Justify’s Storm Boy produces a Classic performance on the Coast
Storm Boy (Justify) continued his sire’s ballistic start in the breeding barn, when he stamped himself as a colt of exceptional quality and brought Gai Waterhouse a record fifth Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) victory with one of the most dominant wins in the race’s history yesterday.
And bookmakers also rate him as a strong chance of extending Waterhouse’s record Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) tally, last night winding him in from $6 to $4.50 favouritism for the world’s richest two-year-old race.
Jumping from gate nine of 15 under Adam Hyeronimus, Storm Boy ($2.50 fav) dwelt at the start and was only midfield after a handful of strides, but soon charged into his work to reach the outside of the leader at the 800 metres. He hit the front soon into the straight, and while second-favourite Highness (Snitzel, $4.40) soon emerged to apply pressure, Storm Boy fought him off imperiously to pull away inside the 200 metres.
He won by two-and-a-half lengths from Highness, with Storm Boy’s pre-eminence over the field emphasised by a further two and a quarter length margin to third-placed Spywire (Trapeze Artist, $8.50). The winner clocked a slick 1:08.00 on the Gold Coast’s newly-reopened surface.
Success in the $3 million feature, bringing $1.7 million to Storm Boy’s vast band of owners who crowded the victory presentation, catapulted Justify (Scat Daddy) to the top of Australia’s two-year-old sires’ table by earnings, and second among second season stallions behind Trapeze Artist (Redoute’s Choice).
Storm Boy is Justify’s sole Australian juvenile winner of the season and in total, his two Australian racing crops have yielded 24 winners from 45 runners including four black-type winners, which fires at a robust 8.8 per cent.
Worldwide, Coolmore’s shuttler is booming still further. From 246 runners the US Triple Crown winner has had 117 winners including 25 at stakes level, at a stakes winners to runners strike rate of 10.2 per cent, with no fewer than six Group 1 winners in the US and Europe.
Little wonder the eight-year-old was hugely popular last year in his fourth Australian spring. Returning to Australia, after a year off the shuttling duties, on the back of Learning To Fly’s stellar two-year-old campaign, Justify covered 187 mares in the season just finished, easily eclipsing his previous high of 149 in his first year here.
“It’s onwards and upwards with Justify worldwide,” Coolmore’s Colm Santry told ANZ Bloodstock News. “He’s fiercely popular in America, and he’s been very popular here this season just past. He was one of our more popular stallions on the farm. He’s covered a good book of mares and got plenty of mares in foal.
“And that was an awesome performance by Storm Boy today. He was a lovely horse at this sale [Magic Millions] last year. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Magic Millions winner like that.”
The first foal of dual city winner Pelican (Fastnet Rock), a daughter of champion seven-time Group 1-winning New Zealand mare Seachange (Cape Cross), Storm Boy was bred by Coolmore’s Tom and Kate Magnier along with long-term associate Robert McClure, and bought for $460,000 last January by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott and Bruce Slade’s Kestrel Thoroughbreds.
The same partnership purchased Storm Boy’s half-brother, by Justify’s Coolmore barnmate Pierro (Lonhro), for $375,000 on day one of this week’s Magic Millions sale.
With Storm Boy now unbeaten from three starts, after taking an 1100-metre Rosehill two-year-old handicap last month and Eagle Farm’s BJ McLachlan Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m), bookmakers were quick to make him favourite for the Golden Slipper as he seeks to provide Waterhouse her eighth win in the race.
In a phenomenal season of juvenile success for Team Waterhouse-Bott reflecting some Midas-like buying in 2023, the Slipper market is heavy with Tulloch Lodge runners, with Storm Boy joining stalemates Shangri La Express (Alabama Express, $7), Straight Charge (Written By, $17), Anode (I Am Invincible, $26), Espionage (Zoustar, $17), Prost (Snitzel, $34) in the betting for the coveted 1200-mete Group 1.
There’s also Too Darn Lizzie (Too Darn Hot), who became the stable’s eighth two-year-old winner of the term when she took out the $500,000 The Debut 2YO Fillies Plate (1000m) on the Magic Millions undercard.
Waterhouse described Storm Boy’s triumph yesterday as “amazing, totally dominant”.
“He basically toyed with them today. He is really really impressive,” she said. “He is big – look how big he is – it’s amazing.
“He annihilated them, it was just so dominant. It means a lot to me.”
Bott, who teamed with Waterhouse in 2016, was almost as delirious over the powerhouse colt in celebrating his first win in the race.
“He improved a lot today. He shouldn’t be doing these things at this stage,” he said.
“He looks like a three-year-old already, the way he was rolling around, there were a few people checking the brands, he is that mature.
“That is the upside of him, he is the real deal and it’s scary to think if he matures into a three-year-old.”
Hyeronimus was also full of praise for the strapping colt.
“It was a terrible start and I was three-wide but the way they’ve made the track now, I wasn’t too bothered because I was going to end up outside the leader so I had to take my time and get him into a rhythm and ride my own horse,” Hyeronimus said.
Pelican now has a foal at foot by another Coolmore shuttler, St Mark’s Basilica (Siyouni) and was covered by Justify again two months ago.
Being out of a daughter of Fastnet Rock (Danehill), Storm Boy is one of four stakes winners bred on the cross, joining Group 2 winner and fellow southern hemisphere-bred Learning To Fly, New Zealand Group 3 scorer Star Of Justice, who also hails from the first southern hemisphere crop of the stallion, and US Listed winner Just Steel, who is a son of 2009 Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Irish Lights.
Of yesterday’s beaten brigade, Spywire’s Maher-Eustace stablemate Erno’s Cube (Rubick, $11) and the most fancied filly in the race Arabian Summer (Too Darn Hot, $5.50) performed creditably in taking fourth and fifth respectively.