1 December 2009

Conatus

Michele Cullen - Stallions Daily Bulletin - 1 December 2009

Young Danehill stallion Conatus, a member of the Denise’s Joy tribe, is doing his bit for the family’s reputation. Conatus showed plenty of the family speed by winning four races under the care of trainer John Hawkes for a large syndicate which included his breeder, Gerry Harvey. Unraced at two, Conatus was successful in his first two outings at three, and twice again at four before his retirement to Plaintree Farms on Queensland’s Darling Downs.

Conatus (Danehill – Light Up The World)

Although Conatus didn’t collect any black type he had plenty of pedigree and breeders in Queensland supported the son of Light Up The World (by Rory’s Jester).

Light Up The World, won eight of her 21 starts and more than $330,000, with her best wins coming in the Group 2 Challenge Stakes, the Group 3 Premier Stakes and Group 3 Queen of the Turf Stakes. She is the dam of World Peace, a sister to Conatus, who won the Group 3 Blue Diamond Preview as a juvenile and was third in the Group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes.

Light Up The World’s other winners include the Octagonal colt By Boon and the Chief’s Crown colt My Sheriff.

The second dam of Conatus is Christmas Spirit, a three-quarter sister to the good juvenile Christmas Tree and dam of Presenting, a stakes winner, Tycoon Joy, winning dam of triple Group I winner Bentley Biscuit and Joy, unraced dam of Group I Stradbroke Hcp winner and young stallion, Thorn Park (by Spinning World).

Conatus began his new career with a fee of $5,500 in 2004 and covered a book of 83 mares, his fee dropped the following year to $3300 and he covered his biggest book of mares, 109. Since then, although the number of mares have fallen, his fertility has remained sound at 80%.

With just 15 runners during his freshman year (2007-08) he recorded a lone winner. Last season, things improved dramatically, with more three times as many runners and 13 individual collecting more than $300,000 in earnings.

Already this season Conatus has had as many runners as last and is on track to break the number of individual winners, with 11 already collecting a cheque taking his earnings past $270,000. In November alone, Conatus has had four winners with Ilsenstein (ex Magical Forest by Woodman) and Lenny’s Lot (ex Clever Princess by Forever Regal) both winning in the country. His three-year-old daughter Verballed (ex Accused by Jade Robbery) has won her last two (class six) starts in town as did his four-year-old daughter Gag Order (ex Suppress by Don’t Say Halo) in Brisbane.

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19 November 2009

Gerry Harvey owns the shop and the product

Brian Russell - 19 November 2009

GERRY HARVEY, a giant in both retail store ownership and horse breeding and racing can be described as owning the shop and the product as far as Verballed, a very promising winner at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday,is concerned.

Harvey bred Verballed, a 3-year-old filly who has now raced four times, all on Sydney tracks, for two wins and two seconds, races her out of the Neville Voight stables and heads the syndicate team who own her sire Conatus, a son of Danehill and the Denise’s Joy family Rory’s Jester AJC Challenge Stakes winner Light Up The World.

After Conatus was retired from racing in the ownership of a group headed by Harvey with four wins from 13 outings to his credit, he arranged for him to stand from 2004 at Heather Pascoe’s up and coming young Plaintree Farms stud near Toowoomba in Queensland.

So far with his oldest 4-year-olds, he has had 21 winners and16 others placed. Besides Verballed, they include the Harvey raced Sydney winners Solatus and Miss Campbell and the tough Brisbane performer Gag Order. Like Conatus and Verballed, Solatus and Miss Campbell were bred by him on his Baramul stud in the Widden Valley.

He also bred Verballed’s unraced dam Accused (by Jade Robbery, the sire also of American super queen Azeri) and her mother Hot Gig (by the Harvey stood Bletchingly sire Best Western). The third dam Love Bird was a sister by Century to outstanding classic and staying performer Double Century.

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13 November 2009

Verballed shapes as stakes filly

Ray Hickson - The Daily Telegraph - 13 November 2009

A WEDDING in Adelaide kept trainer Neville Voigt from Rosehill yesterday, but you can guarantee he’ll be trackside when promising filly Verballed returns in the autumn.

The three-year-old, owned by Gerry Harvey, beat a handy bunch in the Australian Radio Network Handicap (1200m). With Voigt away, his son Chris said, with an air of confidence, Verballed would be an even better horse in the autumn.

“Look out next time,’‘ Voigt said. “(She) is going to be a stakes filly, for sure.’‘

Jay Ford brought Verballed ($9.50) with a well-timed run to beat Shadow Assassin by a half-length with Strategic Impact ($6) a close third.

