Gamble on Toronado youngsters pays off

Friday 15 May 2020, 4:33pm

Taking a punt on a new-season stallion can be a risk for any prospective horse buyer.

Graeme Ireland and his son Todd support the Victorian market and spend countless hours going over the pedigrees searching for a potential good horse.

At the 2018 Melbourne yearling sale saw the first of the Toronado stock offered and the Ireland boys were taken by two lots.

One was Beehunter, a winner of two races from his seven starts under the care of John Sadler, and runs in Ireland's colours in the TAB Trophy (1400m) at Flemington on Saturday.

The other was Masked Crusader, an impressive winner of his past two starts for Hawkes Racing, who also runs on Saturday in the Inglis 3YO Guineas (1400m) at Rosehill.

"Their conformation, their looks, everything about the Toronado stock suggested they were quality horses," Graeme Ireland said.

"We were taking a punt because he was a first-season sire, but the two we liked were Masked Crusader, he was our top pick, and Beehunter."

Unfortunately for Ireland, Masked Crusader was too expensive, purchased for $340,000, while Beehunter went for $155,000.

Beehunter is raced by the extended Ireland family who have knocked back some substantial offers for the three-year-old from Hong Kong interests.

"The family weren't keen to sell so we've decided to keep him and race him ourselves," Ireland said.

"It was good money offered but the family wanted to have a bit of fun."

Beehunter won on debut at Bendigo last October and in March was successful at Sandown over 1400m after coming from last on the home turn.

To be ridden by Damien Oliver, Beehunter shares favouritism for Saturday's race at $4.20 while at Rosehill, Masked Crusader is an odds-on favourite to extend his winning streak.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »