Anamoe lays down spring marker with dominant Winx Stakes success
Dual Guineas winner Anamoe (4 c Street Boss – Anamato by Redoute’s Choice) delivered an ominous warning to his spring rivals yesterday, when he announced his return to the track in style, producing a performance full of class to win the first elite-level contest of the new season, the Winx Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) at Randwick.
In winning yesterday’s $750,000 showpiece, the James Cummings-trained four-year-old became the first Australian entire since Show A Heart (Brave Warrior) in 2001 to win Group 1 races at two, three and four years of age.
Anamoe landed the first prize in both the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and Rosehill Guineas (Gr 1, 2000m) last season, Classic wins which added to his Inglis Sires’ (Gr 1, 1400m) success as a juvenile: a year in which he was also runner-up in the Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) behind Stay Inside (Extreme Choice).
Ridden by James McDonald, the Godolphin-bred-and-owned son of Darley shuttler Street Boss (Street Cry) broke well from the inside barrier before being settled in fourth place on the rails behind the early speed set by Hilal (Fastnet Rock) and Forbidden Love (All Too Hard).
Approaching the final 300 metres of the 1400-metre feature, McDonald was forced to take the inside passage as the leaders moved away from the rails on the Soft 5 surface and Anamoe quickened well to run out a decisive one-and-three-quarter-length winner over Vinery Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1850m) heroine Fangirl (Sebring).
Spring Champion Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) scorer Profondo (Deep Impact) finished a further nose back in a hotly-contested renewal which featured six previous Group 1 winners.
“He’s a proper horse, isn’t he?,” Cummings said post-race.
“It is a great result for the team, and I’m a bit surprised that I’m upset [emotional] about it, but it just means a lot to us. It’s a pleasure to have a horse as good as this back at four. We’ve got a great team around us.
“We say it all the time, it should go without saying, but you can see the effort that’s gone into this horse, getting to this level and having him back every prep is amazing.
“You can’t help but feel like he’s well and truly stamped himself as the horse to beat in anything he runs in this preparation.
“Without an international horse, this horse might have won a Cox Plate. He won the Caulfield Guineas and if he draws a gate in a Golden Slipper, he’s won a Slipper.
“Name me a colt who is not far off going to stud who has done that. He is a pretty special horse to have in work.”
Cummings is in no rush to decide where Anamoe will head next, but the obvious main target remains a crack at going one better in the Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) after last year’s desperate second behind subsequent Group 1–scorer State Of Rest (Starspangledbanner).
“We’ve got plenty of time to see how he pulls up. We’re spoilt for choice; there is so much on the table for a horse like him,” Cummings said.
“He’s a wonderful horse to have in training for his Highness Sheikh Mohammed in Australia, and a great advertisement of what we can do with the farm and the stables we’ve got.
“All my assistant trainers between Dizzy, Reg, Sean and Paul Reid, they’ve all had their hands on him, and it is great to see him flying and coming back with form like that at four.
“Hopefully, the preparation unfolds as beautifully as it did for him in this first-up run.”
A half-brother to British Listed–winner Anamba (Shamardal), Ananmoe is the best of four winners from six to race out of the Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m)-winning Redoute’s Choice (Danehill) mare Anamato.
A half-sister to Group 1 winner Drum (Marauding), Anamato has a pedigree that features Group 1 winners Grand Armee (Hennessy), Yourdeel (Dundeel) and Dealer Principal (Flying Spur).
She has a yearling filly foal by Blue Point (Shamardal), but missed returning to Street Boss last spring. Street Boss stands at Kelvinside in New South Wales for a fee of $77,000 (inc GST).
In Secret and Zapateo provide plenty of promise for Darley
While Anamoe was already the undisputed heavyweight of Godolphin’s spring line-up, the boys in blue may have added to their armoury with encouraging performances from three-year-old filly In Secret (I Am Invincible), who finished second in the Silver Shadow Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) behind Zougotcha (Zoustar), overcoming a rough passage in the straight, and Toy Show Quality (Gr 3, 1100m) winner Zapateo (Brazen Beau).
Ridden by James McDonald, In Secret found herself in a pocket with nowhere to go entering the final 200 metres of the contest before finding a gap in the closing stages to come home strongly behind winner Zougotcha, who got first run, beaten one and a quarter lengths.
“A great return from an inexperienced horse,” McDonald said post-race. “She will only benefit from today’s outing and a more genuinely run race.”
The Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum-owned operation also had plenty of reason to celebrate in the seventh race on the Sydney card, when four-year-old Brazen Beau (I Am Invincible) mare Zapateo (4 m Brazen Beau – Jerezana by Lonhro) picked up this season where she left the last with an impressive win in the Toy Show Quality.
Under the capable hands of jockey Rachel King, the Cummings-trained mare finished off strongly under a well-timed ride to down Group 2-winning mare Jamaea (Headwater) by two and three-quarter lengths, with a further nose back to Sky Command (Deep Field) in third.
“She’s a lovely mare and looks like she has a big future,” Cummings said. “She was not well weighted at all with the compression of the weights.
“She has been flying along in her trackwork, and we were extremely confident. Zapateo is Osborne Bull’s half-sister and a young mare by Brazen Beau, and gee, she looks like she has got lots of upside – and I don’t think she’s done with yet.”
“Rachel did the perfect job from the good gate. She got her to switch–off a lot better than she did at Scone.”
Osborne Bulls (Street Cry) only broke through for his maiden win as an end-of-season three-year-old, earning a first stakes win of his four-year-old campaign in May, before a quartet of runner-up efforts at Group 1 level during the autumn of his five-year-old season, which followed a third-placed finish in The Everest (1200m) during the spring.
Cummings is now aiming for the Sheraco Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) as the next target for Zapateo, potentially her first run at the 1200-metre distance since finishing runner-up in the PJ Bell Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) in April.
“If we take her to the Sheraco next, then she will have to step up and get the job done over six furlongs and run it out strongly. But she’s a fast mare and has an impressive turn of foot. When they can slide up on the bridle like that at Randwick, you know you’re cooking with gas.”
Zapateo is the fifth of six foals left by the Listed-winning Lonhro (Octagonal) mare Jerezana before her premature death in 2019 and is a half-brother to the high-class Group 1 placegetter and three-time stakes winner Osbourne Bulls, as well as the stakes-placed Badajoz (Commands).
Jerezana’s final foal is the unraced three-year-old Street Boss colt Zaragoza.