Queensland-trained Crack Me Up victorious in the Villiers
Named after an early Governor of New South Wales, Victor Albert George Child Villiers, the Earl of Jersey, the race has gained in stature in recent years as the winner becomes exempt from a ballot to run in the following autumn’s rich Doncaster (Gr 1, 1600m).
The 2016 and 2015 Villiers winners, Sense Of Occasion (Street Sense) and Happy Clapper (Teofilo), both went on to win Group Ones and it remains to be seen if last Saturday’s 2017 winner Crack Me Up (Mossman) can emulate them but the Queensland-trained gelding already has quite a good record with four earlier black–type successes to his credit.
Many earlier Villiers winners were not horses of great class but the race’s honour roll since 1945 features a sprinkling of high quality horses such as Soho Square (Jugah), Rising Prince (Round Top), Western Australian star Raconteur (Remarc), Carioca (Felt Yet) and the mighty Bernborough (Emborough).
Now likely to have his next start in the $1,000,000 Magic Millions Cup (RL, 1400m) at the Gold Coast on 13 January, Crack Me Up on Saturday produced an exciting late charge to head runaway leader Cabeza De Vaca (Northern Meteor) close to home, scoring a little softly on the line by a long neck with the promising Interlocutor (Medaglia d’Oro) a strong finishing and close up third in 1:34.98.
Crack Me Up was foaled in New Zealand but conceived in NSW, bred by NSW residents Rob and Jenny Ferguson and sold through the Glastonbury Farms consignment at the 2015 Magic Millions Gold Coast January Yearling Sale for $60,000, a value price considering his pedigree.
Group One winner Mossman (Success Express), the Vinery Stud-based veteran sire of Crack Me Up, has never received the respect he deserves, perhaps as a result of having a number of homes since beginning his breeding career in 2000.
From the start, Mossman has been a consistent source of high–class winners, leaving 40 stakes winners headed by the outstanding sprinter Buffering (earner of $7.22 million) and Golden Slipper Stakes winner Mossfun, whose deeds as a two-year-old made Mossman the champion Australian sire of juveniles in the 2013/14 season.
Ofcourseican, Plucky Belle and Miss Mossman are other Group One winners sired by Mossman, whose Group Two-winning son Love Conquers All, three-time runner–up in Group One contests, has made a very promising start to his stud career in Queensland and is a far more imposing individual than his father.
Crack Me Up is the ninth foal out of the smart performer Chuckle (Danehill) who, after an earlier mating with Mossman, produced Hoofit, a stakes winner in New Zealand and later at Keeneland in the United States. Chuckle has remained in New Zealand and has also produced a two-year-old filly named Leading Girl (Reliable Man) and a yearling colt by the same young sire entered for the 2018 New Zealand Bloodstock Premier Sale at Karaka.
Chuckle won the Scone Dark Jewel Classic (Listed, 1400m) and an 1100 metre two-year-old race at Rosehill Gardens and was seven times stakes–placed up to Group Two level.
Danehill mares like Chuckle have worked very well with Mossman as New Zealand Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m) winner Miss Mossman, Under The Eiffel, Absalon and Macau Horse of the Year Wonder Mossman (named Racing Eight in Australia) are all bred on the same cross, while other Mossman stakes winners Dothraki and Traitor are out of mares by Danehill’s champion–sire son Flying Spur.
Bred for speed, Chuckle is from 950 metre Moonee Valley juvenile winner Clowning (Rory’s Jester), a three-quarter sister to Catnipped (Rory’s Jester) and Miss Prospect (Rory’s Jester), which makes her closely related to prominent Victorian sire Reward For Effort (Exceed And Excel) and to Golden Slipper Stakes winner Overreach (Exceed And Excel), tracing back to influential Irish mare Latest Edition (Solferino).
Latest Edition is remembered in Australasia as the dam of champion New Zealand sire and broodmare sire Sovereign Edition (Sovereign Path) while her dam Celestial Light (Donatello II) is equally recognised for producing the prolific former champion Queensland sire Smokey Eyes (Stardust).
Crack Me Up is distantly linebred to Solferino (Fairway) but more closely to breed shaper Northern Dancer (Nearctic) and he also carries duplications of names such as Tom Fool (Menow), Hyperion (Gainsborough) and the stayer Alycidon (Donatello II).