No excuse to be ‘in the dark’ with sub 1:50 Aldebaran trotting stallion

Australasian harness racing fans and trotting breeders have been spoilt for choice in the last fifteen years with a huge variety of the best modern bloodlines from Europe and North America at their disposal.

The impact on the breed has been immense seeing champions from French line sires such as Monbet, Queen Elida and Just Believe as well as North American x factor from the likes of Dance Craze, Muscle Mountain and Bolt For Brilliance.

Despite the stake money and opportunities belying the investment outlaid by trotting zealots, it hasn’t stopped the niche sector of the sport from fronting for expensive service fees in pursuit of improving the breed.

Much of this would not have been possible without the likes of Pat Driscoll of Yabby Dam Farms and Duncan McPherson of Aldebaran Park at the forefront of the genetic improvement and blazing a path for the down under square gaiter to be recognised internationally.

The pair have a commitment to trotting excellence that is unrivalled, and the trotting community as a whole has benefitted greatly as a result of their investment into bloodlines and forging relationships that stretch international borders.

McPherson has just returned home from a successful trip to New York having watched his pride and joy, Aldebaran Zeus (Muscle Hill), become the third Australasian invitee to the $1 million dollar International Trot at Yonkers Raceway (second to compete behind Scotch Notch in 1985) where he finished a commendable fifth against some of the best trotting talent from around the world.

“If we ever had an opportunity for an invite, that was the race we were going to target,” said McPherson.

“The barrier draw of seven was a bit disappointing, we felt if we drew one, two or back inside of the front row we would be a good chance to run in the top three. We obviously drew seven, Chris drove a peach to get him onto the fence after the first few hundred metres and pushing up while the speed was on.

“Probably over the last couple of hundred meters he shifted up the track and lost his way which was more or less his conditioning having not had a run for a while,” he said.

The performance was met with great enthusiasm from the international trotting community who were already sitting up and taking notice of what was percolating on the back of the European campaign of Just Believe a few months earlier. McPherson believes that momentum is building and it’s only the start of things to come.

“The general perception of the Australian and Southern Hemisphere trotting was that they couldn’t believe two horses could be competitive on the biggest stage with such a plomb.

“There has definitely been a perception change of the horses down here. With Just Believe and now ‘Zeus’, the other two they are keen to see are Queen Elida and Muscle Mountain in New Zealand. There are probably three or four horses down under that the Americans and Europeans have on their radar heading into 2024 which is absolutely outstanding. Greg Sugars and Jess Tubb did a wonderful job as ambassadors of the sport and the future is looking bright,” he said.

McPherson has gone to great lengths with his own investments to both breed and race trotters on the world stage. That extends to his own backyard where Aldebaran Park and his ‘hot to trot’ tagline are synonymous with providing opportunities to enrich the sport with enormous sponsorship and breeding services offered to the public.

McPherson’s Aldebaran Park was established in 2004 and for coming up two decades has had a giant hand in dragging the quality of the Australasian trotting breed from the ground up.

Having stood the likes of leading colonial sire and multiple Group One producer, Skyvalley, as well as the late Aldebaran Eagle who is this seasons leading sire of 3YO trotters in Australia among others, McPherson and Aldebaran Park looked to have unearthed their best prospect yet for Australasian breeders in Dancinginthedark M (t2,1:52.2; t3,1:49.3).

The son of Readly Express is the fourth fastest trotting stallion of all time to stand at stud and brings a mix of the best Northern Hemisphere bloodlines even seen on these shores, with the kicker being the fact that he stands in the flesh.

“I don’t think there is anything like him down here,” said McPherson.

“One of the major reasons we were keen to stand him, without being disrespectful to the rest of the world, 1:52 and 1:53 are standard times being run in the Northern Hemisphere and soon enough down here also.

