Another Star For Edinglassie

Sydney, AUSTRALIA–Edinglassie Stud enjoyed a big sale result last June when it sold its prized broodmare Listen Here (Aus) (Elusive Quality) for a sale-topping A$3.4-million to the China Horse Club at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale. That was 10 years after Edinglassie manager Mick Talty had purchased Listen Here as a yearling at Inglis Easter for A$150,000, and five years after she produced consecutive homerun horses in Group 2-winning sprinter Deep Field (Aus) (Northern Meteor {Aus}) and G1 Caulfield Guineas winner Shooting To Win (Aus) (Northern Meteor {Aus}), both now at stud.

Things have truly come full circle for Listen Here and Edinglassie, as on Wednesday's second day of the Inglis Easter sale the nursery will offer its last retained foal out of the mare: a filly by Northern Meteor's first-crop sire son Zoustar (Aus) (lot 207).

Talty said from Inglis during inspections, “We have 12 yearlings down here, seven colts and five fillies. It's a lovely range of yearlings, 2-year-old types and staying-type horses. Probably our number one yearling is the Zoustar–Listen Here filly. She's a beautiful filly and very well-related, and fingers crossed she should sell well.”

“She's very commercial, this filly,” Talty added. “She's very correct and she's been very well received. She's a very good- natured filly and very powerfully built.”

While Listen Here officially came under the ownership of then Edinglassie owner Bob Oatley at the 2006 Easter yearling sale, the farm's history with the family dates back four generations. Talty, who has been with Edinglassie for 26 years, purchased Listen Here's second dam, Theme Song (NZ) (Sackford), for a group of clients. While unraced herself, Theme Song is a half-sister to champion 3-year-old Danewin (Aus) (Danehill) and Commands (Aus) (Danehill), a Group 3 winner who went on to be a successful sire for Darley. They are out of the similarly unraced Cotehele House (GB) (My Swanee {GB}), herself a half-sister to the great champion Octagonal (NZ) (Zabeel {NZ}) from the famed Eight Carat (GB) (Pieces of Eight) family. Theme Song produced a pair of stakes winners headed by the New Zealand Group 1 winner Emerald Dream (Aus) (Danehill), who herself went on to be a productive stakes producer. Theme Song's unraced daughter Announce (Aus) (Military Plume {NZ}) later joined the broodmare band at Edinglassie, and in addition to Listen Here she is the third dam of the G1 Manawatu Sires' Produce S. winner Luna Rossa (Aus) (Written Tycoon {Aus}).

Listen Here is the sixth foal out of Announce and was bred at Edinglassie by Indian Pacific and Millennium Thoroughbreds. Talty explained that he liked the filly so much that he bought her on Bob Oatley's behalf at Easter to bring back to the stud.

“She was owned by other clients and at the time Bob Oatley was looking to buy fillies for Edinglassie,” Talty noted. “She was a very strong filly, very powerfully put together. She looked more like a colt, really. Elusive Quality was going well at the time and we just needed a bit of the non-Danehill line blood so we could match her pretty easily down here, and the Eight Carat family is the best in Australia. She had a lot of pluses and she was so fast. We didn't see the best of her.”

Put into training with David Hayes, Listen Here raced for two seasons and won three of 14 starts, including the Listed Pewsey Vale S. Her true value has been realized as a broodmare, however, as she has thus far produced three winners from three to race. Her first foal was Shooting To Win, a A$160,000 yearling who won the G1 Caulfield Guineas and G2 Stan Fox S. before being snapped up by Darley for dual hemisphere stud duties. Next came his full-brother Deep Field, a A$440,000 Easter yearling who was one of the most exciting sprinters of his crop, with a win in the G2 Tab.com.au S. to his credit as well as a third in the G1 Lightning S. Deep Field stands at Newgate Farm.

While Northern Meteor made an explosive start to his tragically short stud career, Listen Here has proven to be successful without the partnership of that mate. Her third foal, the 3-year-old filly Look and Listen (Aus) by Snitzel's half-brother Hinchinbrook (Aus) (Fastnet Rock {Aus}), has notched one win from one start for trainer Kris Lees, giving Listen Here a perfect three-for-three record from her runners.

Look and Listen was one of a very select number of mares retained when Edinglassie owner Bob Oatley died last January.

“Bob's children just wanted to keep a couple fillies and she was one,” Talty explained. “They kept one other mare and that was it.”

The decision to breed Listen Here to Northern Meteor's best son Zoustar is an understandable one, and that first-season sire has enjoyed plenty of success at Australia's yearling sales this season. His 61 yearlings sold this year have averaged A$195,368, with a top price of A$550,000 for a filly and A$510,000 for a colt. Edinglassie sold a Zoustar colt for A$400,000 on the Gold Coast.

“We sold one well up at the Gold Coast and she's right up there with that one type-wise,” Talty noted.

Talty, who has been with Edinglassie for 26 years after roles with Inglis and Tattersalls, has recently taken over the lease of the farm from the Oatley family.

“Myself and my wife Michelle run the place, and it's our business now,” he said. “We have 400 acres right on the Hunter River. We have some mares and agist mares, sale yearlings, weanlings; basically everything that happens on farms.”

While Listen Here has moved on, Edinglassie retains some other high-profile residents among its 100 mares.

“We have a good mare called Amelia's Dream who was a very good 2-year-old, and she has a More Than Ready colt in this sale (lot 35). We have the mother of Nechita, who won the [G1] Coolmore [Stud S.] at Flemington. We have a lot of mares that produce stakes winners, a wide variety from the cheaper mares right through to the expensive ones. Edinglassie itself has produced a lot of Group 1 winners over the years so hopefully one of these can carry it on.”

With a tried and true Edinglassie foundation behind her, there is every chance Listen Here's Zoustar filly will be the one to do that.