Picholine has already done enough for her name to be considered among the ranks of the great broodmares but she has also caused her owners to experience the full range of emotions in the time they have been involved with her.
Purchased at the Sydney Easter broodmare sale in 2003 for $160,000, the daughter of Dehere has produced Rebel Raider, a dual Derby winner by Reset, and Shamardal's Group Three-winning son Shamoline Warrior during her relatively short stud career but among these tremendous highs, there have been plenty of lows, including most recently the scratching of VRC Derby favourite Shamoline Warrior on the morning of the race.
“That’s racing,” says Harry Perks (pictured with his wife Annie at Flemington), who forms one third of the Toorak Park Stud operation, the highly successful breeding venture he runs in partnership with Rod Fairclough and Trevor Robertson.
“But Picholine has had her moments,” Perks adds with a degree of understatement. “We bought her at Sydney Easter and she was in foal. She was a very good racemare but because she was only Stakes-placed we managed to get her for a reasonable figure.
“She slipped her first foal a couple of months after purchase and she didn’t get in foal the next year so we started thinking ‘this could be a disaster’. Then we sent her to Reset in his first year and we happened to be at Darley the day she was covered so we actually saw Rebel Raider being created. We gave the stallion a good clap then and we’ve been clapping ever since.”
Rebel Raider, Picholine’s first live foal, has given her credentials a huge boost, along with the morale of her owners. Shamoline Warrior’s exploits have reinforced the fact that this was no fluke and the first-crop son of Shamardal was strongly fancied to give his dam a historic VRC Derby double with back-to-back foals until an elevated temperature forced his withdrawal from the race, much to the dismay of trainer Mark Kavanagh, who had had to settle for second best to Rebel Raider the previous year with his Street Cry colt Whobegotyou and received some consolation on Derby day this year thanks to the exploits of another Street Cry colt, Shocking, who won the G3 Lexus Stakes.
Kavanagh’s involvement with Toorak Park Stud has proved to be a profitable one.
“The first horse he bought from us was Undoubtedly and the second horse we sent him was Devil Moon, so the first two horses he trained that we bred were both Group One winners – it’s pretty hard not to be happy with that,” says Perks.
Alongside Undoubtedly, Rebel Raider and Devil Moon, Toorak Park Stud has also bred the Group One winners Gold Guru, Serious Speed and Proprietor and if Perks has his way, Shamoline Warrior’s setback will be only temporary.
“He can win the AJC Derby instead,” he laughs.
In keeping with the rollercoaster ride that is Picholine’s story, there has been further heartbreak along the way. She delivered a dead foal by Reset this year but is currently carrying a full sibling to last year’s VRC Derby hero.
“Picholine has now scanned back in foal to Reset which is really good news – we’re looking forward to that,” says Perks.
In addition to his Melbourne Spring Carnival success, Rebel Raider also added the 2009 SAJC Derby to his CV in May, scoring a ‘home’ victory for his Adelaide-based breeders.
“We’ve been operating since the early 1980s but we relocated in the early 90s and sold our stud in the Adelaide hills,” explains Perks. “We found it too cold to raise our horses there so we now breed to the best we can afford to go to and bring the horses to Mill Park Stud near Lake Alexandrina in South Australia. They have wonderful big paddocks there and we’ve been breeding really good horses.”
These include Gold Guru’s Group Two-winning half-brother Gallant Guru, the Group winners Majestic Music and Flying Object and Undoubtedly’s half-sister Regal Kiss.
With such an impressive list of black-type performers it’s quite a vote of confidence that Toorak Park Stud has elected to send seven mares to Darley’s first-season sire New Approach.
Perks says: “I really love New Approach – there are not too many horses who are Champion two-year-olds and go on to be such good three-year-olds. We like breeding to form. Our sprinters in this country are the best in the world but I think Australian breeders understand that if you want to breed a Classic horse then maybe the English stayers are the best and if you want to breed that type of horse you should look to those stallions.”
After such a long time in the business, Perks and his partners have learned that heartbreak goes hand-in-hand with the highlights but their reaction to the disappointment of Shamoline Warrior’s absence from the Derby line-up displays an admirably philosophical approach to the vagaries of the racing and breeding business.
“Obviously not everything goes right, like the horse being scratched from the Derby, but you have to move on and look forward to the next big day.”
Picholine’s next offspring, her two-year-old daughter by Exceed And Excel, has already risen to her first challenge by fetching $300,0000 when sold last autumn. The most special result for her sporting breeders, however, will be if the filly, now named Sultah, can add to her brothers’ illustrious records on the racecourse.
