By Sunday evening after the first day’s Standardbred Sale at Karaka four time Owner of the Year,Jean Feiss, veteran of hundreds of bidding battles, a significant number of which have turned out gold, thought she had got it wrong.
She had not bought a horse on opening day.
“The way the prices fell I thought there might be better opportunities in Christchurch so I decided to wait. Now I think I have done the wrong thing” Jean said on Monday.
But as usual she hadn’t. By Tuesday evening there were three lots under Jean’s name and she couldn’t have been happier.
“A good day today. I got the ones I wanted and it was a great result because it doesn’t always go that way
Jean paid $180,000 for her top lot a Captaintreacherous colt offered by Taffy Ltd of Southland (Todd and Fleur Anderson) whose impressive commercial breeding careers were based on some high priced purchase of fillies Jean had made stars on the tracks before passing them on-having retired from breeding herself these days.
The colt is from Dream On Me a two minute sister to Dream About Me one of the elite among a long list of elite fillies/mares trained out of Rolleston.This one is a first foal. Perhaps it is fair to say that the seemingly never ending stream of top performers tracing to Scuse Me has dried up a little in the last couple of seasons but it also has a history of bouncing back to scorn the critics.
With Captaintreacherous the hot stallion on the block this year getting a colt of this bloodline by him at under $200,000 had to be good buying. A successor to Self Assured perhaps when “JImmy” hangs up the bridle
For her second purchase Jean reverted to what she has been so outstanding at for many years -identifying super talented fillies from the sale ring.Elle Mac, Spanish Armada and Amazing Dream are just three well known examples.
Lady Danbury was her $80,000 Bettor’s Delight buy from the Somebeachsomewhere mare Lady Gilpin and with some significant names in the pedigree.Lady Gilpin is a half-sister to Belle of Montana (Bettor’s Delight) whose dam Lady Cullen was a half sister to Carabella the wonderful filly of the “noughties” and the last before Millwood Nike to scoop the Horse of the Year award at that age.
Of course it would not be a sale without Jean throwing her support behind her old favourite Vincent for whom she rather bravely gave $105,000 for as a yearling being smitten with his looks and carriage as many others would as time went on .Vincent’s fortunes have suffered somewhat at this sale but Jean has not lost the faith.
“He is doing very well in Australia. Sometimes it comes down to opportunity and luck and he has had enough good horses to show he can go to that next level” she said recently.
This colt is from a sister to Ohoka Punter, one of the finest pacers of his era for Tony Herlihy and who staged a comeback (more than one actually) from serious tendon issues to give Nathan his first Group One winner in Queensland.
Katy Carville,who with her late husband,Dave, nurtured the breeding stud where the Millwood title for the fillies became famous including Millwood Nike, also bred Millwood Maizie the dam of the Vincent colt.This one traces to the great Armalight whose family also produced stars like Spankem in recent times.
Jean will be back at the sale today with another short list of smart buys and no more chances to “wait for another day”
Nobody is guaranteed to select a top yearling year after year-but Jean comes closer than most