News

Sky Raider could Reset the record

8th May 2011

The Age - Andrew Garvey - Saturday, 7 May 2011

The stallion's progeny are putting his name back on the black-type winners' list.

SUCH is the cauldron of racing that few participants retire undefeated. Lloyd Williams's star three-year-old Reset was one of them, amassing six wins including two group 1s but even Williams could not resist the dollars thrust at him by Sheikh Mohammed's Darley operation after the last of those victories and suddenly the son of Zabeel was a stallion not a racehorse.

As would be expected, he attracted big books of mares in his early years, in fact over 130 each year in his first five seasons and when Rebel Raider, a member of his first crop won the Victoria Derby, he looked headed for the top echelons of the stallion ranks.

Advertisement: Story continues below It would be fair to say that subsequent racetrack results have not gone to script with Reset struggling to make a serious impact but after a quiet period, recent months have seen him become one of the most in-form stallions in the country with four new black-type winners.

Pinker Pinker has been a dual group winner and group 1 placed, Goon Serpent took out the group 2 Queen Of The South Stakes, with Cornelia Marie and Warpath both taking out listed races.

Tomorrow the Tony McEvoy-trained Sky Raider gives Reset the chance of another long awaited group 1 win in the South Australian Derby, and while he is only coming off two restricted class wins, his breeder Anthony Mithen of Rosemont Stud always saw him as a ''classic'' type.

That is despite the fact that Mithen elected to sell him at the Gold Coast Magic Millions sale where most horses in the catalogue are early maturing precocious types who can return the following year to compete for the big dollars on offer for two-year-olds.

Mithen took three yearlings to the Gold Coast that year, two of whom looked ready to race at the start of the two-year-old season while the other, a Reset colt, looked somewhat out of place among the speed machines but Mithen was working on a hunch that the colt would get his share of attention.

''I thought I would try out a theory that people get sick of looking at the same type of horse at a sale.

''It was a bit like the Canadian Club Whisky advertisement where the theme is that when you are sick of beer try a CC and in this case he had plenty of buyers taking notice when he came out of his box,'' Mithen said.

The Reset colt who now races as Sky Raider was sold to prominent bloodstock Mark Pilkington for $85,000 which while it might appear a modest price it was the best result Rosemont had achieved with the produce of Sky Raider's dam Bright Time.

''She really gets a lovely type but they take time and the Australian racing industry says time is your enemy so they probably haven't sold as well as they otherwise should have,'' he said.

Bright Time is a daughter of New Zealand based Danzig stallion Kashani and is a half-sister to Twilight Hour a listed winner in Sydney while her dam by Sir Tristram mare was a sister to dual group 2 winner Never Quit.

Raced by Mithen's late father-in-law Grant Austin and family members, Bright Time failed to reach any heights as a racehorse winning just a maiden over 1300 metres but with a solid pedigree Mithen believed she was worth a chance at stud.

However after producing just two winners, including Sky Raider, to date she is scheduled to be sold at the Inglis Great Southern bloodstock sale later this month.

''She's done her job for us but she's 15 now so it's probably time to move her on but I might have a change of mind if she happens to get a Derby winner,'' joked Mithen.

Sky Raider does have one strong Derby influence in his pedigree and that is a three-by-three cross of the great sire Sir Tristram, the sire of Reset, not that Mithen was thinking along those lines when he planned the mating.

''I was looking at his mating purely from a commercial aspect but if you want to get over a trip having a couple of crosses of Sir Tristam in the pedigree doesn't do you any harm.''

Given his recent run of success Reset looks good value at his 2011 fee of $16,500 and by this time tomorrow he might have that long-awaited second group 1 winner.

Sky Raider might be at double figure odds but Rebel Raider was 100-1 when he took out the Victoria Derby.