Every winner has a story and in the case of Jonker filly Heart of Vienna it's a ripper and best told by the woman that has lived it!
Kristen Manning writes - There are so many twists and turns on the way to getting to the winners stall which is one of the reasons we all appreciate success so much; it is rarely easily or quickly come by.
Such as with our girl Heart Of Vienna who had us screaming down the local TAB as she put her beautiful nose in front in the two-year-old contest at Townsville on Sunday.
It was a long way from the old Inglis sales ring at Randwick and the Caulfield stables of Jim Mason where the two branches of her story began.
In the lead-up to the 2001 Inglis Australian Broodmare Sale I was commissioned by a client to find a couple of mares. I spent weeks delving into the catalogue, coming with a wish list and a secondary list.
I remember thinking mares on the second list were, with a budget in place, going to be the more realistic options but I had ringing in my ears advice from Phoenix Broodmare Farm's Damian Gleeson.
It had taken me a few years but I completed, part-time whilst also undergoing my cadetship at Truth Newspaper, Wangaratta Tafe's Horse Studies Breeding course and Damian was one of our tutors. In a chat one evening about buying mares he said to never be put off by expectations of cost, that bargains could pop up where you least expected them.
A mare called Villa Igea was number one for me. She was in foal to Peintre Celebre who was a $50,000 stallion at the time. Her third dam was a mare called Eight Carat.
Villa Igea's branch of the family had been a little quiet but there was still bidding. And fortunately my client's bid of $75,000 was the winning one.
She was nothing special to look at but she was a city winner and I was determined to make the most of her pedigree and breed back to Eight Carat. However her first mate was Last Tycoon, hopeful that a filly would result as a future broodmare.
As fate would have it she did have a filly. Named Irreversible, she was sold but years later another client mentioned to me that one of his mares didn't fit his breeding programme and would I like to have her... and it was her!
Sadly we didn't have Irreversible for long but we bred a gorgeous Kuroshio out of her. Named Diode he was one of those horses who was born running - we joked at the time that he was never a foal, he was always a little racehorse.
Diode, who my little son nicknamed "Cutie" was our pride and joy and even now writing about him there is a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye as, after winning four of his 12 starts he was killed in a paddock accident at the age of four.
I will admit it was a set-back that proved exceptionally hard to bounce back from; myself and Diode's other owners were shattered. But racing people are tough, we have to be.
Villa Igea meanwhile, when bred to Eight Carat line horses, proved to be a gold mine. By Danewin (2 X 3 Cotehele House) she produced the brilliantly talented Gr.3 winner Fair Trade who we never got to see the best of and by Skilled (3 X 3 Cotehele House) the Gr.1 placed dual Gr.3 winner Fiscal Fantasy.
And by Kempinsky (4 X 4 Eight Carat) an eye-catching black filly. We had a syndicate of friends at the time; lucky enough to be in the ownership of the Gr.1 winner Douro Valley and with his winnings we purchased a share in her - Hearts And Arrows (cleverly named by a part-owner who was a jeweller).
The Mick Kent trained filly won her first two starts in impressive fashion only to incur a career ending injury at her third. She was sold to Jeff Cullen of Wicklow Lodge in Queensland who gave me a buzz to talk about possible matings.
Spirit Of Boom (he has multiple strains of the Lady Josephine family from which Eight Carat hails) was one of my recommendations, a horse Jeff also loved.
A boutique breeder with an outstanding record with a small group of mares - also breeding the Group winners Winning Rupert and Tycoon Evie - Jeff bred Jonker out of Hearts And Arrows and his Gr.1 Manikato Stakes victory was a big thrill; lockdown costing me the chance to be at the track cheering on!
Back in time a bit, a friend Melissa Boswell - who so tragically is no longer with us - was working for Randwick Bloodstock. A new mare came on the books and she rang me before she was advertised... "there is a mare from the Cotehele House family at the Jim Mason stables, thought you'd be interested."
We were there the next morning and by that afternoon the unraced Miss Peligrosa was ours for the princely sum of $2,000.
Having always had a good working relationship with Neville Murdoch of Larneuk Stud, we sent her to Euroa to live and he just happened to be standing Cotehele House's unraced son Bramshaw at the time.
He became Miss Peligrosa's mate for her first three years at stud; three fillies the result. The first was a lovely dark girl called Rosie Clare whose career was cut short by an absolute freak of an accident (a stick pierced her coronet band through to her pedal bone) and the second was Quilate.
(Rosie Clare's son Sardius lacks the family's speed but won a 2500m maiden for us earlier in the year, a big thrill!)
Quilate was a wee lass but spirited, another of those born running types.
And the sort of horse we all dream of - where the breaker rings to say "you've got something here," when the pre-trainer says "you are going to have a lot of fun with this one," when the trainer is smiling after her early gallops and trial wins.
Quilate (Spanish for 'carat') certainly took us on a great ride, winning five races including the Gr.3 Ladies Day Vase during Caulfield Cup week.
At the same time we had a major setback with her dam, Miss Peligrosa suffering from a severe (both hind legs) case of stringhalt, one which saw her out of action for three years.
Quilate's other owners were not breeders and upon her retirement she went to the sales and I admit to being rather teary in her box saying goodbye.
As it turned out, the buyer offered me the chance to stay in which I did and Quilate headed to Di Hannel's Warrandale Stud where she was so very well looked after. Her first foal (Sautoir) by Spirit Of Boom was injured at her first start, never to race again.
Not a good start. And it got worse.
Her second foal, a Spirit Of Boom colt, was a belter. We visited, took lots of photos, quickly got attached.
Then that dreaded phone call. A snake bite. Our beautiful inquisitive little boy would've been interested to see what was slithering through the grass. He was only a few months old.
It only seemed apt that Quilate would end up visiting Jonker. It's quite an intense pedigree - five strains of Eight Carat, 44 of her famed ancestress Mumtaz Mahal!
After foaling, Quilate and her daughter were placed on an online sale as she no longer fit the bill for the other owner. I was not in the position to buy her so I gave Jonathan Davies at Aquis Farm a ring and he said 'leave it with me.'
Swings and roundabouts... the mare and filly package was purchased by his clients and imagine my joy when Jonathan rang and offered Quilate back to me.
Still I didn't have the funds to breed and Di Hannel kindly arranged for her to be leased to one of her clients who sent her back to Jonker. I was delighted when she produced another nice filly for him.
A third visit to Jonker and Quilate is due in early September. This time the foal is all our's and just last week we saw her for the first time in three years (yes there were tears!) at her new home, the stunning farm that is Blue Gum Farm. Later that day we visited her mum Miss Peligrosa in retirement in a beautiful paddock at the Equorum Horse Refuge.
So it had already been a good week, spending time with my two girls.
And the week got better for on Sunday Quilate's first Jonker - Heart Of Vienna (who had been through the Inglis Classic, purchased by Queensland trainer Tom Button) - won her maiden.
On paper it looked an easy journey, an improving career from a fourth, then a third, then a second... then her win as an odds-on favourite.
But it wasn't that short period of time that had us so absolutely overjoyed, it was the back story. Breeding and racing her dam, racing the dam of her sire, doing the mating plan that produced her sire, buying her sire's grandam for clients. Losing beloved relations along the way.
Each of those moments, each exhilarating up, each shattering down, came together as Heart Of Vienna hit the line today. We got some glares in the TAB but geez it was some moment.
