Star lights a fire for Queensland

Australian racing has celebrated its fair share of rags-to-riches stories, but if a humbly bred gelding, rejected from the sales and then sold for just $10,000 was to capture both Sydney's premier spring 3-year-old race and Australia's richest race, where he has been selected to run for micro-ownership operation in miRunners' miEverest slot, Rothfire could elevate himself to a whole new level.

Often the most fascinating aspects of these stories are those who are propelled along for the ride. The supporting cast in this instance is strong. There is his trainer Robert Heathcote, the one-time Kontiki tour guide turned master horseman, whose turn of phrase makes him the perfect narrator for the journey, and who picked out the horse for $10,000, and agreed to pay that same amount again after the first deposit was lost in an online scam.

There is Jim Byrne, the veteran jockey who has ridden nearly 3000 winners, but rarely a horse of such promise, having steered Rothfire to five wins from as many rides. There are his breeders, the Gleeson family, who can hardly believe that they have produced a champion and there are his owners, all 20 of them, who invested with Heathcote, thinking a city win would be a good return.

Then there is the state of Queensland. Proud and parochial and in times where state rivalries have come all the more into focus, with unprecedented border closures, the Sunshine State has united behind their underdog champ as he takes on the 'bluebloods' south of the border.

Lyndhurst Stud Farm's Jeff Kruger has seen the impact first hand, with the entire Queensland thoroughbred industry boosted by Rothfire's stunning success in the G1 Run To The Rose two weeks ago, when he blitzed past G1 Golden Slipper S. winner Farnan (Not A Single Doubt), to set himself up as the leading 3-year-old candidate for the spring.

"A Queenslander going to Sydney is a bit like a Tasmanian or a Western Australian going to Melbourne, you really have to measure up, or you are just another Queenslander. It was good to see the reaction when he won," Kruger told TDN AusNZ.

"Kelly Schweida, after The Odyssey beat Alligator Blood the other day, was congratulating Robbie Heathcote for having the courage to go to Sydney and take them on. I think everyone feels the same way up here. It’s great for Queensland."

Rothfire's brilliant career to date, which includes seven wins from eight starts, including an authoritative win in June's JJ Atkins S., has had a big impact on Lyndhurst Stud Farm, where his sire Rothesay, has stood for the past four seasons.

The Group 2-winning son of Fastnet Rock, and grand-son of Group 1 winner Canny Lass (Bletchingly) served just 28 mares in each of his first two seasons at Lyndhurst after transferring from Glenlogan Park, but in 2020 will have a full book of 150 mares.

When Rothfire won the JJ Atkins, Rothesay's 2020 fee of $4950 (inc GST) had already been announced and there has been no shortage of local Queensland breeders willing to access a Group 1 producing stallion at that price.

"They are pretty much all Queensland mares. There are a handful coming from over the border. A lot of the mares have come from here off the Southern Downs," said Kruger, whose farm is based at Warwick.

"There are no star mares, but there are a lot of well-related mares. When you’ve got him at a fee of $4950, you do attract that level of mares. There are some well-related ones in there."

First pick

While Rothesay was the first cab off the rank for Kruger when it came to picking stallions from Glenlogan Park back in 2017 after that farm decided to change its business model, there were times after those first two lean seasons, where he doubted the decision.

"I was keen to stand the horse all along. When I was offered the Glenlogan stallion roster, he was the one I wanted straight away. He had the most upside, he was the youngest of the band of stallions there and he'd had good books of mares and quality," Kruger said.

"At that stage, he wasn't getting 2-year-olds like Rothfire, but he was starting to show his older horses could consistently win races. He had seven or eight stakes performers and they were all three and older, the likes of Chapter And Verse and Too Good to Refuse.

"The shareholders did drop off in the first two years here when he only covered 28 mares apiece, which made me feel like I'd done the wrong thing. Even here at Lyndhurst, we only supported him with a couple of mares."

Fire lights the way

Kruger said before Rothfire hit the track in October last year, a run of winners began to change perceptions of Rothesay.

"Rothesay put 12 consecutive Saturdays together with a metropolitan winner in Brisbane, and some of those Saturdays he had a double," he said.

"It was that which really saw his numbers grow to 98 last year. People could see that not only did he have a top 2-year-old but they were winning in town consistently."

The compatibility of Rothesay's pedigree to a range of outcross Queensland families also helped. He has had 20 winners from 26 runners from mares by Show A Heart, highlighted by stakes winners Havasay and Over Exposure, while he has six winners from six runners from mares by Sequalo.

"Pedigree-wise, people are looking for that outcross mare to go to him. His stats are influenced by the level of Queensland support he was getting initially, and particularly the Show A Heart mares at Glenlogan were readily available. He's got two above-average horses out of Sequalo mares, In His Stride and Bring It Home Pop," Kruger said.

Rothesay has also had stakes winners from mares by Dodge (Too Good To Refuse), Perugino (USA) (Chapter And Verse) and now Hussonet (USA) with Rothfire.

From a sales perspective, Lyndhurst will have to wait to see the reward for Rothesay's explosion in prominence, with the second of those small crops set to filter through the sales ring in 2021. But Kruger believes the momentum created by the success of the past 18 months will continue to flow forward for some time.

"We went off to the QTIS Sale with 20 something Better Than Readys and we topped our draft with a Rothesay. There will be a couple of lean years in terms of numbers for him at the sales, but if Rothfire continues to kick a few goals and another one comes along at stakes level, it will be a different ballgame when these bigger crops emerge," he said.

"His fee will go up next year, but we might only double it. We need to keep him accessible to people."

Better prepared

The Krugers have strong recent experience with lifting fees for a stallion, with Better Than Ready having gone from $9900 (inc GST) to $33,000 (inc GST) in 2019 off the back of a brilliant start from his first crop which featured 23 2-year-old winners.

Breeders still strongly supported him with 216 mares last year and while that number has dropped slightly in 2020, Kruger feels they got the balance of pricing and demand right.

"Numbers are down a bit on last year. I kept his fee at $33,000, knowing that through his shareholder base and Lyndhurst's support, he already had a good number. I wanted to keep attracting that quality mare, even though I might have had to take a hit on numbers and that's what has happened," he said.

"We've been firm on his fee, because the quality is important, and we’ve got several farms in the Hunter Valley supporting him this season."

The stats continue to support Better Than Ready as a stallion of considerable promise, given he had 62 winners, the second most of any second-season stallion in Australia, in 2019/20, and has had another 17 in the first seven weeks of 2020/21.

"He's a proper winner-getter, this Better Than Ready. He just needs a couple of these stakes level horses to step up," Kruger said.

"The Odyssey will run in The Weetwood on Saturday, which is a time-honoured race up here, and little things like that, you need those little goals to kick along the way."