Photo: Trish Dunell
Around four years ago, the Smithies brothers, Joe and Max, made the decision to alter the business plan for Monovale Holdings in order to be successful in the current thoroughbred market.
Part of the plan was downsizing their broodmare band and improving its quality. Enter into the band Applegate(AUS) a stakes winning Exceed and Excel(AUS) mare the dam of the Gr.2 Jamieson Park Soliloquy Stakes winner Impendabelle.
Trained by Tony Pike and ridden by Kozzi Asano, Impendabelle was recording her third win, on the back of a good second at Te Rapa behind the cracking gelding and 2000 Guineas favourite Crocetti. Prior to that in her first start at three she was luckless in the Gr.3 Hawkes Bay Guineas.
At two she won on debut at Trentham in October, before returning to that course in December to take out the Gr.2 Wakefield Challenge Stakes. She followed that run with a third at Pukekohe as a lead into the Karaka Million where she finished fifth.
“We are really happy with how things have gone the plans we made and have been following are coming to fruition and should continue to build over the next few years,” according to Joe Smithies.
“It just seems to be that to be commercial you need to be at the top end of the market, we made the conscious decision to cut our numbers down and improve our quality. And the last two years it has all come together well.
“We have sold some lovely yearlings and produced a number of winners including Impendabelle. The mares we went looking for were preferably young and not too exposed, with essentially some black type reasonably close up to the first dam and by a good broodmare sire.”
In the case of Applegate (AUS) she was purchased from the 2020 Gold Coast Magic Millions Broodmare sale for $60,000 in foal to the young Lonhro(AUS) sire Impending(AUS).
“She was exceptional buying at $60,000 and we thought she had come in at unders, she was a stakes winning two-year-old mare from a good international family. She produced a lovely Impending filly in Impendabelle and we sent her to So You Think and she produced a colt.”
And so, it proved to be. In 2021 Applegate’s two-year-old filly by Frosted came out and won three races including the Gr.3 SAJC Breeders’ Stakes and Listed Dequetteville Stakes at Morphettville and was third in the Gr.3 South Australian Sires’ Produce Stakes.
In 2022 Impendabelle sold at Karaka in Book 1 for $80,000 to Tony Pike and the following year the So You Think colt sold to Attunga Farm and Clarke Bloodstock for $220,000. According to Smithies he was also a ready made two-year-old type.
This season Applegate has produced a lovely colt by Almanzor (FR) and is under cover to the Champion sire Proisir(AUS).
Applegate herself won the Listed VRC Ottawa Stakes at two, and is a half sister to six other winners including Yulalona a Dubai Destination(USA) gelding and the winner of five races including the Gr.3 ATC Summer Cup and Listed AJC Dulcify Handicap. He was also stakes placed on a further three occasions and ran fourth in the Queensland Derby.
Their dam Klamath Falls(USA) by Storm Cat(USA) raced only twice. She in turn was out of Link River (Gone West[USA]) a winner of six races in the USA and Great Britain including the Gr.1 Saratoga John A Morris Handicap.
“We are very happy with what has happened with the new mares we have added what they have produced, “stated Smithies.
“Our matings every year vary, we try to bring in some Australian flair as that is what the market seems to want, and in our draft of yearlings you will find that it’s about 20% Australian sires and that seems to work well.”
Another part of the plan implemented by Joe and Max Smithies was the sale of the 58-acre yearling farm they had on the other side of the river to their main farm closer to Cambridge. Here they have just under 400 acres and run sheep and cattle along with their thoroughbreds.
“The other farm had all the yearling facilities boxes and yards etc,” recalled Smithies.
“We sold that property to Go Racing and the Marsh family and we had to make the decision to build new facilities on the farm or try farming our yearlings out and focus on other interests. So far having them prepared elsewhere has worked really well.
“This year we are selling 18 yearlings and there are some standouts among them, they will be split between Riversley Park and Landsdowne Park.”
