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From Eventing To Mongol Derby To The Racetrack: Young Trainer Neasham Takes Aim At Magic Millions With All-Female Team

Just twelve months after playing a key part in the Magic Millions success of Away Game for Ciaron Maher and David Eustace, Australian-based Annabel Neasham is hoping for a repeat – this time on her own.

Starts are not easily gained in the A$2 million (£1.14m) Magic Millions Two Year Old Classic, restricted to horses bought at the Magic Millions sale, but just six months into her new career as a trainer in her own right, British expat Neasham is set to have two runners at the Gold Coast in Queensland on January 16.

“I have definitely aimed for this,” says Neasham, 30. “There are only 16 starters and there were 1,200 catalogued. To get two in it from such a large pool of horses, we've certainly struck lucky.

“I've got a colt and a filly, Ghostwriter and Queen Of Wizardry. Queen Of Wizardry booked her spot when she won at Eagle Farm on debut last weekend,” she goes on.

“Ghostwriter has had three starts, won his first start at Doomben and although his last start was not ideal, he has been working well and seems to be back on track.”

Neasham, from Croughton in Northamptonshire, spent four years with Maher and Eustace and latterly ran the Sydney arm of their training operation, of which Away Game was a member.

In July she announced she would branch out on her own from a base at Warwick Farm racecourse. The following month her first runner Commanding Missile was also her first winner; she has now trained ten winners at a 28% strike-rate.

With major owners Aquis Farm among her main backers, Neasham has recently taken charge of a number of horses from Chris Waller, including the 2018 French 2,000 Guineas winner Olmedo. Prague, who won a G3 last year under Tom Marquand for Maher and Eustace, has also joined the stable.

Mind you, it wasn't necessarily how she planned things. “The boxes didn't come available 'til June,” says Neasham. “It's very hard to get boxes in Sydney but I knew if I was going to train I wanted to train in the city. Aquis pledged to support me as well so that was a big help.

”I've got just over 40 in work and I've just managed to secure the stables next door as well so will have room for 53. With the sales coming up I will need that little bit of growing space.”

Running her own training operation in New South Wales has not been the culmination of any long-term plan for Neasham, who came into the sport via the showjumping, eventing and point-to-pointing spheres in England.

She went to Australia for a six-month working holiday with Gai Waterhouse and, after joining Maher and Eustace, has not returned.

“I thought I would come out for a year and go back,” she says. “It's a bit surreal really. I am not from a horse background – my Mum is a midwife and my Dad is a lawyer!

“The fact I am training in Sydney probably wasn't scripted but it is where I have landed and I am absolutely loving it. I've always enjoyed being hands on with horses through eventing a lot. I think if I had stayed back home I would have gone down the jumping route.”

Neasham's other big achievement was winning the world's most grueling race, the Mongol Derby, a 1,000km endurance race on horseback across the Mongolian steppe. She completed it in six days after encountering monsoon rain, fog, heat and floods.

“It was an amazing experience,” she recalls. “I was praying I didn't get a sick bug, which a lot of people got. I got good advice from David Redvers to make sure I purified my water and to be careful what I ate. I just drank water and took four cereal bars which lasted me.

“Hopefully I can win a 2,400-meter Derby rather than a 1,000-kilometer Derby one day!”

She is on the right path with Queen Of Wizardry and Ghostwriter helping put her in the spotlight. “It will be good to have runners in the Magic Millions,” she says. “Neither are favourite but the filly [Queen Of Wizardry] is fourth or fifth favourite.”

COVID-19 restrictions may preclude her visiting the Gold Coast, however. “I'm possibly not going to be there because the border may be shut, which would be a shame for my first runners,” she says.

“But I think it's a very open year. It's often ferociously run and there often are horses that don't see out the six furlongs. If they go quick the filly probably won't have the speed to be up on the pace but in that case it wouldn't surprise me to see her storming over the top of them.

“Luke Currie rides Ghostwriter, which is a handy booking because he won on Away Game and has won two of the last three.

“Stephanie Thornton rides Queen Of Wizardry, who is a girls' horse,” she adds. “The filly is owned by Loretta Fung and Lizzie Jelfs, who is an English TV presenter here – and there is a A$500,000 (£285,000) bonus incentive for all female-owned horses, which is split up between the first four to finish.