“To have a horse who has gone 1:49.3 and be in the top 10 trotters of all time was an opportunity that we couldn’t resist. He is a total outcross for our genetic pool and I just felt there was no reason he wouldn’t be successful when he was going to inject speed into our colonial bloodlines or the current American bloodlines we have here,” he said.

With that being said, why does it feel like Australasian breeders are ‘in the dark’ so to speak to the opportunity before them? If it’s any solace, we aren’t the only jurisdiction to overlook a good thing when it’s staring us in the face.

North American trotting is finally awakening to the prospect that mixing some of the best European bloodlines over that of their own is a recipe akin to kerosene and matches.

The combination of precocious and early speed of the North American pedigree balanced by the endurance, power and fluidity of gait from the European equivalent hardly seems like rocket science.

However for what seems like an eternity, there has been more than a little trepidation on the North American front to accept that the hybrid vigour as me old mate Jim Dalgety would say could in anyway benefit their studbook.

It wasn’t all that long ago when the feeling was mutual with the leading French breeder of yesteryear, Albert Viel, being quoted as saying “Breeding American blood in the French trotter would be analogous to planting weeds in one’s garden.”

Had Henri Levesque not thrown caution to the wind and bred Roquepine, his star mare and the greatest trotter in the world at that time, to the greatest trotting sire in America, Stars Pride in the late 1970’s with no guarantee of the resulting progeny being registered in the French Studbook, trotting as we know it would be much poorer.

One of the resulting mating’s of Stars Pride over Roquepine was that of Florestan, a hugely influential sire and latterly broodmare sire which opened the door Jean Pierre Dubois to lobby for the French Studbook to open to North American blood in the four year window of 1988-1992.

Stars Pride’s male line is unquestionably the number one in France and arguably throughout Europe, mostly through the likes of Love You and Ready Cash, including his sons Bold Eagle, Bird Parker, Brillantissime, Charly du Noyer, Readly Express and also through such sires as Timoko, Niky, Jag de Bellouet, Real de Lou and Uriel Speed.

And while Europe has greatly benefitted over the course of the last 35 years or more, it is only in recent seasons we are starting to see some of that transpire to the North American market where early precocity and speed is paramount to the big money juvenile stakes racing.

2017 O’Brien 3YO Colt of the Year and now successful sire International Moni (Love You) blazed the way for the likes of millionaires Venerate (Love You) and Back Of The Neck (Ready Cash) to where we see some of this seasons leading juveniles of speed having the potent mix of Anglo European blood.

Winter Soldier is the sixth fastest juvenile trotter in 2023 and is by the exciting Facetime Bourbon. While three others in the top 20, Longfellow S (Greenshoe x Infinitif), Alamo Mission (Walner x Love You) and Duke Of Walner (Walner x Love You) are all out by American sires out of European damsires.

Aldebaran Park and McPherson have been at the forefront of such philosophies in Australasia having forged a formidable relationship with a Swedish powerhouse of the breeding and racing market in the Northern Hemisphere, Menhammar Stuteri.

Menhammar Stuteri, who stand Readly Express at their farm in Sweden were responsible for breeding the eighth equal fastest trotter of all time in Dancinginthedark M at their North American residence in Kentucky.

When McPherson received a phone call from the Swedish trotting magnates late last year offering him the opportunity to stand a young stallion, it was the culmination of many years of graft and investment.

“We first visited Menhammar Stuteri in 2009 when Sundon’s Gift went up with Chris Lang and I befriended the General Manager, Johan Hellander, and we also befriended Margareta Wallenius. It’s her family that own the stud farm and their properties in Kentucky.

“When we were traveling over to Sweden and to the yearling sales in Kentucky we were contacting them and making ourselves known as the Australians who were trying to break new ground in trotting down under. Every time we would go back up to Sweden we would make a point of going to visit them.

“Subsequent to that we started buying yearling fillies and racing them up there and a lot of our purchases were from their draft to forge that relationship because they stand a a lot of the major stallions in Sweden like Maharajah and Readly Express.

