Savaglee winning the 2000 Guineas.
Savaglee is now New Zealand’s most valuable racehorse after his connections turned down a huge offer from Australia for the 2000 Guineas winner.
But while the 3-year-old colt isn’t going anywhere just yet, that doesn’t mean he is going to start either of our two richest races this summer.
Elite thoroughbred colts become mini-businesses in their own right these days, as major studs attempt to buy them, with the ultimate goal of a Group 1 win in Australia to thrust them into the A$15 million-plus value bracket.
Savaglee isn’t there yet, but a major Australian stud made his owners The Oaks Stud a multi-million dollar offer for Savaglee after his Guineas win at Riccarton but it was turned down.
“We are going to roll the dice on him at least through until the autumn,” says Oaks Stud general manager Rick Williams.
“It was a lot of money but our ultimate goal is to try and win an Australian Group 1, the most likely target being the Australian Guineas.
“The form and ratings guys we’ve spoken to suggest he is up to winning a race like that, and if he was able to pull that off, we think he’d double in value from the offer we just had.
“So that’s our plan, if of course he comes back as well as we hope, so we’ll start planning backwards from the [Australian] Guineas and go from there.”
The Australian Guineas is at Flemington on March 1, and if Savaglee heads there, it will rule him out of the inaugural running of the $3.5m NZB Kiwi slot race at Ellerslie on March 8.
“We love the NZB Kiwi concept and what Entain are doing for New Zealand racing, and if he was a gelding, he’d be heading there for sure,” says Williams.
“But being a colt, an Australian Group 1 has to be the major aim for his future stallion value, so we’ve already turned down a couple of NZB Kiwi slot holders who were keen to negotiate. We wanted to be fair and tell them upfront what our aim was.”
Williams says if Savaglee suffered a minor setback, even one missed race, that caused him to miss the Australian Guineas, they could re-route to the NZB Kiwi a week later.
“If something like that happened, then of course the Kiwi could become an option, if there was a slot that hadn’t be filled, as I imagine we would still be in demand.”
While racing plans are rarely set in stone, Williams’ transparency is likely to see Savaglee drop out of his $6 equal favouritism for the NZB Kiwi and punters should also avoid backing him in New Zealand’s second richest race, the $1.5m Karaka Million Three-Year-old at Ellerslie on January 25.
It is possible to race over 1600m in the Karaka Million in January and win the Australian Guineas five weeks later, as Legarto proved last year, but Williams says that is almost certainly not the path Savaglee will take.
“Obviously everything will depend on how he comes back, but so far, he looks great.
“He was 481kg when we put him in the paddock after Riccarton but has come back in weighing 500kg and is only getting stronger.
“So one target could be the Telegraph [Trentham, January 4] because it’s weight-for-age but more likely would be a race like the Almanzor Trophy on Karaka Millions night, then into possibly a BCD Sprint at Te Rapa [February 8].”
That would give Savaglee races at 1200m, then 1400m into the 1600m of the Guineas, which most trainers favour as a natural progression, so while he is not being ruled out of the Karaka Million Three-Year-Old, it looks unlikely and punters should steer clear until they hear otherwise.
Whether Savaglee eventually joins an Australian stud or stays in New Zealand could depend not only on whether he wins that Australian Group 1 but also on whether The Oaks Stud is sold.
The 200ha property on the outskirts of Cambridge has been placed on the market, as Australian-based owner Dick Karreman looks to free up some cash, and Williams says they would love to see the land stay in the racing industry.
But if The Oaks property is not sold, they would have the option of retaining Savaglee to stand at stud there when his career ends.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s racing editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.