ASK Graham Bullock what the best $1000 he ever spent was and he’ll be quick to say ‘Sally Anns Future’.
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Two generations later that broodmare has delivered the Meadow Flat breeder and trainer one of the leading Inter Dominion Trotters Championship hopes – Red Hot Tooth.
Her return on investment has been out of this world.
Red Hot Tooth has won close to $300,000 in prizemoney and an Australian Trotting Mare of the Year crown on her way to fifth on the Inter Dominion rankings.
Since Bullock sent the mare to Victoria to be trained by former Bathurst resident Kari Males (nee Hoole) she’s notched up some memorable victories.
The biggest of those came in back-to-back Group 1 Breed For Speed Gold Series finals plus the Australian Trotting Championship and The Knight Pistol.
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The mare lines up for this Saturday night’s opening Inter Dominion heat at Melton as Bullock’s crowning achievement in the breeding sphere.
“We were very lucky to get her,” said Bullock, who retains 100 per cent ownership of the champion mare.
“I always said that I wanted to breed a trotter. A fellow I knew rang me up and told me about I good broodmare I could buy very cheaply.
“I bought her for $1000 and only a couple of months later one of the mare’s foals from before I bought her, called Red Samurai, ended up as an Inter Dominion runner as well.
“From that mare I bred the mother, Karaka Tooth, who Kari trained for me.”
Karaka Tooth showed promise early in her career but could never quite crack the metro hurdle and ended her time on the track with four wins from 39 starts.
In 2011 Karaka Tooth gave birth to Red Hot Tooth by Hambletonian champion Yankee Paco.
It was a development that wasn’t originally in Bullock’s plans.
“I was sending my pacing broodmares off and one of the studs I went to said to me ‘We’ll give you a discount if you send another mare’,” he said.
“I said ‘The only one I have is a trotting mare that I wasn’t going to breed with.’ He said ‘We’ve got a trotter here so send her down and you’ll get a discount off the pacing stud fees’.
“I sent her, not intending to breed, and that foal was Red Hot Tooth. I’ve had some huge offers for her by horses like this only come across once in a lifetime.”
Red Hot Tooth went unplaced in her three Menangle starts for Bullock.
The move to Males’ stable as a three-year-old reaped rewards in early 2016 as Red Hot Tooth won three straight races.
Her Group 2 Breeders Challenge triumph in June of that year announced her as a mare to watch.
Since then she’s been a force in the Victorian scene and finished last season alone with over six figures in prizemoney.
Only Speeding Spur, Tornado Valley, Kyvalley Blur and The Boss Man bested her in the Inter Dominion Rankings.
Red Hot Tooth has been handed a tough draw for the opening heat as she goes out four wide on the back row.
That doesn’t bother Bullock.
“You’ve got three big runs together and what you’ve got to do is rate each race. You can’t go too hard early on. If you make the final you’ve then got that to run as well,” he said.
“It’s a disappointing barrier draw to start with but when you sit back and think about it we’ll be able to sit in behind and just poke along, hopefully pass a few horses and get some points.”
Bathurst trainers Steve Turnbull (Joes Star Of Mia, Conviction), Amanda Turnbull (Ellmers Image) and Chris Frisby (Our Uncle Sam) have horses running in the pacing heats.