Lessons Learned This Weekend

Rupert Bears a Winning Record…

We have become accustomed to high-class sprinters emerging from relative obscurity in Australia. The latest potential superstar appears to be the unbeaten 3-year-old colt Winning Rupert (Aus) (Written Tycoon {Aus}), who extended his string of victories to four by taking the Gold Edition Plate at Doomben on Saturday. He had previously run a course record at Eagle Farm, but Saturday's performance was spectacular: his comfortable 5 1/2-length triumph saw him stop the clock for the 1200m at 1:07.97, the second-fastest time ever recorded for the distance at Doomben and only 0.09 outside the record set 10 years ago by the international champion Takeover Target (Aus) (Celtic Swing {GB}).

Fast horses galore come out of the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale every January, but the company's flagship sale is certainly not its only auction to yield good horses. Winning Rupert came out of the Magic Millions Gold Coast March Yearling Sale in 2015, picked up relatively inexpensively by Sydney-based Kiwi trainer Bjorn Baker for A$67,500. Winning Rupert comes from a family which has been throwing out tough sprinters in Queensland for decades, such as his dam Winaura (Aus) (Show A Heart {Aus}), who won five sprints including scoring at both of Brisbane's racecourses, Eagle Farm and Doomben. However, there are no stakes performers in the first four generations of his family, and he ranks as the latest illustration of the ability of his sire Written Tycoon (Aus) (Iglesia {Aus}) to upgrade his mares.

Winning Rupert is one of the several very good horses who have emerged from the final season which Written Tycoon spent on the Eliza Park roster, a season which he spent at the stud's property in Queensland, having previously been at the main farm in Victoria. Last season's G1 Golden Slipper S. winner Capitalist (Aus) is another member of this crop, along with Luna Rossa (NZ), who took the G1 Manawatu Sires' Produce S. in New Zealand last term. The stallion, winner of the G2 Todman S. in Sydney during his own juvenile season in 2005, now stands at Woodside Park Stud in Victoria.

Winning Rupert will remain in Queensland for the next few weeks. He has already earned A$361,500 but his bank balance is likely to reach considerably greater heights. He would be in line for a A$500,000 bonus if he were to land either the Vo Rogue Plate on New Year's Eve or the A$2-million Magic Millions Guineas at the Gold Coast on Jan. 14. After that the world could well be his oyster, with the big sprints during Melbourne's Autumn Carnival, particularly the G1 Newmarket H. at Flemington, looking tailor-made for him in the short term. International targets could subsequently await.

March Sale Keeps Giving…

Winning Rupert was not the only stakes winner at Doomben on Saturday to be a graduate of the Magic Millions March Yearling Sale. Ours To Keep (Aus) (Seidnazar {Aus}) also came out of this auction, in his case the 2016 edition. Now aged two, he too has already earned much more than his purchase price: he cost A$28,000 and his two starts (both victories) have seen him earn A$128,700. Having won a maiden race over 1050m at Doomben 16 days previously, he doubled his tally by taking the Phelan Ready S. over 1110m on Saturday.

Ours To Keep's trainer Chris Munce has described his charge as “the best looking 2-year-old in Queensland.” On that basis, it is remarkable that Munce was able to buy the colt so inexpensively only nine months ago. However, like Winning Rupert, he comes from a family devoid of black-type performers in the immediate tiers, although his fourth dam produced the excellent Kingdom Bay (NZ) (Otehi Bay {Aus}), who was a top racehorse in New Zealand in the early '80s (when his 13 wins were headed by the G1 NZ 2,000 Guineas) before becoming a champion sire.

Like Winning Rupert, Ours To Keep is a son of a very fast mare, his dam Picabelle (Aus) (Piccolo {GB}) having won four sprints in Queensland. However, while Winning Rupert is a son of a stallion who is now a proven source of high-class horses, Ours To Keep is not. In fact, Ours To Keep is the first stakes winner bred by his 14-year-old sire Seidnazar (Aus) (Rory's Jester {Aus}), who was a very smart juvenile for Peter Moody in the 2004/05 season when he took the St Albans S. over 1000m at Moonee Valley early in the spring before going on to lodge minor placings in the G3 Maribyrnong Plate, G1 Blue Diamond S. and G2 Pago Pago S.

Former champion jockey Chris Munce won three Magic Millions 2-Year-Old Classics in his riding days. Munce is still in the early stages of his second career, but Ours To Keep looks set to give him a decent chance of winning the race as a trainer too. Furthermore, he has a second string to his bow in the shape of the filly Champ Elect (Aus) (Choisir {Aus}), who completed a black-type double for the stable at Doomben on Saturday by landing the Calaway Girl S., albeit running the 1100m in a time 1.35 seconds slower than her stablemate had recorded 40 minutes previously.

