Aurum's Bloodlines in the News...
2008 Melbourne 3 Day Event
The 2008 Melbourne International Three Day Event was very exciting from Aurum's perspective! Although our horses are not actually out competing, their relatives were everywhere!
Each of the five classes was won by a purpose bred performance horse with a predominantly thoroughbred pedigree. In the CIC-W*** 5 of the 8 horses who completed were purpose bred performance horses. More than half of those entered in this class were bred not to be racehorses. As you will see, the successful horses that were ‘off the track’ have pedigrees that are peppered with names that are found throughout the world's great performance horse pedigrees. It is no accident that these horses make good event horses and that many move better than the average thoroughbred.
| Lauren Balcomb (right) riding Kootamootoo (by Salute) was a clear winner in the CCI*Junior having led from the dressage and only adding one show jumping rail to her score. Had she been in the senior class, Lauren was still on a winning score, with the same Ground Jury and all! We cannot wait to see Lauren out competing on Aurum Brilliant Connections and Aurum Boadicea in the future. What a shame they are still babies! |  |
Kootamootoo shares many relatives with our Aurum horses as not only is he by Salute, but his thoroughbred dam has in her pedigree (with multiple occurrences of many) the famous Blue Peter, Blandford, Precipitation, Fair Trial, Nearco, Fairway, Dark Ronald, Pharos, Son in Law, need I go on! Our two broodmares Risqué and Byalee Minuet carry the Salute line as does the very smart 2007 colt Aurum Solarius.
The winner of the CCI*, Phantom Stealth ridden by Melissa Van den Berg (nee Hughes), is also by Salute out of a thoroughbred mare who has in her pedigree multiple occurrences of the performance precursors Star Kingdom, Nasrullah (and therefore Nearco and Mumtaz Begum), Hyperion, Phalaris to mention a few. Phantom Stealth had previously been placed 2nd in the CNC 2* at Kooralbyn and Maryborough and prior to that had won the 1* at Kooralbyn. And he is only 15.3!
| Placing 2nd in the 1* at Melbourne was War Wizard (right), ridden by Seamus Marwood. War Wizard is by Daley K. This son of Daktylus has produced a number of successful performance horses with perhaps the most famous being World Cup Show jumper Warlord II. He has also produced Grand Prix Dressage horses and Eventers.
The dam of Daktylus, Abeba, is by Absatz, Sire of Argentan who is famous for both his dressage and showjumping off-spring, and particularly for his most famous son Argentinus. |
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Daley K's dam, Gold Song also has illustrious parentage. Her sire Goldstern is by Gotthard (Grand sire of Bockmann's Genius, 1992 showjumping World Cup final winner and Olympic Silver medalist) a very prominent horse in the G-Line dynasty which descends from the thoroughbred Goldschaum. On the dam side War Wizard's pedigree includes the thoroughbred half brothers Precipitation (sire of the immortal Furioso) and Persian Gulf (important sire of showjumpers and dressage horses) and grandsire of Marlon, one of the most important thoroughbred sires in warmblood breeding after the War. Also present are Blandford and Gainsborough. At Aurum we have Daley K represented in a wonderful broodmare BP Montana, who as it happens had a lovely filly foal (Aurum Daley Flood) in 2007 by Aurum Flash Flood.
| Moving on to the CCI ** Koyuna Tora Bora (right) was piloted to victory by Amanda Howell. This a lovely grey mare who is a descendant of the great Souvenir, sire of McCartney (who is the sire of our stallion Aurum Alloy and mare Aurum Poppy). Koyuna Tora Bora led after the dressage and added only one show jumping rail to win by a clear margin. In the 2* I found at least 5 descendents of Souvenir or McCartney, 2 of whom finished in the top five places.
The next 3 placings in the 2* were filled by thoroughbred horses who not surprisingly have their pedigrees peppered with the ‘right horses’ to make good eventing competitors. |
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Yet again we see occurrences of Nasrullah (Nearco and Mumtaz Begum), Polynesian, Wilkes, Hyperion (Gainsborough), Star Kingdom, Nearco, Court Martial, Fair Trial (Fairway, Phalaris, Son in Law), Hurry On (sire of Precipitation) Blandford, Swynford. These horses occur dozens of times in the pedigrees of these three placegetters. They may have made their way to Werribee via the racetrack, but it is no accident that they are good performance horses.
In 5th position was an Irish Sporthorse, a grandson of the practically thoroughbred sire McCartney out of a thoroughbred mare! This thoroughbred mare has, you guessed it, Nasrullah, Star Kingdom, Wilkes (son of Court Martial and sire of Vain who in turn was the sire of Brilliant Invader), Nearco, Hyperion and so on multiple times in her pedigree. Again this 3/4 thoroughbred horse is bred to excel.
| Of course the 3* competition was ‘split’ into two, the CCI*** and the CIC-W***. The CCI*** was won in fine style by Megan Jones and Kirby Park Irish Jester (DOB 1993) a grandson of McCartney. In second place was All Luck (DOB 1994), a thoroughbred who was bred by Emirates Park in Victoria but whose pedigree displays a who’s who of performance breeding! I lost count of the number of appearances of the aforementioned precursors but did note two separate occurrences of the great mare Mumtaz Begum. This mare appears in the pedigrees of a number of really good moving horses and our stallions Aurum Riviere d’Or (through his dam Aurum Belle) and Aurum Alloy (through his dam Begum Belle). |  |
Third place went to Newsprint (DOB 1995) who has 2 crosses of Better Boy (Bay Ronald, Gainsborough, Blandford, Mumtaz Mahal), one via Century and one via Kingston Rose. In addition to these are Rego (Nasrullah) Hyperion, Swynford, Pharos, Son in Law and Star Kingdom.
| The CIC-W*** was won in fine style by the thoroughbred gelding Koyuna Sun Dancer (DOB 1999) ridden by Wendy Schaeffer. He added just 2.8 cross country time penalties to his dressage score and was the only one to show jump clear in this class. This must have softened the disappointment of having to withdraw Koyuna Sun Magic from the CCI3* following a clear cross country which had them in 4th place. |  |
| Sun Dancer is by the super sire of eventers and show jumpers Brilliant Invader, and of course his dam also has the requisite pedigree. Brilliant Invader, aside from having the runs on the board via his progeny, is amazingly bred as a performance horse.
His pedigree through his sire Vain, includes Court Martial (and hence Fair Trial, Fairway, Phalaris, Son in Law, Hurry On, Gainsborough), Nasrullah (and hence Nearco, Mumtaz Begum and Mumtaz Mahal) and further multiple occurrences of Hyperion, Gainsborough and Phalaris. On his dam side, Brilliant Invader carries Precipitation, Hyperion, Fairway, Swynford and Son in Law (Dark Ronald). |
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Sun Dancer did not come via the race track as is evidenced by his 1999 birthdate. Like the winners of every class this was a purpose bred performance horse!
| Interestingly, Kirby Park Allofasudden (3rd placegetter) has Wilkes, the sire of Vain and grandsire of Brilliant Invader, on his dam side. Aurum not only stands two Brilliant Invader sons in Aurum Invader and Aurum Brilliant Cut but has Vain also represented in our McCartney son Aurum Alloy and our broodmare Aurum Belle. Needless to say there are a number of youngsters available with these bloodlines also.
One thing that becomes abundantly clear from this report as well as doing a similar audit of the results of the recent Sydney 3DE, where all classes were won by purpose-bred horses, and the current National Elite Squad is that if you want to win at eventing nowadays you should be riding purpose-bred horses with at least 50% selected thoroughbred blood. It would appear that the days of winning with a horse off the track are over. |
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