Tiger Of Malay announced this week at $16,500, Field said Moir Stakes (Gr 1, 1000m) winner Wild Ruler would likely fill the $44,000 slot soon to be vacated by Russian Revolution. A fee for Stay Inside was yet to be determined.
Field said there was scope for a fifth addition to push Newgate’s stallion roster to 16 this season. China Horse Club pair Artorius (Flying Artie) and In The Congo (Snitzel) are rumoured to be heading the next-in-line brigade. All told, Newgate has room for 20 stallions, a number Field calls possible. Major rivals Coolmore currently have 15 listed, and Arrowfield ten.
By some estimates Newgate would need to corner the market on around one third of broodmares in Australia to fit its business model.
“That’s possible. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but we’ll certainly have a big market share and we certainly plan on building that further in the coming years,” Field said.
“We have world class facilities to cater for 20 stallions, so we’re building in the right direction.
“Developing stallions is the core to our business, and the absolute purpose to our business, and we’re very proud to have such a high representation in the Slipper. Success breeds success and the more success our sires have the more momentum that builds for the stallions coming through.”
Field said breeding rights to Profiteer and Tiger Of Malay – though only announced this week – had “all but sold out”, while “a huge amount of mares” had been booked to Stay Inside, despite his fee being still undetermined.
Of course, Newgate will not have things its own way today. Coolangatta, for Ciaron Maher and David Eustace, has dominated the Slipper market for months. While she has not started since her Gold Coast triumph on January 15, surely few can still doubt the training methods of Maher and Eustace, starting a revolution of their own.
With the equally dominant James McDonald aboard, the filly drew awkwardly, but could move from gate 14 to 11 once emergencies come out.
And Portelli – who so memorably won the 2017 Slipper in the mud with $20,000 yearling She Will Reign – also has a strong hand with runners who have both won three of their four starts.
Sejardan – out of a mare who cost breeder Dale Miller $6,500 in Miss Amajardan, has drawn gate seven and will likely jump from five under Jason Collett.
And $11 chance Fireburn, a daughter of Portelli’s former sprinter Rebel Dane (California Dane) – the sire currently without a home – has drawn gate two, likely to become gate one, under comeback jockey Brenton Avdulla.
Louis Mihalyka of Laurel Oak Bloodstock, breeder and senior part-owner of both Fireburn and Rebel Dane, said the filly had progressed well since becoming her sire’s second black type winner in the Sweet Embrace Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) on February 26. The slight worry, perversely, is her inside gate, and not only because she settles rearward.
“With a wet Rosehill the track can vary as to what’s an advantage and what isn’t. Last Saturday inside draws were no-go zones,” Mihalyka said.
“But the inside is still an advantage around a circle. If you’ve drawn 16 you’ve got to go back, or forward. Hopefully we can still use the geometry in our favour.”
Mihalyka said Rebel Dane, having left Victoria’s Glen Eden Stud with the hope of a move to the Hunter Valley, had yet to find a new home despite “overtures from several farms”.