WOOODSIDE PARK STUD READY TO KICK OFF NEW SEASON

Adele Amour provided Woodside Park Stud owner Eddie Hirsch will another winner when three-year-old filly Adele Amour, out of Group 2 winning mare Divine Rebel, picked up her third win from 10 starts for Pakenham trainer John Sadler.
The filly has won all three races at 1400m and has been placed at 1300m and 1600m.
“It was a really good win,” Woodside Park Stud’s Mark Dodemaide said.
“She was ridden a bit more quiet, dropped back and she was really good.
“John Sadler has always had an opinion of her.
“She is out of Divine Rebel who Eddie bought on the Gold Coast for $80,000 when she was in foal to Hinchinbrook but that horse had a few issues.
“But then she had Adele Amour and she has got a Hallowed Crown colt and she is in foal to Foxwedge.”
Before being bought by Hirsch for $80,000 at the 2017 Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale, she was sold for $450,000 at the 2011 Australian Easter Broodmare Sale.
Divine Rebel (Don Eduardo x It’s My Sin), now 17-years-old, won six races for trainer Michael Moroney and a group of high profile owners headed by Rupert Legh. The mare started her racing career in New Zealand and her greatest triumph came in successive races, winning the Listed Epona Stakes (1900m) and then the Group 2 Chairman’s Handicap (2600m) at Randwick.
And she twice finished second in the Sydney Cup, beaten less than a length both times.
While the Hirsch family celebrated the victory of Divine Rebel, they are also looking forward to the breeding season where their Woodside Park Stud now has five stallions on the roster – Vancouver (Medaglia d’Oro), Foxwedge (Fastnet Rock), Delaware (Frankel), Rich Enuff (Written Tycoon) and Tosen Stardom (Deep Impact).
Vancouver and Delaware are the new boys on the block for Hirsch and his stud and Dodemaide is sure they’ll attract plenty of interest from breeders.
Vancouver was purchased by Hirsch from Coolmore, where he began stud duties in 2016, earlier this year.
“Vancouver’s oldest are only four,” Dodemaide said.
“He has nine Stakes winners, five Group 2 winners and from his first crop, he is leading third season sire from that crop.
“We all know he won the Golden Slipper and is a good looking horse and they paid a fortune for him but we own him 100 per cent and he is doing quite well with nine Stakes winners already and if a Group 1 popped up, he’d be the flavour of the month again.
“You only have to look at Shamus Award. A couple of years ago when he came down, he wouldn’t have been going as good as what Vancouver is going now at this stage.”
While Dodemaide said Vancouver, who will stand at $15,400, was an ideal VOBIS horse, he believes the stallion is also capable of producing progeny that will get over more ground.
“He is a son of Medaglia d’Oro,” he said.
The Group 3 winner Delaware, a son of wonder racehorse and sire Frankel, was purchased by Hirsch in America last September and is an exciting addition to the stallion roster at Woodside. The horse has just been retired from racing.
“Frankel was the quickest horse ever to get to 50 Stakes winners and is up to 95 and is on schedule to be the quickest to get to 100,” Dodemaide said.
“It will most likely only take him a month to get up to 100.
“Under normal circumstances with a stallion like Frankel and his profile and being a champion sire in Great Britain, there would be a dozen of his sire sons in Australia.
“The trick to them is a lot of them tend to excel at 2000m and beyond which doesn’t always suit the Australian market.”
But Dodemaide said Delaware was different.
He said Hirsch had always been a big Frankel fan and was at the stallion’s final race at Ascot in the UK in October 2012 when he ended his career of 14 races with victory in the Group 1 Champion Stakes (2000m) to remain undefeated.
“Eddie has been a Frankel fan and what we tried to do was to find a Frankel that would suit us in Australia,” Dodemaide said.
“Delaware won a 1200m race as a two-year-old at Deauville which is like winning at Caulfield. And as a spring three-year-old in the lead up to their Guineas he won a Listed race by five lengths on speed with a real good kick.
“And then he won a Group 3 race (1600m) which was virtually a mirror image when he was on speed and kicked away. He got beaten in the Guineas and didn’t have much luck but got knocked down.”
Bred and raced by Juddmonte, Delaware was sold and finished up in America where he holds the Aqueduct track record for 1600m on turf with a time of 1:33.67 seconds.
“So at least he is a quick one,” Dodemaide said.
“He is just a nice running horse that might even get a two-year-old.
“While is a son of Frankel, he is out of an Oasis Dream mare and Oasis Dream upset Choisir in the July Cup after he’d won those two sprint races at Royal Ascot.
“And Oasis Dream is a very good stallion as well.”
Dodemaide said Oasis Dream is the broodmare sire of Cox Plate winner Sire Dragonet and Melbourne Cup winner Twilight Payment.
Foxwedge, bought by Hirsch from Newgate Farm in 2019, has covered more than 100 mares in each of the past two breeding seasons. His fee remains at $11,000.
Dodemaide said it was a case of dealing in facts with Foxwedge.
“It’s all about facts,” he said.
“He was the third top-priced colt at Easter and a very good looking horse. He goes to the races and runs in those good three-year-old races and beats Hay List and Buffering in the William Reid.
“There are a lot of horses and things that are going to do something, but now that he is at stud and he is only 13 and he is up to 24 Stakes winners and five Group 1 winners.
“No matter which way you want to spin it, every part of his career he has done the job. He is very good looking, a good racehorse and a proven sire.
“And he again is a good VOBIS horse.”
Dodemaide said they chased Foxwedge and when he first came to stud in Victoria he’d sired 11 Stakes winners – he now has 24.
Dodemaide said that Rich Enuff continues to make an impact on the track and at the sales.
“He has got that two-year-old Bubble Palace that has had two starts for two wins and they reckon it’s a gun,” he said.
“And even last week at the sale at Sydney to prove it, a lady (Fionnuala Timoney) bought the dam (Tiz My View in foal to Hanseatic) online for $15,000 and eight months later put her in the sale and made $350,000 last Sunday.”
Dodemaide said Rich Enuff was good value at $8000 and was a stallion that might produce a spike for breeders.
“He had one that made $200,000 at Classic and one made $170,000 at Premier and one made $140,000 at Adelaide,” he said.
“He also had four in at Premier and they averaged $92,500.
“Where there is smoke there is a bit of fire and there are a few trainers that are quite happy.’’
Tosen Stardom’s service fee remains unchanged at $7,700.
Dodemaide said they never expected too much as two-year-olds from Tosen Stardom, winner of the Group 1 Toorak Handicap (1600m) and the Group 1 Mackinnon Stakes (2000m).
But the Matty Williams trained Stardom Awaayts, from the stallion’s first crop, came from last to finish fourth in the recent $1m The Showdown (1200m) for two-year-olds at Caulfield.
“Matty told me that his horse will come back and believes he will be a nice miler at three,” Dodemaide said.
Bred and offered for sale by Noorilim Thoroughbreds, Williams paid $70,000 for Stardom Awaayts at last year’s Inglis Classic Yearling. The gelding’s dam, Awayeed (Hard Spun x Nufoos), raced 22 times for three minor finishes.
Tosen Stardom served 87 mares last season.