Being close to greatness

In the spring of 2006, about 10 weeks and 50 kilometres apart, two leggy, brown fillies took their first tentative steps, but each looking every bit a thoroughbred racehorse.

The fillies, cousins by Bel Esprit, would go on to take vastly different paths: one was sold for $210,000 at the 2008 Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale; the other didn’t make it to a sale because she was considered too immature.

The expensive yearling became the outstanding Black Caviar, while the immature filly, with an almost identically pedigree, generated her own publicity … but not through her deeds on the track. It just goes to show how tough and indefinable the breeding game is – two horses with the same blood running through their veins, both well reared and well trained, but at the opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to racetrack success.

In 2008, Slattery Media Group boss Geoff Slattery leased from Eliza Park’s owner Lee Fleming a blood sister to Black Caviar. The filly, named Belleluia, raced for a syndicate formed through The Thoroughbred magazine. The purpose was to give the magazine’s subscribers the opportunity to get a “behind the scenes” in racing a horse.

Like Black Caviar, Belleluia is a daughter of Bel Esprit from a Desert Sun (GB) mare, but the pedigree is a lot closer than that. Belleluia’s dam, Song Of The Sun, is a half-sister to Scandinavia, the dam of Black Caviar’s mother, Helsinge. We always knew it was a good pedigree, but we didn’t know at the time that she was so closely related to greatness.

Like Black Caviar, Belleluia is a big mare, but nowhere as powerfully built as her “sister”. Song Of The Sun, a grey, was a good racehorse, Stakes-placed as a 3YO, but she was more of a stayer, finishing fifth behind Dowry in the 2004 Group 1 South Australian Oaks (2500m, Morphettville). Belleluia had her mother’s leggy and lightish frame, and the family’s long stride.

Trainer Robbie Griffiths liked her, and she eventually got to the races as a 3YO to win her debut in impressive style, by 3.5 lengths, at Traralgon in October 2009. Her next run, at Mornington, also was expected to be a win, but the big filly slipped at the start and hurt her back. Griffiths couldn’t get her right after that, and she was retired.

Belleluia has since been sold as a broodmare, in foal to Bushranger (GB), a fast son of Danetime (IRE), to breeder Stephen Whitling, of Whistling Park, Chintin, near Romsey, where “she’s the pride and joy of the farm. We are lucky to have her.” It may be through her progeny that her close relationship with greatness will shine through.

This story appears in the latest issue of the Inside Racing magazine

Photo: The leggy Belleluia pictured after trackwork at Cranbourne.