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Given his rapid accomplishments as a sire it was about time Super Seth (Dundeel) had a Group 1 winner.
And that’s exactly what Australian Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) hero Feroce (Super Seth) is: he’s all about time.
Time in the pedigree, to let a couple of duplications “mature” – one way of saying they’ll be pushed far enough back to have their impact optimised, with potential drawbacks diluted.
And time in the hills, those famous rolling, limestone-rich hills of New Zealand they talk about in the ads, to build up into a physical specimen.
Feroce is the latest star graduate from perhaps New Zealand’s finest family – that of the blue hen Eight Carat (Pieces Of Eight). Not only that, he draws from her directly along his female line, as his fifth dam.
While he had the blood, the best way of describing the yearling Feroce physically – says his breeder Sir Peter Vela – is to say he was like a gawky teenager, developing bits at a time.
It’s apt that he’s part-owned by AFL identities in Collingwood premiership coach Craig McRae, his assistant Justin Leppitsch, and Western Bulldogs grand final winner Tory Dickson, for he was like the raw young player coaches wait for to fill out his frame.
“You wouldn’t say he was backward,” said Sir Peter of Pencarrow Stud, “but he was just too big in the wrong places and too small in the wrong places. He was like an awkward adolescent.”
Sir Peter and stud manager Leon Casey decided early on the colt – whose third dam is AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m) winner Tristalove (Sir Tristram) – would go nowhere near a yearling auction. Instead he’d be held over for another nine months, for New Zealand’s Ready To Run auction.
“We decided very early to put him up on the hills and let him develop for the Ready To Run sale,” Sir Peter told It’s In The Blood. “Once we got him out on the hills and didn’t try to push him for a yearling prep, that was the making of him.”
When Feroce reappeared ahead of that 2023 Ready To Run sale, he was like an “after” shot in a makeover show. It was as if the angular teenaged footballer had blossomed into a powerful 21-year-old, ready for first grade.
He breezed up impressively, and was one of a few lots targeted by young trainer Dom Sutton, and the old childhood friend of his dad’s, bloodstock agent Johnny McKeever. Several of their attempts missed, but this one stuck, for $160,000.
“He went to a good, young, patient trainer who’s a good horseman,” Sir Peter said. “It was a marriage made in heaven.”
The colt was named Feroce, which augured well. Not only does it mean “fierce” in Italian but another by the same name was a Group 1 winner – of another Guineas race – in Brazil in the 1970s.
Our Feroce debuted at Pakenham with a 2.25 length maiden win over 1200 metres last March, then achieved the difficult feat of backing that up with another win – and in town – with a half-length victory over the same trip at Caulfield.
Unplaced but not disgraced in his next three starts, he was an outsider in the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m), but ran superbly for second, almost catching Private Life (Written Tycoon) but going under by just 0.15 lengths.
Sutton, only months into his training career, was devastated, reckoning that might be as close as he’d come to Group 1 glory for years. But last Saturday, Feroce duly provided him with that early elite triumph, winning by a commanding 0.75 lengths from another reared on the hills of New Zealand in Savaglee (Savabeel), giving Waikato Stud sires the quinella.
It gave Sir Peter, by his quick reckoning, something more than 20 Group 1 winners on his breeding CV.
“Funnily enough, it never gets boring,” he said. “It only inspires you to look forward to the next one.”
While a $51 shot in the Caulfield Guineas and a $14 chance last Saturday, Feroce now deserves regard as not some flash in the pan but a horse of extraordinary quality.
Since the Australian Guineas was first run in 1986, only the outstanding Mahogany (Last Tycoon) has won it after taking the Caulfield Guineas. Feroce has gone within a head of matching that eight-time Group 1 winner.
Sir Peter and Casey sent their Pencarrow-bred mare Corinthia (O’Reilly) to Super Seth in his first season partly to support their friends at Waikato Stud after their decisive move to import the young stallion – himself a Caulfield Guineas winner – from Australia.
But the match-up also made great appeal physically.
