Both Not a Pretender, winner at Caulfield last Saturday week of the $250,000 Inglis Premier for 2-year-olds who graduated from the Inglis Melbourne yearling sales, and her sire Royal Academy are examples that old age need not be an impediment to success. Not a Pretender, a runner for Nathan Tinkler’s Patinack Farm, was foaled when Royal Academy was 20 and he himself was produced when his sire NIjinsky was the same age and his dam was 18.
Now 23, Royal Academy has been a resident for the last three years at Coolmore in the Hunter Valley and before that shuttled out to this stud on 12 occasions. He did not visit in 2000 and 2001, instead spending the southern hemisphere seasons in Brazil.
A very talented racehorse who won four of seven starts, including the American Breeders’ Cup Mile and Newmarket July Cup (a top English sprint) and finished second in the Irish Two Thousand Guineas, Royal Academy has supplied world wide1720 starters spread over 27 countries for 1152 winners of 2840 races (290 stakes) and over $133million.
His Australian sired contribution adds up to approximately 440 winners of 1000 races and $40million.The most outstanding runner in Australia has been Bel Esprit, now a prominent sire from his use at Eliza Park, Kerrie, Victoria.
Royal Academy is one of two surviving sons of Nijinsky, a Northern Dancer world champion racehorse who was born in1967 and who died at 25 in 1992, in the Hunter Valley. Produced when Nijinsky was 23, the other is Humam and he is at Pine Lodge, Scone.
The small number of Nijinsky sires still living around the world also includes Sky Classic, a North American champion juvenile and turf performer who is from a mare by Nodouble, a son of the exported Australian Horse of the Year Noholme. Foaled the same year as Royal Academy, Sky Classic has had over 400 winners (57 stakes winners) of 1500 races and US$45million. He stands the 2010 season in Kentucky on $10,000.
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BOB LAPOINTE, the entrepreneur who bought Kentucky Fried Chicken to Australia, has put his highly regarded spelling and pre-training centre Muskoka Farm up river from Wiseman’s Ferry, near Sydney on the market.
Active in racing and breeding for over 30 years, Bob Lapointe had the misfortune to take advice in 1984 that a young mare he owned with the late Bob Logan wasn’t good enough and they sold at the Scone sales for $5,000.
Named Easy Date, she was carrying a foal at that time who became Snippets, a champion Australian racehorse, top sire of winners from use at the Arrowfield Stud and a major influence through his daughters.
His strength as a broodmare sire was demonstrated last Saturday week by his daughters being the dams of the winners of three feature juvenile races. The winners were Chance Bye, the Snitzel filly successful in the Silver Slipper; Shrapnel, the Charge Forward colt who took out the $100,000 Breeders’ Stakes at Adelaide’s Morphettville; and Crystal Lily, the Stratum winner of the $100,000 Chairman’s Stakes at Caulfield.
The winners by Snitzel, an Oakleigh Plate winner standing at Arrowfield, and Stratum, a Redoute’s Choice Golden Slipper winner at the Widden Stud, are both in their first crops, while Shrapnel is in the second batch by Arrowfield based Charge Forward, an AJC Galaxy winner and Golden Slipper second by Red Ransom.
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SCONE Race Club secretary Helen Sinclair got a big thrill out of a winner over a1000 kms away last Saturday week. The reason for her joy was the fact that the winner, the 5-year-old Catbird gelding Monkeys was bred and is owned and trained by her daughter Elizabeth Grocott, a horsewoman who grew up in Scone and who was for a time foreman in Sydney for Bart Cummings.
Elizabeth has recently established at Mornington, but has only one horse in her stables, Monkeys. He has raced twice for her for a sound second at Terang on February 15 and then the win (1741m) at Geelong on Saturday 6 March.
Earlier in the hands of two different trainers in Sydney and coming back in February from seven months spell, the problem restricted Monkeys has raced only13 times to date with his earlier campaigns including a win at Kembla Grange and seconds at Newcastle and Hawkesbury.
He is a half-brother to three winners, including Cinque Cento, a Nothin ‘ Leica Dane filly who won the Doomben Cup, SAJC Queen of the South Stakes and BTC Doomben Roses and finished second in the Queensland Oaks, and Dothis Dothat, a Commands gelding who won several races in Sydney and finished second in the Parramatta Cup.
All were bred by the Elizabeth Grocott, owner under Scone Racing & Breeding Syndicate of Cinque Cento until she was a late 4-year-old. She was sold then for $255,000 to Turangga Stud, Scone owner Stuart Ramsey at the 2006 Magic Millions National Broodmare sale and won the Doomben Cup and Queen of the South for him the following year.
Now in the high quality Turangga broodmare band, Cinque Cento had her first foal, a More Than Ready colt, in August last year and could have an early one by Hussonet next spring.
Laydown Misere, the dam of Cinque Cento, died at the Yarraman Park Stud, Scone in November 2008 shortly after producing an Elvstroem filly for Grocott. She also had a filly in 2007 by Al Maher and a colt in 2006 by Flying Spur.
She has an impressive production record for a mare that cost Grocott only $600 at the1999 Inglis Easter Thoroughbred sale. A minor winner at two, Laydown Misere was by the Mr. Prospector sire Varick and from Coral, a daughter of Sackford.
