ISTIDAAD, CATSEEKA, DANS'ORE

1...My first articles were all text, so am attempting to introduce
some visual aids in the form of photographs.
2...Above is a photo of ISTIDAAD-1992, the sire of our future
racehorse RED MAGIC-2006.
3...ISTIDAAD has the lines of a finely made staying horse. Strong
bay in colour, dense bone, exceptional temperament, good
constitution, fine build, but with good hind quarter power.
4...A couple of weeks ago (Sep 09) when his very good racing son
GINGA DUDE won the main flat race at Ellerslie, ISTIDAAD was
2nd on the NZ sires table, and this week he is still up there in 4th
place after 2 months of the season gone. NB...GINGA DUDE
RAN A GREAT RACE TODAY -[3 Oct 2009] in the $1,200,000
KELT CAPITAL AND GOT 2ND BY HALF A LENGTH.
5..Apparently, he has not been given commercial opportunities
by NZ top breeders, having RECEIVED no mares that have ever
qualified their progeny for the Premier or Select yearling sales.
6..For the last few seasons he has been averaging a winner per
week which is better than all but the top few sires in NZ that
have been given hundreds of the best mares in NZ each year.
7....Even though he has served a lot of mares, the majority of
them had very limited ability in the first few dams, and many of
their progeny were not raced but sent to the polo fields.
8..Because they were finely made, polo pony size, very keen and
had endless bottom, many have excelled in this field and been in
keen demand, to the detriment of an increase in his racing statistics.
9..The other negative is that ISTIDAAD has a specialist pedigree
which requires selection for speed & matching bloodlines to hit his
pre-potency and he has had only a handful of these suitable mares.
10..In spite of very average mares, lack of selected mares, lack
of pre-potent mares, or suitable mares, ISTIDAAD has shown he
is one of NZ's better or PROVEN sires.
11..He has left 6 STAKES WINNERS to date, and a dozen Stakes
Placed horses. For the last five seasons he has been 11th on the NZ
sires table, 21st, 6th, 8th and 16th...and is currently 4th this season.


12...ISTIDAAD was a high class racehorse. He was very sound,
has fine dense bone and was a top stayer, running 3rd in the Eng G1
St Leger, 2nd in G2 Pr. of Wales S, 3rd in G3 Goodwood Gordon
Stakes as a 3yo in England, earning P75,155.
13..In Australia he raced at 4, 5 and 6yrs earning $1,594,410.
His 6 wins included G1 Australian Cup, G2 Moonee Valley Gold
Cup, G2 St George S, G2 St George S a 2nd time.
14..His placings were also impressive. 3rd G1, 3rd G2, 3rd L,
4th G1, 2nd G1, 2nd G1, 3rd G2, 2nd G1.


15..Above is ISTIDAAD taken last year with my wife Helen and
daughter Barbara who are both partners in the future racehorse
son of ISTIDAAD that we have named RED MAGIC.

16...The mare above is CATSEEKA...She was imported from
the USA as was ISTIDAAD. She is average sized at about 15'3".
She was placed and a winner here in New Zealand. Even though
she has significant speed in her pedigree, and is balanced line-bred
4x3 to Champion galloper and sire NORTHERN DANCER,
her make and shape is more like a middle distance horse.
17...Her sire is MOUNTAIN CAT-1990, (a son of the outstanding
speed sire STORM CAT), he proved to be a very precocious 2yo
and 3yo in the USA and was the first horse of his year to win
over $1 million dollars. Final tally = 6wins,11starts$1,478,901.
18...His dam was by Champion KEY TO THE MINT-14wins,
a son of the very fast GRAUSTARK which won 7 in a row.
19...His 2nd dam was by Champion 2yo and 3yo NEVER BEND,
--13 wins, and out of top racemare DANDY PRINCESS-15wins
20..CATSEEKA;s dam was unraced but her 4 foals were all winners.
Her sire MINING was a G1 winning son of brilliant speed sire
MR PROSPECTOR . MINING was very inbred and won 6 of
his 7 races worth $264,030.
21..The third dam was a good racemare. Won 2 races, 7 places,
$29,440-(Dam of 2 SW)...a daughter of Champion galloper and
Champion Sire NORTHERN DANCER -(14 wins) out of good
racemare DORIS WHITE-4wins, 9 places, 25 starts, $34,980.
She was a good broodmare that left 3 Stakes Winners.


