Stallion farms move on Te Akau’s Group 1-winning I Am Invincible colt
Stud farms from both sides of the Tasman have made overtures about securing Saturday’s exciting Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) winner Move To Strike, the first elite level-winning two-year-old for Australia’s premier sire I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit).
The highly touted Te Akau Racing-owned and trained colt made a huge statement with his barnstorming victory in the second and final juvenile Group 1 race of the New Zealand season.
In the process, Move To Strike downed New Zealand’s Karaka Millions 2YO (RL, 1200m) and Sistema Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Velocious (Written Tycoon), who encountered a luckless passage at Trentham, and in doing so he cast aside a mild case of heart arrhythmia suffered in the Matamata Slipper (Gr 3, 1200m) on February 24.
I Am Invincible, the twice reigning champion Australian sire, has sired 47 individual two-year-old stakes winners, including Home Affairs, Brazen Beau and Loving Gaby, but Move To Strike stands alone with the Sires’ on his CV.
Te Akau’s David Ellis, who bought four yearlings on day one of the Inglis Easter sale, revealed on Sunday that his phone had been ringing hot from studmasters keen to become involved in the talented colt and that he and Move To Strike’s owners would consider any firm offers that came forward.
“It is just incredible the job [trainers] Sam Bergerson and Mark Walker have done getting him from a colt that had a heart fibrillation at his previous start to win a Group 1 the way he did yesterday,” Ellis said at Riverside Stables.
“To be I Am Invincible’s only Group 1-winning two-year-old is something that I am very proud of.”
Out of Group 2 winner No Evidence Needed (Shamardal), the Gerry Harvey-bred and Magic Millions-purchased Move To Strike is likely to be spelled immediately rather than head to Brisbane for the winter carnival.
Ellis said: “He’ll go to the New Zealand 2,000 Guineas in the spring, then we’ll spell him and take him to Melbourne for the autumn.”
The Te Akau principal, meanwhile, didn’t take long to make his presence felt at the Easter sale, buying back-to-back lots in the first half an hour of the sale. He paid $700,000 for a Snitzel (Snitzel) colt out of Newhaven Park’s champion mare English (Encosta De Lago) and $300,000 for a Frankel (Galileo) colt out of Escapement (Invincible Spirit) from the Yulong draft.
The Snitzel colt is earmarked for Te Akau’s Cranbourne stable.
“You’re buying from Newhaven Park, which is one of the best farms in the world, and I thought he was a Golden Slipper style of colt if ever I’ve seen one,” Ellis said.
Newhaven Park, who sold their Snitzel colt to Ellis, stands the former Te Akau-raced stallions Xtravagant (Pentire) and Cool Aza Beel (Savabeel).