"Precocious" is a word heard extremely often at yearling sales. You just don't often hear it about buyers.
But it applies perfectly to Payton Boersma, who made a splash at the Inglis Easter Sale, March 29.
He's originally from the west coast of America, he loves the beach, and you could easily imagine him describing Sydney's surf as "gnarly."
He fronts a young but expanding thoroughbred buying team called The Flying Dutchmen, and on Sunday, he made his first overseas purchase in buying a filly for AU$750,000.
And he's all of 23 years old.
These American Dutchmen bought Lot 89, a daughter of I Am Invincible out of three-time group 1 winner Shoals. They'll race her in Australia along with Arrowfield Stud, the vendor who stayed in for a leg, and who've been helping Boersma's team in their first foray outside the United States.
It's an intriguing picture, putting Arrowfield's John Messara, the septuagenarian senior statesman of Australian breeding, in cahoots with Boersma, who looked the picture of surfie cool in his shorts and thongs at Riverside, and is just the odd half century Messara's junior.
But the respect runs both ways, with Messara labellng his new associate, who's younger than Written Tycoon, as "one smart cookie".
"My dad loves racing, my four brothers and my mom love it. It's awesome," Boersma enthused, for he knows no other way.
"It really just started with going to the race in our hometown, Grants Pass, Oregon—just a local track with cheap claiming racing. Then we decided to buy our first claiming horse for 2,500 bucks. That was in 2012, and it just kinda snowballed from there. That was when I first started studying pedigrees."
When some quick maths deduced when Boersma was 10, he replied, "Yep!"
"Then about four years ago, a group of us got a bit more seriously into it, initially as a small operation on the west coast with a bunch of claiming horses," Boersma told ANZ News.
"At first we were called Boardshorts Stables—'cause we just had a really great time, loved the beach, and showed up to the races in boardshorts and flip flops. But then the branding was becoming more difficult, and we were getting a bit more professional, just slightly, so we came up with The Flying Dutchmen.
"We also decided to professionalize the operation, and we moved to Kentucky. We then bought a few stallion shares, some yearlings, and we've been breeding to race, and it's been spectacular."
Their first lot of yearling buys, in 2023, produced Owen Almighty (Speightstown), who took the upstart operation straight to the top.
"He ran in the Kentucky Derby," he said. "He was a long shot, but he took the lead going into the final stretch. For about two seconds, the whole world thought we had a chance to win the Kentucky Derby—the longest two seconds I've ever had. In the end, he came fifth, but just to be in the race was a really special thing."
So what prompted this first buying mission outside of the U.S.?
"I started to study the bloodlines a good bit about a year ago to get a deeper understanding of the international bloodlines, and have a good understanding of what it looks like on a worldwide scale," said Boersma, for whom a year must be a far longer time than for some of us.
"And we found that Easter is the best sale to come to. It's very similar to the Saratoga Sale in America, where it's the top quality and the top bloodlines, and we just said, 'You know what? We want to make our stamp in Australia.'"
The first mark has been made through Sunday's Lot 89, whose dam Shoals was Australia's champion 3-year-old filly in 2017-18 and the equal leading older female on the 2018 WTR sprint rankings, and has thrown a group 3 winner in this filly's sister Isthmus.
Boersma, who runs The Flying Dutchmen with partner Hunter Rankin, noted the filly's third dam was the great blue hen Shantha's Choice (Canny Lad), dam of five stakes winners, including three at the top level, headed by Arrowfield legend Redoute's Choice.
"The filly is spectacular," Boersma beamed. "Physically, she's just so powerful. She's a really nice mover, and she's got one of the best pedigrees in the entire country. It shows on the page. It's incredible."
Boersma said he was "loving" his first trip to Australia, which of course included trips to the beach and the races.
"I went to Golden Slipper day, and gosh that was spectacular," he said, before a wrap for Messara's finest. "And that Autumn Glow—she is truly incredible. I hope she gets the chance to put herself in that Winx conversation."
Reminded that Autumn Glow had "unbeaten" over Winx at this stage, he shot back, "Yeah, but she did win 33 in a row."
Boersma said The Flying Dutchmen, who now have around 70 racehorses, 30 breeding stock, their own stud farm, and 12 staff, would likely return to Easter while building their association with Arrowfield.
"John Messara is a really good guy who runs, honestly, the best operation I've ever seen. I've been truly impressed," he said.
"We're partnering with Arrowfield on this filly. It's the first partnership we've ever done, in fact. I'm very lucky to have met John and his team, and we can't wait to get to know them better."
