by Brian de Lore
Published 20th December 2024
Achieving the Australasian record price for a ready-to-run two-year-old in November had a historical significance that dates back to 1872 when Christopher Grace’s great-great-grandfather joined the Canterbury Jockey Club and commenced a remarkable career as an owner, breeder and administrator.
George Stead, or G.G. Stead as he became better known, became the most successful owner in history. He won 13 New Zealand Derbies, nine New Zealand Oaks, three Auckland Cups, four St Legers, 16 CJC Champagne Stakes, ten ARC Royal Stakes, four Wellington Cups, and ten Great Northern Foal Stakes. His epitaph stated that “no other man in the colonies had raced thoroughbred horses with such conspicuous success as he, and he died a pillar of the turf.”
So, while the $1.65 million record-breaking colt had an outstanding pedigree; by thrice Champion Australian sire I Am Invincible from the dual group one winning mare, Shillelagh, by Savabeel, it could be argued his breeder Christopher Grace QSM had an even better one.
G.G. Stead’s second-born child, daughter Noel, married Russell Grace, grandfather of Chris Grace. Chris’s great uncle and G.G.’s son Gerald stood the Stead-bred six-times champion sire, Martian, and Chris’s uncle, Bob Stead founded and ran the highly successful Sasanof Stud, named after his father Wilfred Stead’s 1916 Melbourne Cup winner Sasanof, a son of Martian.
Wilfred had bought Sasanof as a yearling for 400 guineas and won the Cup with him as a three-year-old. He bought Flaxmere Stud, stood successful stallions, and bred the Keith Voitre-ridden 1933 Auckland Cup winner, Royal Artist.
Chris bought Chantal’s dam when he was 16
Chris’s grandfather and father both raced horses successfully, and Chris was just 16 when he accompanied his father to the 1957 Alton Lodge Dispersal Sale and bought Chantal’s dam, Tenderfoot. Four years later, he bred Chantal, a daughter of Tenderfoot, by the successful Alton Lodge sire, Chatsworth II.
But from the beginning, Chris’s father restricted Chris from keeping more than a single horse on the family farm, forcing him to sell all the mare’s foals.
Chantal had to be offered as a weanling, and the filly came to the attention of Lorraine Jamieson of Cardoness Stud, who bought her in a birdcage sale at Awapuni for only 50 guineas. Chantal won nine races, including three group ones. She defeated Galilee in the 1965 Epsom Handicap at Randwick. She also took out the George Main Stakes and the WRC George Adams at group one level.
Later, Lorraine Jamieson-bred yearlings out of Chantal twice topped the National Sale under her Cardoness Stud banner at Trentham in 1970 and 1974.
This brief synopsis of the G.G. Stead to Chris Grace successes, spanning five generations of the family, barely scratches the surface of what they achieved. No single breeder in New Zealand has a family background that rivals Chris Grace’s.
But Chris and Susanna Grace’s record-breaking $1.65m colt didn’t attain that price on the Stead-Grace record of brilliance alone. The stars had to align with three further ingredients: a record-making buyer with deep pockets named David Ellis CNZM, a Minister of Racing to encourage a strong buying bench, and a well-conducted and promoted sale by New Zealand Bloodstock.
An inordinate amount of promotion by New Zealand Bloodstock in Asia and Minister Winston Peters combined their efforts to bring to Karaka the best group of Asian buyers seen in NZ in years. Hong Kong buyers occupied five of the top ten list of the leading buyers.
In buying 72 lots, Hong Kong-based buyers spent more than $17.1 million. China and Mongolia signed for a further 15. In addition to the Malaysian buyers, the sales to Asia reached a remarkable level, considering the loss of the Singapore and Macau markets.
Winston Peters can take most of the credit for the presence of a sizeable Malaysian contingent of buyers that spent more than $3 million for 40 horses at an average of around $70,000. His earlier visit to Malaysia saw him simultaneously combine his Minister of Foreign Affairs and Racing roles for a win-win result.
If the 14 ministers of racing since 1991 lined up to race each other in the Ministers’ Contribution to Racing Stakes at Ellerslie, Winston’s three stints would see him at the winning post before the chasers turned for home. Several would barely have left the gates.
Local buyers bought 57 lots for $6.2 million at the R2R, but David Ellis finished the sale as the only NZ buyer on the top 10 aggregate list. Six Ready to Run Sales ago, in the pre-COVID days of 2019, five NZ buyers made the top 10 on aggregate.
In those six years, the Ready to Run Sale aggregate has increased 64 percent, the average 66 percent, the top price trebled from $550,000, and David Ellis’s buying power has strengthened in unison. David has operated internationally for decades, closing the Te Akau stable in Singapore only when racing ceased in that jurisdiction and opening a new stable at Cranbourne with plans to expand to 60 boxes.
Auctioneer Steve Davis always begs bidders to ‘buy the one you want’ and not settle for alternatives, and that’s what David Ellis does, sometimes paying less, such as Melody Belle, which he bought for $57,500 before she won 14 group ones, and on other occasions paying overs, but more often than not getting the one he wants.
So, the record-breaking 2024 R2R colt became a watershed purchase, combining the impressive pedigree of breeder Christopher Grace and the most prolific buyer in NZ thoroughbred sales history. David Ellis CNZM will be inducted into the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame at the 2025 induction.
It’s mind-blowing to consider that the David and Karyn Fenton-Ellis team syndicated 72 horses during 2024, an unparalleled feat that deserves recognition in an industry contracting annually in average field sizes and numbers of horses in work.
David attended his first National Yearling Sale at Trentham in 1982, and two years later, at the 1984 renewal, he would make his first-ever National Sale yearling purchase, bidding $65,000 for a chestnut filly by Sovereign Edition from Hellespont II, thus a sister to the classy two-year-old filly, Helen of Troy.
How many horses he bought in the following forty years is incalculable, but his reign as 19 consecutive times leading buyer at the National Yearling Sale will surely go to 20 in a month at Karaka.
The Te Akau colours won 193 races in Australasia last season and $15.54 million in prizemoney. That result included nine group ones and 30 black-type events in total. The Te Akau stable has now won 15 trainer premierships.
Everyone in racing wants to beat the tangerine and blue, either purely for competitive reasons or the ‘green monster’ kicking in – racing is the most jealous game in the world, something that the late, great Colin Jillings often alluded to.
Perhaps Steve Davis at the rostrum should stop saying ‘Buy the one you want’ and replace it with ‘Buy the one David Ellis wants.’