Godolphin chasing another Cox Plate win with three-year-old colt Broadsiding

The road to Saturday’s Cox Plate for brilliant colt Broadsiding started with a meeting between learned minds years earlier.

It takes a village to raise a child – or produce a budding superstar racehorse.

Outstanding colt Broadsiding will tackle Saturday’s $5m Cox Plate at The Valley at only his 10th start, all in 2024, but the march to Australasia’s weight-for-age championship started with a meeting in 2020.

Godolphin chief executive Andy Makiv said Broadsiding’s career, and those of most of the huge operation’s runners, started around a table.

Godolphin’s racing arm’s sole aim is to breed enough top-class colts to fill the available spots on Darley’s breeding roster, either in Australia or at one of the business’ other international studs.

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“That’s the business that the Godolphin racing team is in,” Makiv said.

“It’s to try and make stallions for the farms.

“It all starts on the farm as well.

“That process starts with the matings committee getting the matings right.

“We have a group of people that sit down and try to work out the best way to mate each of our mares with our stallions.”

That is one brave win for Broadsiding in the G1 Champagne Stakes at Randwick for @JamesCummings88 and @mcacajamez!@[e-mail]/cE7IlcbvAk

— SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) April 20, 2024

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The 2020 discussions concluded dual NSW 1600m winner Speedway, a half-sister to the Thousand Guineas winner Flit, would be best served by British stallion Too Darn Hot.

Once safely on the ground, Broadsiding and every other Godolphin/Darley foal has the services of an army of staff to guide them through the early days ahead of the business of racing with head trainer James Cummings.

“Broadsiding’s life began long before he was presented to the racing stable and the racing team,” Makiv said.

“They’re raised on these magnificent farms by talented people that leave no stone unturned and their attention to detail is through the roof to give them their best start in life.

“We’re very mindful that most of the organisation’s fingerprints are on him somewhere.”

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Broadsiding went through the proven Godolphin system but was beaten at his first three starts, including in a Bendigo maiden on debut.

However, he went from a maiden of promise to Australian Champion Two-Year-Old of the season by rattling off four straight wins, including the Group 1 Champagne Stakes in Sydney and the JJ Atkins in Brisbane.

Broadsiding’s breeding value climbed with each win, and again when he won the stallion making Group 1 Golden Rose at his first three-year-old start last month.

The colt suffered a setback when beaten in the Caulfield Guineas, another race that would have increased his value, but Makiv said that loss did not do much damage to Broadsiding’s value.

“Sure, it would have been preferred, but given his record already, it’s not as costly,” Makiv said.

“If he wasn’t a Group 1 winner yet and we were trying to make him into a stallion, every opportunity counts.

“For a colt like Broadsiding, to have three (Group 1 wins) in the bank already, takes the pressure off him but our job is to build his profile, which ultimately builds his service fee.”

Broadsiding! The @godolphin colt becomes the first horse to win the G1 Golden Rose first-up and he is now a three-time G1 winner. That's a third Golden Rose for @mcacajamez 🔵🔵🔵 pic.twitter.com/lOM6NAi36Z

— SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) September 28, 2024

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Winning a Cox Plate as a three-year-old would do that profile an enormous amount of good.

Savabeel (2004), So You Think (2009) and Shamus Award (2013) all won the Cox Plate as three-year-olds and are among Australasia’s best stallions.

Godolphin’s last Cox Plate winner, Anamoe (2022), won the race as a four-year-old but started his breeding career with a $121,000 service fee attached to him.

Makiv said Darley would love to have a handful of Cox Plate winners in its roster.

“We’re happy to have five,” he said.

“It (the Cox Plate) is becoming a great stallion making race and we’re in the business of stallions.

“If we’re lucky enough to have a Cox Plate winner every year as a stallion, it would be fantastic.”

Originally published as Godolphin chasing another Cox Plate win with three-year-old colt Broadsiding