Just as the broodmare owner wonders if every foal is going to be THAT horse, the special one everyone hopes for, stud owners dream of finding the next big thing among the stallion ranks, the horse to set tongues wagging, to get the phone ringing.
A great stallion can come from anywhere, sometimes from flashy promotion and big books ... but that is no guarantee. For every now and then a stallion capable of upgrading, of hitting the ground running, emerges from limited opportunities and a bargain fee.
Does Australia’s Larneuk Stud have that horse?
Neville Murdoch certainly hopes so. Owner of the stud in Euroa, Victoria, he is justifiably excited by the outstanding start made by his handsome and well bred Wolf Cry.
Already optimistic before any of the breed made it to the track, Murdoch was hearing good things from breakers and trainers ... these Wolf Cry horses were very nice indeed!
“They looked good as foals and you start to hope, but in this game you never get too confident too early,” Murdoch said. “But we are getting pretty excited now.”
In the thick of things
On December 30, General Wolffe made his debut at Doomben. One of just 29 members of his sire’s debut crop. He ran a pleasing third. Ten days later off a wide run in the rich Magic Millions Maiden - a race Wolf Cry dominated five years ago - he was not far away, another encouraging performance.
A few weeks later trainer Greg Eurell produced his first Wolf Cry, Wolves, thrown into the deep end at debut - catching the eye with a fast-finishing fifth, beaten just 1½ lengths in the G3 Blue Diamond Preview at Caulfield. Eleven days later she was again in the thick of things, a gutsy on third in the G2 Blue Diamond Prelude.
Meanwhile in Queensland, General Wolffe was going from strength to strength and at Doomben last Thursday he exploded away to break his maiden by a stunning 5½ lengths. “That was a really, really good win,” enthused jockey Adin Thompson. “He gave me a great feel and he has a nice, big stride and a great turn of foot. He is still green. There is a lot of improvement in him."
Greg Eurell has several promising Wolf Crys in the stable and speaks highly of them. “Usually with 2-year-olds you have to press pause and rewind a few times as they pick things up, but Wolf Cry’s sons and daughters make our job easy. They cope with everything we present them with, they take it all in so quickly and easily.
“They are enormous eaters, great types and very genuine and sensible. Very appealling horses.”
Wolf Cry is a son of the Dubai World Cup hero Street Cry, who proved himself one of the great shuttlers with 130 stakes winners and 24 G1 winners, including, of course, the mighty Winx.
Boasting impressive statistics with a Southern Hemisphere 79.6percent winners-to-runners strike rate and 8.9 percent stakes winners, Street Cry has already well and truly proven his worth as a sire of sires with already 18 of his sons siring stakes winners, eight represented by G1 winners.
Wolf Cry is bred on the same Street Cry/Danehill cross as the G1 gallopers Shocking, Pride Of Dubai, Hallowed Crown, Elite Street and Politeness and the same Street Cry/Redoute’s Choice cross as the big-race winners Trekking, Bonham and Stay With Me. The combination of these two great stallions has a 8.9 percent stakes-winning hit rate and, while Wolf Cry is not one of those stakes winners, he did have an abundance of natural talent.
A horse who caught the eye from day one - fetching $320,000 at the 2014 Magic Millions, Wolf Cry was a highly competitive 2-year-old, a close-up third in Vancouver’s listed Breeders Plate at debut, beaten less than a length when third in the listed Lonhro Stakes second up and again placed behind Exosphere in the G2 Skyline Stakes at start number three.
Prolific family
First up at three in the Magic Millions Maiden, he proved a class above his rivals with a three-length victory ... and the form stood up with both placegetters - Havasay and Catch A Fire - going on to black-type success.
An eye-catching dark horse with a definite look of his illustrious sire, Wolf Cry hails from one of Australia’s classiest and most prolific families, his stakes-placed dam Starfish being a daughter of the G1-winning sprinter Stella Cadente, also ancestress of the stakes winners Brilliant Bisc, Dashing Fellow, Aeronautical, Deep Image and last-start listed Just Now Quality winner Alison Of Tuffy.
Stella Cadente’s dam is the stakes-placed Bletchingly mare Temple Fire, whose G3-winning dam Eau d’Etoile, by the legendary Sir Tristram (there are no weak links in this pedigree!), produced three individual G1 winners: Golden Slipper heroine Bint Marscay, Epsom Handicap star Filante and Australian Guineas winner Kenny’s Best Pal.
Eau d’Etoile’s other descendants included the feature-race winners Bollinger, Friesan Fire, Villermont, Sheraton, Mannington, Benicio, Romneya, Roheryn, Always Allison, Rose Imperial, Rosental, Eau d’Scay and the recent runaway Magic Millions Guineas winner Aim.
For further details on Wolf Cry, contact Neville Murdoch on 0418 105 706 or visit www.larneuk.com and www.facebook.com/pages/Larneuk-Stud/455896497806590