Inside the lines of the Breeders Crown 2YO favorite

High profile Ballarat owner Justin Baker is adamant that former unbeaten 2YO Colt of the Year The Storm Inside is the best horse he’s ever raced.

“He was my favourite horse that’s for sure,” Baker said.

The Storm Inside won 16 of his 19 starts including four at Group level and $311,125 in stakes and is now standing stud at Alabar Bloodstock.

Keen to tap into The Storm Inside’s superb bloodlines, Baker began searching for a female from his family to extend his breeding interests.

“I really love The Storm Inside’s maternal family,” he said.

“It took us nearly two years to find one and we had to go to Bunbury in Western Australia. I had bred a few horses before but this was my first real go at breeding on a commercial basis.”

The mare Justin and trainer Clayton Tonkin secured was Ayshe Whitby, a daughter of the champion racehorse and sire Rocknroll Hanover and Miss Worthy Whitby, a winning half-sister to The Storm Inside.

“The mare had already produced a foal to Mr Feelgood before we bought her,” Baker said.

Baker and Tonkin mated Ayshe Whitby firstly with champion juvenile sire Captaintreacherous in 2018. And the following year she produced a strapping colt who has become one of the top two-year-olds in the country.

The winner of four of his five outings, The Lost Storm is rated as the one to beat in Saturday night’s $300,000 IRT Australia Breeders Crown Final and the forthcoming rich Vicbred Super Series.

“Clayton and Emma (Stewart) did all the work with him as a foal themselves and through his preparations and that’s one of the main reasons he’s probably as good as he is,” Baker said.

And there’s reason for more optimism. A rising two-year-old half-sister (by American Ideal) to The Lost Storm has had a couple of preparations and is also showing a fair bit of potential, while Ayshe Whitby is heavily in foal to Art Major and is going back to Captaintreacherous this season.

Baker is also breeding from Lightning Lana, a Pet Rock half-sister to The Storm Inside, with Tonkin, Stewart and Alabar Australia’s general manager Brett Coffey.

“She’s produced a colt foal by Be Happy Mach, which is one of his first crop,” Baker said.

Ayshe Whitby is based at the Judd family’s Benstud Standardbreds at Katunga in northern Victoria and her close relative Lightning Lana resides at Alabar’s Echuca property.

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