Weekly spotlight on breeding

Harnesslink presents harness racing news on breeding from Australia, New Zealand and North America brought to you by Yabby Dam Farms & Racing!

Yabby Dam Racing, principal Pat Driscoll’s dream to breed and race world class trotters was born after seeing a billboard on the Champs Elysees in Paris advertising the famous trotting race the Prix d’Amerique. Driscoll attended the Prix d’Amerique and immediately a love affair with the trotter was formed.

Driscoll spent the next five years visiting world class trotting establishments in Europe before embarking on his own venture here in Australia where he has lead the charge in the significant advancement of Southern Hemisphere trotting.

Along the way Driscoll formed friendships with many of Europe’s leading owners and breeder.

HDT with a weekend to remember

The sponsor of this weekly column, Haras Des Trotteurs/Yabby Dam Farms had a weekend to remember as the breeders of Group One winners on both sides of the Tasman.

The Jess Tubbs-trained son of Orlando Vici, Just Believe, bullied his way to a seventh Group One success with a commanding performance in the National Trot at Alexandra Park.

The eight-year-old pushed his career earnings north of $ 1.5 million with his third successive major stakes victory on New Zealand soil.

His imported dam, Heavens Above (Like A Prayer) has been an incredibly shy breeder since arriving on Australian soil in 2006 having produced just six live foals in her 15 seasons at stud.

Fortunately the stud book she managed to grace us with two daughters in Heavenly Sister (Majestic Son) and Hills Above (Muscle Hill), both of whom are at stud with the former being a G3 winner and producer of Keep Believing, a ¾ sister to the champ and winner of 1 and 4 placings from seven career starts.

24 hours later, Pat Driscoll’s trotting powerhouse Yabby Dam Farms added a seventh Group One of their own to the CV of evergreen trotting mare, Im Ready Jet (Quaker Jet) when she took out the Macarthur Trotters Mile for mares.

The seven-year-old mare is now the winner of 25 races with 24 placings to go with them from 68 career starts.

She is out of the New Zealand-bred Monarchy mare, Im Ready Set, the winner of 10 and producer of three winners from five foals of racing age to date.

She hails from the great Roydon Lodge maternal family of Roydon Diedre (Arndon) which provided the tail lines for Group One stars such as Monbet (Love You) and Sunny Ruby (Sundon) to name a few.

Maori Miss line produces another Oaks winner

Keayang Zahara (Volstead) continued in the hoofprints of a family legacy dating back nearly six decades when becoming the latest in an ever-growing lineage of Group One winners to descend from her leviathan maternal family.

The NSW Trotting Oaks winner showed her class on Saturday night at Menangle, extricating herself from a hopeless position down the back straight before unfurling a 27.6 final quarter to easily win the $75,000 three-year-old fillies trotting feature.

It was the daughter of Volstead’s third win from just three career starts to date and signalled a warning shot at her rivals in this week’s G1 NSW Trotters Derby where she will attempt to become the second successive filly to win both the Oaks/Derby double and fifth in history.

Should Keayang Zahara salute on Saturday night, she would join Roickinwithattitude (2023), Habibti (2013), Right Interest (2006) and Jaurol (2005).

The NSW Oaks win of Keayang Zahara was the second to descend from the vaunted Maori Miss (Grand Monarch) line, with 2018 3YO Filly of the Year, Moonshine Linda (Majestic Son) being the other.

While they are the only NSW Oaks winners to descend from Maori Miss, Pink Galahs, Pretty Majestic, Aftanoondelite, Skye Rocket, Maoris Dream, Revelstoke and Shesawish all have Oaks credited to their CVs.

Australia’s leading two and three-year-old trotting sire Volstead will be represented by three further progeny in the NSW Trotting Derby with sons Val Thorens and Ajay Volstead, and NSW Oaks placegetter, Pinnie.

Pretty tail lines for Pacing Oaks winner

The unbeaten G1 NSW Pacing Oaks winning daughter of American Ideal in Very Pretty has pacing royalty running through her veins that transcend the last century of Australasian harness racing.

She is a direct descendent of the 1919 New Zealand Cup winner and NZ Harness Racing Hall of Fame inductee, Trix Pointer (Demonio), the only mare to win a New Zealand Cup and produce a New Zealand Cup winner in Wrackler (Wrack).

The great Neroship (Neros BB) is another New Zealand Cup winner (1990) to descend from Trix Pointer.

Closer to home in the pedigree of Very Pretty is her well-performed dam, Good Times, the winner of 17 races including the Group Two Tatlow Memorial as a juvenile. Her four foals of racing age are all winners and have won a combined 46 races, including the Group Three Bunbury Cup winner, Major Times (Art Major).

The twice G1 placed The Good Times hails from the 2002 Australian Broodmare of the Year, Larrakeyah Lady (Windshield Wiper), a Group One winner herself in the 1989 Victoria Sires Stakes final for 4YO mares.

She went on to have a hall-of-fame-worthy career at stud, producing five-time Group One winner, Safe And Sound (Safely Kept) among her eight race-winning progeny who amassed 183 victories on the track with five of them earning six figures.

The residual value of Very Pretty as a future was already immense, but the now two-time G1 winner is a bonafide elite prospect when her racing career is said and done.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink