Graff headed for greater glories
Unbeaten in three starts and blinkered for the first time, Graff was able to extend under pressure in the straight, just as he did in two earlier wins, to draw clear and win by two and a half lengths from Neutrality (Sebring), with Performer (Exceed And Excel) closing strongly for third, another length and a quarter further back. On a soft track at Rosehill, race time was 1:05.24 with the last 600 metres run in 34.70.
The powerfully built Graff should be even better suited over longer distances and you can expect him to be a major player in the Golden Rose (Gr 1, 1400m) at the same track on September 22.
Graff follows Vinery Stud’s young stallion Star Turn (Star Witness) as his sire’s second San Domenico winner, with both carrying the same colours, and he is the 14th black type winner for Widden Stud’s emerging, top bracket sire Star Witness (Starcraft).
Star Witness was rated Australia’s champion three-year-old colt of the 2010-11 season after winning the VRC Coolmore Stud Stakes (registered as the Ascot Vale Stakes) (Gr 1, 1200m) and being one of the leading two-year-olds of his generation, taking the MRC Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) in decisive fashion.
Runner-up at three to unbeaten champion Black Caviar (Bel Esprit) in the VRC Patinack Classic (Gr 1,1200m), Star Witness further showed his class on the international stage at Royal Ascot with two somewhat unlucky placings, a second in the King’s Stand Stakes (Gr 1, 5f) and a third in the Golden Jubilee Stakes (Gr 1, 6f).
As the best son of Paul Makin’s champion Starcraft (Soviet Star), who now stands at Rosemont in Victoria, Star Witness represents Nureyev’s (Northern Dancer) branch of the world’s most dominant modern male line, his best winner from his first four crops being the filly Global Glamour, successive winner of the ATC Flight Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) and the MRC Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m).
Graff was bred at Widden Stud in NSW by B2B Bloodstock and was a $200,000 buy for renowned judge Dr Alan Bell at the 2017 Magic Millions Gold Coast January Yearling Sale. It is interesting to note that he is out of a stakes-winning daughter of Keep The Faith (Sunday Silence), a black type winner in Australia now best known as the father of Swettenham Stud’s young sire Trust in a Gust. Very few daughters of Keep The Faith would have visited Star Witness but another, Sayahailmary, has produced to him South African stakes winner Mella Maria.
Graff’s mother Dinkum Diamond (Keep The Faith) is among the leading winners for her sire. She produced Graff as her second foal, her first being his gelded brother Sparkly Star, a winner in Sydney. The mare’s third foal, a sister to the pair, is the now two-year-old Steel Diamond, sold in January to trainer Rick Worthington for $320,000 at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. To follow for the mare is a 2017 Shamus Award (Snitzel) filly, while she was covered last November by Your Song (Fastnet Rock).
Dinkum Diamond raced with notable success in Adelaide, where she won three races, two as a juvenile, at 1000 metres and 1200 metres, most important of them the SAJC Jansz Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) while she was also second in the SAJC Dequetteville Stakes (Listed, 1000m).
Raja Lane (Devaraja), Dinkum Diamond’s dam, was more talented than her daughter. Tough and sound, she won seven races (including two at two years) up to 1200 metres in Adelaide and Melbourne with highlight victories in the SAJC Dermody Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m) and in the MRC Christmas Handicap (Listed, 1200m).
This is a South Australian family with its origins in the Brown family’s long-closed Narrung Stud.
Andorra (Boysie Boy), fifth dam of Graff, is a half-sister to Barquentine (Mariner), a 1973 Adelaide yearling purchase for leviathan Sydney owner Stan Fox who later bred from her the top class gelding Phillip (Swashbuckler), winner of the AJC Warwick (now Winx) Stakes (Gr 2, 1400m) in 1984 whose other wins included the STC Gloaming Stakes (Gr 2, 1900m), AJC Hobartville Stakes (Gr 2, 1400m) and the AJC Fernhill Handicap (Listed, 1600m).
The presence of great Japanese sire Sunday Silence (Halo) and Devaraja’s celebrated sire Sir Tristram (Sir Ivor) through Dinkum Diamond strengthens Graff’s pedigree providing some stamina to help balance the abundance of speed in Graff’s breeding background.
Closest duplication in the San Domenico winner’s pedigree is a 5m x 5m double of Danzig (Northern Dancer) through sons Danehill and Dayjur.He carries a total of four lines of Northern Dancer (Nearctic) with three crosses of durable champion racehorse and sire Round Table (Princequillo) further back.