Title: "Starlust: The New Star Stallion Set to Shine at Riverstone Lodge"
By Daniel Harrold
Breeders’ Cup winner Starlust (Zoustar) will be an exciting addition to Australia’s stallion ranks with the Grade 1 winner set to stand his first season at Nick Taylor’s up-and-coming Riverstone Lodge for an introductory fee of $27,500 (inc GST).
With a Royal Ascot target in the King Charles III Stakes (Gr 1, 5f) still to come in June, excitement surrounds the current highest-rated son of Zoustar (Northern Meteor). Bred by Branton Court Stud, Starlust hails from Zoustar’s second northern hemisphere-bred crop who were conceived at Tweenhills Farm & Stud in Gloucestershire.
Trained by Ralph Beckett in the UK for the Hay family, the now four-year-old Starlust racked up a win in the Sirenia Stakes (Gr 3, 6f), two further victories, and a third placing in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (Gr 1, 5f) as a two-year-old, but it was as a three-year-old that his career would fully blossom.
Following three respectable efforts over six furlongs at Meydan (twice) and Ascot, the colt was dropped to five furlongs for six of his remaining eight three-year-old starts – a move that would prove career-defining.
An easy win in a Class 2 handicap at York was backed up later in the season by a Listed success and a third placing in the Nunthorpe Stakes (Gr 1, 5f), where he finished a neck ahead of reigning King Charles III Stakes heroine Asfoora (Flying Artie).
But it was at a place famously coined by Big Crosby ‘where the turf meets the surf’ that Starlust would make his name known on the worldwide stage when he produced rousing success in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (Gr 1, 5f) at Del Mar, flying home under Rossa Ryan to score by a neck.
“I watched the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint and saw the horse [Starlust] run on by Cogburn, who is such an elite sprinter, and did some research into the horse and we felt he’d be so easy to mate out in Australia,” Taylor told ANZ Bloodstock News of Starlust, who will be the first stallion acquisition for Riverstone Lodge.
“He’s got the best profile of any son of Zoustar at stud and he’s quite unique being out of an Invincible Spirit mare so that gives him every opportunity out here which was another key alongside his form.
“His form is world class, he’s the highest-rated son of Zoustar in the world and his pedigree would make sense in Australia. Obviously I Am Invincible is champion sire out here and he’s by Invincible Spirit [the same as Starlust’s dam] so we get the best of both worlds really. People know what works with I Am Invincible and they know what works with Zoustar so it is sort of the perfect storm.”
Taylor said he reached out to Dermot Farrington following Starlust’s victory at the Breeders’ Cup, who purchased the horse on behalf of Mrs Fitri Hay for 55,000gns at Book 2 of the 2022 Tattersalls October Yearling Sale.
“Immediately after the Breeders’ Cup I looked to see who purchased the horse or who was managing the horse and Dermot Farrington had bought him as a yearling for the Hays,” Taylor said.
“I reached out to Dermot and it grew from there with multiple conversations back and forth and we managed to work out a deal to get the horse to come out to Australia after he is retired.
“As a young farm starting out the business I just wanted to get the farm to a good level as far as the broodmares and yearlings go and to also run a high-level yearling consignment draft.
“I probably started to think about stallions and how we could transition into that next phase for around the last nine months. My plan wasn’t to sort of rush into standing any stallion, I wanted to try and wait for a high-level horse to launch as our first stallion which I feel we have.”
Retirement is not yet the plan for Starlust, who is currently still in training with Beckett in Kimpton, Hampshire, and is being targeted at a second Group 1 prize in the King Charles III Stakes – a race in which he will once again take on Henry Dwyer’s current champion Asfoora.
“He is still in training currently and will be targeted at the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot before then coming over to start his covering duties where he will remain with us,” Taylor said.
“We have high expectations going to Ascot. He’s an elite horse and wouldn’t be going there if he wasn’t well – so it’s full steam ahead really.”
