I Am Invincible out to cap off wonderful season at Randwick
Yarraman Park’s stalwart stallion well-represented in last juvenile race in Sydney
Australia’s sires’ tables have been settled for some time now but the last Saturday of the season arrives today with a handful of noteworthy events, quirks and points of interest.
In Adelaide, the country’s final stakes race of 2022-23 – the Lightning Stakes (Listed, 1050m) for two and three-year-olds – takes place with several stallions seeking to grab the last black type cab off the rank, such as Churchill (Galileo) and Hellbent (I Am Invincible).
On events further west, legions of punters across this wide land will be distressed to see the ultimate Get Out Stakes – the last in Perth on July 29 – will take place without Willie Pike. While he’s been in typical form – sealing a record 13th Perth jockeys’ premiership despite returning west from his Sydney stint only in November – Pike is on a nine-day stewards’ holiday.
And at Randwick there’s resounding proof that today caps a season of triumph for super stallion I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), as he completes his second general sires’ premiership and his first major treble, of earnings, winners and stakes-winners.
Today’s two-year-old event at Randwick, the Thank You Trainers Handicap (1100m), contained 12 starters as of last night, six of them sired by the Yarraman Park flagbearer, who’ll soon start serving mares in his 14th season at his new personal high service fee of $302,500 (inc GST).
I Am Invincible won’t win the two-year-old title. That honour, by earnings, will go for the fourth time to Arrowfield legend Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice), provider of Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Shinzo.
I Am Invincible might at least rise to second today. As of last night, he was just $51,115 behind Darley’s Exceed And Excel (Danehill), and with half the field in Randwick’s two-year-old event, which offers $76,250 to the winner. That includes the Maher-Eustace $2.80 favourite Estriella and Godolphin’s second-elect Shaken. Sheikh Mohammed’s empire might, however, thwart I Am Invincible in Moonee Valley’s two-year-old race, with a first prize of $82,500. Godolphin has one of each in second-favourite Roussillon (Exceed And Excel) and Vinnie’s longshot Massira, at $31.
Ironically, Vinnie’s highest-earning two-year-old is not a stakes-winner, with the thrice stakes-placed Blanc De Blanc earning her largest cheques when second in the Inglis Millennium (RL, 1100m) and sixth in the Slipper.
Still, I Am Invincible – who took his only two-year-old crown in 2018-19 – has sired more juvenile stakes-winners than anyone this term, with six to the four of Snitzel and his son Russian Revolution (who’s following his champion first-season sires’ title with the second-season laurel this time around).
I Am Invincible will claim his second general sires’ title, in successive years, in a landslide. While last season he beat Coolmore’s So You Think (High Chaparral) by only $548,000, this term he’s $4.2 million ahead of the same stallion, with In Secret on top among his many high earners.
The rising 19-year-old – who’ll have his book reduced to 150 mares this season from 179 last year – is also comfortably clear on winners, with 198 to second-placed Zoustar (Northern Meteor) on 183.
And Vinnie will finish top on the score of stakes-winners for the second time – after doing so in 2019 – with 22, who’ve won 28 black type races, to Snitzel’s 15 (18).
I Am Invincible would have also taken the three-year-old sires’ title by earnings were it not for the outlier of Scissor Kick (Redoute’s Choice), whose Everest-winning three-year-old son Giga Kick accounts for $9.51 million of his $9.87 million earnings. But Vinnie might still win a close battle to finish top for three-year-old winners, with 72 last night to Zoustar’s 71.
Throw in the top-priced yearling of the year – the $2.7 million Magic Millions colt sold by Segenhoe Stud to Coolmore’s Tom Magnier – and two others in the top four, and it’s been another bumper season for the sire who, memorably, only ever won as high as Group 3 level.
“It’s all been good, hasn’t it?” said Yarraman’s Harry Mitchell. “I think he’s had one of his most consistent years, really.
“To be leading sire, quite clearly, without an Everest or a Golden Eagle winner or anything like that is a very good achievement, which shows his consistency across the board.
