Maiden Watch: Week of March 24-30View the full article

The William Haggas-trained Dubai Honour preserved his unblemished record in Sydney group 1 races when he added the April 2 Tancred Stakes (G1) to his back-to-back 2023 triumphs in the Ranvet Stakes (G1) and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (G1). View the full article

Just in case he wasn't already front-of-mind with racing fans worldwide, Japan's Forever Young stirred souls in the Saudi Cup (G1), prevailing over Romantic Warrior (IRE) in one of the greatest stretch duels in international dirt racing history.View the full article

Ted my faith in karma has been somewhat uplifted, your good fortune is deserved. Neil M

There have been very few 2-y-o races up here - two or three so far in Britain, a couple in Ireland, a few more in France which starts a couple of weeks earlier. Space Blues had the winner of the opening juvenile race in Ireland but on the same day he had a filly finish last in a 900m debutantes race at Lyon so they quickly report the winners and not so quickly report the losers. Last evening, Wolverhampton staged their first 2-y-o race and it went to a daughter of Gregorian called HIGHLAND TREASURE (owned by Amo Racing) and she did it very well. Now, Gregorian hasn't set the world alight either as a stallion (his daughters are better than his sons).  Today's juvenile race at Musselburgh has just four runners and two are sons of Ardad, whose best son, Perfect Power, may be having his first crop of 2-y-o this year. Very early days and you're looking at the speedier precocious types - I doubt we'll see a Frankel 2-y-o for some while.

So far we have 5 enquiries and 3 confirmed...a good start...the more the merrier. Not much cost monthly for a bit of fun and hopefully some of the good price money on offer at present...who nows how long it will last....

Who needs form just bet on your hunch. Winston Peters says its not about racing or any other sports its called entertainment.

The following 8 entrants have already qualified for the Grand Final and have this week off: Reacher Peter RS Pheroz Majestic Pegasus Gubellini Ohokaman Montydrum  

The following 12 entrants are playing this week for four spots in the Grand Final: Sayer Say No More Al Feilding Aaron Kiwignome Jayar Basil Brush Kloppite Joan Blaird Floyd Pink Pete Lane  

Scooby is putting up a small weekly prize for those eliminated from the comp, so if you're out you're still welcome to throw up a set of picks for this Saturday. Same format as last two weeks. 1.  Either pick two horses in each race listed below - you will have $10 each way on both and a $2 quinella; or if you'd prefer to pick just one horse in any (or all of the races) you can do that and you will have $20 each way on that one runner,  but you will forego the quinella. 2.  You will have two best bet races where your bet is doubled.  They can be any two of the 12 races listed below. Posting deadline this week is 1.30pm  This weeks 12 races are as follows - weather looking good in Sydney so focusing on the big day there. 1.  Ellerslie R7 2. Randwick R1 3. Randwick R2 4. Randwick R3 5. Randwick R4 6. Randwick R6 7.  Randwick R7 8. Randwick R8 9. Randwick R9 10. Caulfield R7 11.  Caulfield R8 12. Caulfield R9 Please enter horse numbers, not names and remember to nominate two best bet races, and some form of punctuation between your two numbers is very helpful - thanks.  Same scratchings and abandoned races rules as last two weeks.

