'Obviously, the major bonus is that Olentia might be better than those two.'

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

Picking her out at the 2021 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, Olentia was a $310,000 purchase by Howard in conjunction with his familiar supporter, Denise Martin’s Star Thoroughbreds.

It was a typical purchase for the combination of a top stallion, a well-credentialled mare and an attractive type, naturally to be trained by Chris Waller. Out of the Anabaa (USA) mare Mabkhara, Olentia is a half-sister to Wandabaa (Wandjina), a Group 3 winner and multiple Group 2 placegetter, and to Listed winner Malkovich (Choisir).

Gallery: Olentia's stakes-winning half-siblings, images courtesy of Sportpix

With both of those siblings gaining their stakes wins since the purchase, Olentia’s page has developed as well as any bloodstock agent could hope.

“Wandabaa was stakes-placed at the time and Malkovich was showing good promise,” Howard told TDN AusNZ. “You do the form, and I was hopeful that Wandabaa would end up winning a black-type race and certainly Malkovich had shown that he was above average.

“You’re always hopeful, and both those horses went on to deliver on that promise so that’s a great result for connections of Olentia.

“The major bonus is that Olentia might be better than those two.”

Having crept up in class and distance throughout her short career to land Saturday's 1400-metre Listed contest, Olentia now boasts four wins from five starts, and in winning the race she emulated her stablemate Espiona (Extreme Choice), this season’s G1 Coolmore Classic winner.

Whilst Espiona, a fellow Star Thoroughbreds filly selected by Howard, had a different profile being Group 1 placed when she took the race, Olentia has done little wrong so far and may yet take further steps up the ranks this season.

“The report that came back was that they may take her to Brisbane, but they may just tip her out and bring her back for the spring. We’ll wait to hear what Chris (Waller) decides.

After she found the line so well at Randwick on Saturday, it’s no surprise that the G2 Queensland Guineas (1600 metres) is amongst her possible Queensland targets, but Howard also noted that it would buck the family trend.

“João Moreira got off her and said she’d probably handle a little bit further,” he reported. “Though, if you look through the pedigree there’s not too many horses in the family that got up to a mile, it’s a very precocious family.

“I think there’s only one horse close-up in the family that won a stakes race over a mile. Being by Zoustar, you’d think that 1400 (metres) could be her optimum distance but time will tell.”

An attractive proposition

Though Olentia evidently has plenty of racing still to do, the upcoming breeding stock sales led Howard to note that her latest victory marks her out as a valuable broodmare prospect already.

Sold at Inglis’ 2022 August Boutique Online Sale, her half-sister Wandabaa went to Yulong’s Tagaloa Syndicate for $800,000 whilst another half-sister, the Group 3-placed Seewhatshebrings (Sebring), sold at last year’s Inglis Chairman's Sale for the same amount when in-foal to Bivouac.

“You’d think that with Wandabaa being a Group 3 winner and Olentia currently the same, if she went to a broodmare sale she’d be making more than those two,” Howard said.

Shrinking participation

Alongside Randwick Bloodstock Agency, Howard also runs Glenesk Thoroughbreds, a broodmare farm in the lower Hunter Valley, with his wife Rachael. With seven heading to the Inglis Chairman’s Sale and 12 for the Magic Millions Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale, the majority for clients, it’s a busy time for them both, and they have some exciting prospects heading into the ring to look forward to.

Glenesk’s Chairman’s offerings include Group 1 winner Nimalee (So You Think {NZ}), who Howard purchased as a yearling for a client, and dual Group 2 winner and Group 1-placed Electric Girl (Declaration Of War {USA}), who reportedly didn’t handle the wet track at Randwick in the G1 All Aged S. last Saturday.

Gallery: Some of Glenesk Thoroughbreds' high-class mares to be offered at the Inglis Chairman's Sale, images courtesy of Ashlea Brennan

Also offering the stakes-placed Artie Schiller (USA) mare Originator (USA) in foal to the American sire sensation Gun Runner (USA), Howard added that not all of their two consignments are in that elite part of the market.

“There’s no doubt that the market’s sticky in that middle and lower end. Personally, I’ve always felt that service fees have been too high in Australia to give all breeders a good chance of getting a good return.

“I know we’ve got great prizemoney and a healthy racing industry, but I think a lot of the breeders here would still be losing money. Certainly, wages, feed, fuel and all those other fixed costs, including service fees, have gone up.

“So, the cost of producing horses has gone up. The real strength of the market has been at the top end, and if you’re fortunate enough to play at the top end, some of those people have got great results.

“What we’re talking about here though is 450-odd horses in Easter and 500 at Magic Millions - we’re only talking about 10 per cent of the broodmare population really.”

While Howard concedes that, on an international scale, Australian service fees rate as more affordable, he points to the declining breeding stock populations as a firm indicator that not all the metrics are healthy.

“We’ve seen the broodmare numbers in Australia halve in the last 30-odd years. The stallion numbers are down some 90 per cent - I think there were something like 3900 registered stallions in 1988 and now we’re heading towards 400.”

Table: Stallion numbers from 2013 - 2022 and numbers of sires with service fee's over $5000

Noting that the number of individual breeders across Australia has slimmed concurrently, Howard said that we should be looking to reverse the trend, though admits that a solution is not obvious.

“We’re starting to tackle participation in terms of workers with those schemes now which are taking young people and training them up,” he said.

“That’s very positive for the industry, but if the studs are interested in retaining more breeders then one of the ways they can do that is to try to keep their costs down. The only way they can do that is by keeping service fees lower.

“I also understand that to buy these young stallion prospects, especially the sexy ones, there’s a lot of competition. So, they pay a lot of money to buy them in the first place and they need to make that back somehow.”