It's In The Blood

Verona

Verona’s black type breakthrough at Randwick last Saturday not only brought more endorsement for the eye of the Ciaron Maher and David Eustace stable, it showed New Zealand shuttle sire Belardo (Lope De Vega) may have breathed some overdue life into the breeding line of an all-time great mare.

Maybe Mahal (Maybe Lad) was one of the finest racehorses of recent Australian history. From 1975 to 1978, the Bart Cummings-trained mare won seven modern-day Group 1s amid ten stakes wins, including two Lightning Stakes (1200m) and a Newmarket (1200m) up the Flemington straight, and a Doncaster Mile (1600m).

But, as often happens, her champion racemare qualities didn’t transfer to the breeding barn. In fact, that’s putting it nicely. Her broodmare career was a rather forlorn tale of seven mostly moderate named foals, at least four fallow years when she missed, and a few other seasons when she was not served.

Her first foal Must Be Mahal (Raffindale) was unplaced in four runs. Second up came Probably (Showdown) – Verona’s fourth dam – who had one unplaced run. A switch to New Zealand brought Lady Danzatore (Danzatore), who was placed once in four starts, and Catch My Breath (Sir Tristram), who was unplaced in three.

Finally, fifth foal Bellomahal (Bellotto) managed a little dab of black type, taking the Spring Cup (Listed, 2200m) at Warwick Farm in 1996. Lastly came his full sisters Beloved, who won twice and was city-placed, and the unraced Beleagured.

From Maybe Mahal’s descendants has come a mild sprinkling of lower stakes success. Must Be Mahal threw two Listed winners. Probably left Absolutely (Motavato), a winner who became the granddam of Irish Colleen (Shinko King), who can claim primacy in the wider Maybe Mahal family having taken a Group 2 in New Zealand, and a Listed race.

Lady Danzatore threw a filly in Maybe Arch (Archway) who was Group 3 placed in the 2002 Port Adelaide Cup (2400m), and Catch My Breath left Crown Mahal (Chief’s Crown) who also earned a Group 3 placing – for his granddam’s trainer Cummings – with a nose second in the 2001 Grafton Cup (2400m).

Overall, no superstars, but now there’s hope. Going back to Probably, she threw Princess Mahal (Sackford) who left the Listed-placed Even George (Centro) and Loral (Defensive Play), a winner who threw five foals to race, including Spamalot (Stravinsky).

Spamalot’s breeding record has been, in keeping with the Maybe Mahal line, little to write home about, with a first foal in the Elusive City (Elusive Quality) filly Parisdotcon, a one-time winner in New Zealand who was city-placed, then Cheer Win (Showcasing), who won two from 32 in Hong Kong, and then his sister Carnival Lady, who’s been unplaced from four New Zealand starts.

But now has emerged Verona, a filly from the first southern crop of Belardo, whose powerful win over 12 colts and geldings in the Frank Packer Plate (Gr 3, 2000m) last Saturday suggested quite loudly that her ten-year-old sire has improved this female line considerably.

The champion two-year-old colt in Europe in 2014, Belardo began shuttling from Darley’s Kildangan Stud in Ireland to Karaka’s Haunui Farm in 2017. While still little known in Australia – where he’s had 20 runners for nine winners – his 40 starters in New Zealand have brought greater success.

He’s had 15 winners that side of the Tasman, where he began strongly by claiming New Zealand’s first season sires’ title last year and placing second on the two-year-old table, thanks mainly to Avonallo, a Listed winner who was third in the Karaka Million 2YO (RL, 1200m). This season Belardo – who’ll return for his sixth spring at Haunui this year having commanded a fee of $10,000 (plus GST) last year – sits third among NZ’s second season sires, behind outstanding filly La Crique’s sire Vadamos (Monsun), and Tivaci (High Chaparral). Belardo’s top runner has been Fellini, with another third place in the Karaka Million 2YO.

Belardo’s success so far at stud fits the expectations Haunui’s Mark Chitty had of him when he continued a 20-year association with Darley Europe, which most famously brought Iffraaj to the stud. In the reverse of what usually applies to Australia’s broodmare band, the fact Belardo was out of a Danehill mare (Danaskaya) was a plus.

