Group win to Dan Baroness
Blue Gum bred and sold Dan Baroness enhanced her future Spring prospects with a dominant win in the Champagne Stakes (Gr 3) at Moone Valley on Saturday. The daughter of Statue Of Liberty (USA) looked as though she was again going to be a hard luck story coming to the home straight but once she found some room she quickened impressively to go on and register her first stakes success and the second from the first Australian crop of Statue Of Liberty. Read More
 

Blue Gum Stallions honoured
Blue Gum Farm was the proud recipient of three awards at the annual North East Thoroughbreds Awards dinner held in a magnificent marquee by Lake Nagambie on August 9. Statue Of Liberty (USA) took out the Goulburn Valley Equine Hospital Leading Freshman Sire Award as a result of his first crop’s wonderful achievements. Read More
 

This month we provide an insight into the steps we follow to produce you a healthy foal and to get your mare back in-foal.
This article is divided into two sections; dry mares and foaling mares. Read More
 

Princess Gisella Wins Cockram Stakes
Group 1-winning former Blue Gum Farm shuttler King Charlemagne (Nureyev-Race The Wild Wind, by Sunny's Halo) added a group success when 4YO mare Princess Gisella (King Charlemagne-Donvamore, by Rubiton) made it 3 successive wins with a 0.75-length victory in the $100,000 Group 3 Cockram Stakes. A $40,000 yearling from the fraft of Blue Gum Farm at the 2006 Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale now has 5 wins & 6 placings from 18 starts for $335,000 earnings. Read More
 

Statue takes title
Statue Of Liberty has joined our foundation sire Noalcoholic, Rancho Ruler, Umatilla, Kenvain and Encosta De Lago as a Champion Victorian First Season Sire from stud duties at Blue Gum Farm. A son of the remarkable Storm Cat from a peerless stallion producing female family, the true value of Statue Of Liberty is just being realised here now. With many anticipating his stock improving with maturity as they fill out their typically athletic frames, his record here will only be enhanced in the years ahead. Read More
 

Encosta highlights local success
Having been runner-up in three of the past four seasons to Danehill, Redoute’s Choice and Flying Spur, the former Blue Gum Farm resident Encosta De Lago has been crowned Australian Champion Sire for season 2007/2008. Standing his first season with us in 1997 for a fee of just $8,500, it is a remarkable result when one considers that all his runners, bar his two-year-olds, were conceived at Blue Gum Farm. Read More
 

More positive feedback
From a first season live foal crop of 139 there is no shortage of young Elvstroem two-year-olds that are being broken in and educated to stable life at the moment. We have spoken to a number of breakers and trainers and steadily they’ve been adding to a very positive outlook for the breed. Read More
 

Inking the Brand
‘From little things, big things grow.’ It may be the title of a Paul Kelly/Kev Carmody tune but it is a phrase that is certainly apt of the Mick Price-trained Melbourne Cup hopeful Inkster. The Umatilla filly, a half-sister to the Group placed six-time city winning Sorenstam, was bred and is raced by Blue Gum Farm. She stands an imposing 17 hands high and having just turned four, she is a lightly raced, Group placed Stakes winner and fully qualified for this years Cup. Tell a potential yearling buyer they could have that two years down the road and they’d surely rush your door. Read More
 

Strategic Prince
With a win in the Group 1 Prince Of Wales Stakes at Royal Ascot to make it three Group 1 wins in a row, the performances of Duke Of Marmalade continue to highlight the quality of Blue Gum Farm’s first season sire Strategic Prince. The pair met as two-year-olds in the Group 2 Vintage Stakes at Goodwood, with Strategic Prince displaying superior ability to take out the seven furlong contest by a neck. Third in, two lengths away, was another subsequent Group 1 winner in the Mark Johnston-trained Kirklees. Read More
 

