Australian champion and dual Group 1 winner Prowess (NZ) (Proisir {Aus}) will be offered on Gavelhouse Plus in a special standalone sale from Aug. 2-8, the online sales company announced on Friday.
Bred by Hallmark Stud, Ltd., the bay brought NZ$230,000 at the New Zealand Bloodstock National Yearling Sale in 2021 and raced for a family syndicate led by Dean Skipper. Trained by Roger James and Robert Well, Prowess won her only start as a 2-year-old, and won six of her eight starts at three. After placing in the G3 Soliloquy Stakes and the G1 New Zealand 2000 Guineas, she rattled off five consecutive stakes victories beginning with the G2 Auckland Guineas, then the Karaka Million 3YO Classic, the G2 David & Karyn Ellis Fillies' Classic, and the G1 Bonecrusher New Zealand. She won her fifth stakes in succession across the Tasman at Rosehill when successful in the G1 Vinery Stud Stakes. Her efforts at three also awarded her the accolade of Australian Champion Middle Distance Horse in 2023. Kept in training at four, she added the G2 Crystal Mile and, after sustaining an injury, was retired with a mark of 12-8-1-2 and $965,964 in earnings.
“She's taken us on an amazing ride and it's definitely a shame that it's coming to an end,” Skipper said. “We have some mixed emotions about putting her up for sale. But the way we look at it is that we were just so fortunate to have had one as good as her, and now she's ready to go on to the next stage of her career.
“She's bright and well and a happy horse. She could probably even have made it back to the racetrack if we wanted to wait a bit longer. But she's at a premium stage of her life to start her breeding career now, and we always set it up so that we would sell her at around this time and have her in the best possible condition for that.”
A full-sister to Prowess topped the New Zealand Bloodstock Book 1 Yearling Sale at NZ$1.6 million in 2023.
“It was unbelievable to see the full-sister sell for such a big price at Karaka earlier in the year,” Skipper said. “It shows how highly the family is regarded now, and it's a great reward for the hard work that Mark Baker and the Hallmark team have put in.
“Based on that, I guess we could say that we got Prowess quite cheaply in hindsight. But it was still quite a heady price to pay at the time.”
A half-sister to the New Zealand stakes-placed Ajay Tee (NZ) (Foxwedge {Aus}), Prowess is the fourth foal out of the placed Don Eduardo (NZ) mare Donna Marie (NZ). Second dam Scarlet Runner (NZ) (Kingdom Bay {NZ}) captured the G2 Sir Tristram Classic, and also foaled the highly regarded Singapore stakes winner Onceuponatime (NZ) (Van Nistelrooy).
Skipper added, “We started to realise just how good she was when she won the Auckland Guineas, and it was a picket fence from there and she just kept raising the bar. Roger James has been training for a long time and has had some great horses in his stable, so when he started saying she was up there with the best he'd ever trained, it was incredibly exciting.
“One thing about her career that was very special was that we managed to capture the attention of a few people who weren't previously into racing. They got behind her and were opening up TAB accounts so that they could bet on her. That was another part of the experience that we really enjoyed.
“It was just so much fun and we can't thank everyone enough – the vets, spelling farms, the farriers and all the team at Kingsclere Stables. They're the ones getting up at 3 a.m. and putting in all that hard work. We just paid the bills and got to enjoy the end result. She gave us some incredible memories, and now we're looking forward to seeing what she can do in the broodmare paddock.”
For more information on Prowess, please visit the Gavelhouse Plus website.
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