A Star
by Jessica Owers
WAS BORN Denise Martin and Star Thoroughbreds have been a fixture of Australian racing for 30 years. As Jessica Owers found out, such longevity has had its secret weapons, namely good grace, fine manners and red lipstick.
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f age is a question of mind over matter, Denise Martin doesn’t mind so it doesn’t matter. The face of Star Thoroughbreds is, by her own admission, a mature-age woman, but who’s asking? “A few people, actually,” she says. “I’ve been asked, not often but a few times, when I’m going to step back. I guess when people know you’ve been involved in a business for a long time in our industry, perhaps they think your career may be coming to a time limit.” For Martin, it’s a little annoying, a bit like when Cher was asked if she was too old to rock ‘n’ roll. The music icon dashed off to check with Mick Jagger. “I wonder if they’re asking the same question of the mature-age men?” Martin says. For nearly 30 years, Denise Martin has run Star Thoroughbreds up the board of Australian racing. It started in the 1990s with a luckless Kenmare gelding called French Roulette, then continued into the summery heights of Danglissa until such horses as Sebring, Theseo and Driefontein. There’s been D’Argento, Invincibella, Foxplay and Fiesta, not to mention Espiona. All along the way, Martin has been the felicitous captain of the ship. “It’s been the greatest journey,” she says. “When I look back at it, I suppose I should be a bit surprised about the amount of success we’ve had, but I wasn’t going to have it any other way when I started all those years ago.” As far as ownership syndicates go , there are few as enduring and successful in Australia as Star Thoroughbreds. The group’s purple silks and white stars are a racecourse staple, and a staple
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in the loftiest targets. Martin and her owners have won the Golden Slipper, the Epsom, the Magic Millions 2YO Classic, the Coolmore and Flight Stakes, the Tattersall’s Tiara and the Rosehill Guineas, to name a few. To date, Star’s total stakes haul is a mystery but significant, and there isn’t a more winning ownership group when it comes to Magic Millions. Since 2006, Star Thoroughbreds has cheered home 11 individual winners of 14 Magic Millions races. Its first was Ulladulla at Wyong nearly 18 years ago, and horses like Conquestador and Lustica followed. Kinnersley won the Magic Millions Subzero, and Whittington the Magic Millions Snippets. Driefontein is the group’s 2YO Classic winner, while Jubilance and Deroche were winners of the Tasmanian features. Theseo won the Magic Millions Cup, and, lately, Invincibella ripped through three consecutive years of winning the Magic Millions Fillies and Mares. Such results come from buying around 45 yearlings each year, give or take, and time behind the catalogue has given Martin an eye for a marketable racehorse. She loves a chestnut, and she gives equal weight to colts and fillies. She has stories about the horses that were initially hard to syndicate, like Sebring, and those that sold in no time at all. She remembers prices, dates and people like it all happened yesterday. And all of this success in racing came after Martin reinvented her life halfway through it. She has been a school teacher and a highrolling manager in high-end hospitality before leaping, feet first, waist-deep, into the world of racehorse syndication.