Circles strikes Gold
Since our breeding landscape was revolutionised following Danehill’s first season at Arrowfield Stud in 1990, the Australian thoroughbred has built a growing reputation on the world scene through high quality racing. With the addition of this new gene pool, mares from Australia and New Zealand are now sought after with extraordinary purchasing power. Just prior to us going to press, the Danehill mare Milanova sold for $5 million! Not in their wildest dreams would Messrs Tagg, Meduri and Moffitt have thought that a mare could be worth such an amount 13 years earlier when their filly out of the Zamazaan mare Olympic Aim broke her maiden in Sydney. Read More
 

Paddock Improvements
As we head into winter, a time the horse population is at its lowest, Blue Gum Farm has just completed its annual pasture improvements. Bob Howie and his maintenance team have been on a tight schedule to complete the spraying and fertilizing of the entire property as well as the ongoing project of progressive re-sowings. Read More
 

Park Heiress
Special congratulations must go to our good friend Frank Meduri. Frank has a number of mares in residence at Blue Gum Farm, none more important now than Park Heiress, the half-sister to this year’s Epsom Derby winner New Approach. Frank purchased the Sadler’s Wells mare at the 2007 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale for $38,000. Read More
 

Umatilla – Proven value
Breeders looking for a proven stallion at a fantastic value fee this season need go no further than our very own Umatilla. The 1988 first foal of the 1983 Nijinsky mare Dancing Show, who has gone onto be the cornerstone of the most desirable bloodline in Australia, Umatilla was the first stallion from this branch of the Best In Show line to stud. In subsequent years he has been joined in these ranks by his half-brother Hurricane Sky, Platinum Scissors, Al Maher and the 2006/2007 Champion Sire Redoute’s Choice. Like Umatilla, all were Group 1 winners. Read More
 

Argonaut Update
News from the Lee Freedman stable has been nothing but positive with regards last seasons Champion South African two-year-old colt Argonaut. The striking chestnut, a dual Group 1 winning juvenile in his native land, was sent to Freedman’s Rye base in February after travelling to Australia and spelling here at Blue Gum Farm. “Lee came up to the farm in late January to look at the horse and we sat down and mapped out a plan then,” said Philip Campbell recently. Read More
 

Elvstroem’s rising two-year-olds
Much has been written about the manner in which the first crop progeny of Elvstroem were received at Australia and New Zealand’s major yearling sales, suffice to say that they generated terrific competition from all corners. It’s worth reflecting on the fact that from the 64 yearlings sold at the five major yearling sales (New Zealand Premier, New Zealand Select, Melbourne Premier, Magic Millions Gold Coast and Sydney Easter) Elvstroem returned an average of $115,789 and overall his yearlings grossed over $7.86 million across the two countries. Read More
 

Strategic Prince joins Blue Gum Farm roster
Blue Gum Farm is delighted to announce the addition of the magnificently credentialled Strategic Prince to its 2008 Stallion Roster. Strategic Prince was one of Europe’s leading two-year-olds of the 2006 season when he won three of his five starts, including a pair of Group 2 races, before placing third in the time honoured Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes at the end of the season. Read More
 

Umatilla Inks quality
Six days after Valedictum’s Stakes win, Umatilla was to the fore again with a double to a pair of three-year-old fillies, one of whom became his 29th individual Stakes-winner in the process. Highlighting the versatility of this beautifully bred son of Miswaki, the Wayne Nicholls-trained Devil May Care (Umatilla) won her third race from eight starts in the Tasman Handicap over 1,000 metres. Three races later and the Blue Gum Farm home-bred Inkster (Umatilla) put up a sterling performance in the VRC St Leger over 2,800 metres which saw her dead-heat for first with the classy South Australian-trained filly Moment In Time. Read More
 

Darryl Sherer joins the team
With the start of the 2008 stud season fast approaching, we are delighted to announce that Darryl Sherer has joined our team and is now based on the farm looking after Client Relations and Stallion Bookings. It is a case of the wheel turning full-circle for Darryl as he was given his first job in the industry by the late Graham Campbell, learning his trade at the ripe old age of 16 in the pedigree section of Wright Stephenson & Co at their old offices in Flemington. Read More
 