“He was a Group 1 winner at two and four,” Chitty told It’s In The Blood. “And being out of a Danehill mare, that gave us good confidence with the mares here in New Zealand, because a lot of them don’t have Danehill in them.

“What’s more, if we do have mares that have a Danehill line, Danehill sits on the top line of their pedigree, so you’d have a gender-balanced cross of Danehill, since Belardo’s Danehill blood comes from his mum.

“Plus, Belardo’s sire Lope De Vega was well-known in Australia with offspring like Santa Ana Lane and Vega Magic. And we also thought Belardo might work nicely with a bit of Nureyev, and that’s come through here in Verona through Spamalot’s sire, Stravinksy.”

Stravinsky, Europe’s champion sprinter of 1999, shuttled to New Zealand’s famous Cambridge Stud and has been a regular top ten broodmare sire in New Zealand in recent years through runners including Group 1 winners Tavago (Tavistock) and Sacred Elixir (Pour Moi).

And breeder Don Pye’s pairing of Belardo with his Stravinsky mare, Spamalot, appears to have paid off handsomely through Verona, though it didn’t look that way at first. The filly only made it into Book 3 at Karaka in 2020, and was snapped up from Haunui’s draft by Cypress Point Farms trainer Jenna Mahoney for just $8,000.

“She’s ended up being a very cheap filly. There was nothing wrong with her, and she was well selected by Jenna,” said Chitty, a firm believer that a good horse can come from any book of any sale.

“Unfortunately when you’re in that third tier sale as she was, people turn off. They don’t look at them properly and they can go quite cheaply. But if you’re buying for owners, you should look at everything, it’s free to look after all, and people find the horses they like and they don’t like.

“We’ve been around for a long time, and you treat the number one yearling and the number 60 yearling exactly the same. Verona got treated exactly the same as the highest priced yearling in our draft. She had everything done to her that should’ve been done to her. It’s not as if they’re fed half and trimmed once in a blue moon.”

Verona fits that thinking – you don’t know what’s going to present itself in any thoroughbred – in more ways than one. She’s by a sprinter-miler out of a family headlined by another in Maybe Mahal, though what success her family has had does include those staying Group 3 placegetters Maybe Arch and Crown Mahal.

“Sometimes it’s the way the genetics fall. You never quite know until you see how it comes out in the individual,” Chitty said. “Jenna pegged Verona very early on as a stayer – she had a bit of a size and a nice amount of leg – and she’s got it exactly right.

“Lope De Vega probably had more sprinter-milers in Australia but he was a French 2,000 Guineas winner and I think Belardo horses might be best at a mile plus. They show a bit early on, but I think you’ve got to wait on them a bit longer.”

Verona showed out early by winning over 1400 metres on debut at Te Aroha last October, before turning in a seventh, a fifth and two fourths. Despite the lack of placings and the unproven bloodlines, Ciaron Maher and David Eustace saw enough to pluck her out of New Zealand.

In that first fourth placing she’d been beaten four and a half lengths in the Royal Stakes (Gr 2, 2000m) at Ellerslie, having jumped from gate 14 and being kept wide throughout. Her subsequent fourth was in the lucrative Karaka Million 3YO (RL, 1600m), when beaten two lengths.

After she was brought to Australia, her new trainers’ judgement may have been brought into question when she was fifth in a lowly Benchmark 78 over 1600 metres at Warwick Farm.

But in subsequently powering home at the end of 2000 metres last Saturday to win by a length and a half as a $21 chance, when her more fancied male rivals could make no ground on a Heavy 8 track, Verona gave further proof of why the Maher-Eustace team have become such an unstoppable force.

She also gave a major boost to a sire little-known in Australia, and to the extended page of one of the finest racemares in living memory.

“Her runs in the Royal Stakes and Karaka 3YO were very good, and it didn’t surprise us to see her picked up by the Maher-Eustace stable,” Chitty said. “They saw the talent she possessed and now I think she’ll go on with it.

“The win was also definitely what Belardo needed, and hopefully there’ll be more in store.”

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