Aldebaran Park News Update April 2017

Sky’s the limit!

What a month for our flagship sire SKYVALLEY!

SKYVALLEY sired eight individual winners including two two-year-olds and is currently the third leading Australian-based trotting stallion and the outright leading sire of two-year-olds.

Bonny mare Sky Petite was undoubtedly the Horse of the Month in April. The mare captured the Group 3 $25,000 Shepparton Trotters Cup and the Connelly Crystal Bucket (Echuca), the latter in track record time off a 20 metre handicap.

She also finished runner-up in the Group 1 $50,000 Australasian Trotting Championship at Melton and boasts lifetime earnings of $140,185 to be the biggest stakes earner of her sire.

Rift Valley, one of SKYVALLEY’s second crop, scored her most important success when she won the VSTA Trotters Cup at Melton, lifting her earnings over the $50,000 plateau.

Aldebaran Pete, bred by Aldebaran Park out of Aldebaran Deegan, and Reils, both members of SKYVALLEY’S current two-year-old crop, were successful in April. Aldebaran Pete was a convincing winner of the Abrahams 2YO Trotters Classic at Shepparton, while Reils won twice at Globe Derby Park by a combined margin of 52 metres!

Tornado Valley (Addington, NZ), Spotlight The Valley (Winton, NZ), My Skypocket (Ararat) and Sosogood (Victor Harbor) were other recent winners sired by SKYVALLEY.

While EILEAN DONON’s daughter Nica Macdonon won a heat of the VSTA Cup at Maryborough and finished third in the Final.

Another Love and Awesome Lover, a couple of NZ-based Aldebaran Park-owned broodmares, have been in the news recently. Another Love, a five-win Love You mare, ranks as a sister to the dual Derby winner Enghein ($209,323), while Awesome Lover is the dam of the ill-fated Riccardo, a winner of four of his nine starts.

The Aldebaran Park draft sold extremely well at the Australasian Premier Trotting Sale with nine lots selling for a total of $180,500, an average price of $20,055.

We offered the highest priced yearling and the equal second leading colt at the sale, Aldebaran Aliza, a Muscle Hill filly out of Kyvalley Aldebaran for a national record $55,000 and Aldebaran Sunny, a SKYVALLEY-Sundonna colt who fetched $30,000.

On the international front, Aldebaran Eagle Tr 3, 1:53.2, a Stakes winner of $237,573 in America, has flown into NZ to commence a ‘Down Under’ campaign with champion Kiwi horseman Mark Purdon. The son of Muscle Hill will stand stud at the end of his racetrack career.

Aldebaranwalkabout, a two-year-old Muscle Hill colt out of Aldebaran Turnpike, a Cantab Hall mare purchased at the Lexington sales by Aldebaran Park, has arrived in America to commence work with the champion Swedish-born New Jersey-based trainer Jonas Czernyson.

Two heats of the Aldebaran Park Monte Championship were decided in April. Brent Lilley and Jackie Barker combined to win with Conon Bridge at Maryborough, while Graeme Lang and Haley Toulmin won with Save Our Pennys at Melton.

News