Owners taking time with Winx breeding decision

No decision has yet been made on who the Australian superstar mare Winx will visit for her first mating after the expected conclusion of her racing career this Saturday.

Winx, an 8-year-old daughter of Street Cry, has won 32 consecutive races dating back to May 2015, including a staggering 24 Group 1 events. She is expected to make her final start in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes on April 13 at Randwick. The Southern Hemisphere breeding season begins Sept. 1, and Winx’s ownership group will consult with various bloodstock advisers before making a decision.

“It is to give us scope in seeking people’s opinions so we can then sit down as a group and we have got something to say yes, no, or whatever,” co-owner Debbie Kepitis told the ANZ Bloodstock News in late March. “It just gives us options. None of us are big breeders. I breed, but I have a guy who works through my breeding for me. I don’t have a set opinion myself, so I feel that it is the fair thing for such an amazing horse to have more than one opinion, and that is what we want to do.”

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Kepitis said that trainer Chris Waller would be part of the consultation group, as he would likely train Winx’s offspring if the owners elect to race them as homebreds rather than selling them commercially.

Winx is out of the winning Al Akbar mare Vegas Showgirl, who has also produced the Group 3 winner El Divino. The sire of that runner, leading Australian stallion Snitzel, has been mentioned as one possibility for Winx. Kepitis said that Winx could also be sent overseas to be covered on Northern Hemisphere time by a leading international sire – as was the case this year, when Vegas Showgirl traveled to Japan to be covered by the great Deep Impact.

Olympic eventer training again

Mark Todd is famed in the equestrian world for his three-day eventing career, representing New Zealand at the Olympics seven times and earning gold in 1984 and 1988. However, he has also been involved in breeding and training racehorses. In his latest venture into the Thoroughbred world, Todd is training the regally bred Eminent, who is intended as a stallion prospect for New Zealand. A whirlwind of a month will see Todd saddle the stallion to take on the great Winx in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes on April 13 before heading to England to compete in one of the world’s premier equestrian events, the Badminton Horse Trials during the first week of May.

Todd retired from eventing in 2000 before returning to the sport in 2008. In the interim, however, he turned to training and breeding racehorses. His trainees included Bramble Rose, who won the 2003 New Zealand Oaks and placed in two other Group 1 events, and Willy Smith, who won the 2007 Wellington Cup and was also second in the Group 1 Zabeel Classic.

Todd did not intend to return to training at this time, as he eyes major international events – Badminton, which he has won four times, and Burghley in September, which he has won five – in hopes of again making an Olympic team in 2020. However, he was convinced to take on his latest runner by New Zealand Bloodstock principal Peter Vela, who has also dabbled in event horse ownership.

Eminent, who is racing in Australia as He’s Eminent, is by the unbeaten champion and rising-star sire Frankel, and out of the Group 1-placed Kingmambo mare You’ll Be Mine. The mare is out of Group 1 winner Quarter Moon, dam of Group 1 winner Diamondsandrubies, and this is also the immediate family of Group 1 winner Yesterday.

Eminent was a Group 2 winner in France and Group 3 winner in England in 2017 for trainer Martyn Meade, and also finished third in the Group 1 Irish Champion Stakes that year. Vela and bloodstock agent Hubie de Burgh bought Meade out of the horse and sent him to be trained by Todd in New Zealand, with the intention of making him a stallion prospect in that country.

Todd has used his skills to embark on an unusual training regimen with the horse, doing some basic dressage to strengthen the horse’s body and jumping fences in addition to more structured race training such as regular gallops.

Todd described the training to the British outlet Horse and Hound UK as “letting him be a horse, not just a racehorse.”

“He’d probably be a nice event horse, although I don’t think that is what his owners have in mind!” he said.

Eminent made his first start since last August in the Group 1 Ranvet Stakes, finishing second in preparation for his showdown with Winx.

“She’s not just an Australian icon – you mention the name Winx anywhere in the world and people know her,’’ Todd told the Australian media. “But it’s a horse race . . . it’d be an amazing occasion to be a part of. Hopefully our horse is good enough that he can make it into a horse race.”