The latest in a year of shocks
Just as we were getting over the political barney involving Russell Balding almost having his two-year term on the Racing NSW board rubber stamped, and then withdrawn at the last minute in bizarre circumstances by the party who introduced it, the Australian Turf Club stepped up to deliver one of the shocks of the year.
There’s been a few: Singapore racing closing; Vin Cox defecting from Godolphin to Yulong, just to name a couple, but the proposed $5 billion development of Rosehill tops them all, or at least on par with Kranji’s demise depending on if Asian racing holds your interest.
There have already been plenty of lavish promises from the scheme’s proponent, the ATC who is turning from a race club to large-scale property developer.
On face value, the arguments for are hard to ignore, but will they deliver, particularly when it is likely there will be changes of leadership within racing, let alone government, during what will be a drawn out process?
The investment in Sydney’s three other tracks is well overdue overdue, particularly Warwick Farm.
The construction of a new racecourse on a greenfield site in Sydney is an “ambition”, according to ATC chairman Peter McGauran, a comforting word for me having offered a friend 50,000 to 50 earlier in the day about a new track being built.
Thankfully, the currency of the bet was never disclosed.
Sure, the ATC and the industry in general may have up to $7 billion to invest, a new track should be well down the list of priorities.
Ultimately, it’s hard to see training on Sydney’s metropolitan racecourses – and at Flemington in Melbourne, for that matter – remaining long-term, and if Racing NSW can deliver on its long-held suggestion of a purpose-built training centre in the state’s Southern Highlands, modelled on the famed Newmarket in the UK, then that would be a better use of funds.
Randwick isn’t perfect and Canterbury is, well, Canterbury, so like Warwick Farm, they need upgrading, especially if they are to carry the extra load when Rosehill becomes a mixture of highrises and train stations.
If this mammoth project proceeds, it’s up to the ATC and Racing NSW to not blow it and set the industry up for the next 100 years, as McGauran has promised.
There’s still many more questions than answers and it’s up to administrators to answer them.
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The sales season is around the corner (can you believe that it’s rolled around again?) which means the vets tend to become enemy number one.
When breeders and vendors are looking for someone to blame because their valuable colt or well-bred filly has their perceived value cut enormously, sometimes in multiples of ten, due to a so-called low risk x-ray being deemed moderate or high and a good scope is (possibly correctly) interpreted as a grade three or four by a buyers’ veterinarians.
Melbourne trainer Lloyd Kennewell and his agent Mathew Becker’s punt on an I Am Invincible yearling with high-risk x-rays certainly paid off when the now three-year-old, the Coolmore Stud Stakes runner-up I Am Unstoppable, was sold to Widden Stud.
For how much, we’re not sure, but safe to say it’s more than a few million dollars and a lot more than the $65,000 Kennewell and Becker paid for the colt out of the Newgate draft at the Gold Coast last year.
I Am Unstoppable hasn’t had a sore day since he’s been in training with Kennewell at Cranbourne
“It is a bit of a mystery really. The issue that he had has been well documented and they even went back through the specialist in America to relook at the x-ray and they said it’s a bit of a one-in-a-million that the issues he had have just filled in and gone,” Kennewell told us.
“It’s unreal that has happened, but at the same time I am happy to take punts on good quality horses who are well-bred.
“If you’re going to get them at a very cheap price, you can pay to find out, but I don’t think you can pay to find out if you have to pay $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 for them.
“But I am happy to punt those horses on x-rays for that sort of money. That’s the sort of money that you can punt them at.”
Kennewell took another punt earlier this year, going to $70,000 for a Sun Stud-bred filly by I Am Invincible from the Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale who had “average x-rays”, and so far he is glad he did.
She is called Madame Maserati and was being aimed at tomorrow’s Inglis Nursery at Randwick.
“She has actually trialled up really well, but she’s just gone to the paddock. She was going to go to the Inglis race in Sydney first-up, but we felt she’d just come to the end of her prep. We’ve stopped and put her away,” he said.
“She’s had no soreness issues, either, and she’s a Vinnie filly out of a stakes-winning mare Smart Coupe. She’s always going to be worth something as a filly, too.”
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He may be swimming in his own pool, so to speak, but Western Australia’s Playing God is dominating the West.
Given the Darling View’s sire’s rise can’t be ignored, so will the eastern states buyers take notice and head to Perth in February to cherry pick the best the state has to offer at the Magic Millions sale?
He could be Australia’s answer to New Zealand as a source of quality three and four-year-olds capable of tackling Guineas and Derbies, cups and classics.
Playing God may add to his Group 1 tally as a sire tomorrow in the Northerly at Ascot where I’ll be fortunate enough to be trackside.
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When the rug was pulled from under Singapore racing on June 5, many horses who had been bought to head to the Lion City never entered quarantine or didn’t get on the plane as owners at trainers looked for alternative options.
Wattle Bloodstock’s Peter Twomey was also facing that predicament, having purchased Stop The Water (Headwater) on behalf of Singapore clients of trainer Steven Burridge just three days before the devastating government-ordered shutdown of racing in October 2024.
Despite the pessimism permeating around Kranji, the Blake Ryan-prepared Stop The Water was sent to Singapore on an International Racehorse Transport flight on July 31, a day before he officially turned three, on the last Singapore-bound flight for IRT.
Last Saturday, the $38,000 Inglis HTBA May Yearling Sale graduate, who was passed in at the 2022 Ready2Race Sale with a $70,000 reserve, won his maiden at just his second start, signalling he can win more races before Singapore racing’s time is up.
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As we’ve reported in ANZ before, Malaysian racing – and Selangor in particular – has been taking on many of the Singapore horses.
But the owners and trainers of Selangor Turf Club, located in Kuala Lumpur, have also been extremely active at the recent two-year-old sales, none more so than the New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale.
The Malaysian cohort, while at a lower level of spend compared to the Hong Kong buyers, were valuable contributors to the New Zealand market, spending almost NZ$1.8 million on 28 horses.
“Twenty-eight lots was a huge success compared to 19 two-year-olds purchased last year,” Selangor Turf Club chairman Tan Sri Datuk Richard Cham Hak Lim said.
“These fresh purchases would help to strengthen the existing horse population at the club. I am overwhelmed by the support shown by the horse owners and trainers who took the effort to attend and made purchases at the sales.”