News

Hong Kong Sprint Showcases Australian Breeding and Horsemen

23rd Dec 2008

Breednet - Media Release - Wednesday, 17 December 2008

Performers bred in Australia have achieved what must challenge as a world record in winning every one of the annual renewals of the Hong Kong International Sprint, the tenth edition of which was staged on Sunday and resulted in a trifecta for Australian sired contestants. It is unlikely any other single feature northern hemisphere event in history has been dominated as extensively by overseas horses from the one country.

First and second places in this year’s International Sprint went to two Hong Kong domiciled runners, in order Inspiration and Green Birdie, who were got in the Hunter Valley using Danehill Golden Slipper winners over daughters of Last Tycoon mares, while third money was collected by the baldy faced Apache Cat, one of only two visitors from Australia for the10-race international program, but among 44 of the 130 runners sired here.

Bred at the Arrowfield Stud near Scone in the Hunter Valley and sold to Gary Moore Racing, Macau for $420,000 at the Inglis Sydney Easter yearling sale, the winner of the Sprint, the 5-year-old Flying Spur gelding Inspiration, not only showed off the quality of Australian breeding but also horsemanship. He is trained in Hong Kong by Gary Moore’s brother John and was ridden by champion Australian jockey Darren Beadman.

The Moore brothers are sons of the now deceased icon jockey George Moore and got their early tutelage in horsemanship when he had the Yarraman Park Stud at Scone.

Inspiration is a three-quarter brother to the Redoute’s Choice stakes winners Lucky Unicorn and Provence, all products of the Widden Stud bred Lunchtime Sydney winner Party, a close relation to Dracula, a Quest for Fame triple Group1 winner located at Egmont Park Stud in Queensland’s Toowoomba region.

Party’s dam Waltz was a half-sister to Kilshery, a champion racehorse bred by the deceased James ‘Bim’ Thompson, the father of Antony Thompson, a seventh generation of the family that founded and still own Widden in the Hunter Valley and a current leader of the management team. Their dam, Lady Pirouette, an AJC Champagne Stakes winner out of Hecuba, a half-sister to Australian Hall of Fame incumbent Ajax, was foaled when Bim was 3-years-old. He was given the dam as a first birthday present.

Green Birdie, the runner up in the International Sprint and earlier third in the Hong Kong Derby after winning and finishing second in Melbourne, was foaled in New Zealand, but was got by Catbird from Mrs Squillionaire, a minor winning sister by Last Tycoon to fleetfooted gallopers Palia, Just Awesome and Lady Capel.

Lady Capel is the dam of Casino Prince, a Flying Spur Group1 winner and very popular foundation sire this year at the Patinack Farm stud in the Segenhoe Valley near Scone, while Palia produced Dr Green, a very smart son of Fusaichi Pegasus making his home at the up and coming Palmaday Stud at Beaudesert in Queensland.

Hong Kong International Sprint third Apache Cat, a six times Group1 winner, put up a gallant effort, overcoming a blocked run, a momentarily dropped left rein and a lost left hind plate to finish a close third. Bred and raised for clients on the Chatswood Stud at Seymour in Victoria, Apache Cat is raced out of the Greg Eurell stables at Cranbourne in Victoria for six owners. Two of them, P.F. Radford and Mrs R.N. Lawrie, own Apache Cat’s dam, the Whiskey Road mare Tennessee Blaze.

Fourth place in the Sprint, a race in which there were visiting runners from Australia, England, France, Germany, South Africa, Japan and Singapore, went to Enthused, a New Zealand bred son of Centaine and Free As A Bird, a Jugah mare bred in Victoria, while the only other Australian bred horse in the field, the Honour and Glory gelding Sunny Power, finished fifth. Enthused and Sunny Power are also owned in Hong Kong.

Australian bred horses won five races at the big Hong Kong meeting. Besides the International Sprint, John Moore and Beadman succeeded in another sprint with the Catbird gelding Craig’s Dragon; John Size took another sprint with the Commands gelding Brilliant Chapter; Dream Team, a son of Red Ransom and from another Last Tycoon mare won the Tokyo Handicap from two other Australian bred runners and the tenth race went to Full of Joy, a son of Quest for Fame and a Danehill mare. Brian Russell Bloodstock Media Service