An orphaned foal bred in Victoria faced an uphill battle when he arrived at Larneuk Stud in the spring of 2021 and four years on he is now a winner!
Trained by Brett Bellamy, four year-old O’Lonhro gelding Baby Ryan opened his account at Coffs Harbour on Thursday to the great delight of his connections.
Second at Grafton at his previous start, Baby Ryan took another step forward to win the 1200m maiden by two and a half lengths.
A full brother to Group III placed O’Tauto, Baby Ryan is the fifth winner from Taut, who was one of Larneuk Stud owner Neville Murdoch’s favourite mares.
“I bought her for $800 from the Inglis Great Southern Sale back in 2014 and she did such a good job for us,” Neville Murdoch recalled.
“Her first foal for us was O’Tauto and he won over $230,000 and then she gave us another few winners as well.
“When Baby Ryan was born, she haemorrhaged badly, so basically when he stood up, she fell down, so he was an orphan.”
Murdoch set about finding a surrogate mother for the foal and a standardbred mare was given the task, which was the subject of a story on Racing.com back in 2021.
“Our next door neighbour’s son is named Ryan and he used to come over to our place and he just fell in love him,” said Murdoch.
“It was his favourite foal, so we called him Baby Ryan.”
Back on track with his new mum, Baby Ryan grew and developed with Coffs Harbour trainer Brett Bellamy chosen to prepare the youngster for Murdoch and co-owner Peter Wood.
“We have sent quite a few horses up to Brett Bellamy and he does a really good job,” Murdoch added.
“They can race up in Brisbane or come down to Sydney and we’ve won a few Highway races.
“We have a lot of fun and they are great people.”
