Remarkably considering its history, the big expanse of country nurtured by the Hunter River and a variety of mountain streams in the western foothills of the Great Divide between Singleton and Maitland in the lower regions of the Hunter Valley, has in the main been neglected by breeders in modern times.
Way back in the early history of Australia, this region played a significant role in the development of the big, strong talented colonial thoroughbred. One big player was the Reynolds family of Tocal along the Paterson River, one which ends up in the Hunter near Newcastle. The Reynolds were revered for not only the quality of their horses but also for their breed shaping Herefords.
A short drive upstream from Tocal at East Gresford is a far more recent breeding farm that is demonstrating that this segment of the lower Hunter is very suitable for growing good horses. It is the Torryburn Stud, one which has been developed since 2002 by the John Cornish family into a major commercial agistment farms and which is historic as the one time home of Dorothy Mackellar, author of the iconic Australian ode “My Country.”
Interest in the lower Hunter as breeding grounds has been stimulated by the dynamic 3.5 lengths win on Saturday at Rosehill Gardens of the first crop Snitzel filly Chance Bye in the $250,000 Inglis Classic for 2-year-olds who was sold at the Inglis Classic yearling.
Her second outing and her second win, following on success by the same margin in a nursery at Randwick on December 19, it was an effort that suggested Chance Bye has good prospects of becoming the third Golden Slipper winner grown in the lower Hunter. East Gresford is only about half and hours drive north of Luskintyre, a parish in the Lochinvar district near Maitland which produced two great Slipper winners, Luskin Star (won by seven lengths in race record time in 1977) and the Danehill filly Merlene (1.5 lengths in 1996).
Also winner at two of the AJC Breeders’ Plate, Sires Produce Stakes and Champagne Stakes, Luskin Star was bred by Hunter Valley tyre merchant Jim O’Neill on Luskin Lodge, a stud now owned by former NSW Government minister Paul Whelan. O’Neill could not get $10,000 at the Sydney sale for the yearling which was to become Luskin Star and sold him privately to Newcastle trainer Max Lees.
Luskin Star returned to the Golden Slipper winner’s stall 19 years later as the sire of the dam of the1996 heroine of race, Merlene, one bred a short distance away from the paddocks that produced him. Also winner of the AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes, she was bred by the late Stan Johnson on his Twin Palms stud, a farm that has enjoyed a lot of success, including, in addition to Merlene, supplying Golden Slipper placed Charge Forward (second in 2004; won AJC Galaxy at three) and Media (third in the Slipper and Champagne Stakes at two; second in the Galaxy at three).
Chance By, the latest star from the lower Hunter paddocks, is another sale bargain, costing her owners Jack Knight and previously ‘unknown’ Kembla Grange trainer Mick Tubman only $15,000 at the Classic sale.
Her pedigree suggests she should have brought more. She is in the first crop of the Arrowfield based Redoute’s Choice MRC Oakleigh Plate and AJC Challenge Stakes winner and VRC Newmarket second Snitzel and from Rouge Femme, a half-sister by Red Ransom to High Rolling, a winner of the AJC Breeders’ Plate and second STC Pago Pago Stakes.
