THOROUGHBRED

Reputation for high quality

Valachi Downs is a relative newcomer to breeding and racing, but the Matamata operation has wasted no time in assembling a quality band of broodmares and a reputation for producing high quality yearlings.

Indeed, the farm enjoyed a memorable Karaka debut by consigning the Select Sale topper in 2008 when a SCAREDEE CAT colt realised $NZ300,000.

In 2005 we bought a small 50 acre farm near Matamata and purchased the dairy farm next door two years later to take our holding to 215 acres, owner Kevin Hickman said. We like to bring the horses up on the rolling hill country to develop strength and condition their joints at an early age and Valachi Downs is an ideal property for that. We're getting up to about 40 brood mares now, but we'll probably cull that back as we try to improve the quality.

The Matamata operation is managed by Basil and Lyn Treymane and will offer four colts during the Premier Session in 2012 and a filly by LUCKY UNICORN, who is a half sister to the high profile Valachi graduate SHAMROCKER. She made history last season when she completed the VRC Australian Guineas-AJC Derby double, and her sibling is similarly a classic middle distance type.

The SAKHEE'S SECRET-CRAMOISY is a half brother to RUSE DE GUERRE, who was sold out of the Valachi draft and at his third start was placed in the Carbine Club Stakes-Gr 3, and to the stakes placed filly OUR LILY BELLE, Hickman said. Their dam is a winning daughter of ARAZI out of the French champion juvenile QIRMAZI, a multiple Group performer who ran second to MACHIAVELLIAN in two Gr 1 races.This colt should be an early sprinting type, Hickman said. The O'REILLY colt out of FLEECE is described by Basil Treymane as a classic English type out of the quality English family of AUTHORIZED.

The draft features two sons of the champion ZABEEL, with the pair both boasting strong international pedigrees. MISS AVALON is a European mare we bought in England and she's from the family of GREEN DESERT and BERTOLINI and he is a very strong, elegant colt for a first foal, Basil Treymane. The other is a lovely walking colt out of THEATRE BUFF, another English import from the family of STORM CAT, POSTPONED and CROWDED HOUSE. First season sire and July Gr1 winner SAKHEE'S SECRET is strongly represented in Valachi's Select Sale team with a trio of colts. The first is out of DANTESSA and is described by Treymane as a stunning type who has everything. Jan Valachi's colt is areally scopey type out of a multiple stakes performer, he said. The third SAKHEE'S SECRET out of the ZABEEL mare WINNING SPREE was described as the complete package with the ZABEEL factor.

The SIR PERCY-LITTLE GEM looks like an early two year old, according to Treymane, and is from the family of SHIRLEY HEIGHTS and PENTIRE. The HIGH CHAPARRAL- THE WAKE colt was bred and raised by David Jones, breeder of Caufiel Cup Gr1 winner MASTER O'REILLY, and is being sold by Valachi on his behalf. A tall colt with a lot of scope, he is from the family of an Australian Horse of the Year and multiple Gr1 winner LET'S ELOPE. The consignment is completed by a son of TOWKAY, out of the winning ICELANDIC mare FRANCHISE. She is a half sister to the Australian stakes winner and AJC Oaks Gr 1 runner up SWISS COTTON, and this colt is expected to appeal to the Asian market.

Although we have shares in a number of stallions we operate by trying to place the mares with the most suitable stallions, Hickman said. We basically sell the colts and keep as many fillies as we can to race and are now breeding from our own stakes performers like SAPPHIRE BELLE, SMITTEN KITTEN, AND JAN VALACHI. We also buy a few English yearlings to race in England and then bring them to the broodmare paddock in Matamata.

Hickman has been a long time racing fan and has moved into breeding in the past six years. “It is a great challenge and I was very much attracted to it as a hobby, but now it has turned into a passion.

Another Select Sale standout for Valachi

In 2008, barely three years after Valachi Downs got under way; the boutique Matamata breeding operation sold the top-priced yearling at the Select Session of the New Zealand Bloodstock Yearling Sale Series. Not just the top price: their Scaredee Cat (Tale of the Cat) colt set a Select Sale record at NZ$300,000.

This year, Valachi Downs again has a strong contender for top price in the Select Sale at Karaka in the shape of Lot 535, a bay colt by first-crop sire Sakhee's Secret (Sakhee) from the Zabeel (NZ) (Sir Tristram) mare Winning Spree.

The Select catalogue shows Winning Spree as the dam of four winners including stakes-performed Anotherchancetaken (NZ) (No Excuse Needed), third in the Wellington Guineas. What the catalogue does not show is that Winning Spree (NZ) is also the dam of Silent Achiever (NZ) (O'Reilly), rated by many as potentially the best staying three-year-old of the season.

That's because Silent Achiever (NZ) was virtually unheard of when the catalogue went to print. Silent Achiever (NZ) began her swift and sudden rise to fame when she won her maiden at Ellerslie on December 7. Then she ran a luckless but eye-catching sixth behind Planet Rock (Fastnet Rock) in the Group Two Eight Carat Classic at the same course on Boxing Day and then thumped some of the best of her generation in the Group Two Radio Live Championship Stakes at 2100m on New Year's Day.

From maidens to Group Two in less than a month!

The way Silent Achiever (NZ) finishes off her races has had people talking about the Oaks and the Derby.

Kevin Hickman, who owns Valachi Downs and Silent Achiever (NZ), agrees that if Silent Achiever (NZ) had shown the depth of her ability before the catalogue went to print, her Sakhee's Secret half-brother would probably have been in the Premier Sale rather than the Select.

But he is comfortable that the colt – “he's a lovely colt, a similar type to his half-sister but perhaps a bit stronger than she was at the same age; he may come to it earlier” - will make his value in the Select Sale.

And he is certainly not criticising trainer Roger James for the patience he has shown with the filly.

“He has felt all along that she could be special, but he has waited and waited for her and now we are getting the results.”

The question of where to now for Silent Achiever (NZ) has been resolved, says Hickman.

“It will be the New Zealand Derby with a lead-up race or two beforehand, then Australia. She'll miss the New Zealand Oaks but, depending on how she shapes in the Derby, she could still run in the AJC Oaks in Sydney.”

Though Silent Achiever's half-sibling is in the Select session, Valachi Downs had five entries in the Premier Sale, of whom Hickman believes that Lot 323, the bay colt by Zabeel (NZ) from Miss Avalon (Fantastic Light), may be the most keenly sought by the buying bench.

“He's a nice, medium-sized Zabeel whose dam is an Irish-bred mare I bought and brought down here. It's a strong European black-type family which produced the very successful sire Green Desert. Also Bertolini, who came down here and made a worthwhile contribution.”