Supreme Thoroughbreds is one of the Great Southern Sale vendors bringing one of the largest drafts. The Impact had the opportunity to speak to Brent Grayling, one of the four founding members of Supreme Thoroughbreds about their 2019 draft.
Q: What is the size of your 2019 draft?
A: At this year’s Inglis Great Southern Sale, Supreme Thoroughbreds is offering 17 weanlings and 12 mares. There is a mixture of our own homebred weanlings and broodmares and others belonging to long term clients.
Q: Which horses would you consider your draft highlights? And why?
A: We could make positive comments about all of the horses in our draft but if we had to pick just two to highlight, we choose Lot 280, Miss Bindi x Capitalist and Lot 306, Mrs Kipling x Zoustar.
We have a fabulous chestnut filly out of New Zealand mare, Miss Bindi, by Newgate’s Capitalist, whom we predict will be very popular at this sale. Capitalist won the Gr.1 Golden Slipper Stakes and was the
highest-earning 2YO of all time and industry expert James Harron described his physique as ten out of ten. Miss Bindi was a 6-time
winner, with wins in both New Zealand and Australia, and she was a black-type performer. This chestnut filly, offered as Lot 280, has a 1stof September birth date, she is an early running type and has an athletic physique like her sire.
Lot 306 is a ripping colt out of Exceed and Excel mare, Mrs Kipling, and he’s by Zoustar - a sire that is going very well. Zoustar is the sire of 8 Stakes winners, including 6 Group winners, among them triple Gr.1 winner Sunlight and Gr.1 winner Top Knight, and this year Zoustar will stand in the Hunter Valley at Widden Stud for $154,000. We feel this colt would suit the pin-hookers market.
Q: When you plan matings what factors do you take into account? How far in advance do you plan matings?
A: We plan our matings in May and June of each year - 3 months before the breeding season commences. We try to breed to stallions that we think the buying bench is looking to purchase and we look for stallions that physically suit each mare.
Q: Do you have any business goals which you hope to achieve in this sale?
A: When we formed Supreme Thoroughbreds a little over 10 years ago our goals were to be top of the Melbourne Premier Sale and to sell a horse for A$500,000. We achieved both these goals at the 2017 sale where we were leading vendor for gross receipts and we sold two of the 6 horses at that sale that went for $500,000 or more. One of these was the filly with the highest price tag of A$500,000 (Fuhrnatic x All Too Hard) and the other was a Written Tycoon colt that was bought by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Our goal at every sale, whether it’s Melbourne Premier or the Great Southern Sale, is to do the very best we can for ourselves and our clients, to present the horse to its full potential and achieve the maximum return possible on each horse.
Q: In the unproven First Year-Third Year Young Sires category, which sires would you say are underrated?
A: We wouldn’t call him underrated by any stretch of the imagination but we really like the first foals by Holler who stands at Darley, Victoria. We have one lovely filly by this stallion in Lot 252 (Lost in Paradise x Holler).
Q: Which proven stallions do you have a preference for?
A: Our top proven sires, in no particular order, are Brazen Beau, Deep Field, Dissident, Dundeel, Fiorente, Pierro and
Toronado. We will definitely be using all of these stallions this year in our 2019 matings.
Q: How has technology affected and influenced your business?
A: Obviously, technology plays a huge role in the administration of our business, and this gets more and more complicated every year Luckily two of Supreme’s business partners, Adrienne Grayling and Sue Shaw are very capable and expertly manage this aspect of our business.
Some tools of technology have been really helpful to our business in that we can provide so much more detailed and up-to-date information to our clients and potential buyers. We have always produced our own videos of our Melbourne Premier Yearlings, and buyers seem to respond positively to this personal communication. We also make use of the wealth of online information from tracking the performance of racehorses to accessing pedigrees and stallion progeny statistics etc, and programs that produce theoretical matings.
But when you strip away all the bells and whistles of technology there is no substitute for the experienced eye. You need to be able to see a horse and assess their physical attributes and their temperament and, in the instance of weanlings, to gauge their potential. We look for good bone, and overall athletic physique, natural muscle, good feet, a kind eye and an even temperament.
Q: How would you define a horse a perfect horse? What are the criteria you look for in terms of physical or other attributes?
A: Is there such a thing as the perfect horse? The perfect horse can come in all shapes and sizes but the overriding hallmark of a good horse is one that has success at Group 1 level and makes a positive dollar return on investment.