Who are we highlighting this week? - Analysis of the G1 winning 3YO’s for this season has made us realise how many horses on this list took giant strides from two to three, so we are looking into the crystal ball to find some juveniles we believe could end next season as G1 performers if not G1 winners.
Click here for the story on 3YO G1 winners this season.
When Blue Door stepped out at Randwick in early April to make her racetrack debut in the G3 Kindergarten Stakes, there was already much to like about the daughter of Golden Slipper winner Stay Inside.
The bay filly, bred by Armitage Australia and born and raised at Yarraman Park, is an elegant and athletic type with a face adorned by a cute little snip / diamond / half blaze arrangement.
Her quality and a very big pedigree had seen Gai Waterhouse & Adrian Bott / Kestrel Thoroughbreds part with $400,000 to secure her at Inglis Easter from the Yarraman draft, but owner John Singleton this year elected to place her with Bjorn Baker to train.
In March, Blue Door had unleashed a stunning seven and a half length trial win at Rosehill that left trackwatchers agog and which saw her installed as second favourite for her debut, with only the $2.8 million Snitzel colt The Next Episode - already a winner - ahead of her in the Kindergarten Stakes market.
Over the hectic 1100m trip, Blue Door raced just behind the leader and did everything right, hitting the front at the 300m and storming to the line. She showed plenty of grit to fight off The Next Episode, who had slightly missed the kick and finished powerfully to go down by a neck.
Significantly, the blistering time was a full four lengths faster than the standard time for the race, which in recent years has been won by future G1 winners Libertad, Paulele, Bivouac, Astern and Hallowed Crown.
The exciting youngster was put aside after her sparkling debut, which earned her $141,000.
“She’s shown us exceptional ability since we’ve had her” said Bjorn Baker after the race.
“We haven’t had her too long, we were the lucky benefactors of a very nice filly probably four to five weeks ago. She definitely got a little tired late today, but going forward she’s exceptionally fast and she has a really big future.”
A couple of months down the track and the form out of the 2026 Kindergarten Stakes was reading well, primarily through the Ciaron Maher trained The Next Episode, who went to Brisbane and dominated his rivals in the Listed Dalrello Stakes before following up with a big win in the $1m Magic Millions National 2YO Classic over 1000m on the Gold Coast.
Third in the Kindergarten was Yulong's colt Under Focus (Too Darn Hot), with the G3 Breeders Plate hero Incognito, (also by Stay Inside and his first stakes winner) in fourth.
Another likeable thing about Blue Door is her name! By Stay Inside out of Notting Hill, movie buffs would instantly appreciate this reference to the famed 1999 film, in which Hugh Grant's archetypal bumbling Englishman meets Julia Robert's impossibly gorgeous Hollywood star to deliver one of the greatest rom-com pairings of all time.
As when the Beatles tripped across Abbey Road ( literally and figuratively), the location of the blue front door on the flat in London’s Notting Hill, where many of the film’s most famous scenes played out, became (and still is) a global fan-magnet.
Some albums or movies have that kind of generational impact - and so do some horses!
Blue Door's grandsire Extreme Choice is certainly the thoroughbred equivalent of something like a Sergeant Pepper's album - a marvellous and unique creation which explodes onto the scene and after which, the landscape is permanently altered.
For starters, he is the only stallion this century to have sired the winners of a Golden Slipper and a Melbourne Cup - and the only to have sired a Blue Diamond winner and a Melbourne Cup winner in the same season!
These are incredible achievements, but they are merely the cherry on top of a stud career which has been exceptional in every way despite some fertility issues.
No matter, because it’s been a textbook example of quality over quantity with the progeny of Extreme Choice, who will command a service fee of $385,000 at his home Newgate Farm this season. That is a far cry from the dual G1 winning sprinter’s introductory fee of $38,500, and equals the record Australian fee set for the super-sire shuttler Wootton Bassett before his untimely demise.
His fee is well earned - when one in 25 of a stallion's runners is a G1 winner and those G1 wins have ranged between distances of 1000-3200m, you know he is one out of the box.
While his fee puts the remarkable sire out of reach of most breeders, Newgate also stand both his Slipper hero Stay Inside, and his impeccably bred G2 winning son Tiger Of Malay.
As we saw with the mighty Snitzel, commercially appealing sons of Extreme Choice are now beginning to emerge left, right and centre.
The future looks spectacular for the Extreme Choice sireline, but let's focus on his obvious flagbearer, Blue Door's sire Stay Inside, because nothing has more clout in this country on a stallion's CV than a Golden Slipper.