22...Here is a photo of our pride and joy RED MAGIC at about
15 months of age. He had just come through a 7 week drought
where no hay was available in the district, and because he showed
a lot of fight and wouldn't load to come out to our place, Brian
Corbett kindly had Aaron Taata above sort him out at his property
above for 6 weeks.
23...This is at the end of that period and Aaron said he was very
light in condition as you can see above, but he was a good doer.
He also had a good action, was taught to lead, load, was front
feet shod, tied up, covered, and backed. Because he was so light
in condition and it rained for most of the time there and was very
boggy, Aaron did not do any pacework with him.


24...Here is RED MAGIC being tied up, with the other 4 members
of our syndicate: Karen, Carl, Barbara and Helen looking on.
Notice that he is a rich chestnut colour, (Just like SECRETARIAT),
with a similar type of blaze. If you look at the previous photos, you
will see that his sire is a dark bay colour, and his dam is a light bay
colour.
25..This means his sire and dam have inherited a bay gene from
one parent and a chestnut gene from the other parent. At conception
the two chestnut genes which are recessive have united.
If you look at the pedigree of HYPERION, you can see that he
got his chestnut coat colour from the chestnut ancestors behind
his bay sire GAINSBOROUGH and bay dam SELENE in the
same manner.
26...RED MAGIC is linebred 4x5 to SECRETARIAT, plus he
has 2 mares that have similar bloodlines, so we are hoping these
strong ancestry crosses & background buildup can be beneficial .


27...The mare above is DANS'ORE, a 1994 mare bred in the USA.
For one reason or another, she was unraced, but all her 4 progeny
to race have been winners. She is a well muscled and strongly made
mare. Her pasterns indicate speed, as does her muscling, her canon,
her forearm, her gaskin, her rein, and her hind quarters.
28..Her sire MINING was a G1 winner, her grandparents MR
PROSPECTOR and NORTHERN DANCER were exceptionally
fast, and next sires BUCKPASSER-(25wins) and BLACKBEARD
(6wins) were top racehorses.
29...She has good size, and when I went up to check out her
height, she looked about 16 hands and perhaps half an inch.
She made about $55,000 at this sale last year which was a good
price for a 14yo mare. We were hoping she would pass on her
good muscling, speed and size to our horse.
30..However, it seems that we have missed out on size, because
our youngster was a first foal which sometimes works against
good size for horses. Plus he was foaled in mid summer, 20th Jan,
2007, which means his nutrition from the mare would have been
lessened by dry summer pasture. He was the product of two
middle distance horses that would give him a lighter staying frame
and reduce the overall muscling. He was linebred 3 times to the
smallish NORTHERN DANCER so by being smaller himself,
he is true to type. Finally, he went through a 7 week drought where
the whole Waikato region was bare and brown, and he got no
supplementary food, so it knocked his condition quite badly.
31...We have a long way to go to prove we have got a racehorse
that can win a race or 2.
32...We thought that we could pre-train him starting 1st July,
take him through to a trial in September, win a maiden race within
three starts before Christmas, and after a summer break, come back
and be quite competitive perhaps March,April and May which are
our Autumn months.
33..However, the horse and Phil has told us that he needed the 7
weeks pretraining, and after a 3 week spell, Phil said he would
need another pre-training spell just to get him to a trial, with
probably little chance of getting into a race before another
necessary summer spell.
34...Therefore, based on that information, my plan is to give him
extra time to grow and mature. He has been home for 5 weeks
now. I'm feeding him really well and he has got a nice shiny coat.
He certainly likes his feed. Best of all is the fact that he is lying
down a lot, so he may be doing some growing and maturing. I'm
planning to give him an extra 2 months in the paddock before going
back to Phil Stevens about 1st December. That will give him plenty
of time to get through pre-training and a trial so that he can race
seriously through March, April and May if he comes up well.


