A carefully crafted and well executed plan came off when the seven year old Gelding CHANCE TO DANCE (Teofilo -Crystal Ballet) who is guaranteed a start in the Sydney Cup April 8th,was knocked down to David Ellis.
“We bought the horse for A$260,000 at the sales, through Jamie (Richards), for John Galvin’s Fortuna Syndications,” Ellis said.
“After the Sydney Cup we plan for him to campaign him at the Brisbane Cup Carnival, and following that, he will return to New Zealand where we expect him to be a competitive weight-for-age and cups horse back in the New Zealand.”
Bought two years ago by Nick and Lloyd Williams, who made history when Almandin (Monsun) became their fifth Melbourne Cup winner last year, the Irish import Chance to Dance has won seven of his twenty-seven starts, $450,795 in prize money, and after recently finishing fourth in the Adelaide Cup (Gr. 2, 3200m) under 58kgs, he drops to 51.5kgs next Saturday.
“We identified this horse through the Chairman’s Sale, which has been a great initiative by Inglis to offer these elite racing prospects,” Ellis said.
“We had the horse inspected at Williams’ Macedon Lodge in Victoria by Brent Thompson from New Zealand Bloodstock, vetted by Dr Maxine Brain at the same time and also had our NZ based vet Dr. Douglas Black with Maxine, check out his X Rays etc.”
Richards said: “The horse is going to have a hit out on Saturday morning in Victoria, as his preparation continues towards the Sydney Cup. He will then travel to Sydney early next week and join Gingernuts in the boxes we have at Randwick, and Steve and I will top off his training ahead of the Cup.
“John Galvin had previously purchased an older horse, Zabene, syndicated him and he raced on successfully under the Te Akau banner to win a couple of times,including a listed victory in the Metropolitan Handicap at Riccarton. Mark Walker has been quite influential in discussions with John about approaching syndication in a slightly different manner, buying tried horses and ones with quality such as this that is rarely available for sale.
“Chance to Dance has not got many miles on the clock, is a very good-looking horse, and it will be exciting to get to know him better over the next week to ten days and both Steve and I are t about thrilled about having the opportunity to train him.”
With Chance to Dance being a live prospect in the Sydney Cup, at $15, Fortuna Syndications receive another shot at glory soon after Melody Belle (Commands), bought by Ellis and prepared by Autridge & Richards, took out the $1m Karaka Million (Listed, 1200m) at Ellerslie. Melody Belle tackles the Group One Manawatu Sires Produce Stakes at Awapuni on 1st April.
“Mark Walker and I have regularly talked about the idea of buying a proven staying horse out of Australia, who could be termed second-tier, but also a potential top performer at a good value investment price,” Galvin said “and Mark was the one who brought this particular horse to my attention.”
“The thinking being that once settled in they could prove pretty competitive at the top end in New Zealand. That’s been underlined by imported proven horses like Willie Cazal winning the Livamol Classic, and Mr Impatience winning the Wellington Cup. These sorts of horses are obviously not easy to come by and two or three we have looked at in the past couple of years were not sound.
“He’s extremely readymade, is a genuine live prospect in the Sydney Cup next week, and our due diligence suggests that he is indeed a very sound and capable horse. He’s won over 2400 metres in February at Caulfield, and after getting a bit further back than intended he finished fourth in the Adelaide Cup, so clearly 3200 metres is not beyond him.
“Following inspection by the experts, the conclusion they came to was that there was no physical reason why we could not buy Chance to Dance, and expect him to be running up to the form that he has shown to date. In the meantime, behind the scenes, I’ve been promoting this horse to the Fortuna clients, taking expressions of interest, and as at auction time had ninety-five percent commitment,” he said.
Last December, Te Akau and Fortuna Syndications celebrated their 100th success together when Dame Margo Fonteyn (High Chaparral) scored at New Plymouth and that total has now soared to 110 winners in the intervening weeks.
“Buying this horse is definitely a coup for Fortuna and Te Akau,” Galvin said, “and I want to pay tribute to those fifty one of our clients who have flocked to support this concept as we have promoted it over the past couple of weeks – I detect genuine excitement from all of them that they are having a shot at a $2m race in just a few days time.
” I also want to thank the Williams family for putting up such a quality horse for sale, providing us the opportunity to purchase him.”