Wrap Up Melbourne Cup Week
Prince of Penzance a well-deserved Cup winner
PENTIRE, the sire of Prince of Penzance, the 6-year-old New Zealand bred gelding who on November 3 became only the fourth 100-1 plus winner of the Melbourne Cup and the first ridden by a female jockey, Michelle Payne, has been one of the most consistent hard working sources of stamina in Australasia this century.
A 23-year-old sire who has called Rich Hill Stud at Walton in New Zealand his southern hemisphere home since 1997 and who has also had northern hemisphere use in Japan (from1997) and Germany (from 2004), Pentire has worldwide statistics of 568 winners (41 stakes winners) of 1588 races (102 stakes) and earners of over $82million.
He has had winner’s in19 countries with his best results achieved from southern hemisphere use, stats including 628 wins (53 stakes), $30million Australia and 455 wins (35 stakes) and $10million New Zealand. All but three of his 25 Group race winners (13 Group1 level) have been in either Australia or New Zealand.
The Pentire runners have included 23 who have won at 3200m or further. Some of these efforts have been over jumps, but they have also included Prince of Penzance, Pantani (won Adelaide Cup), Art Success (won Brisbane Cup), Pentane (winner and second Auckland Cup) and Pentathlon (won New Zealand Cup, second Sydney Cup).
Two who did not win beyond 2400m, but who each gave the Melbourne Cup a shake have been Xcellent (twice NZ Horse of Year, third in the 2005 Cup) and Pentastic (fourth and fifth in the Cup, second Brisbane Cup).
The Darren Weir, Wangoom (Warrnambool Vic) trained Prince of Penzance had not been asked to compete as far as 3200m until his appearance in the Melbourne Cup, but in a career dogged by health issues, he had shown up very competently up to 2800m in his earlier 23 outings.
The efforts included a win and second in the Moonee Valley Cup (2500m) and seconds at Flemington in two stakes at 2600m, the Queen Elizabeth and Roy Higgins.
He has been ridden in every one of his outings except the Queen Elizabeth by his Melbourne Cup winning pilot Michelle Payne, one of eight Victorian siblings who have been jockeys. A Down syndrome afflicted brother, Steve, was a Prince of Penzance strapper.
One of the best performers of his generation in Europe at 2400m, Prince of Penzance’s sire Pentire won eight of 18 starts. A win at four in the weight-for age champion at Royal Ascot, the King George V1 & Queen Elizabeth, followed a second in the race at three.
Pentire is by Be My Guest, a very good Northern Dancer sire, and from Gull Nook, a Group 2 winner at 2400m who was a three-quarter sister by Mill Reef to English and Irish Derby winner Shirley Heights.
Bred by the Rich Hill Stud and purchased for $50,000 at the New Zealand yearling sales by John Foote, the veteran Brisbane bloodstock agent who made a big contribution to the production of three times Melbourne Cup winner Makybe Diva, Prince of Penzance is the only foal of consequence among the six produced by Royal Successor, an unraced American mare by Mr. Prospector.
Her dam Only Royale was a Yorkshire Oaks winner by the Nijinsky French Derby winner Caerleon and from Etoile de Paris, a stakes winner to 1400m in Ireland by Crowned Prince, a son of Mr. Prospector’s influential sire Raise a Native.
Only Royale is a half-sister to the dam of Torezal (a winner of ten races, including the Adelaide Guineas) and Etoile De Paris was a half-sister to Northern Treasure, an Irish Two Thousand Guineas winner and Irish Derby third who was a big loss for Newhaven Park, Boorowa NSW when he died after two seasons of use as a sire, 1977 and 1978.
A three-quarter sister to Northern Treasure went to Royal Academy and produced Oscar Schindler, the visiting flop (15th) when sent out as favourite in the 1996 Melbourne Cup. He won the Irish St Leger twice and finished third in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
NEW STAKES WIN: Pentire gained a new stakes winner when 3-year-old son Xtravagant won the Group1 New Zealand Two Thousand Guineas at Riccarton on November 7 by an awesome 8 ½ lengths. Winner of three of five starts, he is from the Zabeel mare Axiom.
The pioneer females of Melbourne spring racing
MICHELLE PAYNE’S win as the jockey who skillfully rode Prince of Penzance to victory in this year’s Melbourne Cup stirred up memories of two of the first women who pioneered the appearance of their sex as licensed personnel at the spring racing.
Both trainers from historic breeding and racing country areas in NSW and still with us, they are Betty Shepherd, Scone and Deidre Stein, Bathurst and both did a lot of their own exercising.
Betty led the way, fifty years ago next spring by being the first licensed female to have a runner in the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups. She was represented by the Scone bred Good Brandy (GB) gelding Trevors and he finished fourth at Caulfield (unlucky according to jockey Athol Mulley) and 14th of 22 in Galilee’s Melbourne Cup (sent out 25-1).
