Demi demands respect as she scales the trotting ranks

The journey just continues to create excitement when it comes to this particular filly foal, our first trotting Follow A Foal participant, Aldebaran Demi who has just set a new personal best of TR1:58.5 with her win at Victorian HQ, Melton Entertainment Park. In 2018, Harness Breeders Victoria (HBV) embarked on what would become an award-winning campaign aimed at engaging the wider public with the amazing process of breeding a standardbred. Aldebaran Park and Alabar Bloodstock both committed to the project which documented the process we’re all so familiar with – stallion selection, insemination, gestation, foaling and yearling preparation, with both studs generously donating 5% of the final sale price of each horse to our charity partners, WomenCan (ANZGOG Team Teal) and the Children’s Tumour Foundation. “We saw this as an opportunity to share what we love so much about breeding horses with a wider group,” said HBV president Nick Hooper, “In this way, we’ve also helped two charities that are really special to the harness racing family”.

Alabar’s mare Arms Of An Angel (Elsu) was first cab off the rank with her October Always B Miki filly, the first of her broodmare career after securing earnings of $220,000 on the track. Aldebaran Maori (Dream Vacation), an established producer of winning trotters, instead gave Follow A Foal fans a Christmas present with a filly born on Christmas eve. It was the sixth filly foaled by Aldebaran Maori, who had Andover Hall colt Aldebaran Dino at foot when we started the Follow A Foal journey. He has gone on to win six races and continues to chase the records set by big sisters Fear Not (eight wins for $196,000) and Kyvalley Kyrie (eight wins, $100,000). A competition for a stable name for the new filly by now-deceased trotting sire Aldebaran Eagle determined she be called Demi, and went to sale with the official moniker, Aldebaran Demi.

Aldebaran Demi was from the first crop of Aldebaran Eagle foals in Australia, ten in total who’ve collectively earnt almost $160,000. Now Australia’s leading three-year-old trotting sire on earnings, it’s clear that the wonderful ownership group who bought Demi at the 2020 Australasian Premier Trotting Sale at Oaklands that day for $10,000 got an absolute bargain! Demi’s debut came in an early 2YO race at Melton but it was after a change to the Chris Svanosio yard in 2022 that she broke her maiden status at Kilmore. From there, she hasn’t looked back.

Now with over $44,000 in the bank she is the seventh highest earner from the 2020 APTS and has earnt 4.48 times her purchase price already, with the future looking bright to grow that figure further. While those outside the industry may not be clear on the achievement, breeders understand the challenge in just getting a live foal on the ground, let alone safely through weaning, yearling preparation, breaking in and training. She sits equal fourth in the most number of wins (five) from that sale cohort, a table headed by the very impressively bred Just A Bit Touchy with nine. With her new mark of TR1:58.5, she is now also the sixth fastest – third fastest of horses not recording their best times as the super slick Menangle surface.

“As breeders, we are always looking to the future with mares and fillies, and in Demi, it seems her ownership group have a lot to look forward to when she’s concluded her racing journey,” said Demi’s breeder, Aldebaran Park principal and ardent supporter of ANZGOG Team Teal, Duncan McPherson OAM. Aside from her dam producing five winners from five to the races so far, half-sister Aldebaran Etta has had two foals to the races for one winner, while Kyvalley Kyrie’s first foal Kyvalley Pierro blasted onto the scene, winning on debut and taking three of his first five starts. There are more Aldebaran Eagles on the way in the family too – Fear Not’s first foal, a colt, has just dropped for the Conroy family while Theappleofmyeye (Aldebaran Etta) has two fillies by the late sire on the ground. Can we look forward bringing Demi’s broodmare story to another new audience ready to share the breeding magic? As with all things in racing, only time will tell…

Published December 2023