Xtravagant’s new star delights Newhaven’s Kelly
Newhaven Park’s John Kelly couldn’t hide his delight – and no small amount of relief – after Xtravagant Star affirmed his faith in the stud’s stallion Xtravagant by taking yesterday’s $2 million Inglis Millennium.
Xtravagant, raced by New Zealand’s Te Akau operation, retired to stud at Newhaven in 2017 on the back of two Group 1 wins in his home country. He shaped as something of a long-game stallion, as might be expected of a son of Pentire (Be My Guest) out of a Zabeel (Sir Tristram) mare. Still, early results and the consequent patronage were unnerving for the Boorowa stud.
Last August, Xtravagant’s first cropper He’s Xceptional – a son of the triple provincial-winning Sebring mare She’s A Danica (Sebring) who’d fetched just $40,000 at Inglis Classic 2020 – provided his sire with a maiden stakes win, taking the Listed McKenzie Stakes for three-year-olds at Moonee Valley for the Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young partnership.
That wasn’t enough to provide a bump last spring, however. Having covered 117 mares in his first season, and 80-plus in the subsequent three, Xtravagant served just 48 last year, a spring ended by just a little better fortune when Devoted and Lavish Girl claimed stakes placings for the stallion in Perth and Melbourne.
But the new year has brought new hope for Newhaven.
He’s Xceptional’s little full sister Xtravagant Star – so much more of a looker that she fetched $150,000 for breeder Seymour Bloodstock at Inglis Premier last year – debuted impressively for Tony and Calvin McEvoy in taking a Geelong maiden on January 6.
And, after giving clockwise a go with a Randwick barrier trial win on January 24, the two-year-old yesterday stepped up vastly in class to take out the Millennium. Not only that, she gamely beat off the challenges of the more vaunted Paris Dior and Sejardan in the straight to win by one and a half lengths.
In the couple of hours afterwards, at the Riverside complex on the eve of this year’s Classic sale, you could hear the Newhaven team well before you could see them.
“I’m just so thrilled,” Kelly told ANZ Bloodstock News. “I’m so thrilled for the owners, and so thrilled for Tony McEvoy. He’s always been a big supporter of ours. He’s had some nice horses but now he’s got a super one.
“The filly looks like a pretty serious horse, so it’s just fantastic.”
Despite the shortage of headliners until yesterday, Xtravagant has posted some solid numbers. He was ninth among second season sires – with 15 winners from 35 runners – before yesterday’s result (and its consequential boost up the two-year-old sires’ table, to second behind Coolangatta’s Written Tycoon).
Still Kelly, a breeder as well as a stallion owner, could understand why the market fell away from his $11,000 sire – a situation he hopes will now change drastically.
“I think every stallion’s a slow burner until they get a good horse, but yes it was very tough last year,” Kelly says. “The breeders were hard to convince, which I understand. We’re a breeder, we send our mares out.
“But getting stallions going is difficult for everyone, whether you’re Coolmore, Arrowfield, Newgate. We’re just a little cog in the wheel, but today we’ve had our day in the sun.
“His figures are good, and now he’s got a crack two-year-old. So we’re hoping from here on that he gets the kudos we think he deserves.
“And the breeders who have gone to him are going to be very well rewarded. And we supported him ourselves. Hopefully next year he’ll get a really big book so he can keep going.”
Kelly said prospective buyers had already been eager to look at Xtravagant’s four lots at Classic before yesterday. A couple needing no convincing are McEvoy and Belmont Bloodstock’s Damon Gabbedy, who bought Xtravagant Star.
“We like the stock of Xtravagant, she had a quality farm in Newhaven Park, and was just a quality filly. She came out of the box and just had a lot of style about her,” Gabbedy said last night.
“After we bought her, He’s Xceptional came out and won a stakes race, so that was a bonus. But he was a $40,000 yearling and she cost $150,000. So she was a very good type.
“She had a beautiful head, was a really good walking filly and had a great temperament. We looked at her about four times, and every time she came out of the box she just paraded well and had her head down and did the right thing.
“We didn’t think we’d have to pay that much but we just decided to go for it. Tony’s big on buying the ones he loves.”
Kelly and Gabbedy agreed Xtravagant Star should excel up to the Thousand Guineas trip of 1600 metres. For Xtravagant to sire a topline 1100-metre two-year-old winner with his bloodlines might be more surprising. But Kelly, while noting the Sebring-More Than Ready (Southern Halo) speed through the dam, said: “We always thought Xtravagant would have the potential to do that”. And Gabbedy pointed out Xtravagant defied his pedigree by winning a 1400-metre Group 1, and a 1200-metre Group 3.
“He was an absolutely brilliant racehorse,” Gabbedy said. “And I do think the Australian market is a little too quick to judge.
“But he’s tracking really well as a stallion. Once you get a stakes winner in his first crop, that’s a good result, especially when you think they’re probably more bred to be three-year-olds.”