Nature Strip wows at Ascot
Nature Strip, simply wow. What more can you say? The horse has the talent, but trainer Chris Waller and jockey James McDonald’s management of the sprinter has been superb.
He looked as well as he ever has in the mounting yard (watching from my loungeroom). Waller’s meticulousness is what sets him apart. Even with hundreds of horses on the books, it appears as though nothing is left to chance. Same with McDonald, who had Nature Strip in the right part of the track, seemingly aware of all Ascot’s vagaries and European racing’s unique features.
The same can’t be said for the jockey of Coolmore’s US sprinter Golden Pal, who missed the start hopelessly and immediately ended the horse’s King’s Stand chances. Golden Pal’s trainer Wesley Ward later admitted that jockey Irad Ortiz was unaware that the gates were about to open as he was looking backwards at Mondammej, who was unable to be loaded and was scratched as a result.
The one percenters count – and it’s often why the best are, in fact, the best – and Ortiz was unfortunately found wanting on the big stage, even if the starter appeared to be trigger happy, but not so Waller and McDonald.
Just like Russell Crowe, we Aussies are quick to claim the Kiwis as our own and Waller and McDonald certainly are that.
We just need Home Affairs or Artorius to complete an Australian cleansweep in tomorrow night’s Platinum Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot.
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About six weeks ago, just hours after the Joseph O’Brien-trained State Of Rest had returned with a victory in the Prix Ganay (Gr 1, 2100m) in France sporting new colours, Newgate’s Henry Field called to discuss the stallion’s victory and what it meant for the new partnership.
The purchase of State Of Rest, last October’s Cox Plate-winning son of Australian-bred Group 1 winner Starspangledbanner (Choisir), was a break from the successful mould for Newgate Farm and its stallion roster, one built on colonial speed (except for the fleeting shuttle experiment via The Factor, which was abandoned in 2017).
More than 20 partners joined Field in buying into State Of Rest. While the Prince Of Wales’s was flagged as a possibility, Wednesday night’s win would have, I’m sure, exceeded expectations.
“History often tells the future,” Field told us at Inglis’ Riverside Stables in early May when asked about State Of Rest.
“What we have seen is these Cox Plate winners, especially three-year-olds, have an elite record at stud.
“If we look historically at horses who were Cox Plate winners as three-year-olds and multiple Group 1 winners since the turn of the century there’s only been three who were Cox Plate-winning three-year-olds and multiple Group 1 winners and they’re So You Think, who is an excellent stallion, Shamus Award is an excellent stallion and Savabeel is an excellent stallion, so he profiles very well.”
The Newgate group has had plenty to celebrate in recent years, but the Ascot owners and trainers car park party on Wednesday night would have been one for the ages.
As for State Of Rest’s Coolmore-owned sire Starspangledbanner, he won’t be returning to Australia this year (he has been standing at Rosemont Stud in Victoria) owing to his potency in Europe. He stood for a fee of €35,000 in Ireland this year.
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By Alex Wiltshire
While the equine Australians have dominated on the turf at Royal Ascot over the first few days of the racing festival, renowned bookie Rob Waterhouse has attempted to assert Aussie authority in the betting ring – a tough task with more than 250 on-course pitches at Royal Ascot this week to serve the 75,000 racegoers each day.
Situated in the Queen Anne Enclosure, a few columns away from the Royal Enclosure and nestled among the middle rows, around a furlong from the finishing post, Waterhouse cuts a concentrated figure as he punches in punters’ bets beneath a proudly-displayed Australian flag.
“There’s more of them [punters] here,” Waterhouse said, whose father Bill had previously held a pitch on the rails at Royal Ascot back in the 1970s. “I bought a pitch and applied for a licence and here I am. It’s a great honour.”
“There was a horse called Order Of Australia which was a bit of an omen bet, until I point out it’s bred in Ireland. I keep a big database of English form, so we’re well prepared.”
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Closer to home, it is too soon to be considering rising three-year-old colt Foujita San, a son of Maurice (Screen Hero), as a potential stallion prospect and you won’t hear co-owner Rob Roulston get carried away but the Hawkes Racing-trained horse certainly is an exciting prospect.
Foujita San raced just twice last preparation, winning his second start by five and three-quarter lengths at Sandown over 1400 metres on April 6, a performance which gave rise to start-up colts partnership PR Funds, which is operated by Roulston and fellow agent Mark Player.
Among PR Funds’ backers are Neil Werrett, Gerry Ryan, Peter and Glen Carrick, Rifa Mustang, David Kobritz and Ben Cooper – and they could have a Golden Rose (Gr 1, 1400m) and Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) contender in their first year of operation.
“He is back in Sydney with Johnny [Hawkes] getting ready to roll for the spring races up there. Hopefully he is up to the really good ones. He’s still got to do it yet, but he is promising,” Roulston said.
“The Hawkes’ have trained a few out of the family and they’ve all got better at three, four and five, so we didn’t want to push him as a two-year-old. He’s bred to get up to a mile and a quarter. He is an exciting horse, but he’s still got it all to do.”
A half-brother to stakes winners Messene (Lonhro) and Cordero (Gio Ponti), being out of Belle Giselle (Redoute’s Choice), Foujita San was a $360,000 Inglis Easter purchase last year.
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The New Zealand Bloodstock National Weanling Sale is on today, but already people are looking ahead to the 2023 Karaka Yearling Sale, which will hopefully be the country’s first major auction without travel restrictions (not forgetting November’s Ready to Run Sale).
“Our hotel’s only just opened up, the Double Tree by Hilton. It’s getting a lot of interest and I think we’ll have one of those unique sales where everyone will want to be here in 2023,” NZB’s Mike Kneebone told us yesterday.
“Just talking to a lot of the vendors here, they’re just so excited to be able to showcase their horses to an international buying bench, who are actually here on the ground for the first time in a very long time.
“The New Zealand stallions are just flying. It’s our best year in many years on the sires’ table in Australia at the moment. That’s all converted into the results on the track, so it’s almost the perfect storm for us.”
Agent Paul Moroney yesterday also confirmed his view that NZB made the right call to return the Karaka sale to its traditional late January timeslot. It was held in March this year in the hope that the New Zealand border would be open, but this didn’t materialise in time to allow international visitors.
“I think everyone should keep in mind that, barring accident or injury, the Australian buying bench will return to Karaka en masse,” he said yesterday.
“There are a few markers at the moment in financial areas that suggest there might be a bit of a downturn, but I don’t think that will hit at Karaka.
“A huge number of Australians are dying to get back here for the yearling sales, it could be a bonanza. It is a shame that they couldn’t get here this year, because there were some great types and I did some wonderful shopping here.”
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Avesta Bloodstock’s Jimmy Unwala and Ross Hatton of Rathmore Bloodstock generously donated $20,000 to one lucky person to spend at last week’s Inglis Great Southern Sale on a weanling.
The social media campaign, which generated thousands of interactions, was won by Emma Hayes and she didn’t wait long to cash in her prize, taking a ten per cent share in a Written Tycoon filly who was purchased by agents Andrew Williams and Bevan Smith for $200,000 last Thursday.
The filly, sold by Shadowbrook Bloodstock, was the first foal out of Paris Lights (Snitzel) as Lot 11. Let’s hope this isn’t the end of the story and that the filly can turn that $20,000 into something more substantial for Emma.
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They said it: “We’ve had just such a great season, not just over in Aussie, but right throughout the world and when we can’t breed one, we’ve got a trainer training them and a jockey riding them, so we’re going pretty well.” – New Zealand Bloodstock’s Mike Kneebone, a parochial Kiwi, on his country’s racecourse success