“He’s number one for two-year-old stakes-winners. He’s second for three-year-old stakes-winners, and to have the most winners and most stakes-winners overall, it’s been a great year.
“We all know the deal – he’s a great stallion, and he’s going to have another big year next year. He’s got a lot of good young rising three-year-olds who haven’t had a lot of racing yet at two, and it augurs well for next year.”
Of the six such juveniles in the first at Randwick today, the market was last night warmest on Estriella, a $750,000 Easter buy for Maher out of Madrigals (Lonhro), a full-sister to Pierro.
Estriella debuted with a length and a quarter win over today’s 1100 metres at Gosford on June 22. The filly has gate four for Dylan Gibbons, who’ll start the last day three wins behind Zac Lloyd in the battle to be Sydney’s champion apprentice. Lloyd has 75 winners to sit second overall to the 94 of James McDonald, who’ll complete his seventh title.
Lloyd also has a strong chance from barrier nine on second-favourite Shaken, the Darley-bred fifth foal of Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Earthquake (Exceed And Excel), who was spelled after a February debut failure but resumed winning a Wyong fillies’ maiden over 1000 metres by almost three lengths on July 4.
Topweight Infatuation (I Am Invincible), a $400,000 yearling buy for Bjorn Baker, is third-favourite at around $7, and resumes seeking a second win from six starts after scoring at Randwick on New Year’s Eve.
John Camilleri homebred Sounds Of Heaven (I Am Invincible), out of Street Cry (Machiavellian) mare Villa Carlotta, was a $10 chance after her debut win at Newcastle over 900 metres, while the Vinnie sextet is rounded out by Chris Waller’s second-starter Caballus (I Am Invincible) ($12) and Team Hawkes’ resuming third-starter Untouchable Legend (I Am Invincible) ($10), a $550,000 Inglis Premier buy for Legend Racing.
“To have six starters in the race is pretty incredible,” Mitchell said. “Vinnie’s a bloody good sire of two-year-olds, but also some trainers now are holding them back a bit because they believe they can get better and better, which is also not a bad thing. Estriella looks very promising and Godolphin have taken their time with Shaken, too.”
In Moonee Valley’s 1000-metre two-year-old event, Exceed And Excel’s Roussillon – another from a Street Cry mare in the stakes-winning Fitou – was at $4.20 last night, back among his own age group, after resuming as a gelding in slashing style with a length win in an 1100-metre Gosford benchmark 64.
The market was headed at around $3.40 by the Price-Kent gelding Hedged (Capitalist), who debuted with a third at Ballarat. I Am Invincible’s colt Massira, however, was around $31 after following a first-up Geelong with a fading seventh over 1000 metres at Flemington.
In Morphettville’s Lightning Stakes, Godolphin also has a key chance in Brazen Beau (I Am Invincible) two-year-old filly Exploring. The Blue Diamond Prelude (F) (Gr 2, 1100m) winner, who was tenth in the Golden Slipper, resumed with a strong all-the-way win over 1000 metres at Flemington on July 15, beating the boys with 58 kilograms on her back.
Dropping to 52 kilograms in today’s race for two and three-year-olds of either gender, she was a $3.20 favourite last night, just ahead of Price-Kent’s exciting Outback Miss (Rubick), who’s unbeaten in two winter starts at Bendigo and Caulfield.
Coolmore stallion Churchill has a chance to grab his first Australian stakes-winner, from two crops racing, at the last opportunity of the season, with the David Jolly-trained gelding Declared a $12 chance going after his fourth win in 11 starts.
Churchill has 11 stakes-winners, including two at Group 1 level, from three European crops, but is yet to break his duck in Australia, where he’s had 27 winners from 63 runners in Australia.
And I Am Invincible’s son and barnmate Hellbent, having waited till this, his second season of runners for his first two stakes-winners, could make it three via Maddie Raymond’s filly Run Like Hell (Hellbent) ($18), who’s won both starts at Mount Gambier and Donald.
Meanwhile, Redoute’s Choice (Danehill) could be safe in the battle to be champion broodmare sire, though it remains close. As of yesterday, he was $132,751 ahead of his great rival Encosta De Lago (Fairy King).