Fortuna Weekly Round Up 17th October

CHANCE TO DANCE  all set for his Group One quest in the Livamol Classic at Hastings Sunday 22nd October

Group One glory beckons for the Fortuna 8yo Gelding, CHANCE TO DANCE (Teofilo-Crystal Ballet) in the re-scheduled running of the Hawkes Bay Racing Club’s major Spring attraction, a clash with the extra edge of him taking on his stablemate, the very well performed and hot favourite, GINGERNUTS. Both horses worked together in an exhibition gallop between races at Matamata Saturday 14th and according to their training team, they “are flying”. The highly experienced Leith Innes takes the mount on CHANCE TO DANCE, known affectionally to his stablehands and ownership group as  “TED“. Fortuna Director, John Galvin, comments about his charge, “Ted is just a wonderful horse to have in our team, eight years old, the winner of eight races from just 29 starts and almost $500k in prizemoney, he has won races in Ireland, Melbourne and New Zealand and nothing phases him. Gingernuts is a deserved favourite for the event, he is going great in his work also, but our boy should be right in this race on the day,” he said,” and what a great thrill for our very large ownership group of 78 Members to have a Group One runner here in NZ within six months of acquiring him.” 

This is not CHANCE TO DANCE’s first Group One Event in the Fortuna colours, he ran 5th in the re-running of the A$2m Sydney Cup in April, after running 2nd in the first running, a race which was abandoned. Spelled since then and back into work in June, CHANCE TO DANCE won his first race in NZ when taking out the (Listed) Karaka Classic over 1600 metres at Pukekohe on 24th September.

Inaugural Running of The Everest a Victory for Syndication

What a  great syndication story out of Randwick races on Saturday with REDZEL wining the inaugural A$10m Everest over 1200 metres. The Everest is a race whereby much of the $10m prizemoney is put up by the “slot holders” – each slot holder had to commit A$1.8m for three years ( $600k per annum) in order to be able to nominate a horse. But the slot holders actually don’t need to own their nominated horse – they can do a deal on prizemoney with the connections of the horse they choose to represent them. This is what happened with REDZEL, a 5yo by Snitzel – he had been bought by Triple Crown Syndicators for $125k at the Gold Coast Yearling Sale and syndicated among 30 people, including a teacher, a police officer, an electrician and a concreter. Sounds a familiar story doesn’t it? REDZEL was no slug of course, he had won 9 times from 19 starts and $1.4m in stakes prior to Saturday’s race, however his ownership group were in no position to stump up with a $1.8m commitment for three years. However, James Herron, a very successful bloodstock agent, had acquired a slot and selected REDZEL to be his runner. I don’t know the terms, but from what I understand, the most common deal between slot holders and horse owners was a 50/50 split between them. There had been criticism of the concept earlier in the piece, with parties deriding it as a “race for the rich”, however those critics got kicked for touch when the outcome delivered $5.8m in gross prizemoney to a group of “ordinary people”. Members of the Fortuna Syndicates which owned TELL A TALE ( NZ Guineas 2008) and MELODY BELLE ( Karaka Million 2017) thought they had “died and gone to heaven” after winning Million Dollar events – imagine what it would be like to win a $10 million dollar race – this race is now the World’s richest race on Turf and a record crowd was on hand at Royal Randwick to witness the event. Who knows, one day we may have a Fortuna Sprinter in this race!!!

Click HERE to watch replay of The Everest

Fortuna Horses Racing This Week

VENUS DE MILO resumes in Singapore Friday night and CHANCE TO DANCE seeks Group One glory in the Livamol Classic at Hastings on Sunday 22nd.

Finally, take a look at the picture below.

“Lisa” – 2yo Filly by Burgundy out of Spin N Grin

I have always told anyone who is listening that I believe this filly is the most beautiful horse I have ever bought and I think this picture explains why. Big and strong, we have deliberately brought her along slowly, she had a nice long paddock break recently and is now back in work and her handlers report that she is going nicely without any issues. She will probably have her first trial toward the end of the year – she is not a 2yo type, but standing at 15.2 hands already, she will make a lovely 3yo. Amazingly, we still have a few shares left, but as I have said to a few people, we still had shares left in Melody Belle at this time last year!!!  Out of a Group Two winning mare in Spin ‘N Grin, she is a 3/4 sister to the Fortuna Singapore based galloper, MAJOR TOM, who has won three races in Singapore so far in 2017.

And isn’t Burgundy going great as a sire? – already this season, his progeny have won three of the Stakes races, the O’Leary Wanganui Stakes and the Gold Trail Stakes (both won by Dijon Bleu) and the Hawkes Bay Guineas (won by Hard Merchandise)

Make sure you don’t miss out on what is left if you are tempted. A 2.5%share paid up to 1st November is $4495 and as always, we will do shares right down to 1%. Let me know soonest if you have interest