Story’s Nest for Rainbird Chick Led to Years of Success
20-02-2012
ADELAIDE merchant Malcolm Reid was unlucky in the mid1940s not to have been the breeder of two successive winners of the Melbourne Cup.They were Peter, a son of two times Melbourne Cup winner Peter Pan who was overhauling the winner, Sirius, after a chequered passage when a half length second in1944, and his half-sister Rainbird, the comfortable two lengths winner in1945. Among those behind Rainbird in the 26-runner field which contested her Cup were Peter (12th), appearing in the race for the third time, and the following year’s winner Russia.
Peter won several good races in Melbourne, but was well below the class of his half-sister Rainbird, a daughter of the Lyndhurst stud, Warwick champion Australian staying sire The Buzzard, sire also of 1940 Melbourne Cup winner Old Rowley. A Yorkshire Cup winner, Ascot Gold Cup third and one time claimant of the world record for a mile and a half, one later discounted,The Buzzard competed in England as The Bastard.
Raced by the breeder’s brother Chris Reid, Rainbird won eight races, including the Melbourne Cup, Wakeful Stakes, Port Adelaide Cup and South Australian St Leger, and finished second in the Victoria Oaks, Caulfield Cup and Sydney Cup. She and Peter were from Sequoia, a mare got by Heroic from a daughter of Lady Lybia, a sister to Lord Nolan, the1908 Melbourne Cup winner, and a three-quarter to Lord Cardigan, conquerer of Wakeful in the 1903 Cup and then second the next year.
Lord Nolan and Lord Cardigan were both raced by their breeder, John Mayo of Maitland, Hunter Valley. He also owned Black Swan, the grandam of Lady Lybia and Lord Cardigan and one of the foundation mares in Australian breeding whose dam was a mare of unknown maternal breeding. Although she was herself a slow maturer and at her best at 2400m or further, Rainbird has become the matriarch of a family that has been the source of many brilliant horses, a lot of them bred by Sydney solicitor and long term Sydney Turf Club committeeman Don Story using speed prepotent sires.
One of the latest successes for family is Sydney’s budding Black Caviar, the 4-year-old gelding Rain Affair, a four lengths winner of the $200,000 Expressway Stakes at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday. Bred and raced Don Story, Rain Affair has now appeared ten times, all in Sydney and as a short priced favourite, for nine wins, the last eight in succession, and a second. He is by Australia’s most prolific sire Commands, a Darley Danehill, is inbred 3x3 to super broodmare Eight Carat and maternally 4x4 to Sir Tristram and the first five dams were all bred by Story.He got into the family when he acquired Rain Mist, a1955 Victorian foaled mare by Helios, a Hyperion sire whose offspring included1953 Melbourne Cup winner Wodalla, and from Rainbird. Rain Mist, won only one race – at 1000m, but was a half-sister to Raindear, winner of the South Australian Oaks and VRC Wakeful Stakes and second in the VRC Oaks.
Rain Affair, the latest star for the family, is a half-brother to Anything, a winner of four in Sydney, and from the Octagonal mare I Believe, one of four winners from Rain In Spain, a mare by the Sir Tristram Golden Slipper winner Marauding. All were winners in Sydney for Story. Also a winner in Sydney, Rain In Spain, was from the Crown Jester mare Rain Cloud, a half-sister to BeenThere (by the Ribot sire Boucher), a leader of his generation at two and three. Raced by Don Story and his now deceased wife Val, Been There won four races at two, including the STC Silver Slipper, Newcastle Penfolds Classic and Illawarra Brambles Classic, and finished second in the Golden Slipper. He did not win a stakes at three, but ran second in Sydney in the Spring Champion Stakes, Hill Stakes, Up and Coming Stakes and San Domenico. Been There sired winners from limited support at stud.
Another leading 2-year-old bred by the Storys but one of the few sold off as a yearling was Rainbeam, a filly bred on a cross of two of the most spectacular Golden Slipper winners, Vain over the Story bred Rain Shadow, a daughter of Todman and Rain Mist. Raced by Jim Fleming, the founder of the Tyreel stud, Hawkesbury valley, Rainbeam at two in Sydney won the Silver Slipper and Widden Stakes, finished second in the Gimcrack Stakes, Reisling Slipper Trial, third Magic Night Quality and fifth in the Golden Slipper. In 16 years of matings, Rainbeam only produced six foals and two winners, one of which was the Fleming bred Centaine, a son of Century who won six races to Group 3, finished second in the Manikato and Sandown Guineas and third in the Futurity and George Ryder.
A top sire in New Zealand, Centaine is a brother to unraced Reigntaine, dam of seven winners, three of them the stakes winners Galapagos Girl, Kampaign and Procrastinate. A daughter of the Mr. Prospector sire Jade Hunter, Procrastinate has been a wonderful broodmare in different ownerships. Four stakes winners have included two Danehills, Laisserfaire, a champion in South Africa, and Foreplay, a VRC Newmarket third and sire of 2010 Golden Slipper second Foreplay, and the Redoute’s Choice colt Time Thief, runner up in the Caulfield Guineas.
Another healthy branch of the Rainbird family established by Don Story has been through one of the early foals he bred using Rain Mist, the unraced Empyrean (GB) mare Rain Again. Inbred 2x3 to Hyperion, Rain Again is the grandam of Misty Vain, a Vain winner of nine races, six in Melbourne, third VRC Newmarket and dam of ten winners, including the Whiskey Road Group 2 winners Tennessee Vain and Tennessee Jack.Tennessee Vain added to the history as the dam of three Bletchingly stakes winners, Tennessee Morn, Tennessee Mist and Tennessee Magic. The latter produced Light Fingers Stakes winner Trezevant and Tennessee Morn is the grandam of the Encosta de Lago Group1 winner Aloha.
The family produced more class this week when the Arrowfield stud bred and Melbourne Premier yearling sale sold Snitzel filly Snitzerland followed up a debut short head second in a Listed event at Flemington on Melbourne Cup day with a slashing 4.5 lengths win in the $250,000 Inglis Premier at Mornington on Wednesday, an effort that suggested a good Golden Slipper prospect. Raced out of the Gerald Ryan Caulfield stables by Encompass Bloodstock and Black Caviar part owner Neil Wherrett’s bloodstock company, she is the fourth winner from Monte Rosa, an unraced sister by the Lindsay Park used imported Caulfield Cup winner Fraar to Nina Haraka, winner of the Adelaide Guineas and placegetter in four Group1s in Melbourne.The grandam was a half-sister Tennessee Vain.
There have been many more good winners descending from the daughter of Rainbird that winged its way to Don Story over sixty years ago and perusal of the mouth watering Inglis 2012 Sydney Easter yearling catalogue suggests there are many more to come. The representatives listed for the sale include an Encosta de Lago colt out of Procrastinate; a Red Ransom filly from Procrastinate’s stakes placed Danehill Dancer product Patasi; a Redoute’s Choice colt from another daughter of Procrastinate, the Galileo Queen of Adelaide Stakes winner Personify; an Exceed and Excel colt from Procrastinate’s half-sister Galapagos Girl; a Fastnet Rock colt from Tennessee Sunrise, an End Sweep grandaughter of Tennessee Vain; and a Savabeel brother to Moonee Valley Fillies Classic winner My Emotion from Midnight Rock, a third generation descendant of Tennessee Vain.
Courtesy of Brian Russell Bloodstock Media Service
