5 minute read
Twin Hills Stud
from 2024 MMGC Magazine
There is a buzz of excitement around Twin Hills Stud as January approaches, and rightly so. Olly Tait takes a quality draft to the Gold Coast led by the first yearlings of resident sire Peltzer.
Olly explained just how important the first sale of the year was for a progressive farm. “Every year the Gold Coast Sale is a hugely exciting event and as a commercial stud farm, of great significance in our calendar, an opportunity to show off many of our best horses for the year. It’s also exciting to be supported by our clients with such nice horses to take to the sale. This sale sets the tone for the year so you have to take top class horses and I think our 2024 draft is reflective of that.” As evidence of that approach all 18 Twin Hills entries have been deemed good enough to sell in Book 1.
When asked about the draft as a whole Olly pointed to the strength of the freshman sires saying, “We have a number of horses by first season sires, and of course the most exciting for us is Peltzer having three yearlings in the draft by him, all horses worth looking at both physically and on pedigree.”
When discussing what the market might make of the Peltzers, Olly was pragmatic saying, “Being by So You Think he’s not the sort of horse you imagine is going to produce early two year-olds, but then he was unbeaten in three runs at two and was a fast horse. The wonderful thing about So You Think, which is embodied in Peltzer, is he was placed in a Melbourne Cup, then sired a Sydney Cup winner, but now also an Everest winner. That shows the outstanding versatility of So You Think’s progeny and Peltzer is part of that story as, arguably, the most precocious So You Think thus far. It is realistic to think he will pass on those speed genes, and be capable of producing an early runner.”
The pages of all three Twin Hills’ Peltzers make for interesting reading but the one that stands out is Lot 575. “Of the trio the most noteworthy is the colt out of Demetria, a half-sister to the Blue Diamond winner Samaready who has gone on to produce a Golden Slipper winner in Shinzo.”
In Olly’s opinion, “He’s a stunning colt.” He also has a Magic Millions connection, Samaready also being the dam of Exhilarates the brilliant winner of the Magic Millions 2YO Classic. This colt is a half-brother to the Gr3 placed Plutocracy.
In total there are seven Peltzers catalogued for the Gold Coast, Olly’s remaining pair losing nothing in comparison. As Lot 547 he takes north a filly out of Cosmic Powers who has already bred a two year-old Stakes winner in Lord Cosmos.
And then there is Lot 996, a colt out of the three-time winning Lonhro mare My Obsession, dam of the Stakes placed juvenile Vagrant.
As touched on earlier the Twin Hill draft has a distinctly fresh look about it; besides the Peltzers there are youngsters by first crop sires Wootton Bassett, Bivouac and Golden Slipper winner Farnan. “Another horse that is interesting to us is the first of the Wootton Bassett’s out of a mare called Zafina, a most athletic, quality colt. There is a lot of chat about the Wootton Bassetts having taken everything before him in Europe. Time will tell how he goes in Australia, but this fellow is a fine advertisement for the stallion.” Selling as Lot 378 he is from a speedy family that produced consistent Gr2 sprinter Go The Knuckle. “We also have one of the first Bivouacs and one of the first of the Farnans, two fabulously talented speed horses, and given their combination of physique, pedigree and sire power, we hold high hopes for these two fillies.” The Bivouac, Lot 25, is the first foal out of the Kermadec mare Parakeet, a half-sister to Holler from the family of Microphone, while the Farnan is out of Majestic Trick who hails from a speedy American family and goes through as Lot 910. While the draft is chock full of progeny by young sires, Twin Hills will offer opportunities to buy quality horses by stallions firmly established in the marketplace like a red-hot Proisir, Spirit Of Boom, Toronado and Smart Missile. When pushed to give his opinion on one that might provide both quality and value Olly offered up Lot 905, Smart Missile’s daughter out of a great producing mare in Magical Mist, dam of the Group winners Splendiferous, Ballistic Boy and Yellow Brick. In Olly’s opinion “A glorious filly with a heap of quality and a pedigree to match. There won’t be many horses in the catalogue that are siblings to three individual Stakes winners.”
So with the quality on offer both on paper and in the flesh, it is no wonder Olly and the team can’t wait to get to the Gold Coast.
