Muscular colt turning heads at the yearling parades

The way this muscular colt has been turning heads at the yearling parades, he could be the most aptly named harness racing youngster at New Zealand Bloodstock’s national standardbred sale in a few weeks.

Brogden Lodge’s Graham and Judy Bowen chose the name Turn O The Tide because he literally embodies their hopes for the future after a frustrating 17 years of breeding horses.

The colt is a half brother to the Bowens’ offering last year, who as the even more dramatically named It’s Nae Or Never, crucially broke a long string of disappointing sales, fetching $75,000.

Graham Bowen is hoping the tide will well and truly turn come February 19 given the interest being shown in their Captaintreacherous colt, who “ticked all the boxes” for one leading buyer and is even attracting inquiries from the United States.

“He’s the nicest colt we’ve ever prepared and two or three of the bigger buyers have been over him numerous times, so we’re expecting more than the filly (Nae) fetched last year.”

The second foal of the Bowens’ speedy nine-race winning mare Juice Brogden, the colt is beautifully proportioned and several visitors on open day noted how well muscled he is for a November foal, Bowen said.

“He’s got a nature a bit like his mum, quite gregarious. If he wants to go left and you want to go right, you’re probably going left. But he wouldn’t have a dirty bone in his body, he’s just full-on.

“He looks like an early goer – he’s not as big as he looks in the photo which is actually quite deceiving.”

Bowen is pleased that, for once, they’ve hit on the right sire in Captaintreacherous who features prominently among the best performed sires in North America.

“NZB Standardbreds’ Cam Bray said he’d had two or three inquiries from America where his service fee is double what it is here.”

Captaintreacherous stands at Hanover Shoe Farms in Pennsylvania for US$30,000 (NZ$46,500) compared with NZ$20,000 plus GST here (NZ$23,000) and with only four of his colts in the northern sale, they are sure to be in demand.

“So often we’ve been caught going to hot stallions but by the time we got to the yearling sale no one wanted them.”

Bowen had high hopes one year for a colt by Real Desire, who was the buzz stallion when he mated Ruby Choozday, but had gone right out of favour come sale day.

“We hardly got a bid, took him home, and ended up leasing him to Chris Butt with a right of purchase of $10,000.”

Butt later made a good profit selling Reuben Brogden, who won 17 races in Perth and another 15 in the States where he has taken a best time of 1:50 flat and boosted his earnings to US$361,000.

“We bought Love Ina Chevy as weanling, because he was by Jereme’s Jet who was hot, and couldn’t sell him the next year as yearling.”

Eventually sold after winning twice for the Bowens, Love Ina Chevy nearly died in early 2106 after a snake bite in Australia but is still winning as an 11-year-old and claims 31 wins and $409,000 from 217 starts.

“We’ve had a few blood noses at the sales and some we didn’t sell we ended up breaking in and racing, like Love In a Chevy and Miki Miksta.

“It got to the stage where we were starting to think we didn’t know what we were doing and we’d better give it away.

“We couldn’t just keep going as we were, breeding to good stallions and getting no return. We were pouring in thousands. I’d hate to think how much we’ve invested in horses, but it would have to be $300,000 to $400,000.”

So the Bowens cut right back on their operation.

“We had six mares at one stage, of fair to medium quality, and a lot of the foals went on and won races.  But it was middle-of-the-road stuff and we decided we had to up the quality. So we sold four or five mares like Hayley Brogden, the mum of Juice, and Swift Mirage.”

Ask Bowen why he’s continued breeding at all after so many disappointments and he’ll tell you straight: “We do it to get a horse like Juice Brogden (who just went under to Partyon in the Northern Oaks) and to get a horse like this colt, who’s the best we’ve bred.”

One look at Turn O The Tide’s pedigree page, chock full of black type, confirms that.

“We made the pedigree page very strong by breeding to some of the country’s best stallions. My dad Keith said if you’re not going to mate to the very best stallions you’re still going to have to race against them, and they were very wise words.”

Bowen was hoping It’s Nae Or Never would help put his colt’s name up in lights by contesting the first Young Guns heat for fillies on February 17, just two days before the sale. But while she’d been showing real promise for Nicky Chilcott, a slight setback two weeks ago scuppered that plan.

Brogden Lodge will offer two other yearlings next month, a Betting Line colt out of 10-race winner Beckinsale for the O’Brien family of Blenheim and a What The Hill colt out of five-race winner Caitlin’s Surprise for New Plymouth’s Nick Fleming.