Jacquinot soars to Rose win to continue appeal of Swettenham’s Rubick
Son of Rubick provides stallion with a first Group 1 winner as Victorian raider snares win with late run
Sam Matthews has urged breeders not to miss out on a second chance to ‘punt’ the now Group 1-winning sire Rubick (Encosta De Lago) this breeding season, after the stallion’s son Jacquinot captured the Golden Rose Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) in dramatic fashion with a late, swooping drive at Rosehill yesterday.
The Swettenham Stud-based stallion’s start to the new season continued apace, earning his fourth stakes win and first success at the elite-level when the Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr-trained colt collared Godolphin filly and race favourite In Secret (I Am Invincible) to win the three-year-old Sydney feature by a neck.
But, with breeders having largely dismissed a compelling pitch to send mares to Rubick during his first season standing at Swettenham last year, the stallion covering a book of just 42, the stud’s general manager believes mare owners will not make the same mistake again, with the son of Encosta De Lago (Fairy King) now standing at a reduced fee of $22,000 (inc GST).
“We said last year that if everyone looked at the numbers and looked at the quality of what he had coming through, he was the best punt in Australia [for breeders],” Matthews told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“Not a lot of people listened and supported him, but this year, again, we’ve said he’s the best horse to punt right now, whether it’s to put a mare in foal, [or purchase] weanlings or yearlings, and I think people are finally starting to wake up to this now with this Group 1 win.
“Every stallion has a quiet patch and that’s the time to punt them, that’s when the stocks are at the price to buy, not when they’re peaking. The right time to buy, for Rubick, was last year and now there’s the opportunity again this year.”
The Victorian raider to Rosehill was not to be denied on AFL Grand Final day, but while the Geelong Cats handed Sydney a wide-margin defeat in front of a sell-out MCG home crowd, it was a dramatic come-from-behind victory for Jacquinot, who soared on the outside to defy I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) filly In Secret, who looked to have the race at her mercy attempting what would have been a historic Group 1 win, having become the first filly to win the Run To The Rose (Gr 2, 1200m) a fortnight ago.
The pair finished a length and a half clear of early leader Zou Tiger (Zoustar), who held on for third, just ahead of Godolphin’s Golden Mile (Astern).
Two-year-old Group 1 winners Fireburn (Rebel Dane) and She’s Extreme (Extreme Choice) finished fifth and sixth respectively.
A last-start winner of the HDF McNeil Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) at Caulfield, his first stakes success, Jacquinot featured among the best of the two-year-old form last season, finishing third in the Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) and sixth in the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m), each time coming with what is now a trademark late run from back in the field.
Jacquinot was making his first start beyond 1200 metres having been spelled following his Golden Slipper run, in which he finished five and three-quarter lengths adrift of winner Fireburn on a Heavy 9 track during Sydney’s sodden autumn.
“Fantastic, what a win, they don’t usually do that. The speed was on and they kept flowing and the important thing was the horse broke well and got into a winning position and he really let down well,” Kent Jnr said.
“As a two-year-old he was always the horse that was going to improve the most, he was awesome first up and a real set play by Mick [Price] and the team to come here second up with a trial, keep the speed in his legs, he’s not a robust horse, I’m just delighted, it’s fantastic.”
Despite his speedy sire Rubick only winning at up to 1100 metres when successful in the Blue Diamond Prelude (Gr 3, 1100m), Price and Kent Jnr will now give consideration to the mile with Jacquinot and a tilt at the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) on October 8.
“The plan before today was to go two weeks into the Caulfield Guineas,” Kent Jnr added. “We’ve ticked the Group 1 box so now we’ll just work out if that’s the right thing for the horse.
“He’ll be back on the truck tomorrow and we’ll take a look at him at Cranbourne and make a call.”
Rubick, who prior to the start of the new season had two Group 2 winners among four stakes scorers to his name, has enjoyed phenomenal success in the first two months of the new season, increasing his tally to seven individual stakes winners and now a Group 1 winner to boot, as Jacquinot stepped up on his juvenile form to reach the pinnacle of the spring three-year-old ranks.
For the former Coolmore-based sire, who along with Zoustar (Northern Meteor) on four has the most stakes wins of any stallion this season, his meteoric rise is in correlation with his current three-year-olds having been conceived off his largest book of 263 mares and at a fee of $17,600 (inc GST).
His other three-year-old stakes winner this season is Quezette Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) scorer Bound For Home – fifth in Friday night’s Scarborough Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) at Moonee Valley – while Opal Ridge was denied a first black type success yesterday when second in the Heritage Stakes (Listed, 1100m) at Rosehill.
Four-year-old mare Shades Of Rose, from Rubick’s third crop, culminated a run of four straight wins with victory in the Sheraco Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) earlier this month.
However, despite breeders’ lack of enthusiasm a year ago, the stallion’s success, and particularly that of Jacquinot, comes as no surprise to the team at Swettenham, with the possibility foreseen when in negotiations with Coolmore to stand Rubick in Victoria, 18 months ago.
The stallion’s current three-year-old crop numbers 174, a figure two higher than that of his two-year-olds, who are conceived off a career-high fee of $38,500 (inc GST), and produced the first two-year-old winner of the new season, when Rubicon Crossing won an 800-metre race in New Zealand.
“We don’t get a stallion unless we’ve done the research and we were surprised we were able to get him from Coolmore,” Matthews said.
“I spoke to Mick Kent Jnr when we were talking about getting Rubick, and I asked him what he had in the stable. He said he had two good ones, Jacquinot, and one which later went to Hong Kong (Sudoko).
“So we’ve known about this horse from early on. He was a Group 1-placed two-year-old and, now he’s matured, he’s an absolute weapon.”
Bred by Australian businessman Lindsay Maxsted, himself an avid Geelong Cats supporter, Jacquinot was passed in when failing to reach his $120,000 reserve at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale last year.
He is the first foal from the unraced mare Ponterro, whose sire Pierro (Lonhro) landed his first Group 1 winner as a broodmare sire with Jacquinot’s victory.
Ponterro, herself a half-sister to Group 1 winner Inference (So You Think) and the Listed-winning Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr-trained Illation (So You Think), as well as a sister to dual Group 2 winner Dragon Leap, last year produced a colt by Rubick’s Everest (1200m) winner Yes Yes Yes (Rubick) and is due to foal to Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) this season.