1st Stakes-Winner For Statue Of Liberty
Young Blue Gum Farm-based sire Statue of Liberty (USA) posted his first Australian stakes-winner when promising filly Elysees made a winning debut in the Listed SAJC Pewsey Vale Stakes at Morphettville on Adelaide Cup Day. Read More
 

1st Southern Winner For Statue Of Liberty
Blue Gum Farm shuttler and first-crop sire Statue Of Liberty (Storm Cat-Charming Lassie, by Seattle Slew) recorded his initial Southern Hemisphere winner when two-year-old colt Free Dive (Statue Of Liberty-Our Teneriffe, by Kenvain) scored a front-running victory over 1000m at Scone in the NSW Hunter Valley yesterday for trainer Rodney Northam. Read More
 

Elvstroem makes his debut
As the finishing touches are applied to Elvstroem’s first crop yearlings for the Melbourne Premier Sale, the results out of New Zealand Bloodstock’s National Sales Series at Karaka have sounded a ringing endorsement for the first crop of the five-time Group 1 winning son of Danehill. With just a handfull of yearlings on offer in New Zealand, sales of NZ$350,000, $260,000 and $210,000 highlighted the impression that Elvstroem’s progeny made on the buying bench there. Read More
 

Blue Gum's Melbourne Premier draft
Blue Gum Farm's Melbourne Premier Yearling draft is ready for inspection. Buyers and agents wishing to view the yearlings are asked to contact the office to make an appointment. Alternately if you cannot visit the the farm you can view the yearlings in the February newsletter, either via download from this website or request a printed copy from the office. Also two weeks prior to the sale you can view the Sirecam footage of the yearlings on this website and the Stallions website.
 

Argonaut Sails In
Blue Gum Farm has entered into an exciting new partnership that will see South Africa’s Equus Champion Two-Year-Old Colt of last season, Argonaut, race here in Australia in 2008. After just four juvenile race starts, Argonaut’s performances to date have drawn rave reviews from respected international racing observers and he is widely regarded to be the most exciting prospect to come out of South Africa since the four-time Group 1 winner Horse Chestnut eight years ago. Read More
 

Kingdom franks Kornong form
The breeding program of the Calvert family’s Kornong Stud had their form franked in the most prestigious of fashion when Sacred Kingdom was rated the world’s best sprinter following his decisive victory in the Group 1 Hong Kong Sprint. A gelded son of Encosta De Lago who was conceived at Blue Gum Farm from the Calvert’s Zeditave mare Courtroom Sweetie, Sacred Kingdom has been rated at 123. Read More
 

Aquanita Charity Golf Day
For the seventh year on end, players at the Aquanita Racing Charity Golf Day were treated to glorious weather at Melbourne’s Latrobe Golf Club. This year, 80 golfers of varying abilities competed for the coveted Blue Gum Farm Elvstroem Cup whilst raising money for the National Ovarian Cancer Network. Read More
 

A bumper season
The signs that this was going to be a bumper breeding season for Elvstroem were obvious as early as Easter this year. News of Ballarto Lodge’s Elvstroem colt, out of the Hennessy mare Miss Bud, selling for $200,000 at the Inglis Australian Weanling Sale confirmed what many breeders had anticipated — Elvstroem was a very hot commodity. Read More
 

Rhodococcus Equi or 'Rattles'
Observation - a valuable tool. With many mares and foals now returning home from stud farms to their owners properties, we feel it is important to remind breeders of the importance of their observational skills. As we head into the hotter months of a drought year, observing changes in foals is a crucial element in the early diagnosis of rhodococcus equi, or ‘rattles’ as the disease is commonly referred to. Read More
 

