FULL CIRCLE

JOHN HUTCHINSON

Year in, year out the company’s flagship sale has continued to serve up so many firsts, on so many fronts, dating back to the original sale in 1986 and 12 months later when the winner of the first running of the two year old race was the legendary Snippets. All the way through to a more recent innovation, the Racing Women’s Bonus, an instant success from day one, which was made worldwide famous through the deeds of the brilliant mares Global Glamour and Sunlight. In 2020, that program enters a new era to include the Magic Millions Three Year Old Guineas as well as extending to the company’s races in Tasmania and Western Australia. Like Topsy, the original Magic Millions concept has grown and grown to the extent that the Carnival is not just about the sale or the horseracing anymore, but instead a not-to-be-missed fortnight-long event. The Polo and the spectacular barrier draw on the beach, for example, simply add to the glitz. But, back to the horses. Being the first yearling sale of the year brings with it another significant angle for we die-hards, as the industry as one focusses on the sale-ring performance of the many well-credentialled first season sires taking guard in January. Make no mistake, the young pretenders do not get a head start but rather square off against many of the best progeny of the best stallions in the land and a strong showing in the ring will inevitably lead to support from breeders leading into the stallion’s fourth season at stud. Vendors may be on edge marketing their drafts, but always with one eye ahead to the following breeding season. It is the name of the game.

The list of first season sires to be represented at the Gold Coast in January compares more than favourably with any in recent years. At the helm is the superstar American Pharoah, the first US Triple Crown winner to have stood at stud Down Under. With his initial NH-bred crop showing exceptional promise and with his yearling daughter from the outstanding broodmare Leslie’s Lady selling for an astonishing $8.2m at Keeneland in September, it is fair to say that local and international interest in his initial Gold Coast offering will be sky high. Just seeing American Pharoah in the flesh has been good enough for me. Equine perfection. But I reckon for many, and the good folk at Magic Millions especially, the progeny of one freshman sire will surely be a highlight. As we know, the young Newgate Farm stallion, Capitalist, holds a special place in the company’s history as the undisputed champion of his two year old year. And while he was not the first horse to win the Magic Millions Two Year Old Classic - Golden Slipper double (the geldings Dance Hero in 2004 and Phelan Ready five years later also won both events) Capitalist is the only colt to have done so to date and with that comes expectations of the highest order ahead of the 2020 sale. Factor in his brilliant three length victory in the Breeders’ Plate, (a race also on the CV of other Magic Millions stars such as Snitzel, Sebring, Pierro and Vancouver) and Capitalist’s treble in those all-important races is unique. Many a Magic Millions legend has won one or two of those events but never all three, bar Capitalist.

Capitalist was a most fitting triumph for his breeder Jan Clark of Daandine Stud, having also bred his sire Written Tycoon, a $50,000 purchase by Grahame Begg at the 2004 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. When, by chance, Written Tycoon stood his one and only season at stud in Queensland at nearby Eliza Park at a service fee of just $14,000 in 2012, it was a straightforward decision by Jan Clark to send her wellrelated mare Kitalpha to the horse whose successful career on the track and early days at stud she had no doubt followed, enjoyed and, understandably, in which had taken maybe just a little humble pride. As one does in one’s own. But business is business. Fast forward to the 2015 sale where we see the wisdom of that mating bear its first fruit. When Daandine’s Lot 361 was knocked down to the bid of James Harron for $165,000, the bottom-line financial result for Daandine was about 12 times the service fee and exactly double the $82,500 paid by Clark for Kitalpha on the advice of agent Craig Rounsefell’s Boomer Bloodstock at the 2012 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale. It should be noted that the Northern Meteor foal Kitalpha was carrying at the time realised $310,000 at the same venue a year before. As they say, win-win.

