Fresh off a remarkable win for Burn On March 19 in the Longines Golden Slipper Stakes (G1) at Rosehill Gardens, the filly’s breeder and co-owner Louis Milhalyka told ANZ Bloodstock News that five major Hunter Valley sires threw their hats into the ring in support her currently homeless stallion. rebellious dane on their lists for the next breeding season.
Mihalyka, who bred Rebel Dane under his Laurel Oak banner and raced the two-time Group 1 winner with yesterday’s winning Golden Slipper trainer Gary Portelli, still basked in delight and disbelief at his star filly’s exploits. Fireburn after Saturday’s incredible success in Australia crowning the juvenile showpiece.
“We are absolutely euphoric,” Mihalyka said yesterday, having not concluded a celebratory lunch with relations in a long time. “You come into the races like a living prospect when you’re fourth favorite. The horse was clearly in good shape… But when she came she just went so fast, it’s scary. To win by two and a half lengths , you just think, ‘what just happened?’.”
Following Fireburn’s victory in the Furphy Sweet Embrace Stakes (G2) at Randwick Racecourse on February 26, it was announced that Rebel Dane would be moved from Glen Eden Stud, his Victorian home of the past two seasons, with the intention to place the son of California Danes in the New South Wales breeding heartlands of the Hunter Valley.
With no deal yet in place for the 12-year-old, the events of the weekend have greatly increased his appeal to some of the most prominent stallion farms in the Hunter Valley.
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“It couldn’t have worked better for what we were hoping to achieve,” Mihalyka said. “Over the past 24 hours we have had the pleasant contact of five of the leading stud farms in the Hunter Valley. We want to give the horse the best possible opportunities in terms of numbers, although Glen Eden has done an excellent job of making it 50 last season and worked extremely hard to achieve this. A stallion with a high profile can easily go from 50 to 100.”
“At the moment no one has ever offered to buy shares in the horse, they have only offered to put it in different offers. And if there is a stud that believes in the horse to buy shares in the stallion, well it’s fine suits the owners.”
The level of interest in Rebel Dane has prompted its consortium of owners, which includes Steve Grant and Kenny Lowe of Silverdale Farm, to employ an Interested Party Discussions Agent to act as a focal point in the negotiations.
“Tomorrow morning we will have an independent person, a well-known blood agent, appointed to handle investigations and do all communications independently,” Mihalyka said. “There are five owners (at Rebel Dane) and two of them are active in promoting the stallion, so rather than individuals being contacted and passing things on, we’ve decided we need to formalize it so we’re asking one person to go and coordinate and communicate, but we’re absolutely thrilled with the response we got today.
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“Before the race we had a bit of banter with our friends at Newgate, as with the win for Sweet Embrace of Fireburn, Rebel Dane had overtaken Extreme Choice as the top sire of racer group winners in Australia. That’s a small number, but now we are ahead,” Mihlayka said. He’s taken it to the next level and his horses, if you look at their racing, almost all of them are running well, but if you look at the pedigrees of the mares, you wonder “how?”, because they are modest to say the least.”
Of the 67 mares Rebel Dane received in her first two years at stud, around half were sent by Laurel Oak Bloodstock clients involved with Rebel Dane, who, despite benefiting from the absence of service fees payable, have made a considerable bet by placing a large part of their broodmare resources in an unproven and unfancy stallion.
As a result, the group sent no mares to Rebel Dane during his years at Glen Eden, crops which produced only 14 foals combined.
Of the seven living colts from his 2020 crop, none have been offered at auction this year, three – two fillies and one colt – were bred by Sonia O’Gorman of Glen Eden Stud, while another colt from Umatilla Girl was bred by Elaine Rawiller, mother of jockey, Nash Rawiller.
The stallion produced four fillies and three colts in 2021.
“The owners didn’t send any mares in his third or fourth season. We supported him so well in the first two years between owners, so when you see those numbers of 30 mares, I think the first year, 15 were the owners’ mares and they didn’t pay stud fees, so they were either kept or sold as weanlings, all for little money,” Mihalyka said.
“We had a financial fizzle with the mares they put into Rebel Danes, and we only have about ten or 12 mares a year. We didn’t want to engage with too many Rebel Danes, so we We didn’t send any mares because we had a lot of them and we wanted to see how it all went, it’s a big regret that we didn’t send any mares, but we have them all now and in foal.
A mare that Mihalyka and Laurel Oak sent to Rebel Dane in her second year was Fireburn’s dam Ruminatea daughter of So you believe who was chosen in the 2018 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale for $22,000 with the explicit intention of being sent to Rebel Dane.
Mull Over traces back to his fourth winning mother in 3rd grade in the United States Shake a leg his second dam being Flight Stakes (G1) winner Danarani, by Danehill.
The result is a unique breeding combination of two of Australia’s most successful imported stallions, Danehill and more than ready .
“We are at broodmare sales and we are looking for mares for Rebel Dane,” recalls Mihalyka. “I personally felt that although the inbreeding with Danehill had question marks, the 3×4 inbreeding upper and lower with Danehill had a good success rate. Before the weekend there was only only one Group 1 winner who is Seabrook, but many group winners, and few starters.”
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