Maher counting on ‘fast-improving’ Semana to rise again at Randwick
Daughter of Winning Rupert bidding for Group 1 glory in Queen Of The Turf Stakes
Winning Rupert (Written Tycoon) might have landed on the other edge of the country, but trainer Ciaron Maher believes his daughter Semana can put him firmly in the middle of the map by becoming his first elite-level winner in the Queen Of The Turf Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m).
Four-year-old Semana has been a revelation this campaign.
A $200,000 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale purchase in 2021 by James Bester Bloodstock and Vantage Thoroughbreds – from the draft of Newgate Farm, where Winning Rupert began his career – Semana began with Team Waterhouse-Bott before being transferred to Maher before racing in 2022.
She debuted as a November three-year-old far from Saturday’s venue, Randwick, with a maiden win at Muswellbrook, and won a second time in that first preparation, at Goulburn.
Last winter, the chestnut was performing well but amongst limited company, with three wins and two seconds as she rose from a Kembla Grange Benchmark 64 (1550m) to a Rosehill Saturday fillies and mares’ Benchmark 78 (1400m).
And this time in, the sizeable mare has boomed, opening in December with a long-neck second in Wyong’s rich Magic Millions 3YO & 4YO Stakes (1200m), before winning the $1 million Magic Millions Cup (RL, 1400m) on the Gold Coast’s big day.
Semana then surprised even Maher by claiming her first Group success in Randwick’s Triscay Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m), before rising in class and distance and powering home to come within a neck of upsetting Zougotcha (Zoustar) – who’s also favourite on Saturday – in the Coolmore Classic (Gr 1, 1500m).
Hailing from a recent pedigree thin on black–type but with her fourth dam being the outstanding Scomeld (Scotian) – who won the Queen Of The Turf in 1980 – Semana now has seven wins and six placings from 16 starts, and $1.2 million in the bank.
“She’s just gone to another level this campaign,” Maher told ANZ Bloodstock News. “She’s kept furnishing basically throughout her whole career, and she’s matured, and when a horse keeps furnishing like that they usually keep improving.
“We started her at Muswellbrook because that’s where she was at that stage. And she’s just kept going the right way from there.”
Maher said there are heartening lessons to be learned from Semana’s first two starts of the preparation, in terms of her father and her form.
At Wyong, she was narrowly beaten by stablemate Royal Merchant (Merchant Navy). Last May, that mare became her sire’s first Group 1 winner in taking Morphettville’s The Goodwood (Gr 1, 1200m), only a couple of weeks after Merchant Navy was relocated from Coolmore, to Wagga’s Kooringal Stud.
While Winning Rupert has only four level-black type winners, Semana’s conqueror at Wyong tells an encouraging story.
“Look at Royal Merchant, who’s by Merchant Navy, who was in a similar boat to Winning Rupert before Royal Merchant won her Group 1,” he said, possibly not intending the pun. “They can all get a good one.”
And Maher is also hopeful Semana can continue to follow a similar formline to his former mare Snapdancer (Choisir).
Snapdancer also emerged out of benchmark grade on the Gold Coast’s marquee day in 2022, winning the $1 million Magic Millions Fillies and Mares (1300m). She then also took out the Triscay before a top-flight triumph in Adelaide’s Sangster Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m). Three months later she added a second top-tier title in her last race, Caulfield’s Memsie Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m).
“Semana got close to Royal Merchant, a Group 1 winner, at Wyong, and then cemented that form when she won at the Gold Coast. The last horse we had who won a race there like that was Snapdancer,” said Maher.
“Snapdancer won two Group 1s after that. It certainly wouldn’t surprise if Semana turned out as good.”
With a Group 3 win and a Group 1 second, Semana has now risen in her past two runs to become chief flagbearer for Winning Rupert, among four stakes-winners from 172 runners, which includes 108 winners, at 62.8 per cent.
The sprinter trainer Bjorn Baker once called the fastest he’d had, Winning Rupert – himself a stakes victor at Group 2, Group 3 and Listed level – stood his first five seasons at Newgate, initially for $22,000 (inc GST) before ending on half of that, before moving to Queensland’s Grandview Stud.
After two seasons at $7,700 (inc GST), Grandview’s sale spelled an end to stallions standing at the property, which triggered his crossing of the country.
West Australian trio – trainer Luke Fernie, client and breeder Kim Doak, and former West Coast AFL player Daniel Venables – purchased the ten-year-old for $80,000 via the Inglis Digital February (Late) Online Sale earlier this year and it was soon decided he’d stand from this year at Geisel Park just north of Bunbury. The stud is owned by Eddie Rigg, an old friend of Fernie’s trainer father Peter.
“We have a good scheme over here with the Westspeed bonus, and Winning Rupert has shown he can produce two-year-olds who get up and run,” Luke Fernie said. “And we’ve got a few broodmares ourselves over here who we thought he’d be suitable for, so it looked like a no-brainer for the price.”
