Dominant Colmar delivers Rosemont’s Strasbourg his first stakes winner
Colmar (Strasbourg) showed his toughness and his speed to become the first stakes winner for Rosemont Stud’s first-season sire Strasbourg (I Am Invincible) when the gelding landed Saturday’s South Australian Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 3, 1400m) at Morphettville.
Trained at Murray Bridge by Ron Daniel and Trish Stanbury and ridden by Samuel Payne, Colmar bounced to the front and stayed there, coming away commandingly in the straight to score by an emphatic 5.8 lengths, as $3.90 second-favourite.
Snoopy Now (Sir Pracealot) took second at $14 ahead of Leon and Troy Corstens’ $3.50 favourite Supercilious (Written Tycoon).
Bred by Victoria’s Phelan-Tribel Partnership, Colmar was entered but withdrawn from the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale of 2023. The sales ring inaction has contrasted his racing career, where he’s been very busy indeed.
The two-year-old gelding has now had no fewer than nine starts, with Saturday’s his third win – all at South Australian metropolitan class – alongside four minor placings.
He came into the Sires’ off a first stakes placing, having finished second in the Oaklands Plate (Listed, 1400m), also at Morphettville, on June 29.
Colmar is one of two winners and with Saturday’s triumph became the first stakes scorer from 15 first-crop runners for Strasbourg, the Queensland Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 2, 1350m) winner who’ll stand his fifth term at Rosemont this spring for a private fee.
Strasbourg is also the sire of Flying Straz, who’s been Listed-placed in Adelaide.
Colmar is the third winner and first in black-type company among four to race for rising 19-year-old Rapala (Encosta De Lago), who won two from seven.
Co-trainer Daniel said that, as evidenced by the ease of his victory on Saturday, Colmar was the best two-year-old he had trained.
“When he first won, I thought this might be the best two-year-old I’ve had, and he is,” Daniel said. “He is a really good horse and has always flown under the radar.
“He is a very ordinary trackworker. You would not back him in a maiden at Mortlake. He is just one of those horses.
“We have had our knockers. We’ve kept on going, although we thought about going to the paddock two or three starts ago. The breed are just so tough. When they get home, they eat up and look for a double feed, so it’s hard to tip them out.”
“He will have a break now.”