They also say that fortune favours the brave and in 2015 James Harron with the backing of a powerful syndicate focussing on potential stallion prospects made the bold decision to outlay over $8m on stock during the sales season, but it was at the Magic Millions where the group struck gold and the chestnut Capitalist was the mother lode. Signing for 17 lots at a total of just under $4.5m, the combination of James Harron Bloodstock and Snowden Racing were the sale’s second leading buyer by aggregate, while it is interesting to note that Capitalist was one of their least expensive buys, selling for $2,000 under the sale average of $167,000 for Book 1. “A beautiful specimen – mature for his age and looking very precocious” was James Harron’s description of Capitalist as a yearling. The Written Tycoon colt’s four wins from five starts with a record $3.5m in the bank saw him crowned the Champion Two Year Old of the 2015-16 season. What stands out from his race record at two is not only the clear-cut margin in each of those victories – the Breeders’ Plate, the Wyong Magic Millions Classic, the Magic Millions Two Year Old Classic at the Gold Coast and of course, the Golden Slipper – but also the quality of opposition he faced in that vintage crop, which included Astern, Extreme Choice, Flying Artie and Star Turn, all of which too will have their exciting first crop on offer in January.

Capitalist is the only colt to have won the Magic Millions Two Year Old Classic – Golden Slipper double. What is perhaps not so obvious are his pedigree links to those two great juvenile races. We start with Written Tycoon, who won the traditional lead-up, the Todman Stakes (ironically the one race Capitalist did not win at two) before contesting the 2007 Golden Slipper, and whose own sire Iglesia ran fourth in the 1998 Golden Slipper before setting a now long-standing course record down the famous Flemington Straight Six. Capitalist’s grand-dam was the stakes-winning Danehill filly, Compulsion, a sister to the 1996 Golden Slipper winner Merlene and a daughter of the brilliant Bold Promise, a dual Magic Millions winner back in 1991. Three of the greatest Golden Slipper winners, Vain, Luskin Star and Marscay feature in Capitalist’s fourth remove and we can even trace the link back to his sixth dam, Regal Peace who contested the race in 1962 before winning the Thousand Guineas in her classic year. For the Snowden yard, Capitalist was the dux of the class from the get-go. As Peter Snowden said: “Capitalist was just the perfect two year old, blessed with a huge amount of precocity and ability”, with regular jockey, Blake Shinn, adding, “Capitalist was the best two year old I’ve ever ridden… like driving a Rolls-Royce”. Quotes which have become banner headlines in the marketing of the horse ever since.

Any stud would welcome a Golden Slipper winner to its stallion roster, but for the fledgling Newgate Farm, who had been involved in the ownership since his purchase as a yearling, the news that Capitalist would retire to the Aberdeen property was a crowning moment. Never ones to sit back when an opportunity presents itself, the stallion syndicate then set about supporting their young blade to the hilt. Stellar broodmares from their existing bands were complemented by the acquisition of a considerable number of others, both here and overseas, specifically for Capitalist’s first season at stud, the result being that the farm will showcase a select draft of 14 lots by their resident stallion at the 2020 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. Newgate’s General Manager, Bruce Slade, points out: “Twelve of the 14 are either from stakes-winners or are half-relations to stakes-winners. As a group, they are very much in Capitalist’s mould, being medium size, powerfully built and precocious looking”. Newgate’s faith in the champion colt was matched by breeders across the board. The stallion covered an initial book of 229 mares – the most of any stallion in 2017 - with some 50 of his yearlings having been accepted for the January sale. James Dawson from Magic Millions has been an unabashed fan of Capitalist since early on-farm inspections of the colt at Daandine five years ago. Moreover, he and the team have inspected each of the yearlings to be offered by the company in the New Year. His thoughts on the Capitalist yearlings echo Bruce Slade’s comments: “On type his yearlings have been rated highly by our team in the field. Phrases which kept appearing on our notes are ‘shape’ and ‘athletic’ and ‘strength through the hindquarters and topline’. They move well, have good temperaments and look like turn-key racehorses”. Class with a Capital(ist) C. Or as David Chester puts it so well, ‘real Magic Millions types’. By this time next year, Capitalist will have had his first runners, with many aiming at the 2021 Magic Millions Two Year Old Classic and beyond in the hoofprints of their famous sire.

Magically, events have come full circle.