From Rogue to Racehorse

A one time rogue headed for the broodmare paddock is now a Randwick winner thanks to an inspired purchase and the patience and skill of Adam Mackrell and his team at Bell View Park Stud.

Adam Mackrell spends a great deal of time looking for broodmare prospects worldwide to be astutely mated and on-sold by Bell View Park at the leading broodmare sales each year.

While looking at gavelhouse.com New Zealand, Mackrell's attention was captured byan unnamed Mastercraftsman (IRE) filly from the family of Group I winners Bonanova, Telesto and Fraternity. She was a half-sister to six winners including the dam of current Group III winner Five to Midnight, but was offered as a breeding prospect only.

"I didn't mind her pedigree, so I asked an ex staff member of mine, Eugene Casement who lives in NZ to go and have a look at her," Mackrell recalled.

"Eugene inspected her and gave me a positive report, so we bought her off Gavelhouse for NZ$3,400."

She arrived back at Bell View Park on the South Coast of New South Wales and there was no plan to put her into work, however some further investigation revealed she was in fact sound to race, but had been a real handful to break in and train.

"We decided to give her a chance on the track so Peter (Ward) and our staff put a lot of time and effort into educating her," Mackrell said.

"Slowly but surely she came good mentally and we sent her to Robert and Luke Price to train and she was named her Eugene's Pick for obvious reasons."

Eugene's Pick ran third on debut at Kembla in May last year and then won at Kembla and Goulburn as well as placing two more times from six starts in her first preparation.

"Robert and Luke did a great job with her and in her first race preparation she won impressively twice and was placed at Rosehill. She went out for a spell and came back a much more mature horse and won second up at Randwick on Wednesday," Mackrell added.

Eugene's Pick led all the way to win the Benchmark 70 event over 1400 metres for fillies and mares by half a neck and has now won over $80,000 in prizemoney.

"Given her breeding, the fact that she keeps improving physically and is now straight forward to train, we are quite excited about her and hope her best is yet to come," Mackrell concluded.