“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.” 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.
JOHN MOYNIHAN AND BARBARA BANKE AT THE MAGIC MILLIONS SALE
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.
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.
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.
20 / THE BEST OF THE BEST MMGC 2020_International_Investment - DR.indd 20
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