The latest fortnightly auction on gavelhouse.com offers buyers a golden opportunity to add black-type performance to their broodmare band.
The catalogue for the current auction, which closes on Monday evening, features stakes performers Macaluso (NZ) (Savabeel), Expressiveness (NZ) (Shamexpress) and Miss Layla (NZ) (Burgundy).
Opportunities are few and far between for buyers to get their hands on stakes-performed daughters of Hall of Fame sire and emerging powerhouse broodmare sire Savabeel, and it’s even rarer for his daughters to have the precociousness to perform up to black-type level as two-year-olds. Macaluso ticks both of those boxes.
The well-related filly made her raceday debut in the Listed Counties Challenge Stakes (1100m) at Pukekohe in November of 2023, finishing a close and creditable fourth behind Velocious (Written Tycoon), Bellatrix Star (Star Witness) and Poetic Champion (NZ) (Super Seth). All of that trio went on to bigger and better things. Velocious won the Karaka Millions 2YO (1200m) and Group One Sistema Stakes (1200m) and was voted New Zealand’s champion two-year-old, while Bellatrix Star excelled in Melbourne last spring with victories in the Group Two Schillaci Stakes (1100m), Group Three Scarborough Stakes (1200m) and Listed Cap D’Antibes Stakes (1100m) along with a runner-up finish in the prestigious Group One Coolmore Stud Stakes (1200m).
Macaluso herself later contested the Listed Wellesley Stakes (1100m) at Trentham in January of 2024, earning valuable black type when she finished third and only 2.2 lengths behind the subsequent Group One, Group Two and Group Three placegetter Archaic Smile (Saxon Warrior).
Macaluso won a 1400-metre race worth $65,000 during a Group One meeting at Trentham last December, and she didn’t have all favours when sixth behind standout filly Leica Lucy (NZ) (Derryn) in the Group Three Eulogy Stakes (1600m) and unplaced from a wide run in the Karaka Millions 2YO.
Macaluso is out of the winning Makfi mare Chiaretta (NZ), whose half-sister Members Joy (Hussonet) won the Listed Cap D’Antibes Stakes (1100m) and placed in the Group Two Angus Armanasco Stakes (1400m). Members’ Joy is the dam of the brilliant Group Two Furious Stakes (1200m) and Percy Sykes Stakes (1200m) winner Pure Elation (I Am Invincible).
Pure Elation is also a black-type producer, while other stakes performers on the pedigree page include Jennilala (Shalaa), Rosa’s Joy (Rory’s Jester), Rosa’s Spur (Flying Spur), Rosarino (Perugino) and Indian Pacific (Zoustar).
Macaluso was trained in Cambridge by Andrew Forsman, who holds the filly in high regard.
“She’s always shown well above average ability,” he said. “She was stakes-placed as a two-year-old and has performed in good company at the ages of two and three.
“She hasn’t had all the luck in the world either and could have had an even better record if one or two things had gone differently.
“We just felt now was the right time to wind the partnership up and move her on, offering buyers the chance to pick up a really nice filly.
“Being a black-type performed daughter of Savabeel, and from a great family, she has a lot going for her and has plenty of upside when it comes time to breed from her.
“She has a great attitude and has always been very willing.”
Savabeel is doing an outstanding job as a broodmare sire, with 60% winners to runners and 4% stakes winners to runners. He sits second behind O’Reilly (NZ) on the New Zealand broodmare sires’ premiership this season and 17th in Australia, with his daughters producing the likes of Group One winners La Dorada (NZ) (Super Seth) and Gringotts (NZ) (Per Incanto) in recent months.
Another notable inclusion in the current gavelhouse.com catalogue is Expressiveness, who also raced under the name Express Yourself. She showed outstanding sprinting talent on both sides of the Tasman, winning six races and placing at black-type level at Trentham and Caulfield.
The Shamexpress mare ran second in last year’s Group One Telegraph (1200m) at Trentham, beaten by only a nose by Mercurial (NZ) (Burgundy). Expressiveness later performed in strong company in Melbourne, placing in the Listed Regal Roller Stakes (1200m) and Alinghi Stakes (1100m).
Herself bought for just $6,550 off gavelhouse.com by trainer and part-owner Nikki Hurdle in 2022, Expressiveness returns to that platform as a Group One performer and the earner of more than $297,000.
“She was a horse I had seen trialling, and I really liked her,” Hurdle told the Love Racing News Desk. “I couldn’t believe it when she was up on gavelhouse.com. We were going to buy her whatever happened.
“I had set her for the Telegraph after she won at Awapuni in her previous campaign, and I thought, ‘We have got a really good horse here.
“I planned a campaign based entirely on getting to the Telegraph and she nearly won it. An ounce of luck and she would have won eight in a row, but instead it was a few seconds by noses. It was a terrific campaign.
“She showed us in the Lightning (1200m) at Trentham in March that she didn’t want to be there, so on that day we made the decision that she wouldn’t have to do any more. She had done us proud.
“We thought it was her time to move on as a broodmare, and she will be a brilliant broodmare. She is a beautiful type and is just a natural athlete.
“She has been the most wonderful horse for us. Half of the people in the syndicate were having their first experience of horse racing, and she has taken us on a fantastic ride.
“We bought her thinking we could win two or three races, but we ended up in Australia and we nearly won a Group One. She owes us nothing, we love that horse, she is an absolute beauty.
“She was the only one I had in work at the time and it is going to be very hard to get another one like her. You don’t come across horses with x-factor every day, and I think she had that.
“Our hope is that she will go to a very good stud that will give her every opportunity. One day, if there is a foal out of her on the market, I will be moving everything to get hold of that foal.”
The other black-type performer on the market gavelhouse.com is Miss Layla. The daughter of Burgundy and high-class mare La Etoile (NZ) (Thorn Park) won three races headed by the Listed NZB Airfreight Stakes (1600m) as an autumn three-year-old. She also returned as a four-year-old to place in the Group Three Canterbury Breeders’ Stakes (1400m) and Listed Timaru Stakes (1200m).
The highly talented Miss Layla is the best of four winners from six foals to race out of La Etoile, who herself won five races including the Group Two Rich Hill Mile (1600m) and also placed in three black-type races in Brisbane headed by the Group Two Queensland Guineas (1600m).
Miss Layla’s sire Burgundy has made a promising start as a broodmare sire, with Qali Al Farrasha (NZ) (Almanzor) recording four placings at Group One level while Nucleozor (NZ) (Almanzor) was a stakes-winning two-year-old.
