Snitzel | Horse Racing Free Tips

Baggage Handler To Horse Racing Millionaire: Industry Regulators Not Able To Keep Criminals Out?

Australian horse racing authorities have come under fire for allowing alleged cocaine kingpin Damion Flower to operate at the sport's highest level, according to an investigation printed by abc.net.au.

The former airline baggage handler was denied a license as a groom in August of 2013 because of his history of violence and bankruptcy, but four years later regulators accepted Flower's check for $1.8 million to help create one of the world's richest horse races, The Everest.

It was apparently Flower's part-ownership of Australian Group 1 winner and leading sire Snitzel that helped convince the regulatory body, Racing New South Wales.

“In the circumstances, it could not be reasonably suggested that a person who made many millions of dollars from selling shares in a horse that cost him $260,000, while retaining an ongoing revenue stream in Australia's No.1 performing stallion, is not a person of considerable means,” Racing NSW general counsel Pete Sweney said in a statement to abc.net.au.

Flower was arrested in May of 2019, and eventually pleaded guilty to importing 228 kilograms of pure cocaine from South Africa on 12 flights since 2016. At his sentencing hearing last Friday, Flower's attorney told the court Flower was “weak but not beyond redemption.”

“Mr Flower failed to have the fortitude to withdraw from the enterprise,” Francis said, according to news.com.au. “This was an isolated breach in criminality.”

Flower and his co-conspirator John Mafiti are due to be sentenced in February 2022.

According to Nick McTaggart, Australia's most senior operational officer investigating money laundering until he retired in 2016, organized crime has a long history with horse racing.

“The criminals are able to operate in plain sight,” McTaggart told abc.net.au. “The beauty about the horseracing game is that you can either buy such assets individually, or you can buy them with a group of other people, which doesn't diminish your wealth, but doesn't allow asset confiscation groups to make a complete claim on your assets.

Between 2013 and 2019, Flower purchased over $30 million of Thoroughbreds between Australia's auction houses, Inglis and Magic Millions. He would follow those purchases by selling off shares to investors.

McTaggart also said that racing's regulators are not in a position to be able to stop criminals like Flower.

“It's not within Racing NSW's bailiwick or charter to be doing background checks on the individuals involved in horseracing, unless they have a suspicion that these individuals are actually doing something by way of illegal activity with a horse or fixing races or issues like that,” McTaggart told abc.net.au. “So, their ability to be able to scrutinize activity is fairly limited in its terms.”

Read more at abc.net.au and news.com.au.

The post Baggage Handler To Horse Racing Millionaire: Industry Regulators Not Able To Keep Criminals Out? appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

China Horse Club’s Breeding Operation Continues To Branch Out

A new chapter in the evolution of China Horse Club has been written with confirmation that the first yearling produced by one of its American-based Grade 1-winning racehorses is now taking its formative steps towards a racing career.

Yellow Agate, who became the China Horse Club's inaugural Grade 1 winner in the United States, is again blazing a trail for the internationally-minded operation, closing the final loop in a long-standing plan to buy and race elite fillies before breeding them to sell at major markets the world over.

“This is an exciting time for the Club. A long-term plan set in process several years ago is now coming full circle,” said Michael Wallace, chief operating officer for the China Horse Club. “In 2015 we started a plan to selectively purchase quality fillies from major sales around the world. The objective being to develop some of them into Grade 1 winners on the track and, in time, for these Grade 1 winning fillies and mares to become a cornerstone of our breeding operations in major markets.

“That has now happened,” he continued. “Earlier this year we had First Seal's first yearling offered publicly at auction in Australia and this spring we have the first yearling by one of our American stars, Yellow Agate, taking the first steps in his career for his new owners.”

In April, a Snitzel colt out of G1 Flight Stakes winner First Seal topped the 2020 Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, Australia's premier yearling sale, when Coolmore Australia won out with a final bid of $1,800,000 Australian (US$1,315,751). The athletic colt has recently turned two and is in the care of champion trainer Chris Waller.

The Curlin x Yellow Agate colt is currently being broken in at Stonestreet Farm before joining the operation of Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. Pletcher's record grows season upon season and its achievements with the China Horse Club and partners are representative of this. He trained former G1 Florida Derby winner and now WinStar Farm-based sire Audible, Kentucky Oaks contender Ivy Bell and currently oversees the careers of the stakes-winner Valiance and the above-average Fearless.

Yellow Agate was purchased from the 2015 Keeneland September Yearling Sale and franked that assessment by becoming a Grade 1 winner at just her second start in the 2016 Frizette Stakes. That explosive performance was a career highlight for the athletic bay who joined China Horse Club's U.S.-based breeding operation after an injury setback.

The 2008 Eclipse Horse of the Year, Curlin, was chosen as the first mate for Yellow Agate. In the ensuing years the champion racehorse has continued to build on his imposing record as a sire and there is every reason to be buoyant about this latest prospect by Yellow Agate.

“The Curlin x Yellow Agate yearling is a stunning colt, he really is,” Wallace said. “He has always been highlighted rated in our system and just continue to develop physically. He is a really powerful type who gets over ground well.

