b4breeding

Part 3 of this Feelgood mini-series looks at Mr Feelgood’s siring prospects. He is standing in New South Wales, Australia, and only available to Australian breeders this season.

I love what he offers as a sire, pedigree-wise and his own attributes.

He’s not a big, striking type of horse – more medium, athletic, and quite fine boned. He has thrown to his dam’s side and to Jate Lobell (who developed a reputation as a sire of speedy earlier types) than to his sire Grinfromeartoear. Grin of course can leave them big, small and inbetween, but Mr Feelgood doesn’t have much at all of Grin in his physical appearance that I can see – definitely not that Grin head! I would expect Mr Feelgood’s progeny to be naturally earlier types than Grin’s often are.

Mr Feelgood combines the great Golden Miss family through Grin, and the great K Nora/Adora family through his own maternal line – what riches there, with many echoes in the maternal lines of damsires in Australia – Life Sign, Red River Hanover, Panorama, Safely Kept etc.

John Coffey of Alabar Australia is a man who has kept the faith re Mr Feelgood over a period of time, and has kindly shared the story. John has a lovely way with words, so I will simply quote him below – not as a marketing push, but as a tale of belief in a stallion.

Graeme Henley [Alabar New Zealand] and myself have been been visiting North America for the past 7 or 8 years , usually around late May / early June. In 2007 we visited Brittany Farms in Kentucky where Mr Feelgood was two thirds of the way through his first season at stud. He had won the Little Brown Jug in September 2006. We were both highly impressed with the horse as a type – just a glorious athletic individual. We did even engage in conversation with Art Zubrod , the Manager of Brittany, about the prospect of Mr Feelgood being sold down under as Stallion prospect.

At that stage Mr Feelgood was predominantly owned by the group of people who had raced him the year before. However Kentucky is not really the State in USA to stand a Stallion to give him a great chance – there is only limited racing and not that many mares – there are hundreds of beautiful Farms , but not many keeping Standardbreds.

Anyway Mr Feelgood only attracted around 30 to 35 mares in that first year , resulting in 23 Foals . The owners then decided after the Breeding season had finished to put him back into training and he made a return to the Racetrack in late 2007. From memory he raced very successfully into 2008 until around May or June and somewhere around that time or shortly after , the Southern Hemisphere connection came into play. The Butt Brothers and Aussies Kevin Seymour and Peter O’Shea purchased Mr Feelgood to race down under. As you may recall he had his first Aussie start in the Bendigo Cup in January 2009 – second start won the Shepparton Cup , third start ran second in Ballarat Cup and then in 4th start won the Hunter Cup. Couple of months later he became the first horse to defeat Blackie [ Blacks A Fake ] in the Inter Dominion Final.

Although we hadn’t pursued Mr Feelgood after seeing him in June 2007 , we were delighted and so impressed with his ability to adapt to the Aussie style of racing and to win a Standing Start race over 3200 metres (the Interdominion) was a real feather in his cap.

A couple of months after the Inter Dominion Final , both Brett [son Brett Coffey] and myself met with Kevin Seymour in Brisbane to discuss a future Stud career for Mr Feelgood. At that stage Kevin was non committal , which was understandable given the horse’s remarkable return to the racetrack. For the next 3 years we have stayed in touch with Kevin Seymour always expressing an interest in having Mr Feelgood in an Alabar Stallion paddock one day. Well that day has now arrived.

Apart from Feelgood’s obvious race record , he is a superb individual and has an unbelievable temperament for a Stallion – Tim Butt and Luke and John McCarthy can give plenty of testament to that. The other massive string to his bow is his Female line. I believe many experts around the World regard the pedigree tracing back to K Nora and then further to Adora and Romola is the best of the best. Mr Feelgood’s dam is a half sister to Western Ideal and a daughter of the millionaire mare Leah Almahurst. I’m sure I don’t need to rave on for the next hour about its credits – you would be well aware.

