Impending A Sire Prospect After Stradbroke Victory

It was the handsome colt’s third win and second stakes success after the Stan Fox Stakes (Gr 2, 1500m) but this still maturing horse has this season shown great potential of better wins to come with a string of placings up to Group One level plus three fourths in Group One contests.
On Saturday he appreciated his light weight of 52.5 kilograms, a firm track and a patient ride from jockey Corey Brown who brought him down the outside with a late run to defeat the leader, In Her Time (Time Thief), by a neck with the favourite, Clearly Innocent (Not a Single Doubt), a length away in third place in 1:17.93 with the last 600 metres covered in 34.32. Close up in fourth was Counterattack (Redoute’s Choice) who looked unlucky after a very slow start as well as being blocked for a run in the straight at his final start before his retirement to Kitchwin Hills.
The Stradbroke Handicap provided a deserved triumph for Godolphin’s interim trainer, former champion jockey Darren Beadman, who won Group One events on both of Impending’s parents, Lonhro (Octagonal) and Mnemosyne (Encosta De Lago). Beadman will shortly be reverting to his former role of assistant trainer for Godolphin when James Cummings takes up training duties for Sheikh Mohammed’s Australian stable.
After the Stradbroke Handicap it was announced that Impending would race on next season, welcome news for racing fans following the retirements to stud of a number of our best three-year-old colts and the sale of several others to Hong Kong.
A very attractive individual, Impending on pedigree alone has plenty to offer breeders when he does retire to stud as a son of champion racehorse and sire Lonhro and he follows Pierro, Denman, Exosphere, The Conglomerate, Benfica, Mental and the females Bounding and Beaded as his sire’s ninth Group One winner among a total of 66 stakes winners for Lonhro, himself winner of 11 Group Ones during his magnificent racing career.
Lonhro is scheduled to stand his 14th Australian stud season this spring at Darley, Aberdeen, NSW, where his fee is advertised at $66,000 (inc GST).
Darley acquired Lonhro as part of the massive 2008 purchase of bloodstock, stud properties and racing stables owned by the Ingham family and among the most prized mares in the package was Impending’s dam Mnemosyne who had retired to stud a year earlier after a brilliant racing career which saw her win more than $1,000,000 in prize money and capture such important tests as the Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and the Queen of the Turf Stakes (Gr 1, 1500m), three other stakes races and also place second in the AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m).
Bob and Jack Ingham had bought Mnemosyne as a yearling in Sydney from a breeding partnership headed by Ron Quinton, the former champion jockey who is now a prominent trainer in Sydney.
Mnemosyne has proved a very good producer as among her other foals are stakes winner Forget (Exceed And Excel) and stakes-placed filly Memorial (Street Cry). Sadly, Mnemosyne’s 2016 foal by Sepoy (Elusive Quality) died and she missed to her 2016 cover by Lonhro so she will have no foal this year.
Impending’s second dam My Juliet (Canny Lad) was a Listed stakes winner as a spring two-year-old in Melbourne and a member of a highly successful family developed in Victoria by the Tobin brothers following their purchase of Impending’s sixth dam, Long Draw (Pipe Of Peace).
The Tobin brothers always bred their mares to the best stallions of the day and were rewarded with a number of major winners, Long Draw beginning the run by foaling two top class fillies in Better Draw (Better Boy), Impending’s fifth dam, winner of six stakes races from 1600 metres to 2500 metres, and her talented half-sister Special Draw (Croft What’s Wanted), winner of the Edward Manifold Stakes (1600m), now a Group Two race.
Better Draw further distinguished herself at stud by foaling Full On Aces (Kaoru Star), winner at two years in 1981 of a unique treble, the VRC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) into the Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) followed by the AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m). Full On Aces was later somewhat disappointing as a sire despite leaving six stakes winners, most notably King’s High whose victories included both the Australian Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and the Victoria Derby (Gr 1, 2500m). King’s High also left six stakes winners in Australia before export to Thailand.
Another of Better Draw’s foals was Impending’s unraced fourth dam Proud Draw (Vain) whose best runner was Impending’s third dam Perfect Draw (Whiskey Road), twice stakes placed as a two-year-old in Melbourne.
With so much depth to his female pedigree Impending will be an interesting stallion proposition when retired to stud, most likely in the 2018 season.