Hungry Heart looks to All Aged on way to chasing the Queensland sun
As a number of high-class horses round out their autumn campaigns in Saturday’s All Aged Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m), Yulong’s high-class Group 1-winning mare Hungry Heart (Frankel) will be using the race as a springboard to the Queensland Winter Carnival.
The Chris Waller-trained mare – a winner of the Vinery Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) and Australian Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m) 12 months ago – has had her current campaign heavily impacted by Sydney’s ongoing wet tracks, forcing connections to look to the winter for the daughter of Frankel (Galileo).
The mare’s form in Brisbane, targeting the $1 million Doomben Cup (Gr 1, 2000m) and the $1.2 million The Q22 (2200m) which was won last year by Zaaki (Leroidesanimaux), will dictate whether Hungry Heart goes to stud next season or races on as a five-year-old.
At this stage, however, Yulong’s chief operating officer Sam Fairgray believes the indications from Waller are that Hungry Heart is maintaining her zest for racing and is capable of adding to her Group 1 CV.
“The plan is to hopefully run on Saturday and then she can head to Queensland and she can get onto a few dry tracks up there,” Fairgray said yesterday.
“She’s kept on strengthening and developing as she’s got older and she ran a super race first-up (in the Group 2 Apollo Stakes) in the middle of February, where she ran fourth, and it has just been unfortunate that the wet tracks have worked against her.
“Chris just didn’t want to run her on those heavy tracks and take the stuffing out of her because she is going well and he believes that she will be a good chance to win a couple of those nice races (in Brisbane), so hopefully the patience will pay off as it’s been very frustrating.”
If Hungry Heart fails to live up to expectations, she will join Yulong’s high-quality broodmare band and likely be mated to reigning champion sire Written Tycoon (Iglesia) who earlier this week had his fee set at an unchanged $165,000 for the 2022 season.
“We will just play it by ear and see how she goes in her runs up in Brisbane. Going from that three-year-old year, to the four-year-old year and then into their five-year-old year, they are so much more mature,” Fairgray said.
Yulong also shares in the ownership of another Randwick runner on Saturday, the Ciaron Maher and David Eustace-trained Generation (Snitzel), a $575,000 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale purchase by his trainers and agent Dermot Farrington.
A winner of the Red Anchor Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) at Moonee Valley last October before returning with a dominant win in the Manfred Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m), Generation was then runner-up in the Zeditave Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) before finishing fourth in last month’s William Reid Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) at his most recent start.
He carries an entry for Saturday’s Hall Mark Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m).
“Ciaron is saying the same thing (as Waller), he just doesn’t want to run him on a track that is not going to be in favour of the horse,” Fairgray said.
“He has done really well with the credentials he’s got so far and if we could pick up a Group 1 win with him, that’d be super.”
A Group 1 win would dramatically enhance those credentials, but even if he doesn’t manage to break through at the highest level, Fairgray believes Generation, who is out of Group 2-winning juvenile Fontiton (Turffontein) and is a half-brother to the stakes-placed Pinkham (Written Tycoon), is worthy of a place on the Yulong stallion roster.
“I think he is a horse we would be able to stand and do well with,” he said.
“We have seen horses who are not necessarily Group 1 winners, I Am Invincible and Not A Single Doubt, who have been good speed horses and they have done well at stud. He is definitely a stallion we could give an opportunity to.”