b4breeding

NSW’s Richard Prior has been a b4breeding blog follower for some time, and a thoughtful breeder for much longer than that. So when a horse he bred, Intransit, started to show up with a string of wins, I asked him to share the story through my blog.

The giant (16.3h) gelding Intransit has had 13 starts for 6 wins, 3 seconds  and $21,928 to date, most recently a string of good form at Mildura for new owners in Shayne Cramp’s training stable.

Intransit – breeder: Richard Prior (NSW, Australia)

I noticed an Artiscape mare in foal to Pacific Fella a few years ago.  I initally passed as I’m no fan of Pacific Fella. The mare, Valley Whisper is pretty well bred as her mother Make An Impression is a ½ sister to Impressionist ($427,005), but had left nothing in the barn to Meadow Skipper/No Nukes line stallions and I really thought that with Valley Whisper being by an Adios line stallion, I could possibly straighten out the pedigree if I sent her to another suitable Adios line stallion.

After I purchased the mare, the previous owner was playing funny buggers and was very slow weaning the Pacific Fella filly off the mare, so I ended up buying the filly as well. I had Valley Whisper and the filly shipped across from WA to SA as the horses were located at my sisters place in the Clare Valley . I later recovered the extra expense that I outlayed for the filly and I now had a mare that cost $300.

The previous season I had lost a day old Sealed N Delivered filly. So Sealed N Delivered was the stallion of choice for Valley Whisper and he was a little taller than his father, Falcon Seelster. [Bee’s note: Sealed N Delivered is by Falcon Seelster out of Dana L Almahurst, a Nihilator mare, the same cross as McArdle. He was a top 2yo performer and has stood both in USA and Australia).

The pedigree looked pretty good on paper and another thing I liked was that the stallion and mare were both from the same greater maternal family, Dairy Maid.

Leggy foal Intransit and Valley Whisper

Now my mare’s family is a bit hit and miss, they can leave ordinary performers or very good ones, (Impressionist, Mount Eden to name a couple). In the lead up to foaling our family were having bets on which mare (I had 3 in foal at the time) would leave a colt or a filly; we were all wrong, 3 colts and Intransit  was the first, arriving at 4.00am on 01/11/10.

He was a striking young horse from the very get go and I was totally overcome with joy at getting a colt from his young mother.

Moving along a few months and circumstances had changed and I had to downsize and shift the young colts and a few broodmares to Victoria . My initial plan was to sell all 3 colts but only ended up selling one and Intransit just failed to reach his reserve, which was a real head shaker for me (it’s hard not to be bias but he would have been in the top 3 as a type in the sale) .

Intransit – Preparation for sales

Ian Montgomery had prepared the horses for the sales on short notice and performed a small miracle getting them looking so good. After the disappointing sale, I offered Ian a 50% share with the young Intransit  and he did a wonderful job with the horse’s education.

Now this horse has some tricks up his sleeve and the big one is his fear of the mobile, very strange for a horse that’s 16.3 hands to be scared of anything.  After showing a bit of promise but still failing to score up properly and being put out of the draw, we decided to sell him to clients of Shayne Cramp’s and they would be over the moon as he’s won 5 from 7 starts at Mildura and with a little luck, would have won 7 in a row.

He’s no superstar but the breeding has given me immense satisfaction.

Intransit as a 2yo

If you have a success story, however small – something you bred that is currently doing well on the track, whether you own it now or not – let me know at bee.raglan@xtra.co.nz