\u201cWe use a couple of bloodstock agents in New Zealand,\u201d Darby said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve bought most of them through Phill Cataldo, but we\u2019ve recently linked up with Dave Mee Bloodstock and this was actually a Dave Mee find, and very well found.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get a lot of New Zealand horses put across our desk, so we\u2019ve got to wade through the breeding and race records.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to make sure there\u2019s enough there so you can syndicate the horse as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d had four starts for two wins, one of them in a highweight race, and he presented as a proper stayer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never know how far they\u2019ll go, but we\u2019ve had success identifying horses that show genuine staying ability.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause our staying ranks aren\u2019t that strong here, and in New Zealand the horses have been given their time, once they come over to an Australian trainer, that seems to be a bit of a winning formula.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not all going to be Group horses, but we\u2019ve certainly had our fair share of success in a short period of time with New Zealand-breds.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you ever dream they\u2019re going to get to be winning Group races? No, you\u2019re hoping they can be competitive in metro grade, and we\u2019ve got great prizemoney so it can make those purchases worthwhile quite quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Darby said Goldman was the horse that convinced him New Zealand was a market worth pursuing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole journey of us purchasing horses from New Zealand started with Goldman, who qualified for a Melbourne Cup,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had very modest breeding. We didn\u2019t know a lot about the form. We were going off the back of what Robbie Waterhouse advised.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to take a leap of faith to buy this skinny horse that potentially looked like he could stay, but with not a lot of pedigree at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd not knowing the New Zealand form like we do today, that was our first leap of faith. It\u2019s certainly paid dividends and it\u2019s continued on from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Darby said the advice of bloodstock agents Cataldo and Mee had become invaluable, but ultimately the decision still came down to what he saw himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt probably helps that we don\u2019t know the form or the tracks as well, because we simply trust our eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes, we\u2019ll buy a horse like Thebudgiesmugla and you\u2019ll get some flak from people that know a lot more about the form than we do.<\/p>\n
\u201cA good example is Collect Your Cash, who has been a multiple Saturday winner. There were people who questioned his form in the South Island, but we just trusted our eye that he was a genuine staying horse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Darby said experience had taught him the best New Zealand purchases were genuine middle-distance and staying horses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think as we\u2019re starting to progress, we\u2019ve definitely got to hone more into those real staying horses,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe ones we\u2019ve bought that suit around a mile, I think the competition obviously really strengthens here. Thus far we haven\u2019t done as well with a couple of those, but most of them we\u2019ve bought as dead-set middle-distance to staying horses and they have been a big success.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Darby Racing\u2019s ownership base, the appeal of the tried horse market is simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the complaints we get on the yearling front is the wait time,\u201d Darby said. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to syndicate a yearling that stays or runs middle distance, you can be waiting quite some time unless they\u2019re a Derby or an Oaks type.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany New Zealand trainers make their living by rearing these horses or buying for not a lot of money at the sales and getting them to a level to sell to Hong Kong or Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve done all the hard work. We get to see their ability and try to work out how they\u2019ll fit here.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur owners love jumping into the tried horses just for that fact of less wait time. You may not have the spectrum of buying a yearling and winning a Golden Slipper, but getting horses to win [at] Saturday level satisfies them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thebudgiesmugla will now enjoy a three-week spell before returning to Baker\u2019s stable to be aimed at the spring carnival.<\/p>\n
While no firm targets have been locked in, another rise through the staying ranks could see the progressive gelding force his way into Melbourne Cup calculations later in the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wasn\u2019t showing a real lot in work, but the minute we stepped him right up in distance, he certainly showed he was going to be up to winning provincial to midweek to even Saturday races,\u201d Darby said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rise has been quicker than we all thought, and it particularly surprised Bjorn.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 LOVERACING.NZ News Desk <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe use a couple of bloodstock agents in New Zealand,\u201d Darby said. \u201cWe\u2019ve bought most of them through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9526,1135,5098,36173,51374,213625,105470,71,12811,14568,809,661,117,111,43,139,69,3512,67160,1435,16513,1527,13382,1436,21707,656,256374,120493,256375,210,61,23644,102,80],"class_list":["post-516357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-another","tag-australian","tag-buying","tag-continuing","tag-cult","tag-darby","tag-enjoyed","tag-from","tag-hero","tag-horse","tag-keep","tag-major","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-racing","tag-ranks","tag-rapid","tag-reason","tag-return","tag-returning","tag-rise","tag-staying","tag-strategy","tag-syndicator","tag-syndicators","tag-thebudgiesmugla","tag-through","tag-to","tag-winter","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}