Marked by the same striking chestnut coat as Semana, Winning Rupert arrived in the west a month ago. Rigg and Fernie say he’s already attracted strong attention for this spring, at his fee of $8,800 (inc GST).
While they know a Group 1 breakthrough this weekend would be a timely boost to Winning Rupert’s CV, they say he’s poised to fill a need in the WA market in any case, particularly after the retirement of Oratorio (Stravinsky) in 2022, and the death last year of Snippetson (Snippets).
“With those two no longer with us, we’re in a transition period over here, stallion-wise,” Rigg told ANZ Bloodstock News on Friday.
“Playing God is doing a wonderful job, but his fee has grown ($33,000 in 2023), and we actually have a number of unproven stallions. We were lacking a proven stallion around the price the guys have set Winning Rupert at, so it made a lot of sense to get him at this point in time.
“He’s at 62 per cent winners-to-runners, and that’s a good strike rate with only four crops running.
“A Group 1 winner would obviously help him – and hopefully it comes tomorrow [Saturday] – but I think just the natural speed he puts into horses is going appeal to people more than a Group 1. There’s a lot of reasons why people would want to use him over here.”
Maher said Semana was in “great order” following her Coolmore Classic run, but conceded the weights were against her in meeting Zougotcha again. Both have 57 kilograms under the WFA conditions of Saturday’s race, for three-year-old females and older.
Semana had 55.5 kilograms to Zougotcha’s 57 kilograms in the Coolmore, a quality handicap for the same age grouping. Maher had not been expecting his mare to be that close to Chris Waller’s prior Group 1 winner on weights that day, but Semana had been a victim of her own surging success in winning under 57.5 kilograms the start before in the shorter Triscay, for four-year-old mares and up.
“After she ran so well at the Gold Coast, her next main target was the Coolmore,” Maher said. “I had an option of a 1400-metre race, but I ran her over 1200 metres in the Triscay, so she wouldn’t get any more weight [in the Coolmore], because I thought they might have been too sharp for her. Then she was able to win the Triscay anyway, which went against her a bit in the Coolmore.
“But still, she ran terrific in the Coolmore. Her last three runs have been outstanding, so I’m hoping she’ll go well again.”
Semana will jump from gate four under Dylan Gibbons – her partner in the Coolmore and at the Gold Coast. Bookmakers had her around $12 last night, with the market headed by Maher’s nomination for hardest-to-beat, Zougotcha, who has gate one for James McDonald, at around $3.50.
Maher saddles another each-way hope in Ruthless Dame (Tavistock, $16) – already a Group 1 winner after taking the Sangster last year.
That four-year-old has barrier 15 for Jamie Kah, following her last-start third in Rosehill’s Emancipation Stakes (Gr 2, 1500m) behind two more of this weekend’s rivals in Olentia (Zoustar, $7.50) and Arctic Glamour (Frosted, $41).
Maher also has three-year-old Tiz Invincible (I Am Invincible, $34) – who hasn’t rediscovered last spring’s form and has barrier 16 besides – and names Semana as his main chance.
“Ruthless Dame needs a little bit of give in the track,” said Maher, noting Randwick was a soft 5 last night with sunny weather forecast.
“She let down pretty well in the Emancipation but just felt the track a little. But, her best races have been from really wide barriers, which she has this time.”
Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott have dual three-year-old fillies’ Group 1 winner Tropical Squall (Prized Icon), rated the $7 third-favourite last night behind Zougotcha and Atishu (Savabeel, $4.80).
With barrier three for Adam Hyeronimus, Tropical Squall could be expected to comfortably assume Tulloch Lodge’s standard leading role and, with a filly’s weight of 54.5 kilograms, possibly be hard to hold out.
But despite Tropical Squall’s half-length fourth in the Coolmore, after leading from gate 17, Waterhouse stopped short of her standard confidence – most usually “high” to “extreme” – noting only two of the past 15 Queen Of Turf winners have been three-year-olds. Those two were handy, and came back-to-back, being Foxplay (Foxwedge) in 2017 and triple Group 1 winner Alizee (Sepoy).
And rather than the market choices in a classic edition of the race, Waterhouse – who’s won this event seven times this century – declared Tropical Squall’s own stablemate, French import Osmose (Zoffany, $31), hardest to beat.
First Light Racing’s five-year-old, who has barrier 11 for Tim Clark, has looked strong in lesser races in her third Australian campaign. She resumed with a 0.6 length second in Randwick’s Aspiration Quality (Gr 3, 1600m) before taking Rosehill’s Epona Stakes (Gr 3, 1900m) last start, putting her in good stead for Saturday’s drop in distance.
“Tropical Squall is very good, but she is up against it, because it’s a big ask for a filly to beat these very good mares,” Waterhouse told ANZ.
“I actually think Osmose will be her hardest to beat. She’s a European mare who’s gone ahead in leaps and bounds here, and is doing everything right. And it’s interesting that Tim Clark has opted to ride her over Tropical Squall.”