Hermitage and Waller unearth another classy filly
Hermitage Thoroughbreds and Chris Waller have already unearthed a supremely talented filly this campaign in the unbeaten Autumn Glow (The Autumn Sun) and they look to have another in their grasp in the shape of Lady Shenandoah, who shed maiden status with a victory against the boys in Saturday’s Group 3 Ming Dynasty Quality at Rosehill.
Despite being unsuccessful in two starts as a juvenile, the filly did show her talent when finishing second at Listed level in that first preparation and she showed that was no fluke performance when she defeated the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained Mayfair (Fastnet Rock) by 0.3 lengths on Saturday. Godolphin’s Snack Bar (Frosted) came home a further 0.2 lengths away in third.
Waller’s assistant Charlie Duckworth said the filly had underperformed in her two starts as a two-year-old and was happy to see her get her head in front.
“She is supremely talented,” said Duckworth. “She has probably marginally underperformed for what we expected in her two runs last preparation, purely down to racing on a soft six and heavy eight tracks.
“Back on top of the surface today, she is a real talent. We just said to Jay [rider, Ford], forget about the first half of the race because 1400 metres first-up was obviously going to be a bit of a question mark.
“But she began so well, Jay had to land in the position he landed in. He was trying to be as soft as he could within the rules of racing, I think, but she had to dig deep in terms of her fitness levels late and there is plenty more to come.”
LADY SHENANDOAH (3 f Snitzel – Star Pupil) breaks her maiden in the Ming Dynasty Quality (Gr 3, 1400m)👑 giving @ArrowfieldStud SNITZEL his 147th individual stakes winner🥇@cwallerracing
She was a $525k @TheHermitage6 buy from the @ArrowfieldStud draft at @inglis_sales Easter… https://t.co/iOG8lVPp6p
— ANZ Bloodstock (@anz_news) September 14, 2024
In the past, Waller would have had the option to split his fillies between Sydney and Melbourne however moving the Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) until later in the carnival has taken that off the table.
Duckworth said Lady Shenandoah could now join Autumn Glow in the Flight Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) at Randwick on October 5.
“Initially, Chris thought, do we try to split them with Hermitage involved in both horses, send one for the Thousand Guineas at Caulfield,” he said. “But now that’s at the back-end of the season, and you’ve just won first-up, the Flight Stakes is only a matter of weeks away.”
Lady Shenandoah’s win gave Waller his fourth win on the card following the successes of Matusalem (The Autumn Sun), Unusual Legacy (Unusual Suspect) and Firestorm (Satono Aladdin).