Destined To Have Been a Bargain…

While Chris Munce clearly secured a great bargain when he bought Ours To Keep as a yearling, that juvenile was not the only stakes winner in Australia on Saturday to act as a galloping reminder of the bargains available to purchasers prepared to take a chance on unfashionable pedigrees. At the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale in 2010, Macquarie Stud consigned a bay colt by Power Of Destiny (Aus) (Danehill) from A Fairy's Kiss (NZ) (Stravinsky). He came from the first crop of a stallion who had never won a stakes race, and from a family replete with stamina. His owners placed a low reserve on him (A$8,000), but even so he was led out of the ring unsold, passed in at A$7,000. Now, 6 1/2 years later, he is closing in on the million-dollar mark of earnings. Named Destiny's Kiss (Aus), he registered his fourth stakes triumph when taking the Christmas Cup over 2400m at Randwick on Saturday.

In retrospect, it is incomprehensible that Destiny's Kiss should have been shunned as a yearling. He comes from the type of solid family which has been the bedrock of breeding in New Zealand for decades, his immediate family having produced such high-class stayers as G1 VRC Derby winner Omnicorp (NZ) (Grosvenor {NZ}), G2 Sandown Cup winner Pharostan (NZ) (Imposing {Aus}) and G3 Tasmanian Derby winner Suavity (Aus) (Akaaber). His granddam Crimson (NZ) (Zabeel {NZ} won five races headed by the G2 AuRC Champion S. and bred G1 VRC Oaks runner-up Miss Scarlatti (NZ) (Stravinsky). A Fairy's Kiss, a full-sister to Miss Scarlatti, was herself a listed-placed multiple winner who scored in both Sydney and Brisbane. The Australian racing programme provides plenty of opportunities for the good middle-distance and staying gallopers which this family churns out with such regularity, as Destiny's Kiss readily confirms: he has now won 13 races including one black-type race at 2100m and three at 2400m, as well as the Stayers Cup over 3200m at Randwick in 2014. His earnings currently stand at A$852,153, and it is easy to see them eventually ending up in seven figures.

A Fairy's Kiss's next two yearlings, both by Bernardini, were also passed in at Inglis, albeit with higher reserves (A$80,000). Next came a colt by Medaglia d'Oro who too was passed in (at Inglis's Easter Yearling Sale in 2014 with a A$120,000 reserve). Happily, the mare finally ended up with a good sale result to her name: at this year's Easter Sale her colt by So You Think (NZ) was offered by Amarina Farm, a young horse very much in the image of his magnificent sire, and was knocked down to Anthony Cummings for A$350,000. Whether he will prove as successful a racehorse as the formerly unwanted Destiny's Kiss, of course, remains to be seen.

Value Reigns…

The biggest prize on offer at Randwick on Saturday was the winner's cheque for the A$500,000 Inglis Nursery. On a day when the bargains were hitting the headlines, it almost went without saying that this would go to a horse from the lower tiers of his/her sale. The race was duly won by the Gary Portelli-trained She Will Reign (Aus) (Manhattan Rain {Aus}), who had been picked up by Darby Racing for A$20,000 at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale last February. The same syndicators, of course, had previously struck gold with another bargain: they bought Yankee Rose (Aus) (All American {Aus}) as a yearling at Inglis in 2015 for half of that sum, and she now ranks as a Group 1 winner last season and this, with $2,142,700 to her name.

She Will Reign had only made her debut seven days previously, winning a maiden race impressively at Kembla Grange as the odds-on favourite. She was similarly dominant in the Inglis Nursery, again justifying odds-on favouritism easily. She clearly deserves currently to figure prominently in Golden Slipper calculations, and the fact that she handled a heavy track on Saturday so well (clocking the eye-catchingly quick time of :58.57) means that she ought not to struggle if the autumn rain starts as early in Sydney as it often does.

As her price tag suggests, She Will Reign's pedigree is not obviously eye-catching, but she is related to some smart horses: her dam Courgette (Aus) (Charge Forward {Aus}) won at Rosehill as a 2-year-old, while her third dam Sunshine Sally (Aus) (Cheraw {Ire}) took the G2 Reisling Slipper Trial as a juvenile before finishing second the following season in the G1 AJC Oaks and subsequently breeding AJC Gimcrack S. heroine Millie (Aus) (Marscay {Aus}). Overall, though, her ability provides a strong pointer to the merit of her sire Manhattan Rain (Aus), whose qualifications for stud duties are obvious: he was a Group 1 winner as a 2-year-old and is a half-brother, by a champion sire, to the mighty Redoute's Choice (Aus).