Capricornia Classic win an overnight success that’s taken 40 years

Warren McLaughlin has been breeding racehorses for four decades and last Saturday he finally got the result he was looking for, when rank outsider Kerzner won the Rockhampton Jockey Club’s TAB Capricornia 2YO Classic at Callaghan Park.

Kerzner at odds of $201.00, was having its second race start and improved out of sight on its debut to win the 1200m Classic for Sunshine Coast trainer Liam Birchley, Townsville jockey Aiden Holt and the Victorian Queensland Project ownership group managed by Victorian race caller Ric McIntosh.

But getting a horse to the races starts with the breeder and to say McLaughlin was happy about his win is a gross understatement.

“(The win) is an overnight success that’s taken forty years,” McLaughlin quipped.

Warren and Robyn McLaughlin first sold at the Rockhampton yearling sale in 1986, but their connection to breeding thoroughbred horses goes back even further than that.

“Robyn and I bought our first two fillies which started our interest in breeding horses when we were on our honeymoon in Melbourne in 1977,” McLaughlin said.

The recently gelded Kerzner, an $18,000 graduate of last year’s Capricornia Yearling Sale, is the sixth foal from McLaughlin’s 16-year-old mare Halle McOllywill and the daughter of Mossman’s third foal to make it to the races.

The McLaughlin’s bought the mare as a weanling in 2009 at a Magic Millions National Select Session for $7,500. The mare has been a good producer and but for bad luck, her record as a matron would be a whole lot better than it looks on paper.

Kerzner’s older half-siblings Missile Thunder (by Smart Missile) won six races in succession including Townsville’s Pallarenda Stakes at the same age as Kerzner and earned $183,550, while another half-brother, Uncle Jim (by Casino Prince) failed to break its maiden status, with one placing from 10 starts. But one of her offspring that didn’t make it to the races, could have been her best. That was a 2018 Magic Millions March Sale graduate by Black Caviar’s sire, Bel Esprit. The $60,000 colt was trained by Liam Birchley, Kerzner’s trainer and was highly talented.

“It could absolutely fly,” McLaughlin said. “But unfortunately, it got colic and died.

The secret to Kerzner’s success could be the pairing with promising stallion Sun City, a strapping chestnut son of Zoustar and the Flying Spur mare Roulettes.

Sun City who stands at Dan and Rae Fletcher’s Telemon Stud, Innisplain for a service fee of just $8,800, was Zoustar’s most precocious son, winning Group races including the Group 3 Bruce McLachlan Stakes at Eagle Farm and multiple stakes races, but his career on the racetrack was derailed by a joint infection which ruled him out of running in the Magic Millions 2YO Classic.

The stallion’s first crop of yearlings got to the racetrack in 2023 and he had four winners from his first half dozen starters with Mishani Suspect and Mishani Eclipse carrying his banner.

Oddly enough the reason why McLaughlin selected Sun City as Halle McOllywill’s partner in the 2021, was not because of his racetrack performances or his breeding, but the “cheap” service fee.

“My son selected the stallion and the price was right, that’s why we put the mare to him” McLaughlin said.

Halle McOllywill’s 2023 colt by Smart Missile, a full brother to Missile Thunder was catalogued for the March Sale but didn’t make it to the auction. “We missed that sale and tried to get him in late to the Capricornia Sale this year but that didn’t work out either, so the colt, who looks valuable now, has gone to Ric McIntosh in Victoria.

“He obviously knew his worth, as we do,” McLaughlin said.

Sadly, Halle McOllywill’s foal from last spring by Lean Mean Machine died.

“Robyn and I plan our year around each of the yearling sales and it’s a safe bet we will be back in Rocky next year,” McLaughlin said.

Who knows the breeder from Bluff might just have another Kerzner on the horse float.

By David Aldred, CEO RJC