Bred at Kingstar Farm by Newgate co-owner Matthew Sandblom, the handsome colt was a $60,000 MM Gold Coast weanling when purchased by Newgate Bloodstock, who onsold him for $200,000 to the Freedman Brothers / Rick Connolly Bloodstock at the MM Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
Stay Inside bolted in his first start in January 2021 by three lengths at Randwick, then made mincemeat of his opposition at start two in the Pierro Plate, blasting to a four length win.
Newgate acted swiftly to form a syndicate and bought back in.
Stay Inside's first defeat came next start at the hands of future champion Anamoe in the G2 Todman Stakes when he finished fourth, with Profiteer and Home Affairs ahead of him - but on the all-important Slipper Day it was Stay Inside who was the worldbeater, as he raced away on the soft track to leave Anamoe almost two lengths in his wake.
Not every Slipper boasts a vintage field full of stallion power in waiting, but Stay Inside's certainly did!
Behind were the future 9 x G1 winning freak Anamoe, Blue Diamond runner up and future G1 placed Ingratiating, G1 winner Captivant, dual Australian G1 winner and Royal Ascot / Newmarket G1 placed Artorius and dual G1 winner Home Affairs, who is the first of the bunch to sire a Golden Slipper winner himself.
Nostradamus-like abilities are not required to predict that he won't be the last!
The weight of expectation was heavy on Stay Inside, but he is rising to the challenge in his role as heir apparent to Extreme Choice for Newgate.
Stay Inside is bred 4m x 4m Danehill and to Danehill's sire Danzig 5m x 3m,5m, the closer line coming via his damsire Anabaa.
Anabaa was bred in Kentucky and didn't win a race until he was four, but then went on a blistering six race winning streak which included the G1 July Cup ( leading all the way - not even the mighty Pivotal could run him down) and G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest. This saw him crowned European Champion Sprinter of 1996. His dam Balbonella ( Gay Mecene) was a fine racemare and superb broodmare.
Anabaa proved to be a revelation at stud and became a celebrated upgrader of mares, able to impart not only his scorching brand of Danzig speed, but also the immense Classic depth of his damlines. His daughter Goldikova and the dual Arc winner Treve out of an Anabaa mare, rank among the greatest racemares of all time.
From his stint shuttling to Australia, Anabaa left the superb dual G1 winning sprinting mare Virage De Fortune and her G1 placed sister Avenue, grand daughters of the legendary grey Emancipation - clearly, Extreme Choice loves Anabaa in a mare pedigree, with two G1 winners already on this cross.
Stay Inside's second damsire Nothin’ Leica Dane was just as unusual an individual as Anabaa, in a totally different way. The three year old crop he was part of has become the stuff of folklore - Octagonal, Saintly, Filante, and Nothin’ Leica Dane - “the big four” ripped off a series of epic clashes which had race fans in raptures and journos frantically searching for new superlatives to do them justice.
Nothin’ Leica Dane was a powerful, long-striding second crop son of Danehill who proved to be one of the most naturally gifted stayers ever seen in this part of the world. The sort of horse that would thrive in the Gai Waterhouse stable - and thrive he did.
As a spring 3YO he rose to fame winning the GI AJC Spring Champion Stakes and GI VRC Derby - with Cox Plate hero Octagonal in second - before Gai ( at the urging of dad TJ Smith ) sent him out three days later in the 1995 Melbourne Cup. Nothin’ Leica Dane was still a few weeks short of his official third birthday, and was attempting something that hadn't been tried in fifty years.
The colt almost made modern day turf history, running the bravest of seconds on a brutal Heavy 10 track to the champion stayer and swimmer Doriemus.
While many of his progeny got over ground, lots were milers and a few were pure sprinters. No matter the distance range, his best offspring all had a sharp set of gears.
Most impressive were his brilliant daughters, headlined by dual G1 winner Hot Danish, whose turn of foot was something to behold.
His daughter Nothin Leica, Stay Inside's second dam, won three races and was a half-sister to the dam of G1 Caulfield Guineas hero and Cox Plate runner up Wonderful World.
They were daughters of El Rello with thew family producing brilliant 3 x G1 winning sprinter Spartacus ( Snippets).
The Snippets mating created a great linebreeding pattern incorporating sons of the Blue Hen Grey Flight, carried by Snippets granddam Scampering via Misty Day, and by El Rello's dam Pastel via her grandsire Gray Phantom by Ambiorix. The Ambiorix son Hitting Away was Scampering’s damsire.
This cross via Blue Hen Easy Date also occurs of course, in Blue Door's pedigree through Not A,Single Doubt.
Stay Inside's damline traces to the 1922- born Fairy Lamp, by the 1915 July Cup winning sprinter Volta, out of Fairy Orb, a half sister to Irish Oaks heroine Athgreany, dam of the Classic stallions Harinero, Primero and Trigo by Blandford and their sister Avena, who became the grand dam of the important My Babu stallion Milesian.
