Tiny orphan foal now a Melton winner
By Peter Wharton
The Art Major gelding Final Collect, who came from absolute last to win in intermediate grade at Melton on Saturday night and has now banked over $160,000, is an orphan foal.
Final Collect
Final Collect lost his mum within hours of birth and was raised by a surrogate mare.
“That is the reason we called him Final Collect,” breeder Brian West, principal of Studholme Bloodstock, said.
The gelding was put up for auction at the NZB National Yearling Sale at Christchurch in 2021 but failed to reach his reserve price.
“Mark Purdon quite liked him and he told me that he had a couple of mates that would be interested to come in on the horse,” West said. “I raced him with my partner Rolalie Recio and Mike and Sue Grainger.”
Final Collect began racing as a two-year-old, winning at Addington and finishing a creditable second to Don’t Stop Dreaming in the Group 2 Welcome Stakes from 10 starts at that age.
He won again at Addington as an early three-year-old before being sold to Adelaide owner Colin Croft, who raced the dual Miracle Mile winners Smoken Up and Sokyola.
Final Collect has since won a further six races in Victoria, including five at Melton, and has worked his way back to a NR74 mark.
Final Collect’s dam Collectable was one of the best fillies of her day. She won her first three starts as a two-year-old, including the Group 3 $100,000 Delightful Lady Classic at Alexandra Park by open lengths. She later raced in Sydney under the tutelage of Nicole Molander, placing in four of nine attempts and finishing with a stake tally of $111,038.
At stud, Collectable produced three colts – all by Art Major – and all were successful.
Besides Final Collect, she left the good Melton winners Pur Dan (1:54.9), a winner of four races, and Major Collect (1:55.5 – nine wins to date).
By Mach Three, Collectable was a half-sister to the Marlborough Winter Cup winner About Ambition, the Moonee Valley winner Slippery Mackenzie, Hear The Cheers (dam of the Menangle winner Dream To Share – $253,350), and the SA Breeders Plate victor Hear The Call, and to The Actress (dam of The Director – $235,239).
Their dam, Stage Talent, who was unraced, was by Soky’s Atom from Stage Queen, by Stampede from the Lumber Dream mare Dream Bel, who founded a very successful branch of the Bonnie Belle family.
“We purchased her when we were setting up Yonkers Breeding and Racing Partnership, which became a public entity,” West stated. “We had over 100 investors at one stage.
“We employed a very good horseman from Christchurch in Ivan Schwamm to help put our partnerships together. He was one of the first to trek over to America and sell horses, and he had a very good understanding of pedigrees.
“Ivan bought 15 mares and one of them was Dream Bel. She’s the one mare that’s really put her hand up among all those mares, and her line has stayed strong right up until now.”
The Studholme Bloodstock-bred and raised stars Chase A Dream, Don’t Stop Dreaming, Secret Potion, The Black Prince, Dream Out Loud, and many others trace directly to Dream Bel.
“On the farm here we would have at least 60 horses, and the vast majority descend from Dream Bel. It’s been an incredibly successful family for us,” the Leeston-based West said.