A winner of 14 races, including the Chelmsford in Sydney, the then 7-year-old gelded Trevors also contested the Cox Plate during his Melbourne campaign, but finished at the rear. The first three home were Tobin Bronze, Winfreux and then Light Fingers.
The Cox Plate blemish on Trevors’ record was attoned for twenty years later when Deidre Stein became the first woman to train a winner of the race, succeeding in 1985 with the 5-year-old gelding Rising Prince. Then owner with husband Vince of the Rockleer Stud near Bathurst, Deidre bred Rising Prince, a son of Round Top (USA) and Bonlene, by Capricorno (GB), raised him and semi-trained him on the farm. They also bred his dam and stood both the sires.
Rising Prince ran 53 times for 12 wins, including three Group1s, the Cox Plate, McKinnon Stakes and Queen Elizabeth (Randwick), but finished near the rear in the Melbourne Cup. He also won the Villiers, Summer Cup and Chipping Norton in Sydney.
The Steins now live in southern Queensland, but Betty Shepherd still calls Scone home.
Melbourne Cup day a show window for Lindsay Park
LINDSAY PARK, the horse breeding and racehorse conditioning conglomerate established mid grape vines at Angaston South Australia in the early 1960s by Colin Hayes, an industry leader later honoured with national awards of AM and OBE and a niche in the Australian Thoroughbred Hall of Fame, has been a university for leading horsemen.
A show window for graduates of this university was the results of racing at Flemington on Melbourne Cup Day. In particular, it saw three horsemen, Darren Weir, David Hayes, son of Colin, and his nephew Tom Dabernig, who learnt some of their trade at Lindsay Park, between them the trainers of first and third in the Melbourne Cup, Prince of Penzance and Criterion.
Prince of Penzance’s trainer, Warrnambool district located Darren Weir, had two stints at Lindsay Park, the first under Colin Hayes and later with David, before going into business on his own, first as a country farrier and horse breaker in Victoria and then twenty years ago becoming a licensed trainer.
Victoria’s leading country trainer every year since 2005 and currently the Melbourne leader and second to Chris Waller nationally, he had his excellence in his craft demonstrated twice on Cup Day as he also took out the final event, the $200,000 Hong Kong Jockey Club Stakes (1400).
It was won convincingly by Scarlet Billows, a 5-year-old mare bred by F. Borg, Vic using shuttled Street Cry sire Street Boss and Hushabye Baby, a Hussonet winner.
Many would consider David Hayes, 53-years old son of deceased Colin, as good as his father. He has already followed him into the Hall of Fame, has been leading trainer for Melbourne, Adelaide and Hong Kong and supplied winners of over 2800 races, including 82 successful in Group1 events.
Recently David opened a new Lindsay Park training complex at Creigton’s Creek, Euroa, Victoria and it is the headquarters for the Hayes – Dabernig training partnership, the preparers of Criterion. They are second 2015-16 leading Melbourne trainers and third nationally.
Another graduate of the Lindsay Park South Australia University of horsemen was one of Cup Day’s leading trainers Tony McEvoy, one who went within a nose of three winners. He won the juvenile event, the Emirates Airline Plate, with Concealer, a first starter by Nicconi, and the Lexus Hybrid Plate (3yos) with Don’t Doubt Mamma, a Not a Single Doubt filly, and ran a nose second with the Magnus gelding Viceroy in the Flemington Fling.
Tony is a former Lindsay Park apprentice jockey, assistant trainer and for a time while David Hayes was in Hong Kong, the complex’s trainer. He is now an emerging national trainer under McEvoy Mitchell Racing using stables at Angaston and Hawkesbury.
Partner Wayne Mitchell is an owner under Pipeline Bloodstock of Concealer, a Nicconi juvenile purchased for $35,000 out of the Widden Stud draft at the Inglis Summer Classic sale. Dual Group1 winning sprinter Nicconi grew up on Lindsay Park in South Australia and was trained by David Hayes.
Jim’s Journey, a winner of four, including the Port Adelaide Guineas, and runner up in the J.B. Cummings AM Tribute Plate (2800m) at Flemington on the Melbourne Cup program, has three Lindsay Park used sires in his pedigree, his sire Good Journey (USA) and the sires of his first two dams, imported Melbourne Cup winners Jeune (trained by David Hayes) and At Talaq (Colin Hayes).
Sire also of $3million earner Happy Trails, Good Journey is now available Cornerstone, a young stud established on Lindsay Park country at Angaston by Sam Hayes, a grandson of Colin a nephew of David. They also stand Hussonet and shuttlers Dalakhani and Zebedee.
