5 minute read
Highgrove Stud
from 2024 MMGC Magazine
Ron Gilbert’s Highgrove, located on the rich chocolate soil of the Darling Downs is renowned for breeding and raising yearlings that live up to their promise with elite racetrack performance. It is a mark of the confidence that buyers have in the quality Highgrove offerings that repeat buyers of yearlings from the farm include such good judges as Gai Waterhouse, George Moore, Star Thoroughbreds, Darby Racing, Triple Crown, Yulong, Mick Price and McEvoy Mitchell Racing. These people all know their onions and make carefully considered purchasing decisions.
Bluebloods spoke to Ron Gilbert about the 2024 Magic Millions sale.
How would you sum up your 2024 draft?
“This is our biggest ever January offering for Magic Millions, because it’s the most forward, precocious types we have had in one crop and I feel that’s what buyers are looking for at this sale. They just about pick themselves as they develop on our farm.”
What makes the Magic Millions sales and races special?
“It’s the excitement of being the first yearling sale and social event for the whole industry in such a beautiful part of the world. When you are a horse addict, going to the sales is the only way to satisfy the craving. And the Gold Coast, popular as it is, remains one of the world’s most underappreciated assets. What a setting.”
Which app on your phone do you use the most?
“StockLight and Oz Weather. StockLight is a great way to keep track of stocks and shares which are one of my other passions in life. As breeders, we are farmers, so the vagaries of the weather are of prime concern. We can’t control it, but we can be prepared for the various short term trends.”
What has been your most satisfying result at the Magic Millions?
“You might be surprised to learn it was the sale of Dusty Tycoon for 160k.
She was a Written Tycoon filly out of the Redoute’s Choice mare Sponsored, who was well grown, but not perfect in the hocks. Mick Malone is a talented horseman, a great judge, who saw her good points and knew he could largely forgive her faults, so he bought her for a MiRunners syndicate. We’re talking microshares for 500 plus owners. Dusty Tycoon proved forward enough to win her first 2yo start before Xmas in front of 500 rapturous owners, many of them new to the sport. What a result, what a celebration.
She went on to win 5 races and over $308k, which gave me tremendous satisfaction as both a breeder and vendor.”
Ron Gilbert is very focussed on breeding youngsters that not only sell well but live up to expectations on the track.
The Highgrove draft for Magic Millions 2024 comprises eight yearlings, five colts and three fillies by top quality sires Bivouac (2), Farnan, Pierata (2), Russian Revolution, Snitzel and Trapeze Artist. They include a Snitzel filly who is a full sister to Highgrove’s Gr1 graduate Summer Passage, a Russian Revolution colt from the family of Gr1 winner Pierata, and a Farnan colt from the the Highgrove star mare Global Dream who is a three-quarter sister to the Gr2 winner of $694k Noire and is herself already the dam of Gr3 Breeders’ Plate winner Global Quest, to name but three.
Ron Gilbert is very focussed on breeding youngsters that not only sell well but live up to expectations on the track. “I’m very interested in planning the matings of our mares, as apart from using quality stallions, I believe to succeed in the long run we have to produce horses with decent pedigrees, whether bred on a proven nick or with a pedigree that has features I like such as combinations of influential ancestors. The results to date are very encouraging, the winners and stakeswinners off the farm keep coming. To date they include Gr1 winners Summer Passage and Wanted, Gr2 winners Shrapnel, Noire, Attention, Thronum and Fravashi, as well as Breeders’ Plate winner Global Quest, the talented Verne who defeated In The Congo at level weights and won two of his only three starts, plus Legally Bay, the dam of international Gr1 winner Merchant Navy, and Cythera, Snapped and Jet Spur who became a good bread and butter stallion.
For a boutique farm with small numbers to sell each year, that’s a good result, but I’m always looking to improve our batting average by buying mares from influential families and striving to learn from past results to improve the matings, it’s an ongoing process, we learn as we go. This year we have already seen the recent emergence of young Highgrove graduates such as Aardvark who ran 3rd at his first and only start to date in the time-honoured Listed MRC Debutant S, trial winner Fearless who ran 4th in the ATC Breeders’ Plate at his only start, the brilliant first start 3yo winner Lively and the impressive trialler Marais who has gone for a spell. Those four alone are certain to do us proud over the next couple of seasons.
I’m very pleased with the overall quality of our 2024 Magic Millions yearlings and look forward to parading them for prospective buyers. And a glass of red and dinner with friends and clients after a long day at the sales.”
