Racehorse TALK

Brad Waters
Wednesday, 22 July 2009


Last Saturday’s impressive Caulfield winner Inkster has been retired to stud, ending speculation about her immediate future.

Inkster easily took out the Glasshouse Handicap (2400m) and her trainer, Mick Price, said in a post-race interview the mare should be kept in work but her managing owners, Blue Gum Farm, had other ideas.

“We’ve decided to retire her,” Blue Gum Farm’s client relations manager Darryl Sherer said. “She left the stable on Monday and she’s now back home here at Euroa to get ready for the breeding season.”

Sherer said Inkster had earned her retirement and said Blue Gum Farm principal Phillip Campbell had resisted the temptation to keep chasing further riches with the daughter of Umatilla.

“She’s a stakeswinner and a group placegetter so she’s done a terrific job,” Sherer said. “She’s sound and in great condition and she doesn’t owe us anything so Philip (Campbell) decided she had done enough.”

Sherer said a decision on a stallion to serve the rising five-year-old mare was yet to be made but Blue Gum Farm’s resident stallion Elvstroem was the logical choice to serve Inkster.

“She’s got a decent pedigree and her racetrack performance mean she would be considered an attractive proposition for their stallion by most studs,” Sherer said.

“There won’t be a final decision until next week but it’s going to be Elvstroem or even maybe a sire like Encosta De Lago could be considered.”

Inkster won five of her 16 career starts and just under $250,000 in prizemoney with her best performance being a dead heat for first in the 2008 VRC St Leger.