Snippets of brilliance

Cover image, Snippets and jockey Philip Smith winning the inaugural 1987 Magic Million, image courtesy of Martin King Sportpix

On February 2, 1986, on a Gold Coast afternoon in late summer, Elders Pastoral hosted an auction of 200 yearlings that became the genesis of Magic Millions. Each of the horses was unreserved, and each would qualify for a wildly rich, wildly ambitious closed race for 2-year-olds worth $1 million the following summer.

The catalogue was stuffed with small breeders, single-digit drafts from Coffs Harbour, Toowoomba and Roma. But there were significant players among them too.

John Messara’s Middlebrook Park was there, as was Gainsborough Lodge, and even Gerry Harvey sent a few.

“That was quite surprising, because there’s no one more lousy than him,” joked David Chester, the long-serving sales director at Magic Millions. Chester was there for the Sale in 1986, and has been ever since.

“We had to beg, borrow and steal to get horses for that Sale,” he said. “It cost $10,000 to enter your horse. Today, for our Sale in January, it’s about $2000, so it was a lot of money. And there were a lot of people that just didn’t want to do it.”

The concept for the Sale hung on 200 unreserved yearlings that would qualify for a $1-million race the following summer. This race would become what is now the Magic Millions 2YO Classic, run each January for $2 million, and it was the first of its kind anywhere in the world - a race restricted to graduates of a particular Sale.

“To make it work, to get the million dollars for the race, we had to sell 200 horses,” Chester said. “No more, no less, and it was done that way to give buyers a 200-1 chance to win a million-dollar race. And there were no better odds anywhere.”

In the second half of the catalogue, Lot 170 was a bay colt by the Widden stallion Lunchtime (GB), the fourth foal from the Grand Chaudiere (Can) mare Easy Date. He sold that afternoon in 1986 for $22,000, purchased by Dalgety Bloodstock as a buy-back for John Augustine’s Gregadoo Stud Farm in Huntly, Victoria.

The colt was named Snippets and, the following summer, he won the $1 million 'Magic Million' at the Gold Coast Turf Club, the closed concept race for 2-year-olds.

“Magic Millions wouldn’t be here today if it hadn’t been for that first Sale and the success of Snippets,” Chester said. “I’ve always said we should erect a monument to this horse, because he’s more important than anyone.”

A Champion emerges

Snippets was a late foal in 1984, born at Gregadoo on November 1. By that time, Lunchtime had been covering mares at Widden Stud since 1974.

The colt’s dam, Easy Date, had been sold three times that year, first for $5000 at a small Scone sale, and then again by breeder Barry Gamer to John Augustine. She was carrying Snippets as she moved around the country.

As a yearling, her colt headed to the Gold Coast for the new concept Sale in early 1986.

“I distinctly remember him arriving on the complex, and Carl Waugh (breeder and one of the original owners of Magic Millions) took one look at him and said, get this horse off the grounds and send him to someone that can clean him up,” Chester said. “They sent him to Sally Rogers, and that’s how she ended up training him.”

Like many of the horses catalogued for the Sale, Snippets was there as a buy-back.

“About half of the vendors put the horses in because they wanted to win the race,” Chester said. “John Augustine bought the horse back at the auction, and because Sally had done such a good job with him for a week or so, they left him with her to train.”

It was all above board. Snippets was returned to Augustine for $22,000, and he began racing in October 1986.

The colt won his first race at Eagle Farm, and his second at the Gold Coast two days after Christmas. On January 10, 1987, he won the inaugural ‘Magic Million’ for 2-year-olds over 1200 metres, clattering home by 4l to Prince Anton (Prince Ruling {NZ}).

His share of the prizemoney was $515,000, and he then skirted south for a runner-up finish to Beau Zam (NZ) at Newcastle and a win in the G3 Brambles S. at Kembla Grange. Thereafter he was fifth in the 1987 G1 Golden Slipper, won by Marauding (NZ).

Snippets had failed in the pinnacle juvenile race of the season, but he returned a fortnight later at Randwick to win the G1 Sires’ Produce S. His 2-year-old campaign wrapped up with seven starts for five wins and a second in Group company.

As a 3-year-old colt, he won the G2 Challenge S., G1 Oakleigh Plate at Caulfield and G1 The Galaxy on a Heavy 10 at Randwick. He was second to Special (Habituate {Ire}) in the G1 Lightning S. in 1988, and unplaced to the same mare in the G1 Newmarket H.

Snippets became Australia’s 13th millionaire racehorse by the close of his career in April 1988, a winner of nine races in 14 lifetime starts.

He was an Australasian 2-Year-Old Champion and Australasian Champion 3-Year-Old Sprinter, and retired as one of the fleetest, most consistent speed horses of his era.

The genesis of something special

David Chester knows well that one swallow does not make a summer.

From his sale on the Gold Coast in 1986, Snippets emerged as one of the smartest sprinters of the era. However, he wasn’t the only good one to pop out of that inaugural Sale, and Chester said that this was what saved the concept’s bacon.

“If we’d had an ordinary lot of horses sold that year, I don’t think it would have worked,” he said. “But we had four out of that 200 sold that ended up running in the Golden Slipper in 1987, including Mother Duck, Prince Anton and Snippets.”

Mother Duck (Luskin Star) won a spate of stakes races throughout her career, including the G3 AJC Gimcrack S. and Listed The Shorts, while Prince Anton won a Group 3 and two Listed features in 1987.

“The importance of Snippets and a few of these other horses really put the Sale on the map,” Chester said. “It quietened the critics, who had said the whole concept would die because 200 horses wouldn’t get a good field for the million-dollar race.”

