Pillar Of Hercules

High profile stallion prospect PILLAR OF HERCULES continues to make good progress as he heads towards barrier trials in Sydney later this month. A recent minor change in the ownership resulted in the horse transferring from Peter Moody's stables at Caulfield to the Rosehill stables of Chris Waller.

PILLAR OF HERCULES had been sent to Sydney University for tests to determine his suitability for returning to training and was granted the green light in December. This meant he was behind the eight ball for the Melbourne Carnival but would be ideally looking towards Sydney and Brisbane Carnivals. It was decided that since the horse was to campaign in Sydney there was little point returning him to Melbourne to be trained anti-clockwise when his racing would be in Sydney and Brisbane when going a clockwise direction.

The horse arrived in December with Waller who has been very impressed with the effort the stallion is putting into his trackwork. He has been nominated for the AJC Doncaster Hcp and will be aimed this preparation at events up to 1600m. Pillar of Hercules has done a good job on the track and has been desperately unlucky in several big Group 1 events. It is hoped that a change of environment and the Sydney way of going will result in a change of fortune on the track.

Interestingly his pedigree has received a recent boost when the hot young WA sire BEARCAT is taking all before him over in the west. BEARCAT is the full brother to CATBIRD and DANBIRD and on Saturday he produced the Perth Magic Millions winner TIME TO CLIMB. Bearcat has had 3 runners : 2 winners and is third on the first season sires list on earnings behind Snitzel and Jet Spur and in front of Stratum, Starcraft and Bradbury's Luck.

PILLAR OF HERCULES is a 3/4 brother in blood to BEARCAT, CATBIRD and DANBIRD. With Pillar Of Hercules already being a Gr3 winner and multiple Group placed including 3rd in the Toorak Hcp Gr1, the entire has been receiving plenty of interest from studs keen to secure his services upon racetrack retirement.

Dynamic Syndications purchased the full sister PILLAR OF HERCULES at the Magic Millions Yearling Sales. Armed with the knowledge of how well PILLAR OF HERCULES was progressing at trackwork and with the rumour mill abuzz with how good the stock of Bearcat were performing for their respective trainers and secure in the fact that PILLAR OF HERCULES would be targeting the Gr1 races in the Autumn Carnival in Sydney, we went to the sale full of hope that there would be plenty of upside in the filly being offered for sale if she was correctly conformed. As it turned out she was a cracker of a type and had a strong pedigree rating score A+ 551%.

She certainly looks to be a great investment now and will prove especially cheap  if BEARCAT keeps doing the job at stud in WA and PILLAR can continue with his efforts he is displaying at trackwork the next few months may be a significant improvement in the asset value of the yearling filly. On the strength of her pedigree when the time comes for racetrack retirement she will be in great demand as on her pedigree her first half dozen yearlings would be clearly desired by William Inglis for their Easter Yearling Sale.