‘We were offering free nominations and they were rejecting it’
Agent Suman Hedge celebrates the success of newly crowned champion Written Tycoon after struggle to establish stallion
Written Tycoon (Iglesia) will have awoken yesterday morning proudly settling into his new throne as Australia’s champion sire.
But behind all the glitz and glamour that now surrounds him, the making of Victoria’s newly-crowned king is a tale of toil and graft that saw him nearly never make it onto the breeding battlefield at all.
Alongside every monarch is his trusty lieutenant, one that has shown belief and unwavering loyalty to elevate them to a position of power, which, in turn, can often prove the launching pad for their own careers and, in the case of Written Tycoon, one man has shared that journey from strife and struggle to success and sanctuary more than anyone else.
“The hardest part was the first part. That was actually getting someone to take him and then giving him the sufficient numbers to keep him going and make him a viable prospect,” said bloodstock agent Suman Hedge, referring to the moment he and his boss, Sheriff Iskander, took the decision to retire Written Tycoon from his racetrack career and embark upon the long and winding challenge of making the stallion.
Hedge has traversed the trials, tribulations and, ultimately, jubilations with Written Tycoon since his days as a promising, but as yet unfulfilled, racehorse, being by the horse’s side through his time working at Iskander Racing, through to a spell at Eliza Park where the stallion began his stud career, and then in nominations and sales at Woodside Park before moving on to pastures new and creating a successful, burgeoning career as a bloodstock agent.
On the track, Written Tycoon claimed the Todman Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) at two and ran 11th in the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) when trained by Grahame Begg, but his career as a three-year-old, having been transferred to John O’Shea, was cut short with the horse requiring a tie back operation, a fact that made it harder to find a stud suitor.
“We always felt like there was this force against us,” said Hedge. “Rejection from the market and from farms. We had offered him to so many farms across the journey and been told ‘he’s not good enough’ or ‘we can’t have an Iglesia’ or ‘he’s a Victorian horse’, all these excuses. And it just took such a long time to get him market acceptance.
“We eventually found a home for him at Eliza Park and I think he stood there for about six years, and initially it was really difficult because we just couldn’t sell nominations in him.”
On the face of it, a first season stallion garnering 118 covers in his first year is quite the satisfactory amount. Yet that figure does not explain the full story of the lengths taken to get those all important early numbers, which was reached through the enormous backing of the stallion through Iskander’s broodmare band and ‘selling’ nominations any which way they could.
“He was standing for $8,000, but he never really stood at that figure. We were dealing him at $5,000,” revealed Hedge.
“Through a combination of sending our own mares, 40 or 50 of them, to the horse in the first couple of years, we were giving away a lot of nominations for free and doing deals such as ‘three for $9,000’ and ‘add him as a free nom if you went to another stallion’, such as God’s Own. Anything we could to get numbers to the horse.
“We had situations where we were offering free nominations to people and they were rejecting it. We offered stallion tenders and nominations to racing clubs for free who would then auction them and they were rejecting him for that. It just felt like a lot of rejection for the horse.”
The hard work was rewarded, however, with Written Tycoon claiming the champion first season sire mantle, success that attracted further attention from breeders, but still not the recognition his talent as a stallion warranted.
“He started off really well. He won champion first season sire and, from the get-go, he was pretty good,” said Hedge.
“Early doors (he had) Masthead, which the Freedmans trained from his first crop. He was really important, because he was showing ability in the spring of the first crop and that helped us get numbers for the horse. I think he ended up running third in the Blue Diamond and then fourth in the Golden Slipper, so that really helped get the horse champion first season sire.
“But it probably wasn’t until (Golden Slipper winner) Capitalist came through and that’s when people started to take notice of the horse.”
Mark Rowsthorn, who had recently taken over the running of Woodside Park from his father, Peter, spotted the talent of Written Tycoon and transferred him to his stud in 2013, with the stallion having spent one season at Eliza Park’s Queensland property.
It was on the condition that Hedge went with him.
“A lot of people don’t know, but when we moved the horse from Eliza to Woodside Park, part of the deal was that they had to take me with the horse. That was the deal that we brokered,” Hedge revealed.
“Sheriff was very protective of me and he wanted to make sure I had a viable job, so he told them that if they wanted the horse they had to take me as the nominations person. They agreed and I stayed there a couple of years.
“To be frank, most of the work was already done before we even moved him to Woodside. Woodside certainly took on the horse in good faith and supported him well.”
Hedge was quick to attribute the persistence and belief of Iskander as the principle reason behind the stallion’s success, saying his backing of the horse in his early days almost left him with nothing.
“I’d say if it wasn’t for Sheriff Iskander, that horse wouldn’t even be standing at the moment. He just wouldn’t be a commercial entity at all,” he said.
“When I first met Sheriff he was a very wealthy guy and he had a lot of things going, and by the time I nearly finished he was nearly bankrupt by the industry. Fortunately Zoustar came along and then after Zoustar Written Tycoon really started hitting his straps and it worked out for him and everything was fine.
“I don’t know many people that would risk what Sheriff risked on this horse. His level of belief was unmatched. But for me, being so close to the horse, I know that he was the real reason for the horse being successful.”
In April this year, ANZ Bloodstock News revealed Iskander had bought out Mark Rowsthorn’s share in the stallion, before a deal was negotiated to take Written Tycoon to Yulong, where he will stand for $165,000, having stood the 2020 covering season at Arrowfield Stud and, despite the horse having sired Group 1 winners Ole Kirk, Pippie and Odeum among 12 individual stakes winners this season, Hedge has delivered an ominous warning that the best is yet to come.
“He’s obviously had multiple Group 1 winners throughout his career, but I honestly think the best is ahead of him,” Hedge said.
“We really haven’t seen the progeny of the best mares yet. It’s really only his last two books, and the book that he’s about to get this season, that’s head and shoulders above any book that he’d served prior.
“The Arrowfield book was unbelievable and the Yulong book is going to be equal, if not better. Sometimes stallions don’t always react to those better mares and they still perform similarly, but this horse has actually improved significantly since the mares have been getting better, so I think there’s a good reason to believe that there’s a lot to look forward to with him.”
Written Tycoon will have a battle to keep his crown and, although at more of a distance, his lieutenant will continue to take up the fight to keep him there, having purchased several high-class mares to support the 19-year-old.
“(I still have) a strong interest in the horse, even commercially, and he’s so commercial now that I think in terms of trainers that I’m working with, and I’m working with Rosemont Stud who bought a couple of colts by him this year, he just stacks up and makes a lot of sense.
“He’s an outcross who produces these fast, early types and they sprint, so he kind of fits exactly what the market is looking for.
“I’d hope that I can buy more of them, I mean they’re getting more and more expensive, but hopefully we can continue to. I bought some really good mares this year, I think, and a good selection of them will be going to him.”