Churchill Downs mares
We at Blue Gum Farm pride ourselves on excellent fertility rates and when a first season stallion the calibre of Churchill Downs exceeds those expectations, life on the farm is an absolute pleasure. Last month we reported the excellent start to his maiden season with his first 21 mares covered all returning positive pregnancy tests. Now as we head into November, Churchill Downs has worked nearly two-thirds of his mares, displaying consistent vigour and fertility throughout. Read More
 

Caring for your in-foal mare
At Blue Gum Farm we continue to strive for excellence in the thoroughbred breeding industry and an area we would like to help our valued clients in is the health and well being of your mare and unborn foal.Following is a basic management program for your mare once she is in-foal and back home to insure that she has every possible chance to produce a live and healthy foal. Read More
 

Staff Profile: Sarah Rose
Another very valuable member of the Blue Gum Farm team, who has been with us in various capacities over the past two and a half years, is Sarah Rose. Presently responsible for the day-to-day handling and care of the yearlings, the home mares and their foals, Sarah first came on board for the 2005 yearling preparation. Read More
 

Blue Gum Flavour
Tan Tat De Lago, recent winner of the Group 3 Danehill Stakes on opening day at the magnificently upgraded Flemington racecourse, is a real Blue Gum Farm product. From the last Blue Gum Farm conceived crop of the mighty Encosta De Lago, Tan Tat De Lago is out of the Blue Gum Farm-bred Umatilla mare Tan Tat Star, who is a full-sister to our home bred multiple Group 1 winning millionaire, Umrum. Read More
 

Churchill flying
Churchill Downs has continued his wonderful start to the breeding season by registering 21 pregnancies from his first 21 mares covered. “He has taken to his new job like a duck to water and it is very pleasing to see those early positive results coming through,” remarked studmaster Philip Campbe l“Churchill Downs is working through a quality first book of mares with great professionalism and letting down into a magnificent young stallion at the same time.Read More
 

Emergency Procedure Training
On 23 August, Blue Gum Farm employees were taken through O,H & S Emergency Procedure training by Alistair Cameron. With bush fires being a real threat in these years of drought, it was essential to familiarise all Blue Gum Farm employees with the farm’s Bush Fire Emergency Procedure before the summer heat sets in. Read More
 

Statue returns to Ireland
In what is a real blow for us and the many other breeders who were booked to use Statue Of Liberty this season, we must report that due to the Equine Influenza outbreak, the stallion will not be joining us this year. Whilst the wonderfully credentialled son of Storm Cat could have been removed from the Eastern Creek quarantine facility in Sydney, it was not possible to travel him south to Victoria and as such, the decision was made by his owners to return him to Ireland to prepare for his northern hemisphere season. Read More
 

Churchill at Oaklands
In mid August, Churchill Downs joined eight other Victorian based stallions at the Oaklands Junction Sales Complex for the William Inglis First Season Sires Parade. The parade preceded the Inglis August Thoroughbred Sale and was an excellent opportunity for breeders to view Victoria’s Freshman Sires. Churchill Downs presented himself in excellent order and handled the trip with aplomb. Read More
  Statue Of Liberty
The outbreak of equine influenza has created a lot of hurt right across the racing and breeding industry here in Australia. Since the news of the virus being present first broke the centre of attention has been the Eastern Creek quarantine station west of Sydney and as circumstance has it, Blue Gum Farm must patiently wait the release of Statue Of Liberty (USA) from that facility. Read More
  Two Victorian Awards for Blue Gum Farm
Rubiton carried on a great tradition at Blue Gum Farm when he was crowned the John Ingleton Memorial Champion Victorian Stallion at the annual Victorian Owners’ and Breeders Awards Night at Champions Museum recently. This is the third time Rubiton has taken out the award, matching the efforts of the mighty Encosta De Lago who dominated the award between 2002-2005. Read More
  ‘Ride Safe’ – ATV Safety Session
Recently, Blue Gum Farm employees hit the classroom for a one-day formal training session on the safe operation of two and four wheel (ATV – all terrain vehicle) motorbikes. David Foote from Goulburn Ovens Institute of TAFE was brought in to conduct this course on safe ATV handling. Read More
  Blue Gum’s Leading Sires
In the early part of this decade the stallion strength of Blue Gum Farm was centred around two great horses, Rubiton and Encosta De Lago. The ‘Patriarch’ and the ‘New Kid On The Block’ were posting winners at all levels and consistently rising through the General Sires’ list. Read More
  Ten up for Statue of Liberty
Statue Of Liberty has recorded his tenth individual winner from just 29 runners to date overseas. His tenth and most recent winner was the filly Liberty Island who scored recently in France. She is out of Tiara who is by the Sharpen Up-line stallion Risk Me. Having landed winners on both sides of the Channel at important racecourses, the signs are strong for the progeny of Statue of Liberty to continue their impressive European racetrack start south of the equator. Read More
  Circles Of Gold
Circles Of Gold, pictured in-foal to Redoutes Choice at Coolmore Stud recently, was honoured as the Scone Veterinary Hospital Champion Broodmare Of The Year at the Hunter Valley Thoroughbred Breeders’ Awards Dinner recently. The dam of Blue Gum Farm’s International Group 1 winner and leading sire elect, Elvstroem, as well as last season’s dual-Group 1 winner Haradasun, the daughter of Marscay won the award over Forest Pearl, the dam of Miss Finland, and High Heels, the dam of Desert War. Larger Photo

