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Oaks Winning Mares Power Guineas Aspirants

26th Mar 2009

Racing and Sports - Nathan Exelby - Friday, 27 March 2009

Favoured Rosehill Guineas runners Caymans and Tobique (pictured) have some classy reserves of stamina to call on as they both tackle 2000m for the first time in Saturday's Group 1 contest.

The pair ran third and fourth respectively in the G1 Randwick Guineas earlier this month.

Caymans, winner of the G2 Sandown Guineas last spring, counts the 2400m New Zealand Oaks winner Solveig (Imposing) as his third dam.

In addition to the Oaks, Solveig won another two G1 events in a career that netted 14 wins and she went on from that stellar racetrack career to be a grand producer.

She produced four winners herself, including the stakes winners Greig and Lady Solvil, but her daughters have carried on the tradition, with her descendants headed by the Group 1 Sydney Cup winner Gallic, who also took out the Adelaide Cup (G2) over the testing 3200m.

This is also the family of fellow Sydney Cup winner Cross Swords, who was raced by Woodlands Stud.

Trevor Lobb, working for Woodlands at the time, picked out Caymans' dam Easy Out (Anabaa) from the 2005 Inglis Australian Broodmare Sale, where she was knocked down for $65,000.

She was carrying Caymans, already the winner of $414,000, so the deal was a good one.

Easy Out, who now comes under the Darley umbrella, has since produced colts by Quest For Fame, Octagonal and Ad Valorem, before missing to Street Sense last season.

Caymans is by Secret Savings, who was best known for his sprinter-milers, highlighted most recently by Oakleigh Plate winner and Newmarket Handicap runner-up Swiss Ace.

The best of Secret Savings' progeny over a middle distance to date has been the G3 Newcastle Cup (2300m) winner Bikkie Tin Blues.

Tobique also descends from a notable Oaks winner, that being the 1991 SAJC G1 Australasian Oaks winner Mannerism.

The Lee Freedman trained mare was a most versatile performer, winning 13 races and $1.7million.

Her four Group 1 wins came from 1400m to 2400m, with the extreme distance being her famous win over Veandercross in the 1992 Caulfield Cup.

Mannerism, now a 21-year-old, but still at stud, has never thrown anything in her own class, but all nine of her foals to race have been winners, highlighted by dual G2 winner Dandify and G3 winner Manner Hill – both by Danehill.

The Marscay mare Mammoth was a minor winner for Mannerism, but she has the potential to add a second generation of stakes winning descendants from Mannerism in the shape of the Redoute's Choice colt Tobique.

The Alan Denham trained colt came on the radar with an impressive Canberra Guineas win, before backing up six days later and recording a slashing fourth in the G1 Randwick Guineas, where he made up many lengths in the straight.

With Redoute's Choice's three-year-olds showing a liking for the Classic races, Tobique should relish the step up to 2000m this weekend.