Wednesday Well, that was certainly an impressive start to Starman’s freshman season. His custodians, Tally-Ho Stud, couldn’t have asked for more than his first runner, Lady Iman, bolting up on debut at Dundalk last Friday – carrying home silks, to boot. That result has no doubt earned him a few extra covers.   Fellow first-season sire Nando Parrado can also boast a 100 per cent record, thanks to his daughter Golden Breeze scoring by four lengths at La Teste de Buch under a hands-and-heels ride last month. He is also likely the subject of a mid-breeding season surge in business at the Irish National Stud.   Space Blues meanwhile struck in the first two-year-old race of the season, at the Curragh way back on the heels of the Cheltenham Festival. Power Blue’s easy victory in a race won by his trainer Adrian Murray’s previous high-class two-year-olds Arizona Blaze and Bucanero Fuerte was the perfect advert for the Kildangan Stud resident. Cue a rush of extra bookings.   Breeders can hardly be blamed for basing late mating decisions on the early first-season sire action, even when it is such a uselessly tiny amount of data; it’s all they have to go on at this time of year, and any clue to an unproven sire’s ability is gratefully received, like a crumb from a banquet.    But broodmare owners should proceed with caution, as it is impossible to distinguish between random fluctuations and real trends from such small sample sizes. Sometimes, even the evidence of a whole freshman season, let alone those few early results, can be misleading.   Recent history is littered with examples of sires who flattered to deceive by getting off to a flying start but then flatlined, leading to widespread losses for those breeders who jumped to conclusions.   Fasliyev is the most notorious example of that phenomenon this century, his name probably still eliciting a groan from breeders. The son of Nureyev took the industry by storm in 2003 when he delivered more than 30 winners – a big number back then, and achieved at a high strike-rate – including four Pattern scorers in Carry On Katie, Kings Point, Much Faster and Russian Valour.    Fasliyev’s fee was hiked from €20,000 to €75,000 in 2004, when he covered a strong book of 165 mares. However, the bubble quickly burst when he endured a desperately quiet sophomore season, with none of his progeny earning more than £50,000, and Carry On Katie, Kings Point, Much Faster and Russian Valour failing to win a single race between them that year. Somehow, his second crop never produced a domestic black-type winner – if Champion Bumper hero Cork All Star is excluded from calculations.   Fasliyev came back to earth with a bump in 2005, when his fee was reduced to €25,000, and his expensive post-freshman crop sold as yearlings for a median of 42,000gns: way below the cost of production. The sire was quietly offloaded to Japan a few seasons after that.   Bertolini did a bit of ‘a Fasliyev’ only two years later. The high-class sprinting son of Danzig, owned by Darley, had stood at Overbury Stud at chickenfeed prices and so when his first crop of two-year-olds yielded Cheveley Park Stakes winner Donna Blini and Listed scorers Bow Bridge and Tabaret, he was quickly identified as the next big thing in breeding.   Bertolini was consequently promoted onto the Darley roster in 2006, and covered 147 mares at Kildangan Stud at an upgraded fee of €15,000 that season. Alas, he never replicated the excitement of those freshman exploits, with Donna Blini running well below her best at three (she at least made amends by producing the great champion Gentildonna in Japan) and only a trickle of useful horses emerging later, like Moorhouse Lad and Prime Defender.    Bertolini was switched between Dalham Hall Stud and Kildangan Stud for the next few seasons, before returning to Overbury and eventually being exiled to France, his fee dwindling all the time. Because his price wasn’t increased quite as sharply as had been the case for Fasliyev, breeders’ losses on that €15,000 crop weren’t quite so bruising, but a median figure of 15,000gns for them as yearlings was hardly a healthy situation, either. A decade later, Darley’s Australian shuttler Helmet got off to a dream start when Mark Johnston sent out the sire’s daughters Boater and Chupalla to win both divisions of a Kempton fillies’ maiden on the first day of the Flat season, the former by seven lengths and the latter by six lengths.   Helmet (pictured above) briefly became the talk of the industry, and he covered 130 mares at Dalham Hall Stud that year and another 147 in the following season in 2017, albeit at reasonable fees. He inevitably failed to keep up the pace he had set that spring, for all that he came up with the brilliant talent Thunder Snow, and his yearling median plummeted to 7,500gns in 2019, by which time he had been exported to Germany.    Dabirsim made for a strange case in 2017. The son of Hat Trick’s small first crop of juveniles contained a high concentration of quality, including Albany Stakes winner Different League, leading many to think that he was going to be France’s next rags-to-riches sire sensation, after fellow Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere winners Siyouni and Wootton Bassett. He even had two of his second-crop yearlings make €500,000 at the sales that autumn.   Dabirsim was, unsurprisingly, the subject of big-money offers but his owners held firm and continued to stand him at Haras de Grandcamp. He covered a bumper book of 200 mares there in 2017, as he was making a name for himself, and another 185 in 2018, after his fee had been jacked up to €30,000.    It was another false positive, though. Dabirsim turned out to be a solid, but far from spectacular, sire. His large 2018 crop yielded one black-type horse of any description, Chantilly Group 3 third Bavaria Express, and his expensively bred 2019 crop (which sold for a loss-making median of 27,000gns at auction) contained five black-type winners but no superstars.    Dabirsim covered books of 42, 32 and 38 mares at much reduced fees in his last three seasons in France and he was sold for €160,000 to continue his stallion career in a warmer country at Arqana in December.    The most recent case of breeders getting their fingers burned by a sire who put up a misleadingly encouraging display with his debut two-year-olds is Time Test. The son of Dubawi supplied four black-type winners from just 44 runners in his freshman season in 2021 – Rocchigiani and Romantic Time in Group 3s and Tardis and The King’s Horses at Listed Level. Besides those, he was also responsible for Moyglare Stud Stakes third Sunset Shiraz.   Time Test fever briefly took over the industry. He was inundated with 181 mares at an increased fee of £15,000 in 2022, no fewer than 35 of whom were successful in stakes races, and breeding rights in him were changing hands for six-figure sums.   The mania didn’t last long, though. Time Test failed to deliver the goods in his sophomore season or at any point thereafter, and that large, well bred crop achieved a measly median price of 11,500gns at the sales last year. It was subsequently announced that the stallion had been sold to stand in Turkey.   The limited evidence of a sire’s results in his freshman season can also cause the industry to underestimate his ability, of course. There are plenty of other examples of stallions who endured quiet starts and turned out to be much better than first thought.   No first-season sire pulled the wool over breeders’ eyes quite like Galileo. He gave zero clue when he mustered just 11 winners from 45 runners, including a solitary stakes scorer in Innocent Air, that he would become a conveyor belt of champions, including many top-rated juveniles.   High Chaparral, Sea The Stars and Singspiel are among the other sires who fought back from quiet freshman seasons, although anyone who wrote off such magnificent horses on the basis of one crop of two-year-olds arguably got what they deserved.   The message to breeders and buyers is clear: beware the small sample size. Don't be surprised if mating decisions made on the evidence of a handful of racecourse results turn out to be wrong, and therefore costly.    Starman, Nando Parrado and Space Blues might well blossom into productive and profitable sires, but it is impossible to know that on the basis of one winner, especially when some have large crops. Sorry to be a party-pooper and all that.  

