ST. JEAN

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   The $3000 stallion behind Melbourne Cup favourite Half Yours

The chances of one among six named foals born in that season sired by a $3000 stallion becoming the 13th horse to do the Caulfield Cup/Melbourne Cup doubles lies somewhere in between the unlikely and the impossible.
Maybe so, but just don't call it a fluke.
At least not while Grant Dwyer is around.
Dwyer's role in the Half Yours story doesn't get as much attention as a Tony or Calvin McEvoy or Jamie Melham do but quite simply, there wouldn't be a Half Yours without him.
He was there where it happened, so to speak.
"I was holding the stallion while he covered the mare,'' Dwyer said.
The stallion Dwyer was holding was St Jean who stands by arrangement at Grant and wife Joanne's Brackley Park Stud at Avenel, 110km north of Melbourne.
St Jean took up residency at the Dwyer's farm in 2017.
He served 27 mares at a service fee of $3300.
After that first season, St Jean's book fluctuated, mostly in a downwards direction, hitting 21 in 2019 and as low as five in 2024.
"It's been very unfortunate that either the Victorian breeding industry didn't see what I saw in the pedigree, or they didn't want to breed stayers,'' Dwyer said.
"And up until now, he'd had only served mares owned by breeders who purely wanted to race the progeny.
"There has never been a yearling sold by this horse."
And now with the rise and rise of Half Yours, St Jean has won over his share of converts.
But Dwyer, well, he's more of a disciple, a true believer.
"I always had faith that the horse would throw something good,'' he said.
"I saw things in the pedigree I really liked."
The fact that he was a Sadler's Wells line stallion via Galileo and his son Teofilo for one.
Or that Teofilo, as Dwyer pointed out, has sired three Melbourne Cup winners, Cross Counter, Twilight Payment and Without A Fight.
Then there is St Jean's dam line.
"His third dam is Height Of Fashion who was owned by The Queen,'' Dwyer said.
"And when she went to stud, she produced Nashwan who won the English Derby so I knew St Jean should breed staying horses."
As well-bred as he is, St Jean was also a talented racehorse in his day, both at home and abroad.
"He won his maiden by 16 lengths over 2400m in Ireland," Dwyer said.
"He won some races here in Australia in really impressive style and was actually an early favourite for the Caulfield Cup but unfortunately he bowed his tendon."
St Jean resurfaced in New Zealand in a Group 3 at Ellerslie, ironically on the same day as Almandin won the Melbourne Cup in 2016.
St Jean was beaten that time but managed to win the City Of Auckland Cup on New Year's Day 2017 and was elevated to Auckland Cup favouritism only to break down again, this time, for the last time, post his Avondale Cup farewell.
It has taken St Jean five seasons to deliver on what Dwyer had almost stubbornly forecast, but some stallions, many of them priced well above what St Jean, never deliver at all.
What a satisfying feeling it must have been for Dwyer, present on Caulfield Cup day, when Half Yours burst away from the pack to win one of the great races on the world calendar.
"It's unbelievable how you feel,'' he said.
"This horse (Half Yours), on that day, is basically changing our whole business around.
"We have struggled along. We have been standing stallions at the low end of the market for 22 years – you wouldn't know how good it was to watch that horse win."
Dwyer, a Collins St stockbroker-turned-studmaster, says that since the Caulfield Cup the phone has been ringing and we are getting more bookings.
"After the Naturalism win, which Half Yours won quite well we put St Jean's fee up to $10,000 plus GST, which is still a very, very cheap service fee for a stallion that has proven that he can get a stakes winner,'' he said.
"We don't want to increase the service again this season, even though Half Yours has gone on and won the Group 1 Caulfield Cup. We want to give everyone a chance to breed to the horse at a reasonable fee this season."
St Jean is no one-trick pony, there are others, maybe not with the profile of the Melbourne Cup favourite, but they're around.
"St Jean has some other horses coming through the ranks like Buzzaroon, trained by Aaron Purcell, who won three 2000m races in succession,'' Dwyer said.
"And the Roger James trained The Precursor who ran second at Ellerslie recently.
"If one of those two horses progresses to stakes company or Half Your does well going forward, then we would probably increase the service again in the 2026 stud season."
For now though, Dwyer is just doing what he had done this time of year for two decades; the seven day a week chores of a busy hands-on studmaster.
Only next week, it'll be a six-day week.
Thanks to Half Yours – and St Jean.
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Shayne O'Cass