Sense Of Occasion Captures The Doomben Cup
Jockey Corey Brown had Sense Of Occasion well back for most of the race before bringing him down the outside with a powerful burst in the home straight to defeat Star Exhibit (Statue Of Liberty) by a length and a quarter with Rudy (Red Dazzler) another short neck away in third place. Race time was 2:06.63.
Sense Of Occasion is prepared by top Newcastle trainer Kris Lees but Lees is the gelding’s fifth trainer since he started off with the late Guy Walter.
While he has always shown good ability, Sense Of Occasion has been a late developer, winning his first stakes race, the ATC McKell Cup (Listed, 2400m), in May 2015 but he has shown further improvement, having his most successful season this season, which included a win in the Premier’s Cup (Listed, 1900m) in August before stepping up again in December to take the Villiers Stakes (Gr 2, 1600m).
Sense Of Occasion’s improvement was even more marked this autumn as he registered third placings in both the Doncaster Mile (Gr 1, 1600m) and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) behind champion Winx (Street Cry).
Saturday’s win was Sense Of Occasion’s eighth and lifted his career earnings to $1,691,020.
Sense Of Occasion shares bloodlines in common with Winx as his sire Street Sense (Street Cry) is the best sire son of her sire.
Street Sense was the champion two-year-old colt in the United States in 2006, winding up the season with victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (Gr 1, 8.5f) at Churchill Downs. He came back an even better horse at three years, taking the Kentucky Derby (Gr 1, 10f), defeating Hard Spun (Danzig) and Curlin (Smart Strike), won three other feature events including the Travers Stakes (Gr 1, 10f) and finished second to champion Curlin in the Preakness Stakes (Gr 1, 9.5f).
Retired to stud in Kentucky then shuttled to Darley’s NSW farm for five seasons (2008 to 2012), Street Sense was then sent to Japan. He has been a qualified success as a sire with young Darley stallion Hallowed Crown and Sense Of Occasion the best of his stakes winners in Australia and New Zealand. Prominent among the others are Politeness, Dixie Blossoms, Cosmic Storm and La Passe.
We are used to seeing Sheikh Hamdan’s Shadwell Stud Australasia as a major buyer of yearlings at Magic Millions and the Inglis Australian Easter Sale but for some years Shadwell has also maintained a select band of broodmares in Australia, racing most of their progeny but from time to time also selling a few yearlings.
Sense Of Occasion was one they decided to sell, consigned to the 2012 Australian Easter Sale by Yarraman Park Stud to be bought for $80,000 by agent Paul Beamish’s Beamish Bloodstock.
Given the quality of his female pedigree, an $80,000 price tag seemed reasonable as Sense Of Occasion is out of the winning Zabeel (Sir Tristram) mare Saywaan, a half-sister to Group One winner Rewaaya (Singspiel). Their dam, stakes placed Nasmaah (At Talaq), is a daughter of Sheikh Hamdan’s 1986 VRC Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) winner At Talaq (Roberto) who has proved an important and positive influence in Australian breeding.
Sense Of Occasion’s third dam is the speedy stakes winner Asawir (Last Tycoon), a half-sister to the brilliant sprinter Snippets (Lunchtime), one of the leading sires of his time but an even more successful and influential factor as a broodmare sire.
This is a branch of the remarkable Easy Date (Grand Chaudiere) family whose members also include current leading sire Not a Single Doubt (Redoute’s Choice).
Before closing, it may be timely to pay tribute to Sense Of Occasion’s maternal grandsire Zabeel, so far responsible as a broodmare sire for 33 Group One winners among a total of 174 stakes winners.
Such stars as Dundeel (High Chaparral), Darci Brahma (Danehill), a leading sire in New Zealand, Ocean Park (Thorn Park), Silent Achiever (O’Reilly), Atlantic Jewel (Fastnet Rock), new Newhaven Park sire Xtravagant (Pentire), Dear Demi (Dehere), Samantha Miss (Redoute’s Choice), Bonneval (Makfi), Tarzino (Tavistock), who retires to stud in New Zealand this spring, and Hong Kong’s Werther (Tavistock) are all out of daughters of Zabeel, sire of 163 stakes winners.
Many people already consider Zabeel to be the greatest sire ever to stand in New Zealand and with more chapters in his story still to be written few would disagree.