I see they've added the Aussie form now, sort of, but it's still all over the place and their most recent runs are all out of order, as well as other missing or incorrect information. 60 days since LEAP TO FAME'S most recent runs for example. 

No but I bet you and Bob have been mates after a few drinks who was the pitcher and who was the catcher?

LOL!! How would you drive DSD. Three our four wide parked outside the leader...

Sorry, forgot to answer; 50% share of Gross Profit (GBR) with Minimum Guarantee for first 5 years Entain responsible for all marketing and operating expenses,   partnership commenced  on 1st June 2023 At the time of the agreement, Racing codes had 81% share, and Sports 19% of GBR.

Not sure patience will be a virtue in THE RACE BY BETCHA. It's sure gunna be interesting. 

Don't know about bonus bets, but at the end of January, which is of course 6 months into the 24/25 season, prior to the inclusion of Betcha totals, Turnover was up a paltry 0.6%, after inclusion T/O was up 5.3%  $74,670,859, compared to 2024 @ $70,918,176 Likewise GBR was up 0.7%, after Betcha up 5.3%,  $13,572,550 compared to 2024 @ $12,887,233 We are of course losing ground when you consider that the number of races is up 8%, HRNZ funded Stakes up 25.8%, and the % of GBR to Stakes is down 16.3% 

If you can travel to Romantic Warrior's home turf and nearly knock him off on good ground over 2000m you must be a good horse. To me that makes him proven in "our" conditions too, and probably isn't a bad point if you wanted to sell his stock into HK as Derby types either. I don't think it's wildly out of line to say that Kiwi-breds can't compete with Australian-bred 2yos, and Kiwi-bred 2000m+ 4yo+ types struggle to match the European imports. IMO we're a better chance of competing with the latter if we bring in some European blood, and our real niche should be in breeding middle-distance 3yos to dominate the Derbies. Luxembourg to me seems perfect for both; he was up and running at 2, he's not an out-and-out stayer (the VRC Derby in particular is usually won by the best middle-distance spring 3yo and not the best 2500m horse; many of them later prove to be 2000m horses who won the Derby on class), and he adds a bit of class to compete with the imports later on. He's from a sireline (Camelot/Montjeu) that has worked down here too. Camelot got 3 SW from 77 foals in his only Australian crop, and his NH (Northern Hemisphere) son Sir Dragonet won a Cox Plate. 3rd in that Cox Plate was Russian Camelot, who was also NH-bred but mature/good enough to win a South Australian Derby against the local 3yos.

$1.50 now  🙂

K Gath drove DSD perfectly….. C Ferguson one for one…. Hard to argue….