Notanotha Naughty, who made it two wins from three starts at Maryborough and is one of the leading fancies for the Group 1 $60,000 Aldebaran Park Redwood Classic on Sunday, is the product of a plan hatched many years ago by Pearcedale veterinarian and trainer, Dr Hugh Cathels.
“In my early days as a vet I worked in Kentucky and I learned that a lot of the money in harness racing in North America is in the State Sires Stakes programs for two and three-year-olds,” Cathels said.
“At the end of their three-year-old year many of them get sold and the better ones go through the Harrisburg sales. I came to the conclusion that because of frozen semen and shuttle stallions our pacers were as good as the Americans, but our trotters were a fair way behind.
“So my daughter Holly, who is also a vet, and Glenn Hunter went over two years in-a-row and bought me a three-year-old filly each time.”
The first one they bought was the Credit Winner filly Waiting Room, who earned almost $100,000 as a two-year-old in America and at the stud has left the dual Albion Park winner Triage and the Group 2 placegetter Sebastian’s Waiting.
“The second one was more obscurely bred but a much better racehorse named Naughty. She was by Here Comes Herbie, a Hambletonian heat winner that was infertile and had very few foals,” Hugh said.
“Naughty was the best filly of her year in Indiana by a long way. She won $250,000 as a two and three-year-old and ran 1:54.”
Both Waiting Room and Naughty were successful in Victoria.
“Naughty won her first race here very impressively and then broke down in the second one and did two hind suspensories. She would have been a really good racehorse as a four-year-old,” Cathels lamented.
“Her first foal, which I sold for $50,000 as a yearling, couldn’t even trot.”
Notanotha Naughty is her second offspring. But the What The Hill youngster is extremely lucky to be alive!
“I delivered him at 4 o’clock in the morning and I got up again at 8 to see if he was drinking all right, but there was milk all around the mare’s flanks and tail.
“I put him in a float with his mother and took them to South Eastern Equine Hospital where a scope revealed he had a condition called dysphagia which is a paralysis of the larynx and pharynx.
“The respiratory nurse told me he’s got a 20 percent chance of living and a zero percent chance of being an athlete.
“He was on a respirator for five days with oxygen being pumped into his lungs with a feeding tube so he couldn’t swallow the milk.
“After a week on the feeding tube and respirator the paralysis started to get better, so they pulled everything off, gave him back to me and informed us that he probably wouldn’t survive.
“Anyway he gradually got better and we’re now treating him like every horse we have.”
Cathels and his wife Lorraine have nominated a King Of The North half-brother to Notanotha Naughty for next year’s Nutrien Equine Melbourne yearling sale.
“Naughty is not a very good breeder. She missed the following season and she’s been served by Tactical Approach,” he said.
As an aftermath to Notanotha Naughty’s deeds, Cathels said that he received a phone call last week from a bloodstock agent in Kentucky acting on behalf of the previous owners of Naughty wanting to buy her back.
“Her full sister left the best two-year-old trotter in Indiana this year called Captain Naughty, who’s being set for next year’s Hambletonian,” Hugh said.
“They named a figure and it was a bloody lot of money but we turned them down.”
Miki To Success, who took out the $60,000 South Australian Pacing Cup at Globe Derby Park, was bred and is part-owned by long-time Victorian breeder Ray Sellwood.
Lowrider, an impressive two-year-old winner at Melton last Friday, was bred and is part-owned by Alabar Bloodstock, who stand his sire Ride High.
Sweet Lou has jumped to the top of the national sires’ premiership, leading his Woodlands studmate Bettor’s Delight and Art Major by $600,000. The trio have outdistanced all other stallions on the list.
