Group winning sprinter Walking Or Dancing (NZ) has been retired to Wattle Brae Stud on the Darling Downs.
A high-class performer for the Brett Partelle stable, Walking Or Dancing won 8 races from 900m to 1600m and more than $600,000 in prizemoney.
Walking Or Dancing (6h Falvelon – Young Vic by Old Vic) reached career highlights last year with feature victories in the $500,000 Magic Millions Cup and G3 Newmarket Handicap over 1400 metres.
Partelle was confident leading into the Magic Millions. “I told Glen (Boss) in the yard that the horse would win and he did the rest,” Partelle recalled. “He was such an underrated horse but I always knew he had a good race in him.”
The Wyong horseman had rated Walking Or Dancing highly from the outset. He even nominated the colt for the G1 Doncaster Hcp in 2008 when he was still a Class 1 galloper!
Walking Or Dancing is by leading sire Falvelon who was a Queensland favourite winning back-to-back editions of the G1 Doomben 10,000. He was just as potent off-shore winning the G1 Hong Kong International Sprint.
With only five crops of racing age, Falvelon has already been represented by over 160 individual winners and they have earned more than $10 million.
Walking Or Dancing was an $85,000 buy for owner Bert Viera out of the Broadwater Farm draft at the 2006 Gold Coast Magic Millions yearling sale.
He is a half-brother to the Sydney winners Irongail (Canny Lad), Aim for Gold (End Sweep), Miss Nikki (Strategic) and the dams of stakes winners Kidnapped (Viscount) and Deledio (Testa Rossa). The family traces directly back to Courtessa – grand-dam of the immortal Eight Carat.
Owners Gary and Phoebe Turkington have set a 4,400 (inc gst) service fee for Walking Or Dancing’s first season at stud.
He will join Court Command (Commands), Easy Rocking (Barathea), Get Square (Redoute’s Choice), Mustaneer (Gone West) and War Trace (Storm Cat) on the Wattle Brae roster.