So that in brief is how Mr Feelgood found his way from Brittany Farms in Kentucky as a foal to Alabar in Aussie. He is still owned by Kevin Seymour and Peter O’Shea.

I believe he will have the ability to Sire early 2yo’s with speed – although he won some races by leading or breezing , I felt he raced best off a helmet when he could display high speed. He did have 26 quarters in him.

John Coffey also has some interesting comments on type and observations of the experimental crop of foals he left in Australia, now just turned 2yos.

Mr Feelgood must have thrown to the dam somewhere – he is very fine boned , canon bones about the size of a small wrist and smallish feet. I remember commenting to John McCarthy not long after he had taken him over that he didn’t look anything like Grin. John said at the time he was worried about the size of his feet and whether he would stand up to racing on the hard tracks , but sure did pretty well.I think his action where he tended to glide across the ground was a big help in his soundness.

I have been visiting Kevin Seymour’s property around Toowoomba on the Darling Downs in Queensland for 3 or 4 years now – an annual pilgrimage to Queensland, and the people who run his property Peter and Leanne Bell are such a nice couple. In 2011 we were shown the Mr Feelgood weanlings that Kevin had bred with some frozen semen – was very impressed with them as types.

So this year when I visited the Farm , those same 6 yearlings now were there , having been broken in and back at the farm for a spell. They really do look very athletic types and you can imagine all of them making it to the races as types at least. On the Saturday night I was at Albion Park for the Queensland Derby and was introduced to the guy who broke the 4 Mr Feelgood fillies in, and he put a big wrap on them – great pacers , great attitudes etc. I know it is only early days , but these Yearlings do give you a good feeling about Breeding to him.

We have decided this year at least just to breed mares in Australia – he will probably breed a book of 120 to 140 this year and see how he goes, that’s assuming he gets that many Bookings – will be disappointed if he doesn’t.

Thanks to John for sharing that information. I’m outside my comfort zone when considering Australian mares, as I don’t know enough about their type and families. The Alabar website comes up with a wide range of mating hints and possibilities (as studs usually do) although I don’t personally follow the “sons of” logic.  Mr Feelgood has a pedigree that is open to a lot of mares –  and those with Abercrombie and/or Cam Fella in their genes may complement Mr Feelgood’s finer side – I like Pacific Fella in particular (Big Towner sitting there to keep the speed factor up). I’d love to see him cross with Mach Three mares! And mares with Most Happy Fella sitting behind them.

This colt by Mr Feelgood out of Heavenly Grace (D M Dillinger) sold for $9,500 at the 2012 Melbourne APG Yearling Sale.

Mr Feelgood will need ‘luck in the running’ to make a mark as a sire in such competitive and tight breeding times. His first yearlings (3 fillies, 1 colt) sold at the APG Sales earlier this year at okay prices in a fairly difficult economic climate. The photo here of the colt (from a D M Dillinger mare and bred by Benstud Standardbreds) looks a nice athletic type, not unlike his sire.

I hope Australian breeders give Mr Feelgood a chance – and that at some stage New Zealand breeders get the opportunity to breed to him as well.

Just a note to add to this blog – I think one of the challenges Mr Feelgood will face is our ‘downunder’ preference for what you might call the “Christian Cullen” type of horse (particularly yearlings), the strong, bolder and bigger looking yearlings. The finer “North American” type of yearling can still struggle to overcome ingrained preferences regardless of the sire’s credentials. Mr Feelgood looks a handsome, medium sized horse, and a very athletic type himself. I noticed a ‘racey’ type of foal in some of the Shadow Play weanlings I’ve seen to date, and of course In The Pocket was like that himself and often threw a finer, athletic type of progeny).  They are well worth a punt by breeders particularly when the sire is like that and has shown all the strength, toughness and durability a buyer could ask for, as well as the speed you might expect.  And of course athleticism and speed make a great complement to a bigger mare or mares from sirelines like Cam Fella, or with Cam Fella in their damlines or indeed Christian Cullen mares!