“So she is trained by a girl, owned by girls and will be ridden by a girl. Hopefully we can be the first all-girl team to win the Magic Millions.”

This feature was originally published by Horse Racing Planet and is reprinted here with permission.

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Notable US-Bred Runners in Japan: Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021

In this continuing series, we take a look ahead at US-bred and/or conceived runners entered for the upcoming weekend at the tracks on the Japan Racing Association circuit, with a focus on pedigree and/or performance in the sales ring. Here are the horses of interest for this Saturday running at Chukyo Racecourse. A pair of US-bred runners entered for Sunday’s races and making their career debuts at Chukyo will feature in Saturday’s TDN:

Saturday, January 9, 2021
6th-CKO, ¥11,400,000 ($110k), Newcomers, 3yo, 1600mT
GALLANT MANNER (c, 3, More Than Ready–River Cruise, by Not For Love) debuts in the Godolphin blue and was acquired by Harry Sweeney’s Paca Paca Farm for $320K at Keeneland November in 2018, the most expensive of eight of this legendary sire’s foals reported as sold that year. A full-brother to SW More Than a Cruise and a half to SP Oriental Cruise (Orientate), the February foal is out of a dual stakes-winning half-sister to GSW Secret River (Secret Odds). B-Athens Woods LLC & More Than Ready Syndicate (KY)

7th-CKO, ¥13,830,000 ($133k), Allowance, 3yo, 1800m
SKY NILE (f, 3, Pioneerof the Nile–Joyful Victory, by Tapit) looks to take her record to two wins from two starts, having broken her maiden by 3 1/2 lengths at Nakayama Dec. 6 (video, gate 12). A half-sister to SP Jennifer’s Dream (Medaglia d’Oro) and SP Saqqara King (American Pharoah), the gray is the last US-bred produce for her Grade I-winning dam, who was acquired privately from Aaron and Marie Jones in 2017. The mare’s foal of 2019, an American-bred, but Japanese-foaled colt by Kitten’s Joy, fetched ¥105m ($982,202) from Danox Co. at last year’s JRHA Select Yearling Sale. B-Teruya Yoshida

PARADISUM (c, 3, Medaglia d’Oro-Taste of Heaven {Aus}, by Encosta de Lago {Aus}) tries winners for the first time after graduating impressively over this distance at Kyoto Oct. 31 (see below, gate 1). The colt’s dam, an A$1.5m ($1.389m) purchase by James Harron Bloodstock out of the 2014 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale, is a full-brother to G1SW sire Manhattan Rain (Aus) and SW & G1SP Echoes of Heaven (Aus); and is a half-brother to the legendary Redoute’s Choice (Aus) (Danehill), G1SW Platinum Scissors (Aus) and to GSW Sliding Cube (Aus) (Rock of Gibraltar {Ire}), the dam of ‘TDN Rising Star’ and successful young sire Rubick (Aus) (Encosta de Lago {Aus}). Paradisum, a half-brother to Canadian Grade III winner and $625K KEESEP grad Heavenly Curlin (Curlin), was bought back on a bid of $235K as a KEENOV weanling and fetched $400K at KEESEP in 2019. B-Elevage II LLC (KY)

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Global Views: Australian Extension

In Global Views, Godolphin Flying Start trainees provide insight into practices experienced and observations taken on their worldwide travels. Second-year trainee Lowri Allen shares the news of the course’s syllabus change that will see them attend the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.

The Godolphin Flying Start Programme offers a unique opportunity to spend time working in and learning about the Thoroughbred industry in five major racing jurisdictions; Ireland, Britain, America, Australia and Dubai. The 2019-2021 class of trainees are now in the fourth phase of the programme, spending time in the capital of Australian Thoroughbred breeding, the Hunter Valley, in New South Wales. Prior to this we spent time in Kildare, Newmarket, and Lexington, learning a tremendous amount about the Irish, British and American Thoroughbred industries.

Spending time shadowing bloodstock agents at the sales forms an integral part of the programme’s syllabus, and consequently we attend many of the major sales internationally. Many of the programme’s graduates have gone on to be highly successful in the bloodstock field.

Ordinarily, trainees would finish the Australian phase of Flying Start in mid-December. But a change resulting from previous year’s feedback, which suggested that the Australian phase should be extended to provide trainees with the opportunity to attend an additional major yearling sale, will see us staying in Australia until the end of February for the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.

The Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale is one of Australia’s premier yearling sales and this year, a quality line up of 1273 lots has been confirmed by vendors for the seven-day extravaganza. Yearling inspections by trainers and bloodstock agents are currently well underway as they tour the Hunter Valley stud farms looking for the next champion. Legendary trainer Gai Waterhouse places great value in conducting stud farm inspections and is usually one of the earliest visitors on the stud farms. This practice is a noticeable difference between Australia and other jurisdictions, where prospective purchasers might see the yearlings for the first time at the sales complex. From my limited experience, it seems hugely beneficial to see a horse on its home turf and observe how it develops from mid-way through its sales preparation, to the finished product on sales day.

Further to this, the practice of pre-sales inspections was, I think, a major contributor to the success of the 2020 Inglis Easter Yearling Sale. It was the first major sale to take place during the coronavirus pandemic, and it was held at a time when many countries and Australian states were in lockdown. Whilst the sale was conducted with online bidding in a virtual auction format, many prospective buyers had already had the opportunity to view the yearlings through stud farm inspections. Consequently, there was greater buyer confidence and the sales results held up remarkably well considering that the global Covid-19 pandemic drove some challenging economic factors.

Whilst the traditional sales calendar has been kept broadly in line, digital sales continue to gain in popularity. Many in the industry say that the pandemic has pushed forward their usage. Inglis held its first digital sale back in May 2017 and the platform has grown steadily since then. This year was one of exponential growth, with the platform’s gross having doubled that of 2019 by the end of November, being just shy of $50-million.

Across the waters, at Keeneland in Lexington, similar growth was shown at their digital sales. Keeneland debuted its first digital sale in June, offering 31 horses. This number was more than doubled at the December digital sale where 70 horses were offered. The bloodstock industry has been resilient and flexible during 2020, with online bidding and digital sales rapidly establishing themselves alongside those of a traditional format.

The opportunity to learn about and experience sales across all the major racing jurisdictions has been an advantageous aspect of the programme. In Australia, syndicates form a major part of racehorse ownership, with one in every 244 Australians owning a share in a racehorse. In America and Europe, syndication forms a much smaller part of racehorse ownership and syndication groups take up far less of the buying bench at sales in these countries. Another difference is the speed of auctioneering, which is noticeably quicker in Australia and allows the working hours for sales staff to be more favourable than those in Europe, where sales could often go on late into the evening.

The applications for the 2021-2023 intake of Godolphin Flying Start trainees are currently open and close on Monday, Feb. 8, 2021. For more information and to apply, click here.

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‘Sunlight Was My Best Friend’: Long-Time Groom, Rider Says Emotional Goodbye At Magic Millions Sale

Emotions are always running high when the hammer falls at a Thoroughbred auction, especially when the final price is as high as AUS$4.2 million (about US$3 million). On Monday at Australia's Magic Millions sale, some of those emotions overflowed when three-time Group 1 winner Sunlight walked out of the auction ring.

It wasn't the mare's owners or trainers, however, whose intense emotions were captured by the lens of racing photographer Michael McInally. Instead, he focused his camera on Sunlight's long-time groom, exercise rider, and traveling companion Sarah Rutten.

McInally captured Rutten in an unguarded moment with tears streaming down her fans and an empty halter slung over her left arm. Magic Millions later Tweeted his image with the caption: “The photo says it all.”

“She has had such an incredible bond with that horse,” McInally told racenews.com.au on Tuesday. “I just knew I had to be here after the horse went through the ring.”

Rutten had been alongside Sunlight for nearly three years, experiencing racing's ups and downs firsthand as the mare went from winning a trio of Group 1's sprinting to finishing poorly in the 2019 Everest. Rutten's favorite memory is the race right after that performance, when Sunlight finished a second as a longshot in the Golden Eagle.

Sunlight was sold to Coolmore, and the new owners promised Rutten she could visit anytime.

“I do wish more people would understand how strappers and stable staff absolutely love horses – Sunlight was my best friend,” Rutten said. “I did say goodbye to her – I just went in and sat with her while she was eating and I think she knows how much she meant to me and how upset I was. I've had a few moments like those with her, obviously life has challenges sometimes, but whenever something has happened I have always gone and sat with her and life has suddenly felt better.”