Having already made winning debuts earlier in September last year, Perth-based youngster Onemoretwomany and Queensland-based juvenile Astapor maintained their unbeaten records late last year with the minimum of fuss, posting winning margins of 1.8l and 3l respectively to cement their status as the most promising 2-year-olds in their respective jurisdictions. When you add the recent wins of Last Command, the brilliant GROUP performed Manaal and the explosive Ameena who currently remains unbeaten after two impressive wins by 4 lengths on debut at Bendigo and two and a half lengths at Caulfield recently and looks to have black type riches ahead, it has found Tassort on top of the first crop stallion leader board with promising 2-year-olds to look forward to for the upcoming Spring!
Promising 2-year-olds is a title that Tassort himself held until injury brought a premature end to a racing career which promised so much, but it is exactly that promise which prompted Emirates Park, who own a 50 per cent stake in the stallion, and Newgate Farm, where he stands in the Hunter Valley, to take a gamble on the twice-raced Godolphin star.
“He was an outstandingly talented horse himself,” Newgate’s Henry Field told The Thoroughbred Report. “James Cummings said publicly when he was a 2-year-old that he was something special, and that was the year Godolphin had the trifecta in the Golden Slipper.
“Godolphin is without question one of the most powerful racing operations in Australasia, and they made it very clear that he was the benchmark of the crop. James put that in the public record in the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Tassort also rated through the roof with Daniel O’Sullivan, who works on a retainer for Newgate and is one of the leading ratings analysts in Australia. That, coupled with the opinion from the powerhouse Godolphin stable of his natural ability and his huge pedigree - being out of the best mare at Godolphin, if not the best mare in the country - made us confident he was a great bet.
“It’s very early days, but it’s very hard to do what he’s doing so early at stud.”
Tassort’s electric start with his first crop of 2-year-olds has been equalled by only one other member of this year’s first-season sires, with Yulong’s Alabama Express boasting an identical record of five individual winners, and one stakes winner.
In addition to Onemoretwomany and Astapor, Tassort’s winners to date also includes, Last Command, the brilliant Ameena and the G3 Gimcrack S. heroine Manaal, who is being treated as a candidate for the G1 Golden Slipper S. following her gutsy debut success for owner-breeder Emirates Park and has since run second in the G3 Widden Stakes and achieved success next start in the G3 Sweet Embrace in March.
While Manaal, who hails from the US stakes-winning mare Red Lodge (USA) (Midshipman {USA}) is bred in the purple, like Tassort himself, the stallion’s other two winners to date hail from far more modest beginnings.
Bred by Kingstar Farm, whose owner Matthew Sandblom is a shareholder in Newgate, Onemoretwomany was pinhooked by Premium Bloodstock Services Pty Ltd as a weanling for just $12,000 before fetching a much healthier $70,000 to the bid of Fantail Holdings at the Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale, a figure that was undoubtedly helped by his half-sister Wollombi (Extreme Choice) landing the G3 Vanity S. a week before the auction.
Astapor, meanwhile, was secured by owner Rodney Hay under his Livistona Grazing Company banner for just $38,000 during Book 2 of the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale and is the first named foal out of the winning Lonhro mare Black Mink, whom Telemon Thoroughbreds purchased in foal to Tassort for just $25,000 at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale in 2021.
To be able to produce quality horses out of mares from both ends of the spectrum is a sign of a hugely promising stallion according to Field, who is well positioned to pass judgment having already launched the stallion careers of Capitalist, Russian Revolution and Extreme Choice to great effect.
“The thing that’s a real credit to him is that the Gimcrack winner is obviously out of a very good Emirates Park mare, Red Lodge, but the other two were inexpensive yearlings, so he’s doing it with all cross sections of mares,” Field said of Tassort.
“It’s small sample stuff, but he’s got the best 2-year-old in Queensland, the best 2-year-old in Perth and a Gimcrack winner in Sydney. It’s a pretty remarkable thing to do for a horse that’s the most inexpensive stallion we’ve ever stood at Newgate.
“To be starting off his career in this fashion is quite extraordinary, but it doesn’t surprise us, because he was a horse with so much ability. We, hand on our heart, felt that, had Tassort been able to fulfill his potential, he would have been a proper Group 1 horse like his brother and sister.”
Tassort is one of the most regally bred stallions in Australia and hails from Godolphin’s blue hen mare Essaouira (Exceed And Excel), making him a half-brother to Darley’s Group 1-producing sire Astern and Champion 3YO Filly Alizee (Sepoy).
Even with such a top-class pedigree behind him, the decision to stand a stallion with only two race starts to his name was a huge gamble, but Newgate, Emirates Park and all of Tassort’s early supporters are now starting to reap the rewards for the faith they placed in the Godolphin-raced blueblood.
“In reality he had one start, because he went amiss on his second start, but we would never take a chance on a horse like that if we didn’t genuinely believe that he was a legitimately Group 1-talented horse,” Field said.
“We were really confident he was a horse worth taking a gamble on and full credit to Hussain Lootah and Bryan Carlson for being shrewd enough to broker a deal to have the horse. Nobody has supported the horse more than they have.
“Godolphin have got a big holding of breeding rights in the horse too, so to have them, Newgate and Emirates Park, who have been great breeders for decades, really sets the horse up for a very good career. I think we’re in good shape.”
Tassort has covered healthy books in all of his four seasons at stud thus far, but off the back of such an electric start with his debut crop of 2-year-olds, it should come as no surprise that the Golden Gift winner has covered his largest book to date in 2023 AND the busiest overall in Australia, with 232 mares!!
The stallion’s largest crop of 131 live foals is also just months away from hitting the yearling sales, and with Emirates Park sending a number of “beautiful” Tassort yearlings to Magic Millions in January, his momentum shows no sign of stopping, especially if Astapor manages to deliver him a first-crop winner of the R. Listed Magic Millions 2YO Classic.
“Tassort has been unbelievably popular this year and so he should be,” Field said. “It’s rare for a stallion that starts at $100,000 to kick off the way he has, let alone a horse that started at $10,000.
“Like all these horses that stand for small money, he’s going to have to do it the hard way, but he’s a horse that has covered bigger books every year for his first four years, and that’s an unusual feat.
“Generally, a $10,000 stallion would cover their biggest book in year one and then decline, but he’s actually gone the other way, and I think that’s testimony to the quality of his stock. He is producing very correct stock with his magnificent body shape.
“You genuinely wouldn’t see a better bodied horse in the Hunter Valley than Tassort. In fact, James Bester, who has supported the horse very heavily, was quoted as calling him Assort not Tassort, and that probably sums up how beautifully balanced the horse is.”
Bester is just one of many of Australia’s most prominent breeders that have thrown their support behind Tassort, with Newgate having offered an array of lifetime breeding rights to the stallion to some of the farm’s biggest backers.
That has made Tassort’s early success even sweeter according to Field, who understands the importance of client satisfaction more than most.
“The thing that we’re most excited about is that we put him into our Share The Upside program for breeding rights, and dozens of our loyal, long-term clients that have been with us since we started Newgate bought a lifetime breeding right in the horse for a small amount of money,” he said.
“That to me is just fantastic. It’s really important that you can give your clients a piece of tangible upside in the horse, and I’m really happy that with Tassort it looks like everyone is going to be very handsomely rewarded.
“He’s a grandson of I Am Invincible, and we saw the breeding rights that were sold in that horse change many people’s lives. Whilst we’re a long way from that, if we could see Tassort change people’s lives, that would be the dream.
“When your clients are winning, you have got the foundation for a very successful long-term business!!!!”
The Mare of this Colt is the Smart Missile Mare Ghalia’s Dream who has produced one foal to race for one winner in Invasive Dreams now a winner of 2 races. He comes from a family that all run as two years and the breeder Bryan Carlson indicated to me that he is the slitting image of his GROUP 2 winner SANTOS at the same stage!
This Colts family is truly up there with the best and includes such horses as SHAFTSBURY AVENUE- Winner of the GROUP 1 VRC Newmarket Hcp, Honda Stks GROUP 1, Lightning Stks GROUP 1, AJC George Main Stks GROUP 1, All Aged Stks GROUP 1, VATC Caulfield Stks GROUP 1, FAT AL- Winner ATC Epsom Hcp GROUP 1, ADEEWIN- Winner AJC Silver Shadow Stks GROUP 2, MUTAWAAJID- Winner AJC Royal Sovereign Stks- GROUP 2, FATOON- Winner STC Reisling Slipper Trial Stks GROUP 2, SANTOS- Winner ATC Skyline Stks GROUP 2, MELAGRANA- Winner Nakayama Yukan Fuji Sho Ocean Stks GROUP 3, SEBONACK- Winner MRC Chairmans Stks GROUP 3 and JIVAGO- Winner VRC Moomba Plate LISTED. The common theme about this family is speed on speed and 2YO precocity and there is every suggestion that this Colt will continue on in the tradition of his family and be a part of that action in his two year old year!!
Another positive to the purchase is that this Colts cross is an overwhelming 20/20 match on the pedigree portal G1 GOLDMINE. I Am Invincible line Stallions like Brazen Beau just love Danehill on the Mare side of their respective pedigrees and this Colt shares that affinity which such stakes and GROUP winning horses as SANTOS, QUEEN OF THE BALL, BODYGUARD, CHARM STONE, HOME AFFAIRS, MARABI, LIBERTIINI, KING OF SPARTA, I AM ME, STRASBOURG, SHUFFLE DANCER, EXPLORING, HOLYFIELD, HAWAII FIVE OH, OVERSHARE, SHE’S SO HIGH, IN SECRET, LOVING GABY, PURE ELATION etc the list just goes on and on! These are all successful GROUP and LISTED winners by Danehill line Mares that have crossed with an I Am Invincible stallion which is exactly the cross that we have with our Colt. It is a most potent breeding cross which is an important note to observe from my perspective when mating plans are being assessed and yearling’s being purchased!!
It is indeed exciting to have purchased a colt that is such an athletic type with the looks to match with a terrific hind quarter and girth, backed up with an outstanding pedigree as I have detailed and goes to one of the best trainers in Australia in Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr who United Syndications have been associated with for now 24 years and we have enjoyed much success with our horses including Black type performers LA BELLA DAME, LE BONSIR, DAMSELFLY, LOVEYAMADLY, ONPICALO, ROYAL CHARADES, ROYAL SNITZEL, IMMORTAL LOVE, I’MLOVIN’YA etc. We pride ourselves on the service that we offer to everyone, which incorporates breaking in videos, pre training videos and track work videos. This is a service that we are very proud of and well renowned for, and allows all owners to enjoy and watch the progression of their horse from the beginning at the breakers, to all of the way through to then hopefully the winners circle in the future!