35...Above is another photo of his grand-dam DANS'ORE. I was
particually impressed with her at this sale, because she represented
a contribution of quite a bit of speed to the pedigree.

36..Until I saw her, all I had to go on was the lighter frame of both
CATSEEKA and RED MAGIC, so I resigned myself to having a
late maturing three year old, and likely to hit his straps even later as
a 4yo.

37...Above is the photo of our "SECRETARIAT" with his
staying build and white blaze the day he arrived at our place, which
was in May 2008, about 17 months ago. He was 15 months old.
38...Although "LIGHT" or "FINE" in build, he seems to have about
seven or 8 other conformation points that are quite good and make
the intended transition to a racing prospect worthwhile.


38...Above is Syndicate member Carl McComb and RED MAGIC
is possibly the first horse he has ever handled. Carl has delved into
all the horse books in my library and has really got the bug. Carl
is nearly 6ft 3 inches, so makes MAGIC look a bit small. Carl and
I have lunged him on many occasions when he made the drive over
from Tauranga on alternate weekends.
39...As RED MAGIC got older, he did get much bolder and he
definitely was not a learners horse, and tended to bite and use his
front feet, despite much corrective discipline. Carl is pretty tough
and he and Karen didn't seem to mind too much the big bite marks
they got when they lost their awareness of where the colt was.


40...RED MAGIC stretching out on the long rope. Carl and the colt
learned quickly, and we noticed the colt was better for the exercise.

41..RED MAGIC was always keen in his work and usually
controlled, but did have his moments. If he got away with anything,
he always tried it again, and needed a lot of practice to ensure he
was doing the correct option. We found he was certainly a people
horse and was always very friendly, but without being nasty, he was
definitely dangerous if you were in the wrong place or turned your
back on him. This workout was about 3 months after we got him,
and at the end of winter. His coat was thick.


42...Several month further on and RED MAGIC has his summer
coat up in the hill paddock next to Mary Dobb's place.


43...Another Syndicate member, Barbara getting ready for a
serious lungeing session with the colt.

44...Above is Barbara lungeing the colt. After this the colt got quite
difficult, and Barbara settled down to having a baby, we got tied up
with piles of work, the colt had an accident and we took off for a
month over seas for a break after all our work, so he wasn't worked
for 3 or 4 months, just got fed well.


45...Here is a nice photo of the colt just before his accident.
He had a nice summer coat and was growing well.

46...This photo shows that he had matured a bit, he had got the
benefits of good feeding. He shows he has a nice hind leg, good
hind quarters and pasterns are the right length to expect a bit of
speed within his staying framework.


47....The colt got caught up in an iron frame and chains, and his four
legs were all severely lacerated. He had the chains around his neck
for a couple of hours and nearly choked himself to death. While
getting him undone, the Vet said he might have to put him down.


48...For nearly 3 weeks before we went over to Australia, I hosed
him several times a day, and put plenty of antiseptic ointments and
washes on to keep infection away while he healed.
49...The vet gave him a barrage of injections and each time he came
he was amazed at how quickly he healed. RED MAGIC never
showed any pain from his deep wounds and never left a feed.


50...Helen is raking the cut grass on the driveway. This is one of
about 10 van loads of grass that I cut, raked up, spread out, dried,
turned, wheelbarrowed and staked in the garage.
51...For 3 months through the first winter, I remember the hours
I spent pulling long grass to fill 3 large sacks each day.

52...Above is another load being dried, and turned so it can be
stored in the garage. We have a full quarter of the garage filled
right to the roof, and only just enough room to get the 3 vehicles in.

53...Helen is having a lot of trouble with her double hip operations,

plus knee cartilege problems and bone displacement in the foot,

but has always helped with the colt, and the grass collecting.

54...However, her lack of mobility was a problem when the colt

played up, and she found it very difficult with the uneven slopes and

surface of the paddocks.

55...Above, the colt has made a good recovery, and starting to

put back on a little bit of weight.

56...Starting to feel very well. Legs and neck have healed and

plans being formulated to sort out pre-training options.

57...Above, RED MAGIC at his favourite pasttime of eating.

He is getting his feet trimmed before going off to pre-training.