Date posted June 16, 2010 | Posted by Brian Russell | Filed under
Bradbury's Luck,
Greenwood Lake,
Monashee Mountain,
Premium Updates Juvenile filly Kate’s Message’s dashing length-and-three-quarter debut victory at Ipswich last week was a red letter day in more ways than one for Brisbane Racing Club chairman and Racetree stud founder Kevin Dixon.
Bred and raced by Dixon, Kate’s Message achieved the distinction of being the first Australian winner for a Racetree foundation sire, the imported first class American 2-year-old Greenwood Lake, and of being the first winner raised on the stud using a sire in their stallion complex.
It was also an indication that he can become a big force as a sire like his celebrated three-quarter brother Success Express, one who got some of his best performers, including the very good sire Mossman, from use on Racetree when it traded as Noble Park in the ownership of Peter and Wendy Moran.
Kate’s Message is not, however, the first winner by Greenwood Lake as he has 80 winners, including 10 who have won or placed at stakes level, and 21 others placed from 127 runners, an 63% money earning strike.
Like Kate’s Message, his American runners in the main have been fleetfooted performers, a quality that is not surprising as he was a very good juvenile himself.
Acknowleged as one of their top two juveniles of 1999, a year his five outings, included three wins on New York tracks, headed by the Group 1 Champagne Stakes and Group 2 Remsen Stakes, a second in the Group 1 Belmont Futurity Stakes and a fourth in the Gulfstream Park Group 1 Fountain of Youth Stakes. He was evidently as good at two than Success Express, a winner at this age of the American Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
Greenwood Lake is by Meadowlake, a son of Hold Your Peace, sire also of Success Express, and they are from the same dam, British Columbia Oaks winner Au Printemps. The male line is Princequillo, one which has been outstanding for toughness and durability, qualities transmitted on through Success Express.
Greenwood Lake’s success as the sire last week through the win of Kate’s Message was not the only one to spotlight the youthful Racetree complex as one with big future. A runner by another of their sires, Monashee Mountain,the big, hulking 2-year-old gelding Pimpala Secret, made it two wins from his only outings with a dominant victory at Randwick last Saturday, and on the same day another youngster bred by Kevin Dixon, Right Reaction, won the juvenile event on the Darwin program.
Right Reaction is in the first crop of Bradbury’s Luck, an impressive young Redoute’s Choice sire standing at Glenlogan Park near Racetree in the Innisplain Valley near Beaudesert.
Monashee Mountain has sired 320 winners todate, including the Group I QTC Stradbroke Hcp winner La Montagna (ex Millennial by Hatta’s Mill), has covered books of 91 mares over the past two seasons.
A winner of four stakes at sprint distances in Ireland from seven starts, Monashee Mountain is one of the most fashionably bred sires at stud in Australia, being by Danzig and from the Mr. Prospector mare Prospectors Delite, a winner of two Group 1s, third Kentucky Oaks and a American Broodmare of the Year.
Another of Prospectors Delite’s foals, the A.P. Indy American Horse of the Year Mineshaft is the sire of Fly Down, runner up in the third leg of the American Classic Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes.
Greenwood Lake and Monashee Mountain cover mares at a fee of $8,800 (inc gst) this spring at Racetree.
