Menari Blooms In The Rosebud At Rosehill
A bigger, stronger Menari (Snitzel) looks set for a lucrative spring after his impressive success under 60.5 kilograms in last Saturday’s The Rosebud (Listed, 1100m) at Rosehill.
Well back for most of the race, Menari showed a fine turn of foot to overpower Siege Of Quebec (Fastnet Rock), who carried 6 kilograms less, in the closing stages to score by a length and a quarter with Trekking (Street Cry) another length further back in third place. On a Good 3 track, race time was 1:03.20 with the last 600 metres run in 34.01.
Menari showed much promise as a two-year-old last season and was resuming here off a last start tenth in the Inglis Sires’ (registered at the ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes) (Gr 1, 1400m) in which he was disadvantaged greatly by the extremely wet track.
The Rosebud victor was one of three Rosehill winners last Saturday for newly crowned champion stallion Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) and became the 65th stakes winner for his Arrowfield Stud-based sire.
Bred in New South Wales by George Altomonte’s Corumbene Stud, Menari was retained to race by his breeder and partners and is the fifth foal out of Isurava (General Nediym), a talented filly whose best win came in the Tatt’s Queensland Race Club Australia Post Stakes (Listed, 1400m) as a late two-year-old during the Brisbane Winter Carnival.
Isurava’s first foal, the 2009-foaled gelding Mana Manu (Flying Spur), won metropolitan sprint races in Sydney and Brisbane, and was followed by the unraced filly Booralee (Fastnet Rock) in 2010, the once raced filly Katharos (Flying Spur) in 2012 and the unraced colt Grotteria (Stratum) in 2013. Isurava produced Menari’s sister Sweet Ava (Snitzel) in 2015, now a two-year-old, before missing to Hinchinbrook (Fastnet Rock), and was served by Not A Single Doubt (Redoute’s Choice) late in the 2016 season.
Ichihara (General Nediym) and Au Chocolat (General Nediym), sisters to Isurava, were both also stakes winners possessed of even greater talent than Isurava. Ichihara’s six victories included four black-type tests, notably the Magic Night Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m), while Au Chocolat’s major success came in the Silk Stocking Handicap (Listed, 1400m).
Also a member of Corumbene Stud’s broodmare band, Ichihara has a two-year-old colt named Omar (Snitzel), a yearling filly by Redoute’s Choice (Danehill), and is due to foal again to Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) in September, while there is no record of Au Chocolat having gone to stud.
Menari’s second and third dams, Cut A Dash (Whiskey Road) and Not Enough (Baguette), were bred by Sandy Tait and his sister Jill Nivison with Cut A Dash being a three-quarter sister to the Classic-winning filly Whisked (Whiskey Road), the latter gaining even greater fame as the dam of champion stayer Tie The Knot (Nassipour), winner of 21 races, 13 at Group One level, and earner of $6,212,775 in prize money.
Sydney winner Not Enough is out of Oodles (Alcimedes) while her sire Baguette (Rego), unbeaten champion two-year-old and later a champion sprinter, was bred by the late Daisy Tait, mother of Sandy and Jill, from her legendary producer Dark Jewel (Star Kingdom), so the Tait family influence is strong in the female half of Menari’s pedigree.
In common with so many of today’s racehorses in Australia and many other parts of the world, Menari has a pedigree dominated by the influence of Northern Dancer (Nearctic). The Rosebud winner carries four male lines of Northern Dancer through his sire Snitzel and another two via his dam Isurava with the closest duplication a 5m x 4f cross of champion Nijinsky (Northern Dancer), perhaps the least typical of the great sire’s sons in terms of size and conformation.
Isurava’s sire, the brilliant two-year-old and sprinter General Nediym (Nediym), may prove a key factor in determining Menari’s optimum racing distance. A multiple Group One winner, General Nediym did not win beyond 1400m and the vast majority of his 48 stakes winners had similar distance limitations.
To confuse the issue, though, daughters of General Nediym bred to sprinting sires have foaled Group One winners over distances up to 2500m, namely Jameka (Myboycharlie), Lasqueti Spirit (Beneteau), Hey Doc (Duporth) and Sizzling (Snitzel), with the latter bred on the same cross as Menari.