  BGF’s New look admin
Blue Gum Farm's administration has been revamped with the arrival of Christina Sloane and Sarah Lindsay-Field. Together they will be responsible for the continued smooth running of the Blue Gum Farm office. Read More
  Churchill letting down
Commanding a sale price of $950,000 as a yearling, Churchill Downs was quite obviously a magnificent looking young horse with a wonderful pedigree. The precocious son of the great Danehill has since added a terrific race record to these attributes and as this recent picture of him shows, he has lost none of his quality in the interim. Chock full of common sense, Churchill Downs has let down beautifully since his retirement from the racetrack and has had a steady stream of admirers since arriving at Blue Gum Farm in March. Read More
  Elvis adds some glitter
As Some of the many educated breeders that used Elvstroem in his first season at stud are already reaping excellent returns on their investments. At the Magic Millions National Weanling Sale on the Gold Coast recently, progeny of the International Group 1 winning son of Danehill were once again in great demand. Six Elvstroem weanlings were offered and subsequently sold returning the excellent average of $92,500. This compares particularly well against the sales average for the two days of the Select Sessions which was $44,566 from 429 lots sold at a clearance rate of 92%. Read More
  More Statue Winners
Recent results in Europe strongly suggest that Statue Of Liberty, our beautifully credentialed young son of Champion Sire Storm Cat, definitely possesses the amazing stallion making genes that his immediate female family is renowned for. There are already ten Group One producing stallions under his first two dams and the way his own two-year-olds are shaping up overseas, Statue Of Liberty himself is looking a great chance to become yet another. Read More
  Elvstroem Lights Up Easter
As was the case at the same sale in 2006 when mares carrying his first pregnancies sold for up to $300,000, the mighty Elvstroem has reinforced his commercial appeal at the 2007 Inglis Easter Weanling and Broodmare Sale. And it was in both categories of the sale that he was in demand with a first crop weanling selling for $200,000 and a mare in-foal to him selling for $240,000. Read More
  StatueStrikes
The racecourse at Maisons-Laffitte, just to the north-west of Paris, can now lay claim to at least two famous events. It was at this site in 1878 that Joseph Oller invented the precursor to todays totalisator, the parimutuel system and it is also where Blue Gum Farm’s impressive son of the mighty Storm Cat, Statue Of Liberty, posted his first winner as a sire. Read More
  Churchill Proving Poular
Since our last newsletter, where we reported the retirement of Churchill Downs to Blue Gum Farm, there has been terrific interest converting to a good volume of early bookings for this very talented son of Danehill. A Stakes winner and Group 1 placed in the Golden Slipper Stakes at two, Churchill Downs trained on to be a Group 2 winner and Group 1 placed in the Ascot Vale Stakes at three. His $950,000 yearling price speaks volumes for the type of horse he is and the sort of pedigree he possesses so do yourself a favour and organise a time to come and inspect him. We know you wont be disappointed!
  2007 Breeding Tips - mares Under Lights
The 2007 breeding season is not far off now and one of the first tasks on any stud farm gearing up for breeding is the organising of its dry mares to go under lights. As Dry Mare Manager here at Blue Gum Farm I wanted to run through the logic of doing this and offer some advice for those breeders wishing to put their mares under lights this year. Read More
