High-priced debutant a chance to dazzle Blue Sapphire
Andrew EddyMay 1, 2009
THE racing carnivals have moved onto Adelaide and the Gold Coast this weekend, but tomorrow's Caulfield meeting will be far from overlooked with the running of the listed Blue Sapphire Stakes for two-year-olds.
The $100,000 race's headliner Black Caviar stunned all who saw her five-length romp at Flemington on debut two weeks ago.
The Peter Moody-trained youngster is already earmarked as a future star, but don't be surprised if the race unearths another horse of group 1 quality. Making his debut is the Redoute's Choice colt L'heritier, who, as a $2.7 million buy at the 2008 Sydney Easter sales, is the third highest-priced yearling ever to be sold in Australia. He was purchased by Sheik Mohammed's Darley.
The colt is out of the magnificently bred mare Salameh, who was a half-sister to group 1 winner Al Maher and whose granddam, Dancing Show, produced Redoute's Choice's dam Shantha's Choice among a list of other stakeswinners.
"He's taken a little while to come through as he was quite immature, but I'm happy with the way he's come on," his trainer, Lee Freedman, said yesterday. "He's been finishing his work off very well and he's got some scope over ground in the future. I don't know about him beating home Peter's (Moody) horse (Black Caviar), but I'm sure he'll be hitting the line."
High-priced yearlings are rarely the stars of their age, but Freedman has enjoyed some success with two other expensive yearlings for Darley. The Redoute's Choice filly Estee, a $2.1 million buy in 2007, is already a stakeswinner while Redoute's Choice colt Time Thief, who fetched $2 million in 2007, is a listed winner and has two group 1 placings from just seven runs.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment