ELIZA'S FOUR ACES

Nice wrap from Joel Marshall in this week’s Winning Post.

What he didn’t have on hand at the time of going to print, was Howmuchdoyouloveme’s demolition of the Listed Ramornie Handicap at Grafton yesterday.

That now makes it nine stakes performers from two crops of racing age for Written Tycoon … that’s over 14% stakes horses to runners!

The Queensland breeding industry received a significant boost early this year when leading Victorian stud farm Eliza Park announced it would be establishing a division in the sunshine state.

When Eliza Park acquired the renowned and successful Racetree Stud property and made the decision to send champion first-season sire Written Tycoon north to lead the charge on a fee of $15,400, it knew the move would be well received.

Eliza Park nominations manager Mark Lindsay said the decision to send Written Tycoon, sire of eight stakes performers from his first two crops, to the Queensland farm “serves to show the industry our commitment to Queensland”.

“Written Tycoon has been one of our most popular stallions since arriving at Eliza Park, covering large books of mares each season. “His capture of the national first-season sires’ premiership (2010/11) really broke the glass ceiling for non NSW-based stallions and he’s proving it’s no fluke with his current high standing on the second-season chart (second to Artie Schiller).

“It makes sense to send him north. He’s worked successfully with a wide range of broodmare sires in Victoria and he’ll have an even wider cross section of mares at his new home.

“He’s a tremendously versatile stallion with a clear ability to upgrade his mares.

“Besides, he’s by the ill-fated but highly successful Queensland sire Iglesia, he was bred in the state and one of his best performers to date is Trump, winner of the Group 3 Gunsynd Classic in Brisbane.”

Joining Written Tycoon on the Eliza Park Queensland roster are a pair of young stallions gearing up for their stud debut. The introduction of Love Conquers All (fee $13,750) and Pressday ($9900) gives Queensland broodmare two very attractive freshman options. The most expensive yearling by Mossman ever sold, Love Conquers All is a cracking type.

Aptly, he will fill the same box as his sire did when the Eliza Park Queensland property was known as Noble Park.

Trained by Team Hawkes, Love Conquers All (below) would string together five stakes wins, defeating along the way the Group 1 winners Hay List, More Joyous, Hot Danish, Rangirangdoo, King Mufhasa, Metal Bender, Sniper’s Bullet and Black Piranha.

Second in two time-honoured Group 1 races – the Doncaster and the Doomben 10,000 – Love Conquers All would also run a nose second in the Group 1 George Ryder Stakes.

A half-brother to stakes-winning juvenile She’s Meaner, Love Conquers All is out of the Group 1-winning mare She’s a Meanie.

His barnmate Pressday was cut from similar cloth – a superb athlete with a lightning turn of foot and ability to carry that speed to a mile. Trained by Chris Waller, Pressday was sent to Brisbane as a winter two-year-old in 2010 and swept all before him, taking out the Group 2 Champagne Classic before capturing the Group 2 Sires’ Produce Stakes.

In his final juvenile assignment, Pressday would take the Group 1 T.J. Smith to sweep Brisbane’s two-year-old triple crown, becoming the first horse since Lovely Jubly in 2002 to achieve the feat and only the second horse ever (this year, Sizzling became the third.)

Franking the form as a spring three-year-old, Pressday would take out the Group 2 Sandown Guineas, prompting trainer Waller to state: “On pure ability, there is a not a horse in the stable that can match Pressday.”

That’s a considerable wrap from a trainer who has saddled up 13 Group 1 winners since 2010.

Pressday is a first-crop son of group-winning two-year-old Domesday, in turn a son of the highly influential Red Ransom.

Pressday, both in physique and bearing, closely resembles his grandsire, who has worked extremely well on both sides of the equator with more than 100 stakes winners to his credit. Most prominent among them are Australian horse of the year Typhoon Tracy, Dubai World Cup winner Electrocutionist, Charge Forward, Duporth and, importantly, the Eliza Park-bred Group 1 winner Red Dazzler, the reigning champion Queensland fi rst-season sire.

Adding to his credentials, Pressday hails from a Group 1-winning family.

The fourth stallion on Eliza Park Queensland’s debut roster, unlike his barnmates, is not new to his surroundings.

Something of a stalwart in the sunshine state, Monashee Mountain (fee $8800) requires little introduction to Queensland breeders.

Since heading to stud back in 2001 with group victories at two and three to his credit, this bred-in-the-purple entire has carved a niche for himself in the northern state with a host of stakes winners including Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap hero La Montagna.

This season, Monashee Mountain has produced another good set of numbers with more than 60 winners, including the two-year-old stakes performer Holey Gadoley. Typical of his sire’s tough, honest progeny, Holey Gadoley has had 14 starts and finished in the quinella in half of them.

Few stallions can lay claim to as impressive a pedigree as Monashee Mountain: he is by the immortal Danzig out of a Mr Prospector mare and is a half-brother to four stakes winners including US horse of the year Mineshaft.

With 430 winners including 15 stakes winners worldwide, Monashee Mountain has clearly lived up to expectations.

This year’s tick of approval from Eliza Park can be expected to open even more doors for the stallion.