Catbird-Calista Filly

(Catbird-Calista Filly)
Yearling

Attending and inspecting horses at bloodstock auctions as we do, led to us attending the massive June Thoroughbred Sale in Melbourne last year. There was no strong urge to acquire anything unless we could find a stand out horse. After inspecting approximately 60 horses (mostly weanlings) with Jason Entwistle, nothing really jumped up at us and said 'buy me'. There were some ok types, but nothing with that combination of type and pedigree that makes you sit up and take notice.

The whole process was getting rather tiring after 4 or 5 hours and I personally was looking for an excuse to go home. There was one last horse to look at and fortunately it was on the way back to the car park, otherwise I probably would have said, 'forget about it'.

As luck would have it, this particular filly was a cracker, an absolute standout bar none. She was attractive, correct and very athletic. She also had a very strong pedigree. She was by Golden Slipper winner Catbird out multiple winning Zeditave mare Calista. When you see fillies like this, the most worrying thing is determining how much money they are going to bring. But the best thing we could do is make sure we are at the sale when the horse is being sold. Additionally to get a second opinion on the horse, we enlisted the services of Damon Gabbedy of Belmont Bloodstock Agency, a highly regarded judge of horse flesh, to cast his eye over the filly and get his informed opinion.

Damon, as dutiful as ever, had already inspected the horse and gave her the big thumbs up and so we also engaged Damon to bid on our behalf. The filly wasn't being sold until late on a Monday afternoon, so some busy re-scheduling of appointments and flights ensured Jason and I were present when lot 362 entered the ring. After a tense few minutes and multiple bids we finally beat off all other challengers to secure the filly, but we were some $38,500 lighter in the pocket.

Wrapped as we were, we then just expected to see the filly approx once a month for the next 9 months whilst she matured and grew into a lovely yearling, before we considered her racing career. Unfortunately things haven't exactly turned out that way, as we were informed in February that our filly has sesamoiditis, which is a form of growing pain that requires additional time in the paddock. It has no long term effect, but does mean we are unable to consider breaking her in for 6 months. The 6 months ends at approx August and it is with much anticipation we plan to prepare her for a racing career at that time.

So watch this space…