News

Time Thief Guineas Winner A Steal At Scone

12th Mar 2015

Australian Thoroughbred - by Brian Russell - Wednesday, 11 March 2015

Rom Baro, the impressive winner of the $120,000 Canberra Guineas (1400m) on Sunday, joins the long list of good performers acquired at modest prices through the Inglis conducted Hunter Valley Breeders Scone Yearling Sale, one which is held mid May each year.

Bred by F. Monsour, Queensland and sold through the David and Verna Metcalfe conducted Middlebrook Valley Lodge, one of the elite agistment farms in the Scone district, for only $12,000 to a bid from one of his 20 owners, K.F. Brownlee, Rom Baro is measuring up as a very good performer.

Now raced five times for wins at Canberra in each of his three outings since early February, one of them by six lengths, and at two runner up in the $100,000 Inglis Challenge at Scone, Rom Baro was one of three successful on Sunday’s program for young local trainer Matthew Dale. A conditioner who spent time with Waterhouse and O’Shea, Dale trains at Canberra’s Thoroughbred Park under M.J. Dale Racing.

The Guineas winner is a gelding in the first crop of the Darley Stud, Hunter Valley Redoute’s Choice sire Time Thief and is the fifth winner from Gypsy Mai, a smart Sydney performer by Our Maizcay, one of the most brilliant horses to graduate from the Widden Stud paddocks,

Deceased in 2010, Our Maizcay won 13 of 19 starts including seven in succession in New Zealand at two, a year he wound up with three good efforts in Sydney, seconds in the Skyline and Todman and a fourth in the Golden Slipper. He bounced back with six successive wins at three, two of them Group1s in Melbourne, the Vichealth and Caulfield Guineas.

The other Dale trained winners at the Canberra meeting were Gocup Belle (4yo mare, Dubawai – Bellevent, by Special Bond) and Alagonia (4yo gelding, Danewin – Thanksgiving, by Generous).

There were three stakes races, the others being the $275,000 Group 3 Black Opal for 2-year-olds and the $200,000 Listed Canberra Cup, a Quality over 2000m.

Another Widden product, Black Opal winner Takedown is a gelding by their resident Redoute’s Choice sire Stratum, a winner of the Golden Slipper and sire of a winner of it, and from Apamea (GB), a Zafonic Adelaide winner and France stakes placegetter.

A three-quarter brother to Lot 286, a bay Redoute’s Choice filly under Widden in the Easter catalogue, Takedown has raced three times for two wins and a debut third. His Guineas success gave his trainer Gary Moore, a son of legendary jockey George, his first stakes winner since returning home from overseas and moving into stables at Rosehill with his son Nicholas.

A former international jockey whose exploits included a win on Gold River in the 1981 Prix de l’ Arc de Triomphe, Moore has been training in Macau for the past 14 years and he captured their champion trainer title seven times.

The aptly named Faust, the Kurt Goldman Goulburn trained 5-year-old gelding who won the Canberra Cup on Sunday and late last November finished second in the Goulburn Cup, is by Librettist, a high class Danzig miler who paid one visit, 2008, to Darley in the Hunter Valley.

A three-quarter brother to Danzig shuttled world class sprinter Agnes World, Librettist got Faust, a half-brother to Canny Lad stakes winner Grand Reve, from Recce, an Adelaide Listed winner by the Spectacular Bid American Group1 winner Spectacular Love. He stood in New Zealand.