Arcadia Queen proves her class in the Kingston Town Stakes
The Bob and Sandra Peters homebred was completing her first campaign of six starts which began only 89 days earlier at the same track and this was her third and most impressive stakes success having earlier won the WA Champion Fillies Stakes (Gr 3, 1600m) and the WA Guineas (Gr 2, 1600m), with her only defeat coming when third in the Burgess Queen Stakes (Listed, 1400m).
On Saturday Arcadia Queen carried only 50 kilograms against older rivals but she completely outclassed them in a high rating effort, hitting the front 200 metres out before charging clear to win as she liked by four and a half lengths from Material Man (Vital Equine) with Group 1-winning stablemate Galaxy Star (Redoute’s Choice) a long neck further back in third place. Race time was good at 1:48.55 seconds.
For Bob and Sandra Peters this was their fifth victory in the Kingston Town Classic, two to the credit of Old Comrade (Old Spice), a horse they previously regarded as their best but have since given that mantle to Arcadia Queen after she gave them a 23rd Group 1 triumph which has surely earned the filly a trip east, if not in autumn than next spring.
Arcadia Queen follows Pinot and Levendi as the third Group 1 winner for her Coolmore Stud-based sire Pierro (Lonhro) who was fully booked this season at a fee of $88,000.
The female family of Arcadia Queen has played a prominent role in the Peters’ breeding and racing operations over the past 10 years since the acquisition of Arcadia Queen’s second dam Antique (Metal Storm), a good winner in Melbourne and Perth who had the class to place third behind Bulla Borghese (Belong To Me) and Lashed (Encosta de Lago) in the 2002 VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m).
From Antique the Peters bred Arcadia Queen’s dam Arcadia (Redoute’s Choice) as her first foal to become a useful winner in Melbourne and Perth and then bred her stakes winning sisters Broadway Belle (Redoute’s Choice) and Antique Belle (Redoute’s Choice) as well as Antique Dream (Redoute’s Choice), a winner of seven races and a Listed placegetter in Perth.
Broadway Belle has produced for the Peters this season’s WATC Western Australian Derby (Gr 2, 2400m) winner Action (Pierro), a three-quarter brother to Arcadia Queen.
Antique, Arcadia Queen’s second dam, was bred by prominent Western Australian breeder Lex Piper with the Peters paying $130,000 for her as a yearling and perhaps now regretting their decision to sell her in Sydney in 2015 for $45,000. Antique’s current owners are offering her Pride of Dubai (Street Cry) yearling colt as Lot 56 https://inglis.com.au/sales/info/2019+Classic+Yearling+Sale/catalogue/56 at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale in Sydney on February 9.
The family beyond Antique has its roots very firmly in NSW via Woodlands Stud, Denman, when under the control of legendary entrepreneur George Ryder,originator of the Golden Slipper.
Arcadia Queen’s fourth and fifth dams Bonny Dancer (Bletchingly) and Dancelot (Vain) were both raced by the Ryder-founded Australian Racing and Breeding Stables Limited, the first public company in the world to breed and race thoroughbreds.
Bonny Dancer won as a two-year-old in Sydney but was not in the class of her mother Dancelot, winner of four races and a placegetter in the Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) before also foaling Bonny Dancer’s brother Take Your Partner (Bletchingly), winner of the AJC Breeders’ Plate (Gr 3, 1000m), a later sire, and two other high class performers, Kenvain (Kenmare), four time stakes winner of the Oakleigh Plate (Gr 1, 1100m) and a successful sire, and Imperial Baron (Imperial Prince), winner of three stakes contests and one of the best juveniles of his generation who placed in the Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) and the ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes before becoming a moderate success at stud in NSW.
Among Dancelot’s other foals was unraced producer Quarantieme (Bletchingly), dam of Charming City (Chief’s Crown), a multiple stakes winner in Hong Kong, Group 2 winner West Point (Danehill) and Quilt (Danehill), remembered as the dam of Pinwheel (Lonhro), winner of five black type races.This is a family of exceptional depth as further back is VATC Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Sou’Wester (Light Wind).
Sou’Wester is out of Arcadia Queen’s seventh dam Star of Peace (Pipe of Peace), a half-sister to the brilliant speedster Dubbo (Newtown Wonder). winner of the 1958 VATC Oakleigh Plate and a daughter of stakes-winning two-year-old Sunshine Express (White Ensign).
Arcadia Queen carries five male lines of Northern Dancer in generations five, six and seven and a number of strains of Native Dancer (Polynesian), some through his son Raise a Native while both her parents are also linebred.