Weekly spotlight on breeding

Breeding authority Peter Wharton presents all the harness racing news on breeding from Australia, New Zealand and North America every week brought to you by Garrard’s Horse & Hound.

Ladies In Red has won $789,420

Mach Three mare Ladies in Red achieved yet another moment of glory in a brilliant career when she beat the best three and four-year-olds in commission in the $305,000 The Rising Sun at Albion Park.

Her superlative success from the front end in the Group 1 boosted her earnings to $789,420, the result of 19 wins and four placings in 23 starts.

Ladies In Red won in the manner of a true champion, and the crowd accorded the bay mare a great reception on her return to scale.

Summing up after the race, her driver Nathan Jack said: “She’s just a great horse who overcomes every obstacle.”

Ladies In Red began racing as a two-year-old when she included among her nine wins the Breeders Crown, Edgar Tatlow and the Vicbred Platinum Homegrown Classic.

As a three-year-old she took the Breeders Crown, Victoria Oaks and the Vicbred Final.

A four-year-old mare, Ladies In Red is out of Kabbalah Karen B (1:52.8), a Canadian-bred mare by Western Terror, a Western Hanover horse who won the USA Breeders Crown and belonged to the noted Medio family.

Kabbalah Karen, dam also of the dual Breeders Crown and Derby winner Our Little General 1:49.8 ($765,566), was out of Mib Hanover (1:55.6), by Tyler B (grandson of Meadow Skipper).

Ladies In Red was bred by Bill and Anne Anderson, of Lauriston Bloodstock.

From Ashlee’s Babe

A very promising four-year-old in Victoria so far this season is Bettor Isolate, who was bred by the late Joe Cordina and is part-owned by his son, Daniel.

A gelding by Bettor’s Delight, he is out of a crack racemare in Ashlee’s Babe 1:57.3 ($334,117) and the sixth and last of her produce to win. He won the Group 3 Rising Sun Consolation at Albion Park and one at Melton and looks a four-year-old with the potential one would expect of his breeding.

Wonderful To Fly – champion three-year-old filly

Wonderful To Fly gave further evidence over the winter racing that she is one of the best, if not the best three-year-old fillies ever produced in WA.

She took out the Group 2 $50,000 WA Diamond in May and the Listed $25,000 Westsired Classic at Gloucester Park last Friday. In the Westsired she was never really extended in running out the 2130 metres at a 1:56.7 rate, the last 800 in 55 and the final 400 in 27.4, figures that she could have sharply improved.

From 27 starts Wonderful To Fly has won 17 – including five at Group level – and been six times placed for $306,926 in stakes.

She is a three-year-old by Fly Like An Eagle, a top colt pacer from a decade ago, and out of Not Now Delilah, by Allamerican Ingot (son of Western Hanover) from Queen Delilah (2:01.1), by Orange Sovereign from Dainty Delilah (1:57.6), by Rock Butler from Dainty’s Last, a half-sister to the champion WA racemare Dainty’s Daughter.

Not Now Delilah, who was unraced, was a half-sister to the Western Gateway Pace and WA Navy Cup winner Jumbo Operator 1:57 ($313,175) and the WA Sires Stakes 2YO champion Getaway Plan 1:58 ($135,549).

Wonderful To Fly was one of three winners bred by Kevin and Annette Charles, the others being Lavra Joe and the Sweet Lou filly Our Lililou, an impressive winner and a two-year-old of some real potential.

Maajida in the money

Maajida, winner of the Group 3 Ladyship Stakes at Albion Park, continues to prove herself in the top bracket among the mares.

Bred and raced by the Johnson family from the NSW Riverina district, Maajida, who was passed in at the 2018 APG Sale in Melbourne after failing to reach her reserve price, has now earned $682,500.

She is a member of one of Australasia’s most successful families, being a five-year-old Somebeachsomewhere mare from the handy racemare Arterial Way (1:55.8), an Art Major mare who has produced others in the Bathurst Gold Chalice winner Lifeonthebeach 1:50.2 ($246,418) and We Salute You 1:51.3 ($140,984).

Arterial Way was out of the NSW Princess Mile winner Better Motoring (1:58), a prolific producer by New York Motoring from Better Yet, by Nat Lobell from the U Scott mare Bright Highland and tracing to the taproot Peri (by Imperious).

