{"id":3725,"date":"2012-07-15T22:47:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-15T22:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/?p=3725"},"modified":"2012-07-15T22:47:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-15T22:47:00","slug":"israels-secret-caviar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/israels-secret-caviar\/","title":{"rendered":"ISRAEL\u2019S SECRET CAVIAR"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Israeli thoroughbred industry isn\u2019t very big \u2013 not by a long shot.<\/span><\/div>\n
You\u2019d be hard pressed finding out what won the last at Nazareth on Saturday arvo and it appears that the first Israeli bred horse to race in England \u2013 Vanilla Bally \u2013 finished with the cap catchers in three outings at Wolverhampton, Chepstow and Yarmouth back in 2009.<\/span><\/div>\n
But as Gilad Ram from the Israeli Jockey Club points out, the country did proudly stand a relation to international star, Black Caviar.<\/span><\/div>\n
Trainer and founder of the Geva Stables, Gilad was closely associated with Nijinsky\u2019s Secret, a smart 2YO who would later produce a host of winners before passing from this mortal coil five years ago.<\/span><\/div>\n
Turns out that Nijinsky\u2019s Secret (above<\/i>) is out of the Blakeney mare Secret Journey, the year older half sister to the Danish bred, Love Song.<\/span><\/div>\n
Now, while both Secret Journey and Love Song were both placed in Britain, the latter would be imported to Australia by David Hains in the early 80s.<\/span><\/div>\n
Love Song would produce Song of Norway who, in turn, would produce the blue hen, Scandinavia.<\/span><\/div>\n
Among Scandinavia\u2019s progeny is the Group One winner and leading Victorian first season sire, Magnus, and a mare by the name of Helsinge \u2026 the dam of Black Caviar.<\/span><\/div>\n
On the other hand, Secret Journey\u2019s \u2018journey\u2019 is not quite a well documented \u2013 we do know that she produced a colt by a stallion called Dronacharya in 1990 \u2026 Nijinsky\u2019s Secret.<\/span><\/div>\n
Now, before you start thinking we\u2019re drawing too long a long bow, Dronacharya is by Nijinsky, just as Black Caviar\u2019s sire \u2013 Bel Esprit \u2013 is a grandson of Nijinsky.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cRacing in Israel is only amateur \u2026 number are relatively small,\u201d Gilad revealed. \u201cDronacharya stood in Israel and produced some very nice fillies and mares but Nijinsky\u2019s Secret was his best colt. Nijinsky\u2019s Secret won three from four as a 2YO, winning the Israeli version of the Grand Criterium (over seven furlongs on dirt) and was named Champion 2YO.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cNijinsky\u2019s Secret had 33% stakes winners to runners, but had to do it the hard way. Broodmare owners over here prefer to breed from imported stallions.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
A driving force behind his country\u2019s thoroughbred industry, Gilad <\/span>has been closely involved in negotiations at governmental level to win support for the creation of professional horse racing in Israel.<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Studying abroad at the racing stables of John Oxx in Ireland and Karl Burke in England, Gilad also runs certificated courses teaching future trainers, jockeys and breeders.<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Interestingly, the stud groom for Nijinsky\u2019s Secret was Israeli born, Talia Maor, who moved to Australia and became a jockey, riding a number of winners for Fred Kersley in Perth before marrying Melbourne Racing Club\u2019s Racing & Media Executive Josh Rodder and shifting east.<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Talia (pictured below with Nijinsky<\/i><\/span><\/b>\u2019<\/span><\/i>s Secret<\/i>) has ridden 30 winners this season.<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\u00a0 <\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
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The Israeli thoroughbred industry isn\u2019t very big \u2013 not by a long shot. You\u2019d be hard pressed finding out what won the last at Nazareth on Saturday arvo and it …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}