He’s got Ryan Gosling good looks, George Clooney charm and the athletic prowess of Tom Brady.
Parchment Party is the All-American poster boy that can capture Aussie hearts this spring when he becomes the first US-trained horse to run in the Melbourne Cup.
Trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott and raced by the innovative Kentucky operation Pin Oak Stud, Parchment Party claimed one of the Victoria Racing Club’s golden tickets for the Melbourne Cup when he demoralised his rivals in the G2 Belmont Gold Cup in June.
Another member of US racing’s Hall of Fame, jockey John Velasquez, will fly straight from the Breeders Cup to ride the American stallion at Flemington.
In the meantime, Pin Oak’s traveling work rider, Jo Robinson, is overseeing Parchment Party’s build-up in quarantine at Werribee.
While there haven’t been any ‘USA, USA’ chants at morning trackwork from the British-born horsewoman just yet, she’s excited to be part of the pioneering expedition Down Under with the horse she can’t help but love.
“It’s pretty cool to be here with him and to be a part of trying to make history,” Robinson said.
“He’s a really kind horse and a lovely horse to be around every day.”
“If you go to his stall he’ll stick his head over the door to see you and he never puts his ears back and I think it’s because he just loves being around people.”
“He’s very handsome and people often comment about how big he is but I think he knows that he looks good and a lot of it is the way he carries himself.”
“He’s got a bit of an aura about him.”
Part of the reason for the lack of participation from American horses in Melbourne’s spring has been issues around quarantine that have made their task more logistically tricky than their counterparts from Europe and Asia.
Those logistical challenges remain although Pin Oak Stud, which was taken over by Jim and Dana Bernhard in 2022, have taken an industrious approach to the way they campaign their horses.
Despite a lengthy process to relocate from Saratoga to Werribee via Belgium and the UK in recent weeks, Parchment Party appears to have taken no ill-effects from his travel according to Robinson.
His favourite activities are eating and working, both of which he continues to do well.
“The horse is based in Saratoga which is upstate New York so two days before he was leaving, he shipped down to Belmont which is closer to JFK (airport) so that on the day of his trip, he could just shuttle across to the airport,” she said.
“He left New York and he flew to Liège in Belgium, which was about an eight-hour flight.”
“He spent five or six hours on the ground there while they got through customs then he got on a horse box and was driven to Newmarket, which was another 12 hours.”
“When he arrived in England, he couldn’t actually enter the quarantine facility for three days because the first bunch of quarantine horses were still in there.”
“We borrowed one of Godolphin’s isolation barns and he was there for three days.”
“So before we could even start quarantine, it was a long journey for him.”
“He spent two full weeks in quarantine at Newmarket and then flew out here and arrived at Werribee.”
“It would be a tough trip on a horse that didn’t settle or struggled with traveling but it’s a credit to the horse, he’s handled everything really well.”
“He loves his food and that’s how you can tell if there’s anything wrong with this horse, but he’s been shouting for his food every day and he’ll burn eyes into the back of your head waiting to be fed.”
“He’s never lost his appetite and he held all of his weight so I think he’s handled it well.”
“Being an American horse, he is very used to being on horse boxes for a long period of time – he spends his summers in New York and his winters in Florida and that’s about a 20 hour drive and he does that twice a year.”
The best of Parchment Party’s form has come on dirt tracks, which does pose a challenge for Australian punters trying to line up his recent wins in the Listed Birdstone Stakes and G3 Belmont Gold Cup, both over 2800m.
His work at Werribee in recent days has been split between the grass and the synthetic tracks, with Robinson pleased with his times, data and recovery.
While he’s more of an unknown proposition on turf, Robinson sees no reason why his form can’t translate at Flemington, especially over two miles.
Parchment Party is rated $34 in Bet365’s Melbourne Cup market.
“We’ve been switching it up a little bit,” she said.
“I breezed him on the grass yesterday (Tuesday) and he handled it great, it’s a little softer than he’d be used to in America because their turf tends to be like the road, a lot firmer and rock hard and the turf at Werribee is more European and well-watered.”
“His times were great and all his data from the sensors looked good.”
“He’s kind of untried on the grass over this distance but we know he’ll stay all day, he’s got stamina and he has a huge stride.”
“His form says he prefers the dirt and he wins on the dirt but that’s where he’s done most of his racing and I don’t really have too many concerns over the turf over this trip.”