A New Zealander by birth, Taylor has immersed himself in the Australian racing scene ever since arriving in the country following his school days.
“I’m from New Zealand and moved to Australia pretty much when I left school to gain more experience and I haven’t really looked back,” he said.
“I got the bug and I love Australian racing and the community, everything about Australia – I just couldn’t go back.
“A lot of my friends were travelling to America and England and Ireland but I was very sure what I wanted to try and achieve early doors, and was pretty focused on how to get there.
“I would say that things have evolved faster than I could’ve imagined, but it’s been a lot of hard work to get here. Integrity is a big factor for me in how quickly the farm has evolved.”
Starting out with a job in nominations at Newgate Farm – where he worked alongside good friend and mentor Bruce Slade – Taylor made connections and gained enough confidence to branch out and lease his own property.
“It’s all evolved pretty quickly really,” Taylor, who has two children Logan and Chelsea, admitted. “I had a good job at Newgate in nominations and built up a lot of great relationships and contacts being there and working with Bruce Slade, who I’m still very good friends with and he is a great mentor.
“That gave me the confidence to reach out and start the farm and then it just snowballed from there. We started to lease the farm and then we bought the farm within 12 months and we’ve now leased another farm with a lot more acres to raise the horses right.
“I’m fairly young myself, being 31 and I’ve got two young kids and you want to be able to set something up for them.”
Taylor began his time at Riverstone producing yearling drafts at the major sales in Australia and has seen some excellent results in the last couple of years, including two big pinhook successes at this year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
“Starting out we didn’t have the mares so we had to build a draft and put a lot on the line to buy nice weanlings and raise them right, so we sort of backed ourselves from the very beginning,” he said.
“We put a lot into it and we got it right, got a lot of good feedback which was unreal for us and it sort of took off from there with people wanting to be involved and be clients. I’ve now got a great set of clients that are loyal and supportive too.
“Apart from the fact that we’re running a business and we’ve got margins to make, the fact these types of people are buying off us is the other great part. We had our first Magic Millions sale draft this year and we had a couple of pinhooks there, a Too Darn Hot filly that we bought for $150,000 and she sold for $420,000 to Gai Waterhouse, Adrian Bott and Kurrinda Bloodstock, and then a Zoustar colt that was $350,000 into $500,000 when selling to Bjorn Baker.
“So it is challenging yourself against the biggest studs in Australia – against their best bloodstock – when you’re coming in and putting it all on the line with pinhooks.
“I am very lucky that Suman Hedge and James Bester have supported the farm with some of their key clients and we’re heading in the right direction without being fully where I want us to be.
“Early doors Alex Kemp was originally a client but we’ve now become business partners. He’s now taken it to the next level because he’s an accountant by trade, so he focuses more on the financial side of things and I focus on the horses and the clientele. We’re a great team and that has taken the whole thing to a new level.”
Talking of new levels, the gravitas of standing a stallion is one that is not lost upon Taylor – and he is hoping to potentially expand on this breeding avenue in the coming years.
“We’d certainly look at wanting to stand more stallions, but I think I’d want to put the breeders first,” Taylor said.
“Have stallions that are elite but that are accessible to every type of breeder, we’re not looking to follow any other stud or farm but just do things my way really.”
A final word on Starlust and Taylor revealed the farm would be supporting the colt with their own mares, as well aiming to find others that could suit the four-year-old – who is out of the Group 3-winning Invincible Spirit (Green Desert) mare Beyond Desire.
“I will be supporting the horse heavily and also looking to buy the right type of mares for him,” Taylor added. “He will have a capped book, but we’re not set on a number just yet.
“I’ve seen him in the flesh and that was the biggest thing for me, I wanted him to look like an Australian type of horse and he’s just that.
“Big and powerful with plenty of gasket bone and just looks like he will suit all of the mares by the Danehill, Redoute’s Choice and Snitzel lines and he’s going to be able to cover those speed-type mares which is just hugely exciting.”
