Moses digs deep for quality filly

Lot 616, the Super Seth filly out of the Group Three winning Red Ransom mare Valpolicella, was purchased by Ian Moses for $625,000. Photo: Trish Dunell

Owner Ian Moses has been building a small, but quality band of fillies and mares and he added to that collection when purchasing a well-credentialled yearling filly by Super Seth at Karaka on Tuesday under his banner the Laguna Partnership.

Catalogued as Lot 616, the Haunui Farm presented filly out of the Group Three winning Red Ransom mare Valpolicella.

From the Chitty family’s foundation family, Valpolicella is the dam of Group Two winners Vavasour and Vilanova, in addition to Group winning Perth filly Celebrity Dream and Group One performer Rondinella.

Seated beside Sydney trainer John Sargent and bloodstock advisor Barry Lee, Moses went beyond budget at $625,000 to secure the filly, seeing off competition from Dean Hawthorne and Bruce Perry.

“I am a Kiwi and I have lived in the US for the last 30 years and I now live in Byron Bay,” said Moses, who recently sold a franchise called Aussie Pet Mobile.

“It was a mobile pet grooming franchise, and we just sold it 18 months ago and now I am kind of retired and living in Byron Bay.

“I have been involved in racing for about 20 years. Barry Lee has been a friend of mine for that long. He bought my first horse which was the Group Three winner Temple Hills and was quite a good horse and we have been in touch ever since.

“I liked the pedigree, that was the most important thing. I am trying to put together five real quality broodmares and I had four of them and this will be the fifth.”

Another member of Moses’ future broodmare band is three-year-old filly Byron Belle, who will step out at Canterbury Park on Wednesday for Sargent.

“She is by Snitzel out of Diademe and then the other three are broodmares at Coolmore,” Moses said.

“I go back quite a way with John Sargent. I raced a horse called Holy Moly with him. When John went to Sydney she was actually his first Sydney winner.”

Moses was taken by the well grown and good moving filly.

“I thought she was a great type, very athletic – I loved her. I thought she was the best filly in the sale,” he said.

The filly was yet another good representative for Waikato Stud’s Gr.1 Caulfield Guineas (1600m) winner Super Seth, who was comfortably the leading first season sire by aggregate, with $5,305,000 worth of yearlings sold and his progeny averaging $160,758 across 33 sold. – NZ Racing Desk