Widden seek blind redemption with filly after sibling tragedy
Day one at Inglis Easter featured the sale – as the equal second-highest priced filly – of a half-sister to a filly who, once an exciting racetrack prospect, has instead become a Widden Stud ‘project’.
Lot 115, a daughter of Zoustar (Northern Meteor) offered by Widden as agents and sold to Suman Hedge Bloodstock for $900,000, is the second foal of Comprende (I Am Invincible), whose dam Zelady (Zeditave) also threw stakes-winners Excites Zelady (Excites) and Zelady’s Night Out (Myboycharlie).
Comprende was a $440,000 yearling, at the Gold Coast in 2014, from the second crop of I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit). After she placed in two Adelaide stakes races, and her sire began his rise to superstardom, Comprende was bought as a broodmare by Widden for a hefty $1,050,000 in 2017.
The stud’s planning hatched prompt results. Comprende’s first foal, by Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice), fetched $450,000 when bought by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott at Easter, 2020. Named Cerda, she looked exceptional as a spring two-year-old, debuting with a half-length second to future dual stakes-winner Tiger Of Malay (Extreme Choice) over 1000 metres at Randwick, before a long–neck second in Rosehill’s million-dollar Golden Gift (1100m) behind another future stakes-winner, Sneaky Five (Fastnet Rock).
Cerda had sealed her place in the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m), and drew comparisons with one of the stable’s past winners of that race from her co-trainer, who described her as a “tigress”.
“I’ll tell you who she reminds me of – Overreach,” Waterhouse enthused. “She is only small but like Overreach she has a beautiful action and wants to win.”
But as so often can happen, disaster struck. Cerda was involved in an accident, rearing and essentially flipping over, and striking her head. She was rendered blind.
Mulling over the possible paths of action, Widden undertook what was probably one less followed.
“There was great despair, because one of the stable’s best fillies had lost her vision,” Widden’s owner Antony Thompson told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“It was a terrible blow because she was such a highly talented filly. We took her back to Widden on behalf of the owners, and decided we’d look after her. We made her a special project.”
It’s not the most straightforward of tasks, but Thompson speaks with pride of how Cerda has coped.
Now three, she has to stay in the same paddock, for familiarity. After one young companion was initially tried, she now has a far older paddock-mate, a 27-year-old mare who wears a bell around her neck, for guidance and for avoiding collisions. And it’s not just any old mare, but Staging (Success Express).
First she had a great career as a racemare, winning eight stakes-races. Then she became an exceptional broodmare, throwing Group 1 winners in Duporth (Red Ransom) and Excites (Danewin), the later sire of Excites Zelady, and a third stakes-winner in Tickets (Redoute’s Choice). Now Staging is building another reputation as a carer, in her twilight years.
“She’s a wonderful, lovely old mare. She’s been a great producer, and she’s a very kind mare,” said Thompson, adding Cerda had adjusted well to blindness.
“She’s managed to deal with it and cope with it very well. It will be a TLC job but she deserves it. We want to make sure she gets every chance.
“I’ve seen it done before, but we haven’t had a blind mare at the farm before. So long as you don’t change their environment and keep them in a good routine, you keep them with a nice friend, nice and settled, they seem to cope pretty well.
“She stays in the same paddock. She knows her paddock well. She’s got a nice shady tree, she knows where her water is, where her feed bin is. And in any case, Staging will find it and with the bell around her neck this lets Cerda know where she is and she’ll follow her.
“It’s much like blindness in humans in that the other senses really kick in, like smell and hearing. She seems relaxed and alert.”
Not only this, but Cerda went straight into foal last spring at the first attempt – to Zoustar, like her mum.
“When she has the foal we’ll put a bell around the foal’s neck as well,” Thompson said. “I’m sure she’ll make a great mum.”
Hopes are high that the coming foal’s three-quarter sister, yesterday’s $900,000 buy for a big fan of the family, will also have ability. Hedge also purchased Zelady’s Night Out’s first living foal, a filly by Trapeze Artist (Snitzel), at this year’s Inglis Classic sale, for $430,000, from Vinery Stud.
“We’re delighted to purchase this Zoustar filly,” Hedge said. “We’ve been around and looked at a lot, and she was right up the top there for fillies.
“It’s a developing family. Cerda had a ton of ability, although unfortunately we didn’t get to see the best of her on the track. But we think this family’s going to continue to develop and this filly is a very good representative of it.”