“Corinthia was one of those magnificent looking fillies,” Casey said. “She showed a lot of talent before she got to the track, but didn’t race due to an injury.
“I guess it was a little bit more of a physical mating that we were looking for there. She’s an incredibly powerful mare, but we thought Super Seth offered a great compromise to her physique.
“She needed a little bit of refinement. She’s very wide in front, and Super Seth has a beautiful front end on him.”
The timing was right.
Just less than four years later, Super Seth would be crowned New Zealand’s champion first-season sire. He’s followed by currently heading up the country’s sophomore table, while he’s now sixth on Australia’s equivalent. He now has six stakes winners from 64 runners, at a sparkling 9.4 per cent, including the Group 1-placed Linebacker.
In addition, the timing was helpful in terms of the two aspects of Feroce’s pedigree which first meet the eye.
He’s got that curate’s egg of a double-up – being in-bred to Danehill (Danzig). At least it’s the best of the three ways to do it, being gender balanced, via Super Seth’s damsire Redoute’s Choice and Corinthia’s dam Chimeara. That means it’s 4m x 3f, which some good judges will attest is better than variations more recent in a pedigree.
And speaking of great stallions, Feroce has Sir Tristram (Sir Ivor) at 5m x 4f, in the top quarter through Dundeel’s (High Chaparral) damsire Zabeel, and in the bottom quarter as the sire of Feroce’s third dam, Tristalove. Also gender balanced, it’s in a prime spot, according to Casey.
“Early on in his career, Sir Tristram was a bit like Danehill – the very close duplications didn’t work out that well, but once they got back a little bit, they started to go better,” Casey said.
“Sometimes those freakishly talented horses are a bit more effective a bit further back in the pedigree.”
The fact Feroce’s female line stems from the British-bred Eight Carat as taproot is enough to start any Kiwi pulse racing.
“It’s the Eight Carat family, so you’ve got some great triggers in Feroce’s pedigree,” Casey said. “You look at things like Sadler’s Wells running in through High Chaparral and Dundeel, and Redoute’s Choice in Super Seth’s bottom half.”
But what a strain of Eight Carat it is, involving Group 1 winners in Diamond Lover (Sticks And Stones) and Tristalove as Feroce’s fourth and third dams.
Eight Carat threw no fewer than five elite winners, headed by the great Octagonal (Zabeel) and including Diamond Lover, who took the ARC Railway Handicap (Gr 1, 1200m) amongst four stakes wins.
Diamond Lover left not only seven-time stakes winner Tristalove but another top-tier victor, and subsequent Group 1 producer, in Don Eduardo (Zabeel).
Tristalove then begat four stakes winners of her own, including top-level victor Viking Ruler (Danehill), his Group 1-placed siblings Diamond Like and Kempinsky, and another top-level placegetter in Lovetrista (Rock Of Gibraltar).
Sir Peter bought Tristalove’s second foal Chimeara (Danehill) as a yearling. She won two races but didn’t achieve racetrack fame, but for a first try at breeding produced De Beers (Quest For Fame), who would win the Rosehill Guineas (Gr 1, 2000m) of 2006.
From Chimeara came Corinthia, and from her a Pencarrow-bred first throw in Siracusa (Sebring), a Listed winner who was Group 2-placed.
Sir Peter will admit it hasn’t been plain sailing with Corinthia. Three straight covers with Charm Spirit (Invincible Spirit) yielded a maiden winner and two unraced, then a cover from Eminent hatched another colt who’s unraced.
But the next brought Feroce and a template for success.
While Corinthia subsequently has to her name a gelding by U S Navy Flag (War Front), a yearling filly by Almanzor (Wootton Bassett) and a weanling colt by U S Navy Flag, Sir Peter knows where she’ll be going this spring.
“She hasn’t had the smoothest breeding record, but I’m not sure we’ve done exactly the right thing by the mare with all her covers,” he said. “I’d say we’re going to have to accept the blame for those that did no good. It wasn’t her fault.
“But we’re lucky now – we can just go back to Super Seth, and let him take the blame if it doesn’t work.”