“Earlier this year Yellow Agate delivered a filly by Quality Road and she is just exceptional,”Wallace continued. “The mare is doing a wonderful job to China Horse Club. She is the racetrack graduate we hoped for and she is throwing her athletic frame into her progeny and giving them the chance to replicate what she was able to do on the track.”

Yellow Agate was covered again by star stallion Quality Road in March. In Australia, China Horse Club's talismanic First Seal was covered by champion first, second and third-season sire Zoustar earlier this month.

The post China Horse Club’s Breeding Operation Continues To Branch Out appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Snitzel Earns Fourth Straight Sire Title

Arrowfield Stud’s Snitzel (Aus) (Redoute’s Choice {Aus}-Snippets’ Lass {Aus}, by Snippets {Aus}) has become just the sixth sire in the 137-year history of the Australian Sires’ Premiership to earn four or more consecutive champion sire titles. With the current season Down Under wrapping up on Friday, Snitzel joins his grandsire Danehill (who won nine titles, six consecutively, in the 2000s), Star Kingdom (1960s), Delville Wood (1950s) and Valais and his son Heroic (1920s and 30s) as sires to earn a quartet of premiership titles.

Snitzel’s achievement is made all the more impressive by the fact that he is a Danehill-line sire among a Danehill-saturated broodmare population. Competition on the racecourse and in the stallion ranks in Australia have also been at their highest during Snitzel’s era; the region has been the subject of heavy global interest and investment. During the 2019/20 season, a record 11 sires in addition to Snitzel on the sires’ table earned in excess of A$10-million. Snitzel’s A$17.7-million is more than A$2-million clear of I Am Invincible (Aus) and Pierro (Aus).

Snitzel is also the leader by stakes winners (18) and stakes wins (25). His stakes winners in 2019/20 were headed on earnings by his Magic Millions 2YO Classic and G2 Percy Sykes S. winner and G1 Golden Slipper runner-up Away Game (Aus), while I Am Excited (Aus) took the G1 Galaxy H. to become his 14th winner at the highest level. Splintex (Aus) became his 100th stakes winner when winning the G2 Arrowfield 3YO Sprint. Snitzel’s stakes winners this season came from six crops and 14 training yards and won black-type races from 1000 to 2400 metres. Six were homebreds, while others were sold from as little as A$90,000 and up to A$1.05-million.

Snitzel earns an additional accolade in becoming the only three-time winner of the Australian 2-year-old sires’ premiership in the past two decades. His 2-year-olds this season earned A$4.7-million and his 28 winners included four stakes winners.

In the sales realm, Snitzel was responsible for his fourth Inglis Easter top lot, this time the A$1.8-million colt out of First Seal (Aus).

“Only the very best stallions can do what Snitzel does, he is absolutely amazing and we are all extremely proud of him,” said Arrowfield’s Chairman John Messara. “I’m grateful for the support he receives from his shareholders, breeders, buyers, owners and trainers and look forward to seeing them all enjoy more success with Snitzel’s progeny, because there is plenty more to come.”

Snitzel’s three prior championship seasons have also included some remarkable accomplishments. Snitzel was three times runner up for the premiership, including in 2013/14 when he and Redoute’s Choice achieved the first sire/son quinella on the table, and three years later he defeated former champion sires Street Cry (Ire) and Fastnet Rock (Aus) to take the honours for the first time with A$16.2-million in the bank. That season he broke Danehill’s national record of 26 stakes winners in a season and Without Fear’s 40-year-old 2-year-old record of 32 wins in a season. He registered a 2-year-old Group 1 trifecta for the first time Down Under since 1982 in the G1 Sires’ Produce S., and also earned the 2-year-old and 3-year-old premierships.

The following season saw records by Snitzel for prizemoney in a season (A$29.2-million), winners (137), wins (307), stakes winners (26) and stakes wins (43). He also defended his titles in the 2-year-old and 3-year-old premierships. A significant slice of that prizemoney was earned by Redzel (Aus) in the inaugural running of The Everest, but so strong was Snitzel’s season that he didn’t need that, nor the money earned by his four Group 1 winners, to take the premiership.

In 2018/2019, Snitzel’s A$24.2-million haul put him A$6-million clear of I Am Invincible and earned him his third straight sire title. Redzel defended his Everest title, Exhilarates (Aus) won the Magic Millions 2YO Classic and a new mark was set for a Snitzel yearling when James Harron paid A$2.8-million for Corumbene Stud’s colt out of Ichihara at Inglis Easter now named Mount Fuji (Aus).

Snitzel’s rates of 9.8% stakes winners to runners and 75% winners to runners, average earnings per runner of A$142,000 and career average earnings index of 2.48 indicate he is the dominant sire of his era, but nonetheless Messara said he “truly believes the best is yet to come for him, with all that we have learned about him, his extraordinary vigour and the mares that have visited him in the past four seasons.”

Messara added, “Redoute’s Choice proved what was possible by leaving The Autumn Sun, Alabama Express and King’s Legacy in his 15th, 16th and 17th crops. That’s well within Snitzel’s capability too.”

The post Snitzel Earns Fourth Straight Sire Title appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post