THE BEST OF THE BEST

STEVE MORAN

It begins with Darley - somewhat unusually - offering an Exceed And Excel filly, Lot 493, at the 2007 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. She’s from the Gone West mare Arctic Drift and knocked down to trainer Mark Kavanagh for $300,000. Arctic Drift is later to produce a fast colt by Exceed And Excel who’ll be named Kuroshio, win a McEwen Stakes and be considered good enough to go to stud - at Darley. But nobody then knows that. Kavanagh has paid quite a reasonable sum for this mare’s first foal from Exceed And Excel’s first crop. He goes on to be champion first season sire but nobody then, either, knows that. She is ambitiously, but again as it turns out, appropriately named Believe’n’succeed. She wins a Blue Diamond Prelude (for fillies) at Caulfield at just her second start. Kuroshio, five years later, coincidentally wins the male version of the same race. Believe’n’succeed draws 13 of 13 in the Group 1 Blue Diamond and the rain arrives to dull her speed. She leads and bravely runs fourth, beaten just one length, in a closer’s race where the two other on-pace runners finish well down the track. Along the way she’s caught the eye of Willow Park Stud’s Glenn Burrows. “She drew the outside gate and worked so hard I couldn’t believe she was still right there at the finish,” Burrows recalled. “I like to buy fillies first hand off the track. Based on performance and pedigree and, of course, within a budget. I liked her. She was from the first crop of a very likely new stallion. Bred by Darley and sold by them which probably wouldn’t happen anymore but, at the time, Darley was selling quite a few yearlings. “She lost her way a little bit after her two-year-old season when she developed a throat issue. So, I rang Kav (Kavanagh) and he said ‘make an offer’. We had her checked out and everything was sweet; she wasn’t huge but big enough. We offered around $340,000 which I thought was realistic given that she made $300,000 as a yearling but now didn’t really have a racing future. “The deal was done which was great, other than thinking well, now I better find a client,” he said. That client was South Australian breeder Michael Birchall. Burrows then planned the mating of Believe’n’succeed with Lonhro. “I thought that would work and, at the time, I don’t think any Exceed And Excel mares had gone to Lonhro,” Burrows said. Believe’n’succeed’s value escalates considerably with that first Lonhro filly foal proving to be outstanding sprinting mare Bounding. Presented by Willow Park Stud and described by Burrows as “cracker from day one”, Bounding was purchased as a yearling for $425,000 by prominent New Zealand thoroughbred and greyhound enthusiast Gary Harding and his wife Linda. “My memory is that Darley was underbidder on her. Perhaps they thought it was all getting a bit awkward after selling mum,” he said.

Bounding began her career in New Zealand, where she won seven races, for trainers Ken and Bev Kelso before a brief stint in Australia - with Peter and Paul Snowden - which yielded a Group 3 win at Caulfield. By the time Birchall opts to sell Believe’n’succeed, in September 2014, Bounding’s deeds - including a Group 1 win - are well known. She’s presented at the 2014 Magic Millions Patinack Farm Complete Dispersal Sale (after illness had forced her late withdrawal from the earlier National Broodmare Sale) and she is purchased, in foal to Street Cry, by Coolmore’s Tom Magnier for $1.1 million. So, she’s now gone from Darley to Coolmore and that story hasn’t finished yet which is no slight on Darley, rather just one of those frequent reminders of the serendipitous nature of this industry. Believe’n’succeed is also, now, about to go from Australia to Ireland which happens in February 2015. It transpires that the foal she carried, when sold, was no star but that is soon to matter not. Her 2016 foal, born on that other side of the world, wins the Derby. By Galileo, of course, his name is Anthony Van Dyck.

