Luigi reflects on Novara’s massive season

During the hiatus between 2022-23 feature racing and the spring breeding season, Luigi Muollo takes understandable pleasure in reflecting on an outstanding season for horses originating from his Cambridge nursery, Novara Park.
From the local scene, to Australia and all the way to Hong Kong, Novara Park’s massive year has been headed by a trio of Group One winners – Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes winner Pignan, Sydney Cup winner Explosive Jack and champion Hong Kong sprinter Lucky Sweynesse. Pignan was bred by Rotorua couple Andrew Burton and Linda Hunt, while Explosive Jack and Lucky Sweynesse are Novara Park graduates, and most importantly, all three were sired by resident stallions.
European Group One winner and Melbourne Cup placegetter Jakkalberry was the sadly short-lived foundation stallion at Novara Park and Explosive Jack, a triple Derby winner at Flemington, Randwick and Hobart, was a star act well before he added the A$2 million Sydney Cup in April.
Lucky Sweynesse, a Karaka Ready to Run Sale graduate and Champion Griffin in his Hong Kong debut season, is now heir apparent to the coveted Hong Kong Horse of the Year title having won eight of his 10 starts as a four-year-old. In the last of those Sha Tin races, the Gr. 3 Chairman’s Sprint Prize, he equaled the record established by fellow NZ-bred Beauty Generation for wins in a Hong Kong season, while his earlier win in the Gr. 1 Chairman’s Sprint Prize cemented his position at the top of global sprint standings.
Sweynesse, a Group-winning son of champion racehorse and sire Lonhro, was leading first-season sire in 2019-20 and his progeny list also includes the Group Two winners Only Words and Dragon Queen, recent Gr. 3 Rough Habit Plate winner Special Swey and two-year-old stakes winners Bonita Aurelia and Brix. At a fee of $10,000 plus GST, Sweynesse represents great value in what will be a competitive 2023 breeding season.
Novara’s Deep Impact stallion Staphanos, who will stand at $15,000 plus GST, performed against the very best middle-distance horses in his homeland, Japan, as well as in Hong Kong. It’s therefore fair to say he has exceeded expectations with a Group One-winning two-year-old in his debut crop. Having already won at Trentham as well as placing in the Gr. 2 Matamata Breeders’ Stakes and Listed Wellesley Stakes, Pignan capped a superb campaign with a home-track victory in the Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes.
In what is always an intriguing overview of the season, Champion Two-Year-Old honours promise to be a close contest between a pair of second-generation members of the Deep Impact sire-line when Pignan goes head-to-head with Satono Aladdin gelding Tokyo Tycoon.
Staphanos and Lucky Sweynesse have been joined on the Novara Park roster by a third proven stallion, dual Australian Group One winner Press Statement. The son of Fastnet Rock horse Hinchinbrook, whose premature death has been lamented since, completed an unbeaten hat-trick at two years in the Gr. 1 JJ Atkins Stakes, and the following spring he added the sire-making Gr. 1 Caulfield Guineas.
Press Statement took up stud duties in Australia in 2016 and with his oldest progeny four years old, he is the sire of 126 winners from 207 starters. Last Saturday his daughter, the Chris Waller-trained Roots, went within half a length of crediting Press Statement with his first Group One siring success when finishing second to Palaisipan in the Tatt’s Tiara at Eagle Farm.
Roots was already the winner of the Gr. 1 ATC Emancipation Stakes, while others on his black-type list are Kitty Cat Chat, winner of the Gr. 1 Kenilworth Southern Cross Stakes in South Africa, and Otaki mare Hold The Press, whose six wins include the Listed Levin Stakes. Press Statement makes a lot of appeal at an introductory fee of $6,000 plus GST.
The four-strong Novara roster is completed at $7,000 plus GST by King Of Comedy, a son of global influence Kingsman whose race record is headed by a stakes win and a second placing at Royal Ascot in the St James’s Palace Stakes. Kingsman’s latest Group One winner is King Colorado, who claimed the JJ Atkins Stakes at the Queensland carnival.
“We’re looking forward to King Of Comedy’s first crop coming up at the yearling sales this summer,” Muollo told RaceForm. “He’s got off to a good start with just under 100 mares in each of his first two years and his rising yearlings really do look the part.
“A lot of the work is already done with Press Statement; he has very good numbers coming through with his rising two and three-year-old crops, so things are only just starting for him.
“We’re expecting a busy spring with Staphanos and Sweynesse bound to be popular, and when you look at how well the New Zealand-bred horses have performed in our major markets Australia and Hong Kong, as well as the lift in stakes here, it’s a good time to be getting involved.”