In this week’s Dunstan HorseFeeds Meet The Breeder we chat to Kevin Landrigan, who in partnership with his son Patrick bred Listed Staphanos at Novara Park Champagne Stakes winner Southern Warrior (Belardo x Cape South {Cape Cross}) at Pukekohe on Saturday.
It was a particularly successful weekend for these breeders, as they also bred Pudding (Tavistock x Christmas Day {Zabeel}) to win at Sandown and Opawa Scarlett (Shooting To Win x Lispenard {Fastnet Rock}) who was a winner on debut at Trentham.
There have been 34 wins this season from their mares.
Tell us the story of I’munstoppable?
It started when we bought Cape South for $1,600 in foal to Belardo. I'd seen a horse called Apostrophe win a race and thought "that's a good horse", so when the mother came up for sale we bought her! We spoke to Mark Chitty and he said "you didn't buy her, you stole her!"
We foaled her down at Seaton Park and then reared her at one of our blocks of land which is 28 acres at Brixton in Taranaki. Cape South isn't the biggest of mares, she's solid but not overly tall. The Belardo colt that we got was a bit of a weed! We fed him up and fed him up and then had to make a decision.
The Ready-to-Run sale is our major sale, but if we have any good enough on pedigree we'll put them through the yearling sale. We made the decision to put him through the NZB Online Yearling Sale. He was a really nice horse, but small. He was very friendly, the sort that would come straight up to you in the paddock.
We thought we'd get more than the $2,200 we got for him, we thought he was more in the $6,000 - $10,000 range. But you've got to pay your bills, so you take the money!
From Cape South we've since had a filly foal by Ace High, and we think she's the pick of our crop. We've got 14 weanlings, five of which are in the upcoming weanling sale. We'll be keeping this one, she's now a half-sister to two stakes winners and another horse called Southern Stock in Queensland who's handy as well.
We're looking to send Cape South to a top stallion this year.
We often find you let go of the good ones, and Southern Warrior was a good one we let go of!
How did you get into thoroughbred breeding?
I've been involved since before I was born almost!
My Dad had a farm and he had an old draught horse that we used to ride as kids. This was back in the 1950's, when there wasn't much around in the way of trucks, so every farmer had their draught horse and tray which they did the feeding out with.
When I was old enough to own a horse I bought my first one at the sale, which won four races. I was hooked after that!
So I've dabbled around since then, mainly with 2 or 3 broodmares. The statistics on that are we've bred 90 winners, which have won 231 races and $4.269million in stakes! My son Patrick does the counting!
Since 1970, there's only two years we've made a profit!
We started to push the numbers up when we bought our block of land, we had a couple of families most notably the Megapins family who horses like London Express descend from.
How many mares do you breed from?
We've got 19 mares. We've got a broodmare band that we believe is a nice lot of mares.
We've got a couple of stakes winners - Misstrum and London Express.
A mare that's a half-sister to Tarzino, a full sister to London Express, another that's a half-sister to Catalyst.
A Zabeel mare Christmas Day that is the mother to stakes winner Pudding.
We have a full sister to Megapins.
What else do you have in your bloodstock portfolio (youngstock, racehorses, stallion shares etc)?
We've got 14 weanlings, five horses in work. There are various others, we will have probably five horses going to the Ready-to-Run sale later in the year.
We have 15 stallion shares - among them Per Incanto who has been the star. We have shares in Ace High, Sword Of State, Shocking, Tivaci, Ribchester, Sweynesse, Vadamos, Shamexpress, Eminent, King Of Comedy, Time Test, Embellish. We have just bought shares in newcomers Hilal and Mr Mozart this year.
Do you breed to trade or breed to race? How do you decide on what to keep and/or sell?
Because of the investment that we've put into them (and they're very expensive things!), I don't believe in spending $40,000 to win $4,000! So they've got to show something or they're gone, and we've been great at charity over the years!
Sometimes we're wrong in that, we sold one called Express Yourself and there's a real story there! Her first race as a 2yo she finished just behind Butler and a Darci Brahma filly with Alan Sharrock in a 2 & 3yo race. Both of those went on to be stakes winners and we thought we've got a good filly here, especially as a two-year-old up against these! So we started her next time in a stakes race and she ran 10-lengths last.
We turned her out and she just never came up as a three-year-old, we got her back on the farm and she was not looking the best and had obviously had a virus or something like that. We fed her up and then decided to put her on Gavelhouse and sold her for $6,000 which was more than we thought.
When we loaded her onto the truck to leave I said to Patrick "we shouldn't be selling this mare, she's really developed into a lovely type of mare". She was bought by the Hurdles and has subsequently run second in the Telegraph Handicap and been a winner of six races.
So you're not always right!
We tend to bred a later maturing horse in Taranaki and we don't push them. We employ two staff - one is Matt Harris (a famous name in racing) and Kylie Schofer who's Hazel Schofer's mother. Kylie bought Opawa Scarlet from us.
We bred to sell, you don't survive if you don't sell.
I always say I'll never sell a horse for a million dollars, because I've already sold it for a quarter of a million!
Do you have a favourite cross?
I really like the Mr Prospector / Northern Dancer cross. That's a main reason why we bought a share in Per Incanto - he's a fast Street Cry and New Zealand is full of Northern Dancer descendant mares.
We also try to have Sir Tristram and Zabeel blood, we have a couple of Zabeel mares.
Line breeding back to Star Kingdom is something I also like, we bred Megapins from that logic.
Do you seek advice on your breeding decisions?
We do a lot ourselves, but we do take a lot of advice from the major studs. They have a lot of really, really knowledgeable people. They always treat us very well, welcome us and are only too willing to share their knowledge as much as they can with us.
Patrick and I are just accountants, and even though we're out on the farm every weekend, we bow to the knowledge of those who ply their trade in the breeding game full time.
Proudest moment as a breeder? You can have more than one! 😊
I've got a number of them actually, when I thought about this question!
The main one probably came when Megapins won the Wellington Cup.
We had a pretty proud moment when we bred horses that in the same year won the Grand National Steeplechase (Bogeyman) , The Wellington Steeplechase and runner-up in the Great Northern Steeplechase (Stitch).
I was also very chuffed with Express Yourself running second in the Telegraph.
Gold Merit winning eight races also did us proud!
Finish this sentence: The best part of being a thoroughbred breeder is…
It's nothing to do with horses!
It's all of the wonderful, friendly people you meet from around the country, who are all only to happy to help you and who are pleased for you when you get success.
The phone calls that we received from studs and people around the country when Southern Warrior was enormous.
I think it goes against the typical New Zealand thing of 'smashing the tall poppies'. What we've found is that in the racing industry everyone is very pleased when someone else does well.
That is the real strength of New Zealand racing, everyone is friendly and most importantly trustworthy.
There's an old saying - "You'll never die of depression when you've got a good three-year-old sitting in the paddock"!
