They blew the budget at the time, but Tony and Calvin McEvoy will be forever thankful for their rush of blood during last year’s Late November Inglis Digital Sale.
Half Yours, the horse the McEvoys paid $305,000 for out of the late Colin McKenna’s dispersal sale, etched himself and the father/son training team into folklore with a memorable win in Tuesday’s $10 million Melbourne Cup.
The son of St Jean, who was the lone Australian-bred horse in the race, became the 13th horse to complete the Caulfield Cup–Melbourne Cup double when he carried Jamie Melham to a 2-3/4-length win over Goodie Two Shoes and collect the $4,500,000 winner’s purse.
“I was trying to get them to stop because I thought it was enough money,” Tony McEvoy said when thinking back to the sale.
“They pushed hard to keep going and we had no owner for him.
“We specked him and, wow, what a good decision that was that day.
“The journey that he has had us on, to be able to do what we’ve wanted to do to get him to this race. He’s a very special horse.”
After finishing second in a benchmark 64 at Sandown on March 19 at his first start for the McEvoys, Half Yours won a benchmark 64 at Seymour on April 15.
He then headed to Queensland via a couple of starts in Sydney and he demolished his rivals in the Listed Caloundra Cup (2400m) on July 5.
He stopped in at Sydney on the way home, finishing fifth in a benchmark 100 at Rosehill on August 30, before a 3-1/2-length win in the Group 3 Naturalism Stakes (2000m) on September 20.
He rounded out Cups preparations with a fourth placing in the Group 1 Turnbull Stakes (2000m) and now owns a career record of 15 starts for eight wins, three second placings and $9,251,840 in stakes.
He is the lone Stakes winner for his sire, St Jean, a son of three-time Melbourne Cup-winning sire Teofilo who was brought to Australia by Warrnambool trainer Aaron Purcell and won the Group 3 Auckland Cup in 2017.
He stands at Brackley Park in Victoria but has just 67 live foals and covered a grand total of 26 mares in the past four completed breeding seasons.
Half Yours’ dam La Gazelle, who is by Makybe Diva’s sire Desert King, was owned by McKenna and his wife Janice and Calvin McEvoy said the fact they bred Half Yours was a key reason in their interest.
“Colin McKenna and Janice bred the horse and the way they do things, they have a farm down at Warrnambool and they don’t push their horses,” he said.
“He was in the big system at CMR and I knew Col wouldn’t put pressure on Ciaron to push him as a young horse.
“We basically got a young four-year-old, I suppose, no miles on the clock, plenty of raw ability and something to work with.”
La Gazelle died not long after foaling Half Yours with four of her earlier foals having got to the track for only two winners, Emil and Poppy Joan.
