3 minute read

In Louis Mihalyka’s office there’s a stack of pedigree pages of Laurel Oak’s horses over 35 years and counting that serves as a reminder that you can learn as much from your successes as your failures.

The latest of those success stories is, of course, champion two-year-old Fireburn.

A filly who crept onto the scene in the early summer but kept raising the bar in a five-start winning streak that included her remarkable victory in the $5 million Longines Golden Slipper and arrogant win in the $1m Inglis Sires' before her triple crown bid was foiled in the Champagne Stakes.

You could argue that she's something of a freak.

Her sire Rebel Dane was considered unfashionable while her dam Mull Over was purchased for $22,000, and has staying bloodlines so her pedigree doesn't scream Golden Slipper winner, but like all Laurel Oak's horses her birth was meticulously planned.

And when Mihalyka, founder and managing director of Laurel Oak Bloodstock, sent her to Gary Portelli, who trained Rebel Dane, she was thought of modestly compared to a few other youngsters on their books who.

"We were hoping she would be a good city class horse, we would have been happy campers,'' he said.

"She was a nice filly physically, she was a nicely bred horse theoretically, but with Fireburn there was never any expectation.

"The mare was by So You Think out of a Zabeel mare so there was no expectation from that side of the family that she would race early. She was a nice filly, everything was good, we were complimentary without being effusive in adulation about her."

Gary Portelli would echo that sentiment about the early days, though now it is hard to talk about Fireburn in any terms other than the star she's become.

But he can look back and see so many sliding doors moments that led to her heroics in the autumn.

She was a late starter compared to Portelli's other two-year-olds, by the time she had her first trial in early November stablemate Sejardan had already won the Breeders' Plate and was a few days away from winning the Golden Gift, and it took a while for him to cotton on to her character.

"She was a hot filly, it took a bit of training to get that out of her, an easy sweater,'' Portelli said.

"I didn't want to tip her out not fully educated, on a bad note, and every time I asked her to do a little more she'd do it.

"She wasn't burning the tracks down but it was worthwhile going to the trials. There was something that caught my eye so wanted to give her one more.

"That's when she showed some acceleration and I thought that's good enough to go to the track if she pulls up all right. The general consensus in the stable was that she'd probably had enough but she kept eating and turning up.

"She's a very relaxed filly. She didn't demand anything from anyone. Except for a pat, she loves a pat.

"I remember watching her first start on the phone when I was up at Scone looking at yearlings and I thought she was a nice filly and would win in town. So we go to town and she wins. And she wins again, she kept winning."

After her first two wins Portelli was all set to send Fireburn to the spelling paddock but a transport mix-up gave the trainer a few extra days to think about it.

The rest, as they say, is history.

There was never any doubt that Portelli would train Fireburn, his knowledge of Rebel Dane ensured that and he's found it's come in handy when preparing any of his progeny.

"She's very similar to him in her trackwork as far as what you can get away with,'' Portelli said.

"She doesn't cope with a lot of hard galloping. I'd always work her with maiden type horses, because if I put her with Sejardan he'd blouse her.

"She does things on race day that none of us can understand where they come from. If horses keep turning up and going against the norm they are usually very good."

Rebel Dane is a direct descendant of one of Laurel Oak's first successes, a mare called Georgian Gold, and while he was a two-time Group 1 winner he wasn't a commercially attractive stallion prospect so Mihalyka and Laurel Oak naturally wanted to support him early.

There were complications early in Rebel Dane's stud career, with fertility and lack of interest, but Mihalyka always believed he'd found the perfect match in Mull Over.

Fireburn is one of only 26 live foals from Rebel Dane's second season at stud and the fertility issue, which has since been corrected, meant only seven foals from his third season are on the ground.

Mull Over had 11 starts, she won a Newcastle maiden under the care of James Cummings in 2017 – coincidentally one day before Portelli trained his first Golden Slipper winner She Will Reign – and was retired within 12 months of her debut.

"I was very much looking for a pedigree combination that would work for Rebel Dane,'' he said.

"She fit the bill, a young mare that had some racing ability from a sound family. We expected a good sound competitive horse.

"Each year we are very analytical, we only get 10-12 new horses, we go back and say 'this horse didn't work out, is there something we could have done differently'.

"We look at the family, the pedigree, the sire, why we bought the horse, whether we were unlucky and do the same again or whether we learn a lesson from this.

"I keep a pile of pedigrees of some of our best horses and worst horses over the years, every now and then I stumble across it I flick through it again and ask myself what would I have done differently."

The only thing Mihalyka says he'd do differently when it comes to Mull Over is he'd have sent her straight back to Rebel Dane. That will change in the 2022 breeding season.

Fireburn has a younger rising two-year-old half-brother by Hallowed Crown in the Portelli system, Mull Over missed the following year while last spring she was served by Pierata.

"In the first two years we had three Rebel Danes in our small intake and we thought we'd let him find his feet and see where he's at so I didn't send her back to him,'' he said.

"At that point in time we probably didn't know how good Rebel Dane might be as a stallion.

"It's unfortunate in hindsight but we will go back to him later."

What Fireburn achieved means expectations on her will be high for the new season.

There are two plans in place for her, depending on how she returns from her spell, and both involve just a two start spring campaign.

She'll either target the Group 2 Run To The Rose (1200m) and Group 1 Golden Rose (1400m) in September or the Group 2 Roman Consul (1200m) and Group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes (1200m) about a month later.

"Hopefully she can come back and be as good,'' Mihalyka said.

"One of the things in her favour is she pulled up after every start, including the Champagne, incredibly well."