Voigt said his father would recommend to Harvey Verballed be spelled with the autumn in mind – and he didn’t think the owner would take a lot of convincing.

“She has just lightened off a bit and we’re going to tip her out,’‘ he said. “She’s a late maturer and she has come through with flying colours. She’s always shown ability from day one.’‘

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6 October 2009

More Joyous steals show at Randwick Epsom-Metropolitan meeting

Tony Arrold - The Australian - 6 October 2009

RAIN and a soaked track could not dampen the spirit of enthusiasm generated by three-year-old filly More Joyous in what was the performance of a smorgasbord stakes race card at Randwick’s Epsom-Metropolitan meeting on Saturday.

Some fine efforts were seen through the 10 stakes race events, with the flavour of the day set by the debut of the new season’s two-year-olds in the Listed Gimcrack Stakes and Listed Breeders Plate, and the quality runs by respective winners Gybe, by Fastnet Rock, and Run For Wilson, by Shamardal.

But More Joyous, in the Group I Flight Stakes, was extra special – and not only in the execution of the win. Hers was a victory in celebration of a family that must surely rank as the jewel of the Australian Stud Book.

The one factor lacking from this authoritative win was that More Joyous’s breeder-owner, John Singleton, was not at Randwick. While he has a public profile as a knockabout Aussie who shouts the public bar after big raceday wins, Singleton is – and has been for more than four decades – a fanatical backer of racing. And racing must now recognise his arrival as a serious player, with his achievement of the common goal of the breeding industry to breed the best.

As to past achievements, he can look proudly to multiple Group I winner Tuesday Joy (by Carnegie) and her Group I AJC Oaks-winning half-sister Sunday Joy (Sunday Silence), and to More Joyous, who is from Sunday Joy, for the present and future.

The recently retired Tuesday Joy and Sunday Joy are confirmed in foal this spring to More Than Ready, sire of More Joyous.

More Joyous came to the Flight Stakes off a sterling win in the Group II STC Tea Rose Stakes, and her Group I victory at her seventh start was from the same mould – right on the pace and accelerating with a fluid gear change when required, going clear by 1 1/2 lengths at the post.

While everything is in place for More Joyous in the ability department, physically it is not – but six months or so of maturing will make her a formidable package.

Indeed, More Joyous could in time become like her grand-dam, Denise’s Joy, a robust individual and very much the centrepoint of the fabulous family that has developed around her.

Denise’s Joy was bred and raced by Dick Smith, brother of legendary trainer Tom Smith (father of More Joyous’s trainer Gai Waterhouse), who prepared her throughout her racing career of 51 starts over four seasons, two years to five years.

By the imported French-bred Seventh Hussar, Denise’s Joy was in a vintage crop that included her notable stablemates Toy Show, Silver Shadow and Cheyne Walk, as well as Lord Dudley and Ngawyni, and, from across the Tasman, Balmerino, among others.

She would retire with 13 wins, including five that have Group I status today.

At stud, Denise’s Joy produced 10 foals between 1978 and 1993. Six of her foals went racing and three of them were winners, notably Joie Denise, by multiple champion Danehill. Emulating her dam as the winner of the Group I QTC Queensland Oaks, Joie Denise and four other filly foals from Denise’s Joy can account directly, or through a daughter, for the winners of 10 Group I races to date, with More Joyous the newest member of the clan.

Together they have produced more than 50 stakes winners.

This family has its origins in Australia through Holiday Scene, a British-bred mare imported in 1950. By Fun Fair, Holiday Scene was foaled by Tide Time, who was a daughter of Samphire, a half-brother to celebrated speedster Mumtaz Mahal.

Holiday Scene produced 10 foals in Australia, five of them to the Woodlands Stud import Pipe of Peace, with the first of that group the filly Fun For All. A dual Randwick winner and placed in the Flight Stakes, Fun For All became a dual Group I producer at stud – first, Denise’s Joy, then AJC Derby winner Great Lover (to Spoiled Lad).

A third foal, the Wilkes filly Chorus Girl, was not far short of Group I quality.

In addition to More Joyous, Sunday Joy, Tuesday Joy and Joie Denise, the Denise’s Joy family’s other Group I winners are Miss Danehill, Arlington Road, Bentley Biscuit, Thorn Park, Euphoria and two-time South African winner Joie de Grise.