This is the family of Stella, taproot mare of the 22-a tribe. Other notable descendants of hers include the Classic champions and full brothers Tulyar and St Crespin. Stella's son Flying Orb was a good sire, and his daughter Cos became the ancestress of My Babu's wonderful son Better Boy.
Through his fourth dam Sweet Endeavour, Stay Inside's sire Extreme Choice carries many lines of the 22 family notably via her sire Endeavour.
Stay Inside's stakes winners to date Incognito, The Machine Gun, Lassified (Listed winner NZ) and Blue Door plus G2 / G3 placed Eviction Notice are all from mares keeping up those family duplications.
With Anabaa and Nothin Leica Dane as his first two damsires, and the Classic strength of his female line, we can be confident that the vast majority of Stay Inside progeny are going to improve out of sight at three - and on what we've seen of his juveniles, that should strike fear into the opposition!
What about Blue Door's dam?
Even those with the most fleeting of interests in pedigree would recognise the name Shantha's Choice.
No longer just “ Redoute’s mum” - though that in itself made her worthy of eternal reverence - In the last few years, Canny Lad's wonderful Blue Hen has seen her influence greatly expanded through the deeds at stud of her daughters, and now we are seeing successful linebreeding to the great matriarch herself.
Blue Door is the latest example of this.
Shantha's Choice (a winner from just two starts) visited Danehill four times. Her very first foal was Redoute's Choice, the definitive proof that “first foal” syndrome is bollocks.
After foaling a colt to Unbridled's Song ( 3 x winner Choice Song) the next Danehill off her production line was G1 Spring Champion Stakes winner and Doomben Cup runner up Platinum Scissors, but Redoute's had hogged all the stallion genetics. Scissors had limited impact at stud, siring one stakes winner and he was followed by the even less impactful colt Superior Sateen - a handy winner, but that was all.
Finally, a daughter of the mating arrived and this was Blue Door's granddam Monsoon Wedding, who was twice stakes placed.
She became dam of ten Australian bred named foals before her export to Ireland in 2015, and all but one were fillies!
Nine raced and all of them won with her two stakes winners being Precious Lorraine and Lucky Raquie, both by Encosta De Lago, to whom Shantha's Choice had produced her G1 winner and outstanding sire Manhattan Rain, his stakes winning full brother Echoes Of Heaven and globetrotting full sister Taste Of Heaven.
Other daughters of Monsoon Wedding are at stud for a number of high profile commercial breeding operations in both hemispheres and there are just too many to list.
Coolmore paid $2.3 million for Monsoon Wedding in the Teeley Dispersal at the MM Broodmare Sale of 2014.
Blue Door's dam Notting Hill by Pierro was her final Australian-bred foal and she was a $1.4 million MM Gold Coast yearling purchase for James Harron Bloodstock / De Burgh Equine in 2016 making her the top priced filly at the sale.
Notting Hill is currently expecting her next foal by Darley's outstanding Dubawi son Too Darn Hot.
Blue Door is bred
Danehill 5m, 5m x 3f sex balanced
Danzig 6m,5m,6m x 5m
Blue Hen Shantha's Choice 5m x 3f sex balanced via full siblings
While “ double Danehill” was once looked upon with a level of horror by many breeding buffs, it's a commonplace feature of Group pedigrees these days and now we are getting into successful tripling.
It is funny how these doomsaying predictions seem to arise - the same was said about Danzig, and at one time not too long ago, a mare owner with the idea of inbreeding Zabeel within five generations would have had to listen to a lot of “ do you really think that's a good idea” type stuff, but look how gangbusters that's going!
In time there will be G1 winners with Zabeel x 3.
If there had been internet forums running alongside the evolution of the studbook, you could look back through time and have a good chuckle at a lot of “concerned expert freaks out” discussions vs the reality a couple of decades later!
Even more pertinent here, duplication of the great Blue Hens in combination with the chosen sire, often via full or half siblings, seems to be the key to success, and if a horse also descends from one of the Hen’s best daughters, well that’s the ideal.
The stats say that Blue Door's huge and all-conquering Best In Show family is arguably the most responsive in living memory to these types of patterns.
Blue Door carries sex balanced duplications of Sir Tristram, My Babu, Forli, and more! I haven't even got to La Troienne….
Far from being a simple case of throwing a bucketload of Shantha's Choice into the ether and hoping it will pay off, Blue Door's pedigree is tightly knit for as many generations back as we care to look, and is beautifully calibrated.
Will this glamour girl prove to be a pure speedster, or could she be a likely G1 Flight Stakes contender this coming spring?
Stay Inside will stand the 2026 season at Newgate Farm on a fee of $66,000
