Sire: Galileo
Colour: Bay
Dam: Airwave
Sex: Gelding
Age: 7
Foaled: Feb 13, 2017
Country: Australia
We have recently purchased KEATS, an Irish-bred son of super sire GALILEO who is closely related to European CHAMPION and now stallion CHURCHILL. A change of environment, the right placement and most importantly, the finesse of the airborne GAVIN BEDGGOOD, can see this gelding find the WINNERS CIRCLE again in Victoria.
By GALILEO who was one of the most sought-after sires in the world after siring the likes of FRANKEL, HIGHLAND REEL, CHURCHILL, ANTHONY VAN DYCK, ADELAIDE and over 220 other GROUP WINNERS. Out of AIR EXPRESS mare AIRWAVE who was named CHAMPION 3YO Female Sprinter in Great Britain in 2003. MEOW is the half-sister to Keats and she is also the dam of EUROPEAN CHAMPION and now stallion, CHURCHILL.
Keats has a benchmark rating of 70, which makes him very easy to place in Victoria. We believe Gavin Bedggood is the right man to do the job and help Keats find some of his old form to get back to the Winners’ Circle. Off the data of his runs in Australia, Keats has been performing very well and has recorded some figures good enough to win at BM78 and BM84 grades. Some of his best performances have been over 1600m and Gavin believes he can train some speed back into his legs to get him winning over that distance range again. A BM70 on a Wednesday in Victoria will pay $30,250 to the winner, already winning back his fall of hammer price. If he gets back to BM78 Saturday level, which we think he can, he would be racing for $71,500 to the winner.
Originally trained by Aidan O’Brien at Ballydoyle, the training facility for Coolmore in Ireland. Keats won 3 races in Ireland including a Listed victory before Bloodstock agent Paul Moroney and his training brother Mike Moroney bought Keats from Newmarket in late 2020 for $386,000. We paid $25,000 fall of hammer for Keats and believe that was outstanding value considering his potential in Victoria, where there is fantastic prize-money on offer.
Keats arrived at the stables of Gavin Bedggood this morning and as you’ll hear in the video above, he is very impressed already. Our relationship with Gavin so far has been fruitful with our $16,000 purchase, Field Of Roses, winning in his first start for us, recouping his purchase price immediately. He has now taken his owners to Flemington and onto Caulfield this weekend. Gavin has an outstanding record with tried horses and his ability to find every possible piece of improvement means he gets the results on the track, currently going at 18% from his last 50 runners.
In a similar style to Keats, not winning for a couple of years, Paperboy was given to Gavin to train earlier this year. Having not won since 2020, in his 4 starts for Gavin so far, Paperboy has won 2 races at Caulfield, narrowly beaten for 2nd in another and the same again at Flemington. Not to mention, he has banked over $160,000 in those 4 starts. An added bonus is that Gavin is an outstanding communicator and keeps you all up to date with how your horse is going with excellent videos and audios each week.
Interest has been very strong for this purchase as you’d expect with this price point, this trainer and the ability Keats has shown so far.
If you have any questions, please contact Jono:
jono@themailbag.com.au