Damion Flower profits from share in new Winx colt’s sire Snitzel
Champion mare Winx’s delivery of a healthy colt has given convicted drug smuggler Damion Flower a huge windfall - as well as providing a nice earn for Alan Jones.
NSW
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Champion mare Winx’s delivery of a healthy colt has given convicted drug smuggler Damion Flower a reason to smile behind bars.
Flower, 52, owns a single share in the Winx colt’s sire Snitzel, which stands at Arrowfield stud in the Hunter Valley.
Snitzel costs around $250,000 every time he services a mare like Winx, earning $40 million a year and paying Flower a tidy $1 million annual slice.
Also profiting from the stallion’s servicing fees is co-owner and veteran broadcaster Alan Jones, who last week was charged with 26 counts of indecent assault and sexual touching without consent against nine complainants.
Flower was convicted of smuggling drugs worth $70 million through Sydney Airport in 2022. He was jailed for 28 years and ordered to pay millions of dollars to the Crown.
A NSW Crime Commission spokesman said he was allowed to keep his share in Snitzel: “In total he has paid $8,366,972.24 which is the amount we estimated were the proceeds of crime plus interest, anything further he is entitled to keep.”
But Flower, whose sentence was reduced to 23 years on appeal earlier this year, will not benefit any further from the sale of the Winx colt. His involvement stops with Snitzel’s servicing fee.
The colt is the second healthy foal for Winx, whose first filly sold at the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale this year for a world record $10 million.
The filly was bought by Ingham’s poultry heiress Debbie Kepitis, who already had a one third share in her through her ownership of Winx, and said she wanted to keep her in the family.
“She’s Australian forever and she’s going to be just fabulous,” she said after beating motivated Kentucky based John Stewart at auction.
“I didn’t come here to buy this horse originally. We put her up for auction and then in the past few weeks, all of the family, we started to miss our ‘daughter/granddaughter’ so we just decided as best we could, if we could get her, we would,’’ Ms Kepitis said.
Inglis bloodstock general manager and auctioneer Jonathan D’Arcy said, after bringing the gavel down at a world record price in April, that two “very motivated” bidders had driven up the price. But even then he felt the colt could fetch even more because its sire, Snitzel, had produced more winners than the filly’s sire Pierro.
“Snitzel is a more prime sire who has already produced two Golden Slipper winners,” he said. Snitzel’s champion progeny include Trapeze Artist and Redzel.
Colts often sell for more than fillies because of their potential to become high-earning stallions like Snitzel. There are a number of potential buyers, including Mr Stewart, who missed out on the Winx filly and will be keen to try buy him when he comes up for sale in the hope he will emulate Winx’s unbeaten 33 straight wins.
Winx’s part-owner Peter Tighe has said the late season foaling meant it was unlikely that Winx would be served by a stallion this spring and would have a year off from breeding.
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