By Bren O'Brien
When Crown Prosecutor (Medaglia D'Oro {USA}) caused the mother of all upsets in Saturday's G1 New Zealand Derby, Greg Eurell knew his hopes of stealing away Lot 414 at the Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale were dashed.
A Group 1 pedigree update for the half-sister to Crown Prosecutor by Street Boss (USA), was a real bonus for her vendors at Blue Gum Farm but Eurell knew the interest and competition would be that much greater when she went through the ring on Tuesday.
"I had a client who deliberately wanted a filly with the dual purpose to race and to ensure she had a good pedigree for further on down the track. That was exactly what we wanted." - Greg Eurell
"It’s interesting how it works. Timing is everything in this industry," Eurell told TDNAusNZ. "I went up to Blue Gum and she was my pick. I had a client who deliberately wanted a filly with the dual purpose to race and to ensure she had a good pedigree for further on down the track. That was exactly what we wanted."
In the end Eurell went to $150,000 to secure the filly for the client, and while he ended up paying a bit more than he would have a week ago, given her increased residual value as a broodmare thanks to Crown Prosecutor's win, he was happy with the purchase.
"She's a lovely style of filly and she is just going to grow into a lovely mare. We’ll see further down on the track. With that horse winning on Saturday, it complemented things a bit, I think they can be assured they got a good horse," he said.
"She's a lovely style of filly and she is just going to grow into a lovely mare." - Greg Eurell
Both Crown Prosecutor and this filly are out of Riptide (Exceed And Excel), a three-quarter sister to Vinery stallion Headwater and Kulgrinda, a family which has produced plenty of quality sprinters, but has little background in staying.
His pedigree was likely part of the reason that Crown Prosecutor started such a huge price on Saturday, but Eurell said he'll keep an open mind on what his half-sister will be capable of on the track.
Darley's Street Boss has had seven stakes winners in Australia but none of them beyond 1400m.
"On face value, you’d think she would get up to mile and do that comfortably, but given what her brother has done, she may stretch out a little bit. It’s just hard to know with some of these horses," Eurell said.
"We had a Danerich run third over 2400m at Sandown last week so you just don’t know."
Lot 414 Street Boss (USA) x Riptide
"All you can do is look at that and hope that you get a hint in the direction that she wants to go. She looks like a typical mile filly to me. If she can run that and run it fast, you’d be happy."
She joins an in-form stable, with Eurell, a nine-time Group 1 winner, in good form at the moment with a 22 per cent strike rate in February. His emerging galloper Clarice Cliffs (Canford Cliffs {Ire}) was runner-up at Group 3 level at Flemington on Saturday,
"Things are going well. You need the results to be flowing through. We've got a couple of nice horses coming through and we look forward to the next couple of months where we've got a couple more really nice horses returning," he said.
"We look forward to the next couple of months where we've got a couple more really nice horses returning." - Greg Eurell
"There's a lot of hard work goes into it and that can end in disappointment. We're happy the way things are tracking."
Eurell bought two horses in Book 1 in Melbourne, paying $70,000 for Lot 56 a colt by Tavistock (NZ) out of Assertiveobsession (Zedative), the sister of Group 1 winning Assertive Lad and Assertive Lass.
The dam has already produced the stakes-placed Ohceedee (Power {GB}).
