Karasi is trained by Eric Musgrove on the property he shares in Victoria with one of Australia’s only syndicators of jumps horses in Sharon and Neil Lawrence of Suntop Lodge. Apart from Karasi’s great performance, the stable also won the Von Doussa and Great Eastern Steeplechases at Oakbank over Easter with Bello Signor and Chakra.

With the jumping season already in full swing, what type of horse makes a good jumper? Jumpers seem to have a reputation of being old geldings who have finished their undistinguished flat careers, but the reality can be a little different.

Karasi [0.30/1.22] was bred at the Aga Khan’s Stud in Ireland and was imported to Australia in December, 1998 as a genuine staying prospect. He had a good flat record winning the 201 Geelong Cup and more recently winning over 3000m at Moonee Valley is February this year. Karasi raced in the top company competing in the Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Sydney Cups and earning over $500,000 in prize-money on the flat. He is by a stallion we are largely unfamiliar with in Australia in Kahyasi, a son of Ile De Bourbon who in turn is by Nijinsky. Karasi’s dam, Karamita is from another stallion we see little of in Austalia in Shantung, a son of Sicambre. Her pedigree is very interesting in that we see a duplication of the Prince Rose stallion, Prince Bio as well as the presence of Hyperion, Nasrullah and Venture VII. Venture VII is from the mare Rose O’Lynn, the grand-dam of influential stallion, Zamazaan.

Bello Signor [1.22/3.50] is the winner of this year’s Von Doussa at Oakbank and another jumper who earned black type on the flat before embarking on a jumping career. He won three Listed races in his flat career from 1900 – 2400m and also raced in the Sydney and Adelaide Cups. Chakra [0.58/2.00] has a history that is perhaps closer to what we may expect from a jumper. His flat career was unspectacular with most of his flat form in Victorian country areas.

The Nakayama Grand Jump was won previously by the very good NZ jumper, St Steven [-0.39/0.64] who retired with earnings over two million dollars. The dosages of these runners show a very large range which does not appear consistent with the concept of dour stayers winning over the jumps. In fact, Tesio wrote many years ago that a jumps race was a series of short sprints rather than a true staying test, and this may influence the range of dosages. It is interesting though to note that in spite of the range of dosages, all of the above horses have had some significant speed factors in their pedigrees, and indeed most have performed over sprint journeys on the flat early in their careers. The other important factor could be some of the more obscure pedigrees of some jumpers leading to a lack of chefs-de-race in the dosage profile.

Perhaps the most telling factor is found in the pedigrees themselves. Karasi has the closest duplication within his pedigree of any of these in a 5mx5f cross of Nasrullah. This outcross type of pedigree would therefore seem very important and perhaps it indicates a soundness issue in this type of breeding. It is also interesting to note that Nasrullah and his sire, Nearco feature prominently in most of the pedigrees.