Where Are They Now: Bettor’s Heart

When Bettor’s Heart paced a 1:49.7 mile to win the 2020 Group One Ladyship Mile at Menangle, she not only sealed her place among Australasia’s elite mares but also fulfilled a vision first set in motion decades earlier by her breeder, the late Peter Bagrie, and his wife Anne.

Crowned New Zealand Aged Mare Pacer of the Year in 2020, she became just the 12th Australasian-bred mare to break the magical 1:50 barrier – and only the third to do so under race conditions in the Southern Hemisphere at the time. For the Bagrie family, it was a milestone forged through patience, resilience, and a deep generational connection to her bloodlines.

Her dam, Valiant Heart (Soky’s Atom), was herself a trailblazer. She won 23 races, over $600,000, and paced a sizzling 1:50.6 in North America before Peter made the bold decision to buy her back to breed from.

Tom Bagrie recalls: “It’s an interesting one because Dad had sent her dam, Valiant Heart, over to North America to try and get a good mile rate and she was his pride and joy. He always felt that Bettor’s Heart, being by the great sire and out of his best mare, would be the one. But we never really got excited about her until possibly halfway through her four-year-old season.”

Bettor’s Heart was no precocious juvenile.

“She was just very late maturing, not racing until she was a late three-year-old,” Tom says.

“She didn’t really want to pace early and was a typical Bettor’s in that she didn’t show much until she left the property.”

From there, she steadily climbed the ranks, proving her toughness against a golden crop of mares that included Belle Of Montana, Wainui Creek and Princess Tiffany. She notched five Group placings in New Zealand and twice finished runner-up at Group One level before her crowning moment in Sydney.

“She just kept making that next step up and started going some really big races against the best mares in the country. She’d lead up or sit parked, do all the leg work, and still go down fighting.”

Her Menangle success was extra special. “Aussie was never really on the cards, but she got an invite after running second in the Canterbury Standardbred Breeders Stakes. The Aussies really twisted Dad’s arm to send her. Winning that race meant a lot to Mum and Dad, and then to get an invite to the Miracle Mile was another special experience for us all.”

She would finish sixth in the Miracle Mile behind champion King Of Swing, another measure of the company she kept.

In 2021, the family made the decision to send her to North America to race under Richard ‘Nifty’ Norman.

“The American plan came about because of the limited options available to her at the time. It’s obviously changed a lot now, but our hand was forced a wee bit. The mission didn’t really work out how we envisaged, but we built a great relationship with Nifty and with Dexter [Dunn] driving her. It was worth trying.”

Across two seasons in the U.S., she added 14 more wins to her résumé and pushed her lifetime stakes to $590,352 from 116 starts (23 wins, 15 placings).

“She never went faster than she did in Australia, but it didn’t matter. We couldn’t wait to get her home to breed from.”

Today, Bettor’s Heart has returned to the Bagrie farm, just like her mother before her. She heads up their broodmare band and carries the family’s hopes forward.

“She’s got a Captaintreacherous colt on her who looks the part,” says Tom. “It’s pretty cool to develop him at home on the same track his mum and grandmother earned their stripes. She’s back in foal to Captaintreacherous, and we wouldn’t mind a filly to keep the family going.”

“She’s a special mare to have on the farm and I’d like to think she will leave us a nice horse one