Liz will be Watching as little Miss steps out

Liz Birnie will have more than a few nervous moments today as she watches a couple of her brood step out today, especially her Bendigo debutante.

While it’s not the thrill of a race that draws Liz in as much as a love for the horse, the trots breeder will be glued to the screen when Wendys Watching steps out in the J L King & Co 2YO Maiden Pace at 7pm tonight.

“I keep an eye all on the one’s I breed,” she said. “They all go in my blackbook, so I try to watch them live when I can. I always have nerves when they race.”

In addition to Wendys Watching, Liz will also be tuning in when From The West contests the Hillcroft Stables Trotters Handicap at Stawell at 4.13pm today.

Both are offspring of her broodmare Miss Saxony, who has given her a more personal link to the sport in which she’s long been employed.

Joining Alabar almost 20 years ago, Liz said she “started off working outside, then with the young foals and have now been in the office since 2002”, most recently overseeing off-farm mares and semen transport.

An initiative of the stud encouraged staff to have broodmares, with Liz initially breeding Safely Kept mare Cruiser Cougar and producing Dilinger Dreaming ($81,009), before striking an unusual deal with breeders Pam and Russell Hockham.

They gifted Liz their mare Miss Saxony, but on the proviso that the Armbro Operative mare mare’s first colt would go to the Hockhams.

As fate would have it, that colt would become Shadow Sax, winner of 23 of his 41 starts and $548,680 in stakes. While none of the Shadow Play gelding’s siblings would, to date, earn anything like the family star, Liz got nothing but joy for the rise and rise of the two-time Group 1 winner.

“It’s different, but it has worked for them and me,” she said of her arrangement with the Hockhams. “It’s been good watching (Shadow Sax) go around. He was bred here and raised here (at Alabar), it’s always good to know you got something right. They have had a lot of fun with him.”

Liz’s name is next to seven other Miss Saxony foals, including today's entrant From The West, the seven-year-old mare now with Jason Ainsworth a winner of one of her 51 starts and seven times a placegetter.

Miss Skeeter, by Big Jim, is the only foal not to enjoy success, but has since been retired and bred to Vincent by trainer Clinton McSwain.

Then there’s gelding Sax Player, by Shadow Play, who races out west for Debbie Padberg and had a breakthrough moment on June 6 when the three-year-old broke her maiden status.

And tonight the next Miss Saxony offspring makes her debut when Wendys Watching steps out on Trots Vision at 7pm.

“Wendy has been leased until she is age five and then she will come back to me as a broodmare,” Liz said.

She will race for trainer Clinton McSwain, who’s arranged a syndicate to lease her off Liz.

“I’m definitely more about breeding, making sure they are looked after and placing them to make sure they have a good life. And also to place them with a trainer who I know will give them the time to develop,” she said.

“The trainer’s pretty happy with her. I have had a fair bit to do with Clinton and he is very excited, and he said (leasing) was a chance to get people racing who may not have been involved before.

“He saw it as a chance to get a group of people interested in racing without having to deal with the upfront costs. Hopefully they will have a fair bit of fun. She sounds promising.”

While the next in line, A Rocknroll Dance filly, was sold to Jason McNaulty at the 2019 Shepparton Mixed Stock Sale, any thoughts of selling now retired Miss Saxony’s 11th and final foal were soon quashed.

Instead the Vincent foal will replicate Watching Wendys path, being leased to Clinton McSwain before returning to Liz for a broodmare career.

“She is a very nice filly,” she said of the Vincent offspring. “She was originally for sale and I got too many people telling me I had to keep her for as long as possible.”

For now though the spotlight's on big half-sis to strut her stuff at Lords Raceway tonight.

HRV – Michael Howard