When Waikato Stud’s Pins mare Make A Wish gave birth to a Savabeel colt in 2017, it didn’t take long for the excitement to build.

For Make A Wish – a dual winner whose dam and granddam were multiple stakes winners – it was her first colt after five straight fillies. It was her third successive foal by Waikato’s super sire Savabeel, and he quickly emerged as the most impressive.

So impressive, he fetched $1.4 million at Karaka 2019 when sold to Te Akau Racing’s David Ellis, a price also helped by half-sister Another Dollar’s (Ocean Park) narrow second in Youngstar’s Queensland Oaks (Gr 1, 2200m) the year before.

The colt hit the track as No Limits, but in time was shown to have a fair few, and after seven starts, one win and a gelding procedure, he was quietly retired.

When Make A Wish, one year on, threw another Savabeel colt, it again drew gasps from those watching – but for all the wrong reasons.

“I took one look and just said ‘He’s a shocker’,” Waikato’s Mark Chittick tells It’s In The Blood.

“I do always say they’ve spent 11 months in a pretty tight compartment, so there’s a fair bit of unfolding to do. Sometimes you get horrific looking things – like their bumpers are touching the ground and hooves are pointing upwards, but once they straighten out, the tendons strengthen up, things move more into place.”

But there was no escaping the serious flaw in this colt – a near foreleg pointing outwards at a fairly grotesque angle, of around 20 degrees. As the weeks went by, this one didn’t straighten out, meaning some plans would have to be made.

“The main one was to hide him in a paddock behind a hedge when the buyers came around,” Chittick says with a laugh.

He can well afford to smile, for four years on, the foal with the almost comical limb is I Wish I Win, winner of four from 11 with just one unplaced run, the imperious victor of two Australian starts since crossing to Peter Moody, and the near even-money favourite for Caulfield’s Group 1 Toorak Handicap on October 8.

Needless to say, Chittick kept the colt – what sales house would have taken him? – and he and his new trainer, who took up a slice of the ownership, are counting their good fortune.

“I also always say that however undesirable they look when they come out, every horse deserves a chance,” Chittick says. “And now, in this case, we’ve got the favourite in a big Group 1. So who could have predicted it?

“It was certainly a surprise you didn’t want though. We’d had a lot of success with that mating – Savabeel over a Pins mare. Nine times out of ten, Make A Wish left a good foal, and the stallion did too.

“Unfortunately, or fortunately, when this one was born it was one of those things. It just looked like he’d been assembled and his leg was put on wrong. You wondered, ‘Will he straighten out or will he not?’ It became pretty evident after three or four weeks he wouldn’t.”

A few strategies were tried. Waikato’s farrier built up the hoof on the wonky leg with a glue base, as Chittick relates, to “try to correct that knee and alter the balance when the weight went on it”.

Before long it was apparent all this was doing was starting to deform the hoof, so the base was taken off. At 12 months, a couple of other things were removed, which worked to lighten the load.

“He was pretty muscular,” Chittick says, “and it’s an old school of thought that – if it’s clear they’re not going to stay a colt anyway – if they’re gelded younger, it’s less stressful on their bodies, and they’ll develop better as athletes – not only because they’re not putting that bulk muscle on as a colt, but they’re also not running up and down the fence and thinking about other things and getting into bad habits.”

Chittick also left it later than usual to have the horse broken in – by his long-time associate Jamie Beatson.

“When I took him off the float I said to Jamie, ‘Now, you’re not allowed to laugh at this horse’,” says Chittick. “But before long, the signs were encouraging. I’d ring Jamie every week or two and once he got on him, he told me, ‘If you don’t look at his legs, you wouldn’t know there was a problem. He moves fine’.

“Jamie went through his usual routines – six weeks out and a few weeks in – and was pretty happy with him. He went to Cambridge for a jump-out, for a bit of education and with a bit of pressure on, and it was clear things were heading in the right direction. It got to the stage where he had to go into work.”

Now with a name, I Wish I Win was sent to Te Akau’s Jamie Richards and won two barrier trials.

“I got all sorts of phone calls from the Asian market,” Chittick says. “I said ‘You can go and see him if you want, but you won’t be buying him’.”

Prospective buyers duly losing interest, I Wish I Win debuted in an Awapuni two-year-old maiden in March last year, and romped in as a $1.40 favourite. He jumped to Group 1 class, as second favourite, in the Manawatu Sires Produce Stakes (1400m), and struck a good one in On The Bubbles (Brazen Beau).

That began four straight stakes placings for the brown gelding, and eventually a close third in the Group 1 Levin Classic in March this year – behind Imperatriz (I Am Invincible) and, again, On The Bubbles – sparked his move across the Tasman.

Under Moody, a four-length stroll at Caulfield has now been followed by last Sunday’s powerful success in Sandown’s Listed Test Rossa Stakes (1300m). In between, there was that unlucky missed start as an emergency and early favourite in the Group 1 Rupert Clarke Stakes, but that bump in the road is now receding in the rear view mirror as the improbable racehorse with the crooked leg continues on what seems a very straight route towards top level glory.

Amid constant monitoring to ensure all is well, Chittick reports the limb has merely “sort of” straightened up a little now.

“It’s more that it’s strengthened rather than straightened,” he says. “Horses do ‘remodel’  more bone. That’s why splints develop – there’ll be pressure on one side, so the body says it’s going to grow a splint and lay down a new bit of bone there to stabilise it. It’s an amazing thing, nature.

“Sometimes when you watch slow motion head-on shots of the end of a race, you see how even horses who stand straight can start throwing the legs out in all directions. I watched on Sunday, and this guy throws them pretty straight.

“If you look at him now you might say, ‘Ooh, he turns out a bit’. But you don’t look at him and say ‘He’s a shocker’.”

In breeding I Wish I Win, Waikato tapped a powerful nick, with Pins mares now having brought Savabeel 91 winners from 127 runners including 16 stakes winners, chief among them the outstanding Probabeel. Only O’Reilly (130 winners, 22 stakes winners from 181 runners) is a more illustrious nick for the 21-year-old stallion.

I Wish I Win’s granddam Starcent (Centaine) won twice at Group 3 and once at Listed level, and is the third dam of another fine drop from the Savabeel-Pins blend, Group 1 Livamol Classic winner Savy Yong Blonk.

Third dam Star Of The Knight won the Group 2 Queensland Sires’ and Group 3 Queensland Guineas in the early 1980s, and as a daughter of Sir Tristram gives I Wish I Win a gender-balanced 3Sx4D cross of that legendary stallion, father of Savabeel’s sire Zabeel.

Further back, I Wish I Win carries a 7Sx7Sx7D replication of outstanding Irish broodmare Oceana (Colombo) through her most famous sons, the Star Kingdom full brothers Noholme and Todman. She appears twice in the fourth generation of Savabeel’s granddam – via a Noholme son in Nodouble and a Todman daughter in Virginia – and again with Todman’s Rain Shadow being the second dam of Make A Wish’s damsire, Centaine.

Make A Wish’s third straight colt – an Ocean Park full brother to Another Dollar – will be offered at Karaka next year. Sadly, a filly by Super Seth born two weeks ago will count as her last, with the 16-year-old mare suffering a fatal haemorrhage after the birth.

“We tried hard to save her but couldn’t,” Chittick says. “It’s sad, because she had a sentimental place for us.

“She produced a number of lovely types. One sold for $1.4 million who didn’t have the ability, and now the one who was not the best looking looks like being her best racehorse.”