“I’ve got Boomsara about to run at the Gold Coast in five minutes and I want to listen on the radio. I think she might be hard to beat,” he says.
In those spare few moments, he talks glowingly of Kinky Boom, a filly he bred and one that has the entire family — wife Grania, children Harry, Angus and Charlie — marching into Caulfield with high expectations before Saturday’s Blue Diamond Stakes at Caulfield.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a Blue Diamond runner, let alone a prospect that might run well in it,” McAlpine said. “For Eureka, I think it’s going to be a tremendous kick along.
“We will all be there and we will all be screaming.”
Kinky Boom was passed in as a yearling but she is proving a real winner for her band of owners and is among the favourites for the Blue Diamond.
Source:Getty Images
The call ends and Boomsara romps home, becoming the 10th individual winner for Eureka’s pride and joy, Spirit Of Boom. Life’s been like that for the McAlpines in the past six months.
“You couldn’t have dreamt the kind of run we’ve had,” he said.
“I’ve got so many bruises from pinching myself my arms are black instead of white.
“The ride at the moment is enormous. The number of horses we’ve got in work and they’re all performing.”
It wasn’t like that not so long ago.
McAlpine had to take significant financial risk to secure Spirit Of Boom, because standing stallions in Queensland has become a problematic exercise.
It wasn’t an easy sell at the sale either.
Kinky Boom was passed in through the ring, barely attracting a bidder in Melbourne last year.
McAlpine had to call on an old friendship to coax Tony McEvoy into even looking at the filly.
“I told him she would suit him and he liked her enough to agree.
“He said, ‘you’re a bloody good salesman.’ I had 40 per cent already sold and Tony was able to sell the other 60 per cent. Selling a Spirit Of Boom in Victoria wasn’t easy and I don’t think they were flocking to him for shares in her, but he got her sold.
“Fortunately, now it looks like being a good deal for all of us.”
Kinky Boom sports the McAlpine family’s Eureka Stud colours. Scott’s son Harry took 20 per cent and split it up with a big group of mates. Eureka kept 10 per cent and Phoenix Park, in whose draft the filly was offered at sale, took 10 per cent after taking a shine to her.
“I hadn’t met a lot of people in the horse before her first run, but they seem a great bunch and they are all so excited about this weekend. I can’t blame them,” Scott said. “It doesn’t matter if they have one per cent — they all get the same good time.”
McAlpine says McEvoy has been a little conservative in his assessment of Kinky Boom to this point, perhaps diplomatically, given he has two other runners in the race.
But the tone of champion jockey Craig Williams gives the team cause for lofty expectations.
“When he got off after her debut win, I asked him after the race if he would like to ride her in the Diamond,” McAlpine said. “And he said, ‘she’s as good a filly as I’ve ridden going into the Diamond’. He was confident from the word go and from what she showed him in that run. Since then Tony has said the more he feeds her, the bigger she gets and the faster she goes. Hopefully ability can overcome the barrier.”
Spirit Of Boom’s stocks rising fast
KINKY Boom’s performance in the Group 1 Blue Diamond and the plight of Ef Troop and Outback Barbie as they head towards the Golden Slipper will have a big bearing on what fee their sire Spirit Of Boom will stand at this year.
Whatever happens, it’s sure to be a quantum leap on the $10,000 he has stood for so far.
And rightly so. Spirit Of Boom’s blazing start compares favourably to what some of the elite sires to have stood in Australia over the past two decades did with their first crops.
Reigning champion sire Snitzel had 31 runners for 10 winners and just the lone stakes winner in his first season.
Spirit Of Boom has already surpassed Snitzel’s first season deeds, having 10 winners and four of them at black type level, still with five months of the season to run. Snitzel’s dad Redoute’s Choice had 28 runners for five winners (two stakes winners) in his first year.
Spirit Of Boom’s service fee is set for a sharp increase next season. Picture: Adam ArmstorngSource:News Corp Australia
As an aside, Redoute’s Choice broke all records in his second season, with his 23 individual winners, including 10 stakes winners for earnings of $5.9m (2004-05).
Even the great Danehill only had nine winners in his first season in Australia, highlighted by four stakes winners, including Golden Slipper winner Danzero.
Exceed And Excel had 13 winners in his first season (five stakes winners), while I Am Invincible had 15 winners from 45 runners, including three stakes winners.
The biggest indicator of how a stallion is perceived is in the sale ring and Spirit Of Boom’s status was franked at the Magic Millions in January. His yearlings sold up to $500,000, a figure revered bloodstock agent James Harron was prepared to pay for a colt from Tiyatro.
Spirit Of Boom has achieved his feats to date from a lesser quality of mare than all of those, bar perhaps I Am Invincible, were afforded.
That is set to change this year, with McAlpine facing the difficult task of having to turn loyal clients away, because demand will outweigh practical capabilities.
Classy filly Kinky Boom will line-up in the Blue Diamond at only her second start.
Source:Getty Images
“We will fee announce at Easter time,” Eureka Stud’s Scott McAlpine said. “The Golden Slipper will determine where we go with it. Hopefully we get a Slipper runner, a placegetter or maybe even a winner.”
While the last few months have been like a dream for McAlpine with progeny winning one after another, the prospects of Spirit Of Boom being a successful stallion dated back to soon after last year’s sales season.
“The inkling came when they were broken in. They seemed to know what they were doing,” he said. “We knew that from the yearling prep they were a bit out of the box and that gave us a bit more confidence.
“Tony Gollan was the first trainer to give us an inkling. He said they were showing him exactly what Spirit Of Boom was showing him in the beginning.
“Other trainers then had similar reports.”