Better Motoring produced two smart pacers in New York Fashion 1:56.1 ($173,861), a winner of 15 races including the NSW Breeders Challenge and Bathurst Gold Bracelet, and Virage (1:53.7), a winner of 21 races and $158,079. Others from Better Motoring were the Gloucester Park winner Motor Holmes 1:56.9 ($108,160), Points North (1:56.9) and Cashisking (1:57).

But the second generation of Better Motoring’s family has bred on with the same distinction as she did. She figures as the grand-dam of the NSW Breeders Challenge True Blue winner Saint Crusader (1:53.8), the Breeders Crown finalist Lettucesomewhere (1:56.8) and the smart Tasmanian pacer Bridwood Bella. Better Motoring also ranks as the third dam of Three In Heaven (1:52.6).

Trot NSW 3YO to Egret

The $50,000 Trot NSW Final, for three-year-old trotters, one of the features of the Sydney calendar, was won by Egret, a little fancied filly by Father Patrick from Moyabamba.

Father Patrick, a son of Cantab Hall, has been one of America’s top sires of trotters in recent years and has a good siring score with his first ‘down under’ crops. They include the Breeders Crown champions Just A Bit Touchy and Sangreal, Mufasa Metro (The Holmfield), Son Of Patrick, Eva’s Image and Keayang Xena.

Moyabamba (Tr 1:59.3), the dam of Egret, won 15 races including the NSW Foundation Series as a two and three-year-old and was a smart trotter in her own right. She was by CR Commando, who also distinguished himself as a sire of trotters, from Urubamba, a daughter of the leading pacing sire Panorama.

Moyabamba ranks as a sister to the multiple Group placegetter Miyabomba (Tr 1:59.6) and a half-sister to the Group 3 winner Quillabamba (Tr 1:57.2).

Egret was bred by Angela Morris, who part-owns the filly with Yabby Dam Farms’ principal Pat Driscoll.

Closely related to Sokyola

Sassyola, who won at the Cranbourne metropolitan meeting, is a Western Terror mare from the same family as that which produced the champion Victorian pacer Sokyola.

Now a winner of $110,000, Sassyola is out of the unraced Soky’s Atom mare Jackieola NZ, who produced others in the Melton winner Spunkyola (1:55.6), Snazola (1:58.1) and Smokenola (1:59.2).

Jackieola ranks as a sister to a grand pacer and Miracle Mile winner in Sokyola, being from Maudola, by Chiola Hanover from Maudey, a trotting mare by Lumber Dream.

First Group 1 winner

The Muscle Hill horse What The Hill, a US Breeders Crown winner and now at Woodlands Stud in NZ, was represented by his first Group winner in Australia when the two-year-old Dreambigaimhigh was successful in the $50,000 NSW Trot Foundation Final at Menangle.

Dreambigaimhigh had been placed in four of the five heats of the Series.

Bred by the Gibson family, of Success Stud, Young, Dreambigaimhigh is out of the Love You mare, Chevron’s Sweetheart NZ, whose dam, Kathy Galleon, a classics winner, was by Sundon from the Chiola Hanover mare Galleon’s Dream, who left several winners, including a grand trotter and Inter Dominion champion in Galleon’s Sunset.

Bulldog Hanover’s breeding background

Bulldog Hanover, who equalled the world mile record with his 1:46 win in a division of the Roll With Joe at The Meadowlands recently, has close breeding links to Australia.

A four-year-old son of the Little Brown Jug winner Shadow Play, who stood at Alabar Bloodstock’s Victorian farm, Bulldog Hanover is from the Artsplace mare BJ’s Squall 1:53.2 ($261,750), whose dam, the Hall of Famer Lady Ashlee Ann (1:51.6), was by the Cam Fella horse Camtastic, a moderately successful sire in Australia.

BJ’s Squall ranks as a sister to the Breeders Crown winner Artist’s View (1:49.8) and a half-sister to Betterthancheddar 1:48 ($1.6 million), a dual world champion and later a successful sire in Victoria, the Meadowlands Pace and Jug winner Courtly Choice 1:47.2 ($1.3 million), now at the stud in America, and Ashlee’s Big Guy (1:50.8).

Other members of Bulldog Hanover’s immediate family include Parson’s Den, a leading sire in WA for many years, and Equitable and Res Ipsa, who both sired winners in Australia.

BJ’s Squall was 20 when she left Bulldog Hanover.

by Peter Wharton, for Harnesslink