Since then, the concept has ballooned, the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale into the R. Listed Magic Millions 2YO Classic.

Its past winners include General Nediym in 1997, Testa Rossa in 1999, Dance Hero (Danzero) in 2004 and Capitalist in 2017. The fillies Away Game (Snitzel), Sunlight (Zoustar) and Houtzen (I Am Invincible) have won it and, alongside the Golden Slipper and G1 Blue Diamond, it’s one of the banner events of the racing season.

“No one could have imagined it would have been so successful,” Chester said. “But it was, and here we are 35 years later.”

The Willesee years

Snippets retired from the track in the autumn of 1988, a rising 4-year-old with a remarkable career behind him.

He was picked up for standing rights by Mike Willesee’s Trans Media Park Stud at Cootamundra, which later became a branch of Woodlands Stud, later again the property of Godolphin, and now the home of Olly Tait’s Twin Hills Stud.

Willesee had bought into the horse at the end of his 2-year-old career, joining syndicate members John and his then wife Jane Augustine (now Napier), John Izon, former Wallabies player Edward Morey and Tony Milne.

In 1988, when Snippets arrived to stud, Trans Media was an extensive and lavish set-up, heavily furnished by media mogul Willesee with state-of-the-art facilities for stallions and large numbers of mares, and Steve Brien arrived in the same year to work as its broodmare manager.

He remembers Snippets well.

“He was a very good 2-year-old, a very good racehorse,” Brien said. “I’d followed him before he came to the farm, but I didn’t actually see him until he arrived in that August of 1988. He was a typical sprinter, very big in the hindquarter and just a powerhouse of a horse.”

Snippets wasn’t overly tall. He stood a shade under 16 hands, with a rich bay coat and a white sock on his near hind. He was quite unlike his sire Lunchtime, whom turf doyen Les Carlyon described as ‘long and stretchy’.

“He was very quiet, and good to do anything with,” Brien said. “And there was quite a lot of buzz about him coming to Trans Media Park because that year, Rubiton came to stud as well, and he had won a Cox Plate. Joindre, who had won Derbies, had come to stud at the same time too, but Snippets and Rubiton were the two most popular horses.”

These three stallions stood at Trans Media Park with Sovereign Red (NZ) and Golden Slipper winner Sir Dapper. It was an imposing lineup, and the fees for both Snippets and Rubiton were on application.

The stallions were managed by Ron Shirtliff, who had trained the extraordinary mare Wiggle (Rego {Ire}) in the late 1950s.

“I was the broodmare manager, but I backed up Ron when he needed a hand with the stallions,” Brien said. “Mike had nearly 100 mares that he had interests in, and then boarders too, so we had about 150 broodmares or more. Mike put new stallion and yearling barns in, and they’re all still here and still magnificent. It was ahead of its time, and Mike had travelled all over the world with Ray Kirkup looking at other studs to bring ideas back here.”

In a short space of time, Trans Media Park, with its sensational stallion roster, was a major player from its base in the south west slopes of New South Wales. Perhaps it got too big, however, because by 1993 it was dispersing.

“It got very big, and I don’t know if Mike wanted it that big,” Steve said. “He kept some horses, but he cut his breeding interests right back and sold the property to Woodlands.”

The farm, its buildings and many of its people went to the ownership of the Ingham family, and the stallions were moved around.

Snippets ended up at Arrowfield Stud from the 1994 season onwards, joining a formidable roster that included Danehill (USA), Kenmare (Fr) and Rancher.

Legacy keeps on

Snippets covered mares from the spring of 1988 to his death in January 2002.

He was a remarkable stallion, the sire of 55 stakes winners of 119 stakes wins, including Hasna, the speedy juvenile filly that won the G1 Champagne S. and G1 AJC Sires’ Produce S. in 2003.

He sired High Rolling, winner of the AJC Breeders’ Plate, and Akhenaton, who won the G1 Doomben Cup, as well as the significant Group winners Snowland, Sky Cuddle, Spartacus, Sublimate and Casual Pass.

Snippets is also the sire of Pins, who won the G1 VRC Australian Guineas and four other Group races, and who in turn has sired 80 stakes winners, including G1 Cox Plate winner El Segundo (NZ).

Snowland is the sire of the excellent race mare Absolut Glam, while stakes winner Snippetson has sired 13 further stakes winners, including Fast Clip, winner of the G2 Tulloch S. and G3 Doncaster Prelude.

As a broodmare sire, Snippets has been equally as exceptional.

His daughter Scandinavia is the dam of Helsinge (Desert Sun {GB}), who foaled Black Caviar (Bel Esprit) and Widden sire Magnus. Sky Cuddle got the two-time Group-winning mare Champagne Cuddles (Not A Single Doubt), who sold for $2 million to Tom Magnier at the 2020 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale.

Snippets’ Lass, meanwhile, was foaled in 1993, among the handful of crops to emerge from Snippets’ final seasons at Trans Media Park. She won the Listed Sapphire S. in 1999, and in 2002 foaled no less than Snitzel, followed in 2007 by Hinchinbrook.

Equally, Legally Bay is a daughter of Snippets that founded a dynasty for breeders Chris and Jane Barham. She produced three stakes winners, among them the Royal Ascot-winning and now emerging Coolmore sire Merchant Navy.

When Snippets died in 2002, at 17 years old from internal haemorrhaging, he’d left a remarkable legacy that continued to blossom, and still does. And, career aside, he’s likely to be the only horse in the world upon which a leading auction house can still hang its hat.