Gai Waterhouse | Gai Waterhouse News 55833 End Of Financial Year Findings 202223

End Of Financial Year Findings 2022/23

Mon, Jul 17, 2023

End Of Financial Year Findings 2022/23

This time last year we wrote a piece titled, 'End Of Financial Year Findings' in which we compared our season versus previous years, and concluded that our goal for 2022/23 would be to build our average earnings per start to $20,000 or more for our owners.

With the Australian racing season (1 August - 31 July) nearly mirroring the Australian financial year (1 July - 30 June) we thought it would be interesting to review our results with a detailed look at the numbers.

All in all it has again been a record breaking season for the stable and our owners on a number of counts, and importantly we achieved our key goal with an average of $26,076 in earnings per race start.

Here is a quick overview of the results out of Tulloch Lodge since Adrian joined Gai in partnership thanks to racingandsports.com.au (remembering there is still just over two weeks to go in the racing season):

*Table as at 14th July

We are on track to saddle up close to our average number of race starts in a season (800) across Australia, which makes sense given our stable capacity has not changed, but our prize-money earnings is well up (26% up on our record of 2021/22) as is our average prize-money earned per race start (45% up on our record of last season).

Nothing Without You:

Before we dig any deeper on the numbers we would just like to highlight that none of this increased success could happen without:

  • You, the owners, who give us the opportunity to train the highest quality bloodstock in Australia.
  • A great team of people at Tulloch Lodge who care for the athletes in our stable with the highest marks of professionalism to ensure they have the competitive edge on race day. The happiest (mental) & healthiest (physical) racehorses win the races.
  • Prize-money levels in Australia continue to rise and our owners are benefactors of a sport with good governance and wide relevance in Australia.
Thank you, and let's keep winning together.

Stakes Wins - Diversity and Travel:

One key highlight of the season is the stakes win tally of 31 for our owners, another new record for our stable this season. These feature race wins have contributed significantly to our stable's prize-money earnings and to the trophy cabinets of our owners. The diversity of our stable has been another highlight with our stakes wins ranging from Gai and Adrian's first ever Gimcrack Stakes win with 2YO Platinum Jubilee over 1000m at Randwick, to 4YO Goldman's 2600m Roy Higgins win at Flemington. Our distance ranges were split evenly with 15 stakes races won at a mile and beyond, and 16 coming under 1600m.

It was a case of "have float and fast horse so will travel" for Adrian and Gai too, with 18 of our stakes wins coming outside of the NSW border with black type wins secured in Tasmania (4), South Australia (1), Victoria (6), ACT (1) and Queensland (6). 

Group 1 winners: 

Our Group 1 win tally was in line with previous years, with Alligator Blood without doubt the stable Champion for 2022/23 with three Group 1 wins, banking $3.55m for his efforts. Compare this to our highest money earners from previous seasons, Knights Order ($1.24m) Farnan ($2.5m), Global Glamour ($1.2m), Dawn Passage ($1m),and English ($900k).

Our Group 1 wins also included Gai and Adrian's first ever ATC Derby at Randwick. Gai had placed many times in the race previously so it was very exciting to see Major Beel take his earnings this season to $1.25m (2nd highest stable earner) with his win in this time honoured Group 1. 

Metropolitan Measure:

Interestingly this season Adrian and Gai have trained 95 Metropolitan winners with only marginally more runners (482 vs 464) than in 2021/22 where they trained 64 winners. There win strike rate was 19.7% as a result, the industry leader for this measure amongst the top 20 Metropolitan trainers this season.

Win/Place Ratio:

Rob Waterhouse implores that a stable's ability can be measured through their win/place ratio for the season, along with their winners to starters ratio. You will note we have included this % in the table this year. Where the median ratio for winners versus placegetters (making up the top 3 finishers in a race) equals 33%, a number higher than this reflects a stable that can prepare, place and execute the correct race tactics to the advantage of their runners (and their owners). Based on this measure you can see the stable this year was overachieved again this year, a great testament to our teams on the ground, in the saddle and in the office. 

