News

Autumn Carnival Features Point To Easter

7th Mar 2009

Next month’s Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale was highlighted by the Randwick Group wins of Wanted and Portillo, who headed another successful day of stakes success for Inglis graduates yesterday.

Group 3 Kindergarten Stakes winner Wanted and Group 2 Surround Stakes heroine Portillo are Easter graduates and both have half relations at this year’s Easter Sale, which runs over three sessions from April 5-7.

Easter is the leading source of Group 1 and stakes winners in Australia, with graduates having now won 53 stakes races in Australia this season, including nine at Group 1 level.

WANTED ($800,000 2008 Easter, 2c Fastnet Rock-Fragmentation) stitched up his place in the Golden Slipper after showing a brilliant turn of foot to land the Kindergarten, which has been a good pointer to the Slipper over many years.

Offered for sale by Highgrove Stud, he becomes the first stakes winner for Coolmore’s young Danehill stallion Fastnet Rock.

Wanted was the equal highest priced yearling in Fastnet Rock’s first crop and the sire has 26 yearlings catalogued for Easter.

Highgrove will offer an outstanding Charge Forward colt from his stakes winning Snippets dam Fragmentation as Lot 496 at Easter.

That colt has enjoyed a double boost in the past eight days. Not only is Wanted now a stakes winner, but Charge Forward opened his stakes winning tally when Easter graduate Headway scored at Caulfield last Saturday.

Later at Randwick, PORTILLO ($850,000 2007 Easter, 3f Red Ransom-Snowdrift) added a third stakes success to her already impressive record when scoring a thrilling win over fellow Darley runner Romneya in the Group 2 Surround Stakes.

In addition to her stakes wins, Portillo has also placed in the G1 Golden Slipper and G1 Flight Stakes, making her one of the most valuable fillies in training, not to mention her earnings now topping $650,000.

Tyreel Stud will offer an Encosta De Lago colt as Lot 239 at Easter from the wonderful mare Snowdrift, who has also produced the G1 winner Snowland and stakes winning Snippetson.

While the high priced Easter graduates rose to the fore at Randwick, exciting filly KIRVINSKY ($70,000 2007 Easter, Stravinsky-Kirtlington) showed at Flemington that you don’t have to spend a fortune to find an Easter jewel.

Kirvinsky is among 12 Easter stakes winning graduates this season to have been purchased for $200,000 or less, with the group also including multi million dollar earner Racing To Win ($40,000) and Cox Plate winner Maldivian ($195,000).

The bargain priced filly was secured by Colin Alderson and the trainer is now looking at Group 1 targets in Adelaide for the filly after she charged late to win the Listed MSS Security Stakes (1100m), taking her record to three wins in six outings.

Kirvinsky was the first leg of a stakes winning treble for Inglis graduates at Flemington.

ROSTOVA ($80,000 2008 Premier, 2f Testa Rossa-Space Talk) bounced back to her best form in making a one act affair of the Group 2 VRC Sires Produce Stakes. She is now the winner of four stakes races in five starts for earnings of $425,000.

In the final event, ROCKPECKER ($1,250 2004 June Weanling, 5g Made Of Gold-Gaelic Waltz) foiled the comeback of Group 1 winning Classic Sale pin up Whobegotyou when lasting to take the Listed Melbourne Food & Wine Plate.

It was just reward for the most consistent five-year-old, who is now the winner of seven races and $350,000 in earnings – making a mockery of his modest purchase price.

Rounding out the Inglis stakes success yesterday were the top mares JUDGED (P$12,000 2005 Sires Produce, 5m High Yield-Adjourn), who beat the boys in the G3 Liverpool City Cup, and HOT DANISH ($32,000 2005 Scone, Nothin’ Leica Dane-Hot ‘n’ Breezy), who made light of her 61kg when trouncing her rivals in the Listed Wiggle Quality.

Hot Danish is now the winner of 10 races in just 14 starts for earnings of $900,000, while Judged’s earnings are closing in on the $400,000 mark following her sixth career win yesterday.

The next Inglis sale will be next Thursday and Friday's Melbourne March Thoroughbred Sale