Derby Day 2016: There’s a Prize for turning breeding into an Art form
WHEN Prized Icon won the Victoria Derby on Saturday he had the Cummings polish, plus some stoutness in his genes. Pedigree counts on many levels, writes Matt Stewart.
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ON the racetrack, pedigree counts … but not always.
Dusty-breds like Vo Rogue and Better Loosen Up proved that. But pedigree is the thread that binds so many elements of horse racing.
Derby Day, the day for the purists, was a pedigree day on Saturday.
James Cummings won the Victoria Derby with a colt called Prized Icon.
As 28-year-old James charged through the mounting yard, his fist raised as he met his colt halfway back to scale, James’s 60-year-old father Anthony stood on the steps near the weighing area, beaming.
Four years earlier, Anthony welcomed his Victoria Derby winner Fiveandahalfstar back to scale as Anthony’s father Bart shuffled about somewhere in the background, and son James saddled up for Bart.
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Bart won five Victoria Derbies. In 1948 he played the role of strapper when his dad Jim — James’ great grandad — won with Comic Court.
It is a remarkable pedigree trail.
Jim Cummings is long gone, Bart more recently, immortalised by a number of tribute points at Flemington, including a statue.
James Cummings carried the benefit and the burden of being the next Cummings to train horses when he set out alone after his training partner, his grandfather, passed away in August 2015.
The Cummings are not types to dwell or lavish praise on each other. Bart would have said James had a walk-up start, but walk-ups are not guarantees of anything.
That said, there is now an extraordinary sense of continuity in the story of the Cummings clan.
Even young James is preparing for the fifth generation. His wife, in racing terms, has “one on the ground and one in the oven’’.
As he spoke of his pride as his son marched triumphantly into the mounting yard, attached to Prized Icon, Anthony Cummings seemed to be already thinking of the next chapter.
“You’ve got to. Something big has been built and it’s up to the next generation to keep it going,’’ he said.
The Derby itself was a brutal test of bloodlines.
There is an annual debate about the suitability of the Victoria Derby run at 2500m. Those who want the trip reduced to 2000m reckon immature spring three-year-olds are often helpless cannon fodder in such a testing race.
With each running, only a handful stand tall, often because their bloodlines allow it.
Prized Icon won because he had the Cummings polish, plus some stoutness in his genes, and favourite Sacred Elixir ran a courageous second in part because he was by an English Derby winner, out of the family of a Melbourne Cup winner.
Cummings horses have always raced best on big, open tracks.
Winning jockey Glyn Schofield urged Cummings to press on to Flemington after Prized Icon struggled around Moonee Valley last week.
“I said to James, ‘Don’t worry. When he gets to the big open track, he will show a turn of speed,’’ Schofield said.
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There were four races for three-year-olds on Saturday. The two that mattered most were the Derby and Coolmore Stud Stakes. They were at distance extremes, but the theme that linked them was bloodlines.
The Coolmore has only existed for a handful of years but it has rapidly become spring’s most coveted race for colts on trial to become super studs.
In distant times it was the Derby that launched colts to successful stud careers. But our obsession with speed pedigrees and quick returns has downgraded the Derby, as races like the Coolmore have arrived with fortunes as a carrot.
It took just a minute and a bit for Flying Artie to criss-cross up the straight to become a one-time $50,000 yearling who is now a $10 million-$15 million stud prospect.
Trainer Mick Price is a trainer who loves making his owners rich.
He expected Extreme Choice to become the $15 million colt by winning the $500,000 race. But as Extreme Choice faded after making a brief dash for the wire, Flying Artie monstered his way into the clear and dashed away.
Even in the moment of victory, Price was thinking bigger picture.
“He’s won the right Group 1, hasn’t he?’’ he asked.
Flying Artie beat a colt called Astern, whom trainer John O’Shea regarded as the best horse he had trained. That line — “best ever’’ — would have looked snazzy on a future breeding brochure for Astern but, alas, he fell short by just over a length.
One of Flying Artie’s part-owners, John Whelan, wandered through the gap between the mounting yard and the betting ring just after James Cummings became the fourth Cummings to win the Derby.
Whelan was marvelling at how victory in the right race can yield impossible sums on a racetrack.
“Fifty grand he cost as a yearling; not the No. 1 (Inglis) sale, the No. 2 one,’’ he said, adding his phone was clogged by messages from big-time breeders with giant cheque books.
Originally published as Derby Day 2016: There’s a Prize for turning breeding into an Art form
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