Aldebaran Teal is a mare that we have bought down here, we have a Whos Who filly on the ground, I’ve also got other foals that were bred to Southern Hemisphere time in Sweden. It’s been a long process and a long relationship development over 13 or 14 years. We saw it as a natural fit to try and entice them down into the Southern Hemisphere and they have actually done that.

“They rang me in August last year and indicated they had a Readly Express stallion who was the fastest stallion in the world in 2021. They sent me his pedigree and it started a conversation about would they like to send that stallion down here and have their brand represented down under in conjunction with Aldebaran Park. We came to an arrangement where he will be standing here for four years before making a decision whether he returns to Europe or goes somewhere else,” he said.

Dancinginthedark M proved himself a young trotter of great ability from the time he first hit the racetrack. He hoisted a race record of 1:55.3 – 0.4 second inside the previous mark – winning in breathtaking fashion on debut in the Arden Downs Stake at The Meadows as a two-year-old.

Dancinginthedark M’s other successes at two were a Kentucky Sires Stakes heat in 1:52.3 and a $105,100 division of the Bluegrass Stake at The Red Mile in 1:52.2 – the fourth fastest mile by a 2yo Colt in 2020.

As a three-year-old Dancinginthedark M won several races on the Grand Circuit at The Meadowlands including the $135,500 Stanley Dancer Memorial in 1:50.1 and the Reynolds Memorial in 1:51.4 on a sloppy track.

He took his lifetime mark of 1:49.3 as a winner of the Kentucky Sires Stakes Championship in 2021 in which he clocked a final quarter in a blistering 26.8secs to defeat the reigning 2YO of the Year Venerate.

DANCINGINTHEDARK M KYSS FINAL REPLAY

Dancinginthedark M is a son of Readly Express, a 12 time European Group One winning son of the legendary Ready Cash who has made an enormous impact in his short siring career to date having produced the likes of 2021 Swedish Harness Horse of the Year and dual G1 winner, Calgary Games as well as another dual G1 winner in Honey Meares from his first crop in 2017.

In Sweden alone where his oldest progeny are seven, Readly Express is the sire of SEK 77,877,957 and 126 individual winners from 177 starters who have recorded 609 wins among them.

Readly Express finds himself inside the Top 10 as a sire of two (10th) & three year old’s (8th) in Sweden this season as well as the All Age list (5th).

On his dam’s side, Dancingintherdark M belongs to the same maternal family as Game Pride, a leading sire and broodmare sire in both New Zealand and Australia for many years.

His dam, Leila, who left five winners including three in 1:56, was by Andover Hall the dam sire of 9 US millionaires and 21 Swedish millionaires. She is from CR Royal Jeannie (1:59), by Royal Troubador, a Breeders Crown champion from Grand Performance, by the Hambletonian winner Bonefish.

With no trace of Valley Victory blood in his pedigree, Dancinginthedark M is an incredible outcross for the Australasian breed bringing a rare mix of pedigree and performance not readily available to the down under market.

“He arrived on our farm in Mid October, 2022. Within seven days we had him on parade at Maryborough for the Redwood Carnival,” said McPherson.

“Dan and Melinda Thackery have done a phenomenal job ensuring he settled in well and are the backbone of the operation. Everything they do is of the highest order and without them none of this would be possible.

“He served 46 foals in his first season in Australia and our first foals by him are due to arrive in the next couple of weeks seeing he only got down and started serving late October and we will definitely be ensuring the visibility of his foals will be made public.

“To have an opportunity to stand a horse of his calibre in the flesh with fresh semen is a major coup and with four years to support him, it gives everyone enough time to support him and see how his progeny go before making any further decisions,” he said.

Standing at $4400+GST to Australian breeders and $4600+GST to New Zealand breeders as a fresh/chilled option makes him one of the best value prospects ever made available.

For more information visit www.aldebaranpark.com.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink