Cheap Thrills As Faith In Broodmare Pays

The Age

Friday February 3, 2006

ANDREW GARVEY

A victory at Elwick last weekend by a $2500 filly meant much to her Victorian breeder

AT FLEMINGTON last Saturday, Miss Finland cemented her future as a broodmare by winning a listed race and securing all-important black type in sales catalogues.

The next day at Elwick, in Tasmania, a filly named Jennifer achieved the same status with her fifth win from only 10 starts, but there is plenty of difference in the background to the two wins.

Miss Finland cost $450,000 at the 2005 Easter yearling sale, whereas Jennifer was practically given away for $2500 at the 2004 Inglis autumn sale.

For Miss Finland's breeder, the late Sheikh Maktoum Al Maktoum's Gainsborough Stud, it was just another listed race; for Diana Anceschi, the breeder of Jennifer, it was the pinnacle of her brief career as a thoroughbred breeder.

"It was a real thrill. Pals (the dam of Jennifer) hadn't had much luck, so I'm very happy that now she has produced something," Anceschi said.

Pals, a $45,000 broodmare purchase, was Anceschi's first foray into breeding and until Sunday she had been something of a disappointment, albeit not through her own doing.

Pals' dam, Palace Revolt, won the 1989 Sydney Cup and she is from the family of How Now and Racer's Edge, but when the filly who came to race as Jennifer went through the sale ring, none of her progeny had raced.

Anceschi had bought Pals in foal to former shuttle stallion Thunder Gulch, who has disappointed in Australia, and the resultant filly did not race. The next two foals, by Last Tycoon and Bubble Gum Fellow, died before racing.

Before starting her breeding operation, Anceschi worked as a nurse and on announcing her change of career, her employer was full of doom and gloom and warned her that she would be sorry. As she gave the auctioneer the nod to bring the hammer down on that $2500 bid, those words of warning were no doubt in the back of her mind.

The service fee to Jennifer's sire, Lion Cavern, was advertised as $11,000 and $2500 wouldn't have made much of a dent in it, even without considering all the other costs involved in getting the filly to the sales.

Many breeders would have decided to take her home but Anceschi already had passed in one yearling at an earlier sale after he failed to meet his reserve, so Jennifer was sent on her way. "Perhaps I should have kept her, but at the time I thought, 'Bugger it, I'll let her go'," Anceschi said.

After she bought her first few mares, it was time to find a property. In 2000, Anceschi bought 28 hectares of bare acreage that once had been part of leading breeder Tom Trevaskis' Annesleigh Park Stud at Moorooduc on the Mornington Peninsula.

It didn't have a tree or building on it but with much fencing, barn building, tree planting and dam digging, it is now approaching the vision of its owner. Not that the hard work has finished, as Anceschi, who now has eight broodmares, does all the work with the mares and foals herself and says that number is enough for her.

As with most new business ventures, the first few years for Mantec Thoroughbreds - as the operation is called - has been tough, but over the past year things have begun to turn around. "It's been a steep learning curve and I've had a bit of bad luck . . . but I'm thrilled the way it has turned out," Anceschi said.

Along the way, she has been guided by Christoph Bruechert of Bombora Downs at Bittern, who now prepares her yearlings, and William Inglis' Ian Baird, who acts as her bloodstock adviser.

"Ian has been extremely helpful all the way along and still helps out with my matings every year," she said.

At last year's Premier sale, Anceschi sold an Encosta De Lago filly for $160,000, which helped keep the bank manager happy, and after Sunday's success, the disappointment of a $2500 sale price is but a distant memory.

Given Pals' lack of success, Anceschi had given some thought to selling her but now her faith has paid off.

"You have to weigh up whether it is worth persisting with some mares, but I just had a feeling she might produce something if she could get one to the track, and she did," Anceschi said.

In the immediate future, Mantec has four yearlings heading to the Inglis Premier sale in the first week of March.

Before Jennifer's listed success, most attention centred on a filly by Distant Music and a colt by Rubiton; now the Delago Brom filly from Pals is sure to attract a lot more prospective buyers.

One thing they can be assured of is that the bidding will start a little higher than $2500.

NZ SALES

The 2006 New Zealand Premier yearling sale concluded on Wednesday. The average dropped by 7.5 per cent from $137,395 to $127,072, with a clearance rate of 81 per cent.

THE TOP LOTS

b.c Stravinsky-Grand Echezeaux $2,200,000

b.c Zabeel-Miss Power Bird $1,600,000

b.f Zabeel-Silk Slipper $850,000.

LEADING BUYERS BY AGGREGATE

Davis Ellis, 29, $7,090,000

Rogerson Bloodstock, 30, $4,745,000

New Zealand Bloodstock Ltd, 11, $1,415,000.

LEADING SIRES BY AVERAGE (three or more sold)

Redoute's Choice, 3, $481,667

Zabeel, 21, $374,286

Dehere, 3, $323,333.

LEADING FIRST CROP SIRES

BY AVERAGE (three or more sold)

Rock Of Gibraltar, 12, $227,917

Johannesburg, 6, $168,667

No Excuse Needed, 12, $141,458.

LEADING SELLER BY AVERAGE (three or more sold)

Pencarrow Stud, 18, $311,806

Ascot Farm, 10, $218,000

Cambridge Stud, 39, $214,449.

LEADING SELLER BY AGGREGATE

Cambridge Stud, 39, $8,363,500

Pencarrow Stud, 18, $5,612,500

Windsor Park Stud, 46, $3,825,500.

© 2006 The Age

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