  Umatilla - Standing Tall
From day one Umatilla has defied convention. Bred to southern time in the northern hemisphere, he travelled in utero from Kentucky to New Zealand where he was foaled down. The first foal of his dam, the Nijinsky mare Dancing Show, Umatilla didn’t fit the generalisation related to a first foal either. He was a ‘moose’ who couldn’t support himself for days and spent the first week of his life in splints! Read More
  Churchill Downs retires to Blue Gum Farm in 2007
Churchill Downs, the first colt home in both the 2006 Golden Slipper Stakes and Magic Millions 2YO Classic, retires to Blue Gum Farm in 2007. From Danehill’s final crop, Churchill Downs stands at $12,000 plus gst. Read More
  Blue Gum tops Premier
Catching Anthony Cummings' eye in particular was lot 129, the impressive Encosta De Lago colt out of the multiple Group winner New Smyrna. This colt caught the eye of many good judges and at the end of a very spirited bidding duel, Cummings had won out at $420,000 at which price this quality colt was the sale’s highest priced yearling. Read More
  Statue off to a flyer
Just as they did in England and Ireland late last year, the first crop of our magnificently credentialed Statue Of Liberty have met with great market response in this part of the world. On the back of strong results at New Zealand’s Karaka Select Colts and the Adelaide Magic Millions Sales, Statue Of Liberty’s stock maintained the momentum at the recently completed Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale. Read More
  Elvstroem Second Season Mares In-Foal Catalogue
Blue Gum Farm is proud to present Elvstroem’s ‘Second Season Mares In-Foal Catalogue.’ This is a follow up to the innovative and highly successful First Season Catalogue and it features; pictures of some of Elvstroem’s first crop foals, the thoughts of some well known breeders that have foals from that crop as well as the pedigrees of the 148 quality mares that are currently in-foal to our five-time Group 1 winning son of Danehill. Read More
  Umatilla - keeping on
The much loved patriarch of Blue Gum Farm, Umatilla, continues to out perform many of his younger and more fashionable rivals in the stallion ranks. Just recently at Moonee Valley we saw the winning return to racing of his very talented filly Manna Miss. This filly won the Listed Mornmoot Stud Stakes for her owner breeder Mrs Elma Cole last preparation and there is no doubt that she will be placed to achieve a similar result by her astute trainer, Read More
  Another season over
Elvstroem and Umatilla are now easing into ‘off season’ mode whilst their barn mates, Statue Of Liberty and King Charlemagne, have both headed back over the equator to fulfill their northern hemisphere engagements. As all would be aware, the 2006 season has been a very trying one climatically and our foal photos from the past three seasons highlight the early effect this particularly dry season has had on the State. Our thoughts and wishes go out to those affected by bushfire right across the Country, particularly those in the Victorian Alpine National Park region. Read More
  Elvis, a Blue Star hit
Although the trailer is based at Blue Star Logistics Melbourne depot, if you’re on the highway anywhere between Brisbane, Sydney or Adelaide keep an eye out for ‘Elvis.’ With the help of the crew at Blue Star Logistics, Blue Gum Farm has launched Elvstroem’s truck curtains on the highway. On the road since August the curtains have been a huge hit according to Hayden Guthridge, Maintenance Manager at the Melbourne depot. Read More