2YO Wins:

We have included this column in our table just because it is interesting to note the increased success in this category. Adrian and Gai trained more 2YO winners this season than anyone else in Australia with 33. This mark is 30% better than any year previous, perhaps a mixture of the increased quality the stable is securing to train and an upgraded 2YO system that now includes Goulburn, as well as breakers and educators who are becoming increasingly fine tuned to what Adrian and Gai expect of a yearling when they arrive at Randwick for the first time. This impressive 2YO success would strongly suggest that the stable is well set up for more success on all our tabled measures over the next couple of seasons.

Interestingly, to back up this point, Gai in her own right set a record of 36 2YO wins in 2012/13, the year of Pierro, No Looking Back, Driefontein and the like. The following season she set her all time season prize-money earning record ($18.8m). 

Goals:

Our goal at Tulloch Lodge for next season is to make the benefit of having horses trained at Tulloch Lodge go even further for our owners in 2023/24. With quality young stock & lightly tried talent coming through set to bolster our proven quality performers, we feel we can build on our average of $25,000 in earnings per start next season while remaining committed to placing & preparing our horses to advantage. Whilst we won't lose focus on the important experience of racehorse ownership at Tulloch Lodge, we feel this metric is a good way to measure & track our value provided to owners on the performance side of the business. With this in mind we are proud of the fact that our $26,076 prize-money per start average puts us firmly in the Top 5 stables in Australia (300 starts and above).

Future:

Securing the stable's future starts at the sales in the early part of each calendar year and we still have a number of young athletes (yearlings who turn two-years-old on 1 August) to get involved in before the new season begins. See the full list here and let our team know if you have any questions in terms of their progress and price.

A Highlight:

One filly we know a good bit about at this early stage is the Zoustar out of Fox Swift we purchased at Magic Millions January in conjunction with Bennett Racing. Like the stable, her sire Zoustar has enjoyed a fantastic season with over $15m in progeny earnings at an average of $44,000 prize-money won per start. The young sire we identified on his rise sits inside the top 5 stallions in Australia for the first time in 2022/23 and accordingly, Widden Stud have increased his stud fee to $220,000 incl GST this season.

Zoustar x Fox Swift '21 Filly -  Ladies Only

Sale: Magic Millions

Purchase Price: $370,000

Shares Available: Yes

Our Zoustar x Fox Swift filly was purchased for a very palatable $370,000 given her profile which factors in a number of things in her favour:

  • Zoustar is an exceptional sire of fillies - with 6% stakes winners to runners and eight of his 10 stakes winners this season being of the fairer sex.
  • Zoustar's love Tulloch Lodge - We have been lucky enough to train four of his 10 stakes winners this season including 3yo Group 2 winner NORTH STAR LASS, Listed winning 2yos PLATINUM JUBILEE & ZIA, and Caloundra, McKell and Grafton Cup winner ZOUMON.
  • Fillies family - Our Zoustar filly further hails from a family littered with stakes winners, four inside her first three dams and interestingly they are all female. She is the second foal of Listed winner Fox Swift whose granddam was Champion 3YO sprinter Pay My Bail who in turn produced multiple Group 2 winner White Moss and Listed winner White Sage.
  • Zoustar loves Fastnet Rock mares - he has sired 36 runners out of Fastnet mares for 27 winners (75%) and 8 stakes horses (22%) including his Group 1 winner this season ZOUGOTCHA, and our very own stable star 2YO PLATINUM JUBILEE. Fox Swift is a well performed daughter of Fastnet Rock's son Foxwedge, she she is bred on this same cross.

FILLIES ONLY: to bring this filly all together, she will be raced by a ladies only partnership which will ensure a lot of fun, plus the added bonus of the extra prize-money the all female syndicates' can run for at Magic Millions.

See her photos and pedigree online here.

See her latest video update here.

Video Of The Week:

This week Adrian sits down with Emma and Bruce to share his reasoning for the numbers this season, and he tells us more about the Zoustar x Fox Swift filly and what to expect of her moving forward.

Click here to watch the video preview.

To find out more, please contact our Sales team:

Yours in racing,

Gai & Adrian