Redwood gelding Antino claims Stradbroke Handicap The team at Westbury Stud is counting down to an exciting Queensland Winter Carnival for its well-performed stallions, whose service fees have been locked in for the 2024 breeding season.
Last Saturday’s Gr. 2 Victory Stakes at Eagle Farm has established Redwood gelding Antino as a likely headline act. He produced a stunning last-to-first performance in his first start since November, soaring into favouritism for next month’s Gr. 1 Stradbroke Handicap. Antino has now won 10 of his 15 career starts, including nine from 10 in his home state.
Meanwhile, Tarzino is set to be represented in three-year-old filly features by Sir Peter Vela’s homebred Tomodachi. She has won all of her last three starts, prompting Matamata trainers Lance O’Sullivan and Andrew Scott to point her towards the Gr. 2 Doomben Roses and Gr. 1 Queensland Oaks.
Reliable Man could also have big-race representation. His two-year-old son Can’t Recall One is unbeaten in two starts and has the Gr. 1 J J Atkins Stakes on his radar, while three-year-old filly Grey Ice may be aimed towards feature races during the carnival after a dominant last-start win on the Sunshine Coast.
“Antino is such an exciting prospect for Redwood,” Westbury’s general manager Russell Warwick told RaceForm this week. “It’s not very often that a New Zealand-bred horse starts favourite in a race like the Stradbroke, but that’s very much a possibility after his performance on Saturday.
“Tony Gollan has held him in very high regard for quite some time. He’s not one to make outlandish comments, but even a year ago he was saying Antino could be the best he’d trained. He’s had Spirit Of Boom and a number of other Group One horses, so a compliment like that after only a Listed win last winter was quite remarkable.”
Tomodachi’s transtasman mission could cap another successful season for Tarzino, whose 41 winners across Australasia this term include the impressive Gr. 2 Caulfield Autumn Classic winner Immediacy.
“If Tomodachi could head over to Queensland and perform well in one of those stakes races that they’ve earmarked for her, it would just top Tarzino’s season off beautifully,” Warwick said. “She’s an exciting filly.
“It was encouraging to see the way she relaxed in the running at Te Rapa the other day, and considering her third dam is Ethereal, she should lap up 2000 metres and beyond. The way she’s racing, targets like the Doomben Roses and Queensland Oaks could be well within her grasp.
“Back home, Tarzino’s son Star Ballot has had a couple of quite impressive staying wins at Riccarton in his last two starts. Michael Pitman sees him as an ideal candidate for a race like the New Zealand Cup on his home track in the spring, and we have a full-brother catalogued for the yearling sale coming up on the Gold Coast.”
Warwick, who earlier this week was announced as the latest addition to the Board of New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing, is also excited about the prospects for the often under-rated Reliable Man.
“There’s also a couple of promising carnival prospects for Reliable Man, who keeps flying under the radar,” he said. “He’s already had a Group Three win in Sydney this year with the very good mare Lekvarte, and now he’s got this exciting two-year-old Can’t Recall in Brisbane. It’s a bit unusual for him to have a two-year-old at that sort of level, but Can’t Recall One is unbeaten in two starts and has won both by big margins. I think they’re aiming him at the J J Atkins.
“His daughter Grey Ice was a highly impressive winner the other day as well, so that’s a couple of horses that could end up in contention for some good races in Brisbane over the next few weeks.”
Westbury has reduced the service fee for Tarzino from $25,000 to $20,000 and Reliable Man from $13,500 to $12,500, while the remainder of the roster remains unchanged – the well-proven El Roca at $15,000, Redwood at $10,000, and Swiss Ace and Ferrando both at $5,000.
“We’ve always felt that our fees are very realistic, and you always have to listen to what the market is telling you,” Warwick said. “We had a bit of indecision between $20,000 and $25,000 for Tarzino last year, and we’ve dropped him back to $20,000 this year.
“It’s just down to the way the market is, with even the fees for some Australian stallions dropping this season. It’s not that the market is bad, it’s just needed a bit of a correction.
“So Tarzino will stand for $20,000, with Reliable Man also coming back down a touch to $12,500. The others have been doing a very good job at their current levels, and we believe they’re well priced. Horses like Swiss Ace and Redwood, you can’t really stand them any cheaper than we are, and they offer great value at the prices they’re at.”
Meanwhile, recent weeks have seen a flurry of successes for the blue and white colours of Westbury owner Gerry Harvey’s racing team. Within the space of little more than 48 hours last week, beginning at Ruakaka with Kind Thoughts (Tarzino) who collected the second win of a promising five-start career, followed by Woodville maiden wins by Part Time Lover (Swiss Ace) and The Prophet (Redwood).
“The team’s been going well,” Warwick said. “There’s some nice young horses like Wallen, who won the $350,000 Karapiro Classic, and also Kind Thoughts, along with some quite impressive recent maiden winners.
“Some of them have just needed that little bit of extra time and patience, and we’re starting to get some reward for that with these results.”
