Few Hunter Valley based farms have supported the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale in Victoria with such consistency in quality and numbers than Arrowfield Stud and its sister farm Bellerive Stud.
They have been major players at the Victorian showcase, their drafts having produced numerous winners led by Australian Horse of the Year Weekend Hussler, a $3million earner, who sold for just $80,000 in 2006.
Since then, other notable Premier graduates for Arrowfield include stakes-winners Hot Snitzel, Flying Snitzel, Aliyana Tilde, Road Trippin, top class Singapore performer Stepitup and last-start G1 VRC Lightning Stakes winner Snitzerland.
Snitzerland was bought on the advice of Kitchwin Hills Stud Manager Mick Malone for $125,000 from the Bellerive Stud draft at the 2011 Inglis Premier Yearling Sale and has proven an outstanding investment having won eight of 17 starts earning more than $1.8 million in prizemoney.
“It’s an interesting story of how she came to be sold,” revealed Arrowfield Stud’s Sam Fairgray. “She was actually purchased by someone else and when they got her back home to be broken in they decided they didn’t like her as she had a slightly off-set knee.
“Gerald Ryan was still very keen to have her to train and he knew Mick Malone had loved her at the sale so he approached Mick about buying her and he had no hesitation in recommending her to his clients and the rest is history.”
Snitzerland is a half-sister to stakes-placed Red Dress Marley and is one of five winners for Monte Rosa, a sister to Group 3 winner and multiple Group I placed Nina Haraka.
“She was a forward precocious type as a yearling with a strong shoulder and great hindquarter, so we originally planned to send her to Magic Millions, but they wouldn’t take her because of the knee,” recalled Fairgray.
“The same thing happened with another Snitzel filly we had that year and she also went to Premier and turned out to be Flying Snitzel, who has also emerged as a Group winning filly for Gerald Ryan.”
The Arrowfield draft for Premier this year features 25 yearlings and is long on quality with six yearlings by champion sire Redoute’s Choice.
“Jonathan D’Arcy from Inglis saw them a while back,” Sam Fairgray added. “He’s of the opinion they are the nicest group of yearlings we’ve ever sent down to Melbourne.”
Last week the merit of the Arrowfield Premier draft was highlighted again when two year-old Flying Spur gelding Gold Force won the $250,000 Inglis Premier on debut from the Hawkes Racing team.
Gold Force was a $140,000 Inglis Premier purchase for John Chalmers Bloodstock from the Arrowfield draft and is the first winner for Blue Note, an unraced half-sister to Mentality, who won eight races and $2.1 million with highlight Group I wins in the AJC Champagne Stakes, Randwick Guineas and George Main Stakes.
Arrowfield will present a close relation to Gold Force at Premier this year in Lot 589, a colt by All American from Synaesthesia (USA), the dam of Mentality. He reminds Fairgray of Mentality in that he looks like a hard running, no nonsense style of horse that will get the job done.