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2 September 2009

Brian Russell Farewell to Joie Denise

Brian Russell Media - Breednet - 2 September 2009

THE RAFFLE of breeding is shown by the mating records of the late Tommy Smith’s queen of the racetrack of the 1970s, Denise’s Joy, and her best racing product Joie Denise. Denise’s Joy missed in six of her 16 seasons and Joie Denise, a first crop Danehill filly foaled when her mother was 20, also failed to go in foal five times, including servicing by two stallions in each of the 2006 and 2008 seasons, and slipped once.

Their stud records are recalled following the death last week at the age of 18 of Joie Denise at her owner John Singleton’s Strawberry Hill Stud at Mount White near Sydney.This winner for her breeders, the Arrowfield stud, of four of 16 outings, including the Queensland Oaks, and the only first class galloper out of Denise’s Joy had 14 seasons of use for nine foals, comprised by seven fillies and two colts.

Both gelded, the two males between them raced once, but the six fillies of racing age have all competed and five of them have won.Two raced by Singleton have been Sunday Joy (1999), an Australian bred daughter of Sunday Silence who won the AJC Oaks and third placed in the Rosehill Guineas, and the 2009 Melbourne Cup aimed Tuesday Joy (2003).

She is a Carnegie winner to date of four Group1s, the STC Coolmore Classic, Rawson Stakes,The BMW and AJC Chipping Norton Stakes, and also in earning over $3.2million runner up in the Victoria Oaks and third in the AJC Australian Derby and Oaks.

The daughters of Joie Denise are predictably set to make a huge contribution to breeding and racing in the future through their descendants.Their achievements and those of other broodmares descending from Denise’s Joy are likely to make her the most successful matriarch in modern Australian history.

A recent research by the Australian Stud Book showed Denise’s Joy the fifth most successful by stakes race wins with a score of 74 wins,19 of which were at Group1 level.The honour board was headed by Civic Pride with winners of 99 stakes, including 23 Group1s.

Denise’s Joy, a mare got at the Oakleigh stud in the Widden Valley by Seventh Hussar, a competent English handicap miler, whose 13 wins included four Group1s, has left a huge legacy through seven daughters, including Joie Denise, and their descendants.

Much of the family has been cornered by John Singleton and his good mate Gerry Harvey. Boss of retail giant Harvey Norman and owner of the Baramul stud in the Widden Valley, Harvey is partners with Singleton in the Magic Millions sales company and in the Vinery stud, Segenhoe Valley, Scone.

One of the biggest owners of broodmares and racehorses in Australia, Harvey has at least ten of the Denise’s Joy family at Baramul with the bulk of them being out of Christmas Spirit or her Rory’s Jester AJC Challenge Stakes winner Light Up the World.

Christmas Spirit is a three-quarter sister by Bletchingly to Christmas Tree, a dashing winner of six races who, because there has been a shortage of colts, was the first of only three representatives of the family to sire runners to date. Retired to stud in1988, Christmas Tree supplied 155 winners and 13 who won or stakes placed.

The other two Denise’s Joy sires are Christmas Tree’s much younger close relations QTC Stradbroke Handicap winner Thorn Park (at stud in New Zealand) and injury restricted fleetfooted Conatus, a Danehill sire standing on behalf of his owners, a Gerry Harvey headed syndicate, at Heather Pascoe’s Plaintree Farms near Toowoomba in Queensland. Both have their oldest progeny 4-year-olds and are exciting a lot of interest.

A brother to World Peace, a Danehill filly who won a Blue Diamond Preview, finished third in the Blue Diamond Stakes and who is poised to produce an Encosta de Lago foal, Conatus has stirred up so much enthusiasm in Harvey for his potential he has boosted the quality of the mares he is putting to him.The 2009 line up going to Conatus, a sire on a modest fee of $3,300, includes a number by each of Zabeel, Encosta de Lago,Testa Rossa, Strategic, Royal Academy, General Nediym, Marscay, Last Tycoon, Hussonet and Mossman and others by Sadler’s Wells,Tale of the Cat, Anabaa, Hellisio, Jade Robbery, Pins, Rory’s Jester, Success Express and Marauding.

Already enjoying success in Sydney with runners by Conatus, Gerry Harvey is aiming even higher with them. Currently he has 18 in work and two others with pre-trainers. Two of his new Conatus 2-year-olds have impressed so much that they have been nominated for the Golden Slipper and two Harvey Conatus 3-year-old fillies showing good promise are Verballed (with Neville Voight) and Olive Oyl (Marc Conners). Each of them has been second at its only race start.

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