Double thrill for Arrowfield in Derby result
Last Sunday’s $S1.15 million Singapore Derby Sgp-1 produced two pieces of good news for Arrowfield Stud.
The Arrowfield-bred, Bellerive-sold graduate Arowana Dot Com (Hussonet (USA)-Unveil by Chief’s Crown) ran a brave race for third in the 2000-metre feature, picking up the biggest cheque of his 19-start, 8-win career for the Arowana Stable.
Pictured: Chase Me wins the 2012 Singapore Derby by eight lengths at Kranji on Sunday evening. (PHOTO: Singapore Turf Club)
Bred by Arrowfield in partnership with John Leaver, Arowana Dot Com was sold by Bellerive Stud for $170,000 at the 2009 Magic Millions Gold Coast Sale, with Magic Millions signing for him as agent.
Arowana Dot Com winds up a tremendous year for horses sold under the banner of Bellerive Stud, also the source of Group winners Snitzerland, Hot Snitzel & Flying Snitzel and Group performers Rekindled Alliance & Road Trippin’.
The aptly named runaway winner of the Derby, Chase Me (Storm Creek (USA)-Cartier Gold by Gold Brose), is also another major race winner from the Storm Cat sire-line represented at Arrowfield this year by US champion turf horse Gio Ponti (USA).
However, he claims an even stronger Arrowfield connection thanks to his co-breeder, Arrowfield’s pedigree analyst Peter Jenkins. Chase Me was foaled in 2007, when New Zealand-born Peter was the General Manager of StoneyBridge Karaka which shuttled Storm Creek from the United States.
The first steps towards breeding Chase Me were taken rather earlier, in the late 1980s when Peter helped to establish the Levin Breeders’ Forum whose members included well-known pedigree analyst and researcher the late Clive Harper. That was how Peter met Noeline Redfern, an enthusiastic breeder who would travel several hours from her Wairarapa home to attend the Forum’s monthly meetings.
Peter says, “Noeline’s father Ben Archer had bred and raced a lot of good horses and it was always her dream to do the same. In 1993 I offered to find her a good quality mare and purchased Nile Lark by Niniski, which appealed to Noeline because she loved Nijinsky.”
Nile Lark, imported from England in 1987, had enough stamina to win the two-and-a-quarter-mile Pontefract Cup but with a Timeform rating of 56, she badly needed a class upgrade.
Peter explains, “Clive Harper and I both suggested Gold Brose as a good mating for Nile Lark because as a sheer speed two-year-old he was a good match for a late-maturing staying type, and the resulting foal would be line-bred to the full siblings Ridan and Thong.”
The result was Cartier Gold, described by Peter as “a lovely filly who couldn’t run out of sight on a dark night.”
Noeline ignored Peter’s advice to sell Cartier Gold but did accept his suggestion of Storm Creek as a mate for the mare. “That mating provided line-breeding to Somethingroyal and to two full sisters who won the American Oaks, Cherokee Rose and How, both of them descended from the important taproot mare Maid of Masham.”
Noeline sold Cartier Gold’s first Storm Creek colt for $45,000 at the 2007 NZ Bloodstock Carnival Sale. He failed to post a win from seven starts in Singapore, but was such an attractive type that Peter offered to return the mare to Storm Creek, using his own nomination. Noeline agreed and so, in 2007 Chase Me was born, bred by Peter & Noeline in partnership.
Peter recalls, “He was a good type, but not quite as appealing as the first colt, so we sold him for $4000 as a foal at the NZ Bloodstock Winter Mixed Sale. Brett McDonald bought him, so we knew he’d get every chance to develop and become a racehorse.”
That unprofitable sale does not diminish Peter’s excitement about breeding a Group 1 winner from the fewer than 20 horses he has bred since 1985.
“It is such a thrill when everything goes right and you get a result like that. Even without a financial gain, it’s still a great buzz.”
Peter joined the Arrowfield team in 2009 and his expertise is readily available to breeders considering Arrowfield stallions in 2012.