Meanwhile, back at Magic Millions in 2016, two years after Believe’n’succeed’s sale, Willow Park Stud (on behalf of Harding) offers Bounding at the National Broodmare Sale and she was purchased by Stonestreet Thoroughbreds for $1.9 million and thus is also destined to leave our shores. She was exported to the US in October 2016. “John Moynihan signed for Stonestreet. He spoke to our stud manager Jade (Rossington) and asked if we knew much about the mare or whether she was just going through on short term consignment. Jade said you better speak to Glenn so, of course, I was able to give him the entire history including photos on the phone,” Burrows said. Harding and Burrows had developed quite a connection following Bounding’s original sale as a yearling. “Gary said he wanted to buy yearlings and race fillies rather than be a breeder and said why don’t we put her in the Magic Millions Broodmare Sale, so we had the opportunity to sell her twice,” Burrows said. Moynihan certainly wasn’t unfamiliar with the family having seen Believe’n’succeed at the Patinack Dispersal and, somewhat prophetically, he told Magic Millions after securing Bounding: “It’s an amazing family. She’s the kind of mare, if we’re lucky with her, she can provide a lot of very valuable yearlings to sell and she’s got the kind of pedigree that if she produces the right colts they can be stallions.” Valuable yearlings indeed! Just three months after Anthony Van Dyck wins the Derby, Bounding makes her own headlines with her first foal selling for US$4.1 million at Keeneland’s September Yearling Sale in Lexington, Kentucky.

And who’s fighting over her son by dual US Horse of the Year Curlin? Coolmore and Darley (Godolphin) of course. After a spirited bidding duel it was, perhaps fittingly, Goldolphin who came out on top. It is the most expensive horse sold at the Keeneland September Sale since 2010. Breeder Barbara Banke, of Stonestreet Farm, was understandably delighted. “I expected that he would be one of the sales toppers,” Banke said at the time, “I was confident that he would be well received. He’s a beautiful colt whose mother was a sprint champion in New Zealand.” Harding and Burrows, separately, watched the sale live online and were similarly delighted. “It must have been a fantastic atmosphere and great for the vendors. To have those powerhouses competing against each other, how exciting does it get? It’s fantastic.”

“It was just mind-boggling,” Burrows said, “and coming not long after the Derby. That was a really weird feeling, watching the Derby and thinking mum used to live here. Mum who was a speed freak, flat out running 1100 metres and here she’d produced the Derby winner. “It’s also fantastic that Gary and Linda now now have a relationship with one of the leading farms in Lexington. Linda gets emails all the time with updates on Bounding who now has a filly by War Front.” Wherever you look, it’s been quite a year, abroad, for the family. Shortly after the Derby success, Kurious became Kuroshio’s first stakes-winner when she scored in the Listed Scurry Stakes at Sandown on 15 June. The Henry Candy trained filly then won the Group 3 Coral Charge three weeks later and Kuroshio has done very well, from limited numbers, in the Northern Hemisphere. And the story also reflects well on Burrows’ Willow Park Stud, established in 2001, and its focus on broodmares.

“We have various clients groups of seven or eight guys buying mares off the track, which we get in foal and sell them on at Magic Millions. There’s 100 mares residing here including a dozen we bought from the States this year and another three from France. Many of them will be sold next year. “We’re very selective in trying to source what we believe are the right mares for obvious reasons including the expense of getting them here. We don’t buy Danehill line mares or mares by stallions who have failed here. “Five or six of those new mares are in foal to Rubick so I wasn’t unhappy when Yes Yes Yes won the Everest. Mind you I wouldn’t have minded if Santa Ana Lane had won either,” he said. Burrows bought Fast Fleet, the dam of Santa Ana Lane, for $800,000 on behalf of Bill Pearce earlier in 2019. “Fast Fleet’s had an outstanding Zoustar filly and is 45 days in foal to I Am Invincible,” Burrows said at the time of writing. The story certainly isn’t over - despite the tyranny of the drought in the Hunter Valley - for Willow Park Stud which broke the then Magic Millions record when it sold Princess Coup for $3 million at the National Broodmare Sale. Nor is it over for Believe’n’succeed and Bounding who have offspring to come. I’d just recommend getting hold of Bounding’s first filly foal.