Final foal is Collecting the cash
By Peter Wharton
Final Collect, a winner of three races at Melton and a Victoria Derby finalist, is the last foal out of the former smart racemare Collectable.
Breeder Brian West
“She had a normal birth but died a few hours after foaling due to internal bleeding,” breeder Brian West, principal of Studholme Bloodstock, said.
Final Collect was raised by a foster mare, Kate Black, a daughter of Kate’s First, who was loaned to West by good friends Ken and Anne-Marie Spicer.
“She looked after the foal right through to him being weaned,” Brian said.
West later nominated the Art Major colt for the NZ Bloodstock National Yearling Sale at Christchurch in 2021.
“We had a $50,000 reserve on him, but he didn’t make the reserve, so we kept him and raced him ourselves. We raced him with Mike and Sue Grainger and my partner Rolalie Recio. It was her first horse,” Brian said.
FINAL COLLECT
(c) photography: Stuart McCormick
Trained by Mark Purdon, Final Collect began racing as a two-year-old, winning on debut at Addington and finishing runner-up to Don’t Stop Dreaming in the Group 2 Welcome Stakes.
He won his first race as a three-year-old at Addington and then ran fifth in a heat of the Sires’ Stakes before being sold in April to South Australian enthusiast Colin Croft, who raced the champions Sokyola and Markovina.
“He had gate speed but Mark felt that he wasn’t quite up to the big guns and suggested that we sell him,” West said.
From 12 starts in NZ he notched two wins and two placings for $46,788 in stakes.
Since being exported to Victoria, Final Collect, who is now trained by Leilani Justice, has won a further four races and has worked his way back to a NR84 mark.
Final Collect is the third and last foal of Collectable, one of the best two-year-old fillies sired by Mach Three.
“She was a star two-year-old filly,” West stated.
Collectable won three races including a heat and the $100,000 final of the Delightful Lady Classic and $112,108 in stakes and took a time trial record of 1:57.
Besides Final Collect, Collectable produced the Melton winner Pur Dan (1:54.9) and Major Collect, a winner of four races in New Zealand to date.
West has had an association with Final Collect’s family dating back four generations.
“In 1985 I formed Yonkers Breeding Partnership with four close friends. The first mare we purchased was Dream Bel off Canterbury breeder Jack Chisholm for $2,000 in foal to Stampede,” West said. “She was an unraced and small mare, barely 15 hands.”
The foal she was carrying became the brilliant sprinter Defoe, a winner of 20 races and $423,272 including the NZ Taylor Mile, Queensland Sunshine Sprint and a heat of the Inter Dominion and a former Victorian mile record holder.
Others from Dream Bel to win included the exported All Systems Go 1:51.4 ($348,932), the Albion Park winner Western Buddy and Awfully Nice, who won twice and was the ancestress of a string of top performers such as The Black Prince (Len Smith Mile and NSW Carousel), the Sires Stakes champions True Fantasy and Don’t Stop Dreaming, Secret Potion (GN Oaks), Silver Lined Pocket, Start Dreaming and the recent WA Caduceus Club 3YO Classic winner The Black Flash.
An unraced sister to Defoe in Stage Queen established the branch of the Dream Bel family to which Final Collect belongs. She left six winners including Dash For Cash (1:54) and the Soky’s Atom mare Stage Talent, the second dam of Final Collect.
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