The advice that helped a Hall of Fame trainer turn Runaway into a Melbourne Cup stayer
ANTHONY Mithen always suspected Runaway could be a stayer but he was reluctant to tell Gai Waterhouse. Now a Melbourne Cup runner, it’s probably a good thing he mustered the courage to speak up to the Hall of Fame trainer.
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ANTHONY Mithen always suspected Runaway could be a stayer, but he was reluctant to tell Gai Waterhouse how to do her job.
Eventually due to Runaway not fulfilling his potential he was backed into a corner and told the Hall Of Fame trainer what she should do with him and as a result he’s running in today’s Melbourne Cup as one of three home-bred horses in the race.
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“She was as confused by him as were we,” Mithen said.
“We were scratching out heads as to what to do with him as he’d had four runs in and wasn’t running up to his work or his potential.
“I saw Gai at the Easter Yearling Sales, where she had bought him two years earlier, and we had a talk about him and I said to try him over ground or send him to the spelling paddock.”
Mithen said as Gai had trained Manhattan Rain she was always of the opinion that he was a miler like his sire.
Mithen said Runaway was a half brother to two Oaks winners in Abbey Marie (SA Oaks) and Absolutely (Australasian Oaks) and he always suspected he’d stay.
“Gai threw him in over 2200m at Geelong which he won and he followed that with a win in the St. Leger and a South Australian Derby placing. Now he’s won a Geelong Cup and we’re in the Melbourne Cup,” he said.
“Who knows where he’d be if we didn’t try over ground. He could be battling around in mile races or we may have even got rid of him,” he said.
Mithen and his horse breeding partner Nigel Austin sold Runaway as a yearling for $150,000 at the Sydney Easter Yearling Sales in 2016.
“Gai bought her and we bought back in. It’s a great ownership group with people from all over Australia in him. There are owners from Tasmania, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria and we’re still meeting new people in him,” Mithen said.
This will be Rosemont’s Stud’s third runner in a Melbourne Cup but only the second time their red and white gatecrasher colours have been worn in the race.
“It’s a different level of excitement with him being a home-bred. The other two Short Pause and Winchester, which carried our colours, were imports.”
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RUNAWAY will become the first runner bred by Rosemont Stud to contest a Melbourne Cup but if an ambitious breeding plan works, they will become a constant source of runners in the big two miler in the future.
Last season Rosemont Stud’s owners Nigel Austin and Anthony Mithen decided to send 30 mares to the stallion they part-own Tarzino in New Zealand.
They want to thwart the overseas raiders and swing the Melbourne Cup back to the Australian and New Zealand product.
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There are only three Australian bred horses in the Melbourne Cup. They are Youngstar and Ace High who are both by the deceased High Chaparral and Runaway who is by Manhattan Rain, who stands at Blue Gum Farm, Euroa.
There are three New Zealand bred stayers — Who Shot Thebarman, Sir Charles Road and Zacada. The rest of the field was bred in the Northern hemisphere.
Mithen said they considered standing the Victoria Derby winner Tarzino at their Geelong stud but thought his best opportunity to make it as a sire of stayers would be in New Zealand.
“They’ve got established staying bloodlines and they support staying stallions,” Mithen said.
“Nigel and I love our sprinters but our passion is stayers. In Australia to stay commercial you’ve got to breed your sprinter/miler type so we thought his best chance would be by standing him in New Zealand and then supporting him.”
“We sent our staying type of mares over to him and we also went to Europe to buy 19 classically bred mares from staying lines to also send to him specifically.”
In the past 10 years Rosemont Stud has built itself into one of the most prominent racing brands in the state.
They stand stallions Starcraft and Nostradamus, and have 250 mares on their books and shares in over 100 racehorses.
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