Five Major Stud Farms Vying for Rebel Dane

Hot off the back of a remarkable victory for Fireburn March 19 in the Longines Golden Slipper Stakes (G1) at Rosehill Gardens, the filly's breeder and part-owner Louis Mihalyka has told ANZ Bloodstock News that five major Hunter Valley studs have thrown their hats in the ring to stand his currently homeless stallion Rebel Dane  on their rosters for the upcoming breeding season.

Mihalyka, who bred Rebel Dane under his Laurel Oak banner and raced the dual group 1 winner with yesterday's Golden Slipper-winning trainer Gary Portelli, was still basking in the delight and disbelief of the feats of his star filly Fireburn after Saturday's incredible success in Australia's crowning juvenile showpiece. 

"We're absolutely euphoric," Mihalyka said yesterday, having not long concluded a celebratory lunch with connections. "You go into the races as a live hope when you're fourth favorite. The horse had been clearly in good form ... But when she came, she just went so quickly, it's scary. To win by two and a half lengths, you just think, 'what just happened?'." 

Following Fireburn's win in the Furphy Sweet Embrace Stakes (G2) at Randwick Racecourse Feb. 26, it was announced that Rebel Dane would be moved from Glen Eden Stud, his Victorian home of the last two covering seasons, with the intention of placing the son of California Dane  in the New South Wales breeding heartlands of the Hunter Valley. 

With no deal as yet struck for the 12-year-old, events over the weekend markedly increased his appeal to some of the Hunter Valley's most prominent stallion operations.

"It couldn't have worked out better for what we were hoping to achieve," Mihalyka said. "We have in the past 24 hours, pleasingly, been contacted by five of the major studs in the Hunter Valley. We want to give the horse the best possible opportunities in terms of numbers, although Glen Eden did a sterling job in getting him to 50 last season and worked extremely hard to achieve that. A stud with a high profile may find it easy to take that from 50 to 100."

"At the moment no one has ever offered to buy equity in the horse, they've only offered to stand him at different deals. And if there's a stud that has belief in the horse to buy equity in the stallion, well that's going to suit the owners."

The level of interest in Rebel Dane has prompted his consortium of owners, which includes Silverdale Farm's Steve Grant and Kenny Lowe, to employ an agent for discussions between interested parties in order to act as the focal point in negotiations. 

"Tomorrow morning we'll have an independent person, a well-known bloodstock agent, appointed to handle the enquiries and do all the communication at an arm's length basis," Mihalyka said. "There's five owners (in Rebel Dane) and two of them are active in the promotion of the stallion, so rather than individuals being contacted and passing things on, we decided we had to formalize it so we're getting one person to go and coordinate and communicate. But we're absolutely rapt with the response that we've had today.

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The struggles to stand Rebel Dane at stud following his 40-race career, one which yielded victories in the Clamms Seafood Invitation Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes (G1) and William Hill Manikato Stakes (G1) among eight wins, have been well told, with a deal eventually secured for the stallion to stand at Swettenham Stud for his first two seasons, before his move to Glen Eden. 

From four crops to have been born, Rebel Dane has 68 live foals with his 14 runners so far having yielded six winners, with Fireburn joining juvenile group 3 winner Subterranean as one of two stakes winners for the stallion, making for an eye-catching 14.3% stakes-winners-to-runners ratio, a figure that surpasses that of the now infamous sire of last year's Golden Slipper-winning sire with limited numbers. 

"Before the race, we were having a little bit of banter with our friends at Newgate, as with Fireburn's Sweet Embrace win, Rebel Dane had leapfrogged Extreme Choice as the leading sire of group-winners-to-runners in Australia. It's small numbers, but we're now ahead," Mihlayka said. He's gone to an extra level and his horses, if you have a look at them race, almost all of them run well, but if you have a look at the pedigrees of the mares, you go 'how?', because they are modest to say the least."

Of the 67 mares Rebel Dane received in his first two years at stud, around half were sent by clients of Laurel Oak Bloodstock involved with Rebel Dane, who although benefiting from the lack of a payable service fee, made a sizable gamble in placing much of their broodmare resources in an unproven and unfancied stallion. 

As a result, the group did not send any mares to Rebel Dane during his years at Glen Eden, crops that have produced just 14 foals combined. 

Of the seven live foals from his 2020 crop, none which have been offered at auction this year, three—two fillies and a colt—were bred by Glen Eden Stud's Sonia O'Gorman, while another colt out of Umatilla Girl was bred by Elaine Rawiller, mother of jockey, Nash Rawiller. 

The stallion produced four fillies and three colts in 2021.

"The owners didn't send any mares in his third or fourth seasons. We supported him so well in the first two years between the owners, so when you see those numbers of 30-odd mares, I reckon in the first year 15 were owners' mares and they weren't paying service fees. They were then either kept or sold as weanlings, all for not a lot of money," Mihalyka said.

"We've copped a financial fizzling with the mares they've put to Rebel Dane, and we only have about an intake of ten or 12 mares a year. We didn't want to be committed to too many Rebel Danes, so we didn't send mares as we had plenty and we wanted to see how it all turned out. It's a great regret that we didn't send any mares but we've all got them back there now and in foal."

One mare that Mihalyka and Laurel Oak did send to Rebel Dane in his second year was Fireburn's dam Mull Over, a daughter of So You Think , who was picked out at the 2018 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale for $22,000 with the explicit intention of being sent to Rebel Dane. 

Mull Over traces back to her U.S. grade 3-winning fourth dam Shake A Leg , with her second dam being the Flight Stakes (G1) winner Danarani, by Danehill. 

The result is a unique breeding combination of two of Australia's most successful imported stallions, Danehill and More Than Ready  . 

"We're at the broodmare sales and we're looking for mares for Rebel Dane," Mihalyka recalled. "I personally have felt that while inbreeding to Danehill has got question marks over it, the top and bottom 3×4 inbreed to Danehill has got a good strike-rate. Before the weekend it had only one group 1 winner which is Seabrook, but a lot of group winners, and from not a lot of runners."