Derby winner breaks family’s staying hoodoo

Prized Icon is the second Victoria Derby winner for More Than Ready

Derby winner breaks family’s staying hoodoo

THERE are over a hundred winners, including at least thirty of them successful in stakes, under the first six dams, but none had won as far 2400m until the Gooree Stud bred and raced More Than Ready colt Prized Icon came with a big finish to claim the $1.5million AAMI Victoria Derby over 2500m at Flemington on Saturday. In contrast this family since World War 2 has produced some of Australia’s most brilliant gallopers.

Now winner of three races, including the Champagne Stakes at two and the Derby, the James Cummings trained Prized Icon is a brother to Romantic Moon, a filly whose three wins included the Group 3 Sweet Embrace Stakes (1200m), and a half-brother to Matras, a Zabeel winner up to 1600m, including the Group 3 Tesio Stakes.

Their dam, the Danehill winner of the VRC Maribyrnong Trial Stakes Tropical Affair, was from Just As Lovely, a Bletchingly winner up to 1600m. She produced eight winners, the best of which was Tropical Affair and Just as Beautiful, a Beautiful Crown stakes placed dam of Salade, a Pago Pago stakes winner who is standing at Kingstar Farm, a new stud at Denman, Hunter Valley.

Stick To Beauty, the third dam of Prized Icon did not earn in her only two starts, but she was a sister by the Round Table sire Dignitas to Princess Talaria, a versatile filly who won six races up to 1600m, headed by three at two, including the Gimcrack at Randwick and the VATC One Thousand Guineas. She just missed giving the immediate family a 2400-2500m victory, finishing third in the Victoria Oaks and Western Australian Derby.

Also Stick to Beauty and Princess Talaria were half-sisters to the brilliant Sticks and Stones.They were from Winged Beauty, a Port Vista flyer who won ten in Sydney and down in Melbourne finished second in the Oakleigh Plate. She was a half-sister to Arcadus (won QTC Lightning Handicap, second at two in the Doomben 10,000, sire), Sabron (9 wins to 1400m, including the June Stakes at Randwick) and Admire, a Listed winner at two and producer of stakes performers Periscope (two Group 2 wins), Covetous (three wins, including the Adelaide Guineas; sire of St Covet), Admiration (15 wins North America) and Pag-Asa (third QTC Sires’ Produce Stakes). Pag-Asa sired Bonecrusher, an Australian Horse of the Year whose wins included the Randwick Derby, Cox Plate and New Zealand Derby.

The family was established in Australia back in 1861 with the arrival in Victoria from England of Marchioness (by Melbourne), an English Oaks winner carrying a foal by iconic Stockwell. Named Rose of Denmark, that foal produced Florence (won AJC Champagne Stakes and Derby and Victoria Derby and Oaks and Queensland Derby), Hamlet (won AJC Champagne Stakes, Sires’ Produce Stakes, St Leger, VRC St Leger), Horatio (won AJC Metropolitan) and Fleurette, ancestress of this year’s Victoria Derby winner Prized Icon.

Prized Icon is the second Victoria Derby winner for More Than Ready, a former high class American performer at two and three by the Halo sire Southern Halo and from a daughter Woodman (USA) (Mr. Prospector) who is now on his sixteenth visit to the Vinery Stud, use that so far produced 1500 foals.

More Than Ready has been a consistent first class sire in both hemispheres, wracking up world wide statistics of over 1500 winners (73.7%) of 4500 races and $168million. There have been 164 stakes winners, including 19 successful at Group1 level.

Vinery also stand Myboycharlie (Ire), a dual hemisphere sire who has had been represented this spring by Jameka, the Caulfield Cup winner and one of the most favoured contestants for the Melbourne Cup.

Horlicks envigorates Melbourne spring star.

CELEBRATED as a health drink, the name of Horlicks is also an elixir in thoroughbred breeding in invigorating down the line top notch classic and cup performers.The latest to benefit from having Horlicks in his pedigree is Sacred Elixir, a 3-year-old gelding who, after a soft win in the Vase (2040m) at Moonee Valley on the Cox Plate program, ran as favourite in the Victoria Derby and finished second to Prized Icon.

A winner of 17 races, six of them Group1, including the New Zealand Stakes twice, the LKS Mackinnon Stakes and Japan Cup and one of the great New Zealand bred racemares of modern times, the grey Horlicks appears as third dam of Sacred Elixir, a son of the Montjeu English Derby winner Pour Moi. He was a visiting sire from Coolmore Ireland to Windsor Park at Cambridge NZ in 2012,13 and 14.

Bred by Graham and Deborah de Gruchy, Hawkes Bay farmers with a magic touch when it comes to breeding good horses, and purchased by his owners, Raffles Thoroughbred Racing, a syndicate headed by Malaysian Kyan Yap, for NZ$170,000 at the New Zealand Premier Yearling Sale, Sacred Elixir is the first runner for Baltika, a Stravinsky (USA) mare who won one race, one over 1200m, and earned $5,490. She is a daughter of Zambuca, an unraced Zabeel three quarter sister to the Sir Tristram products Brew (won Melbourne Cup in 2000) and Bubble (won Avondale Guineas, second Avondale Cup, New Zealand 1000 Guineas).

Latte, a half-sister to Zambuca, from a mating with Zabeel produced Fiumcino, a winner in Sydney of the Derby, Tancred Stakes and Hill Stakes, third in the Rosehill Guineas and Metropolitan.Their illustrious New Zealand Hall of Fame inducted mother Horlicks is also ancestress of stakes winners Solo Flyer, My Tusker and Tremec.

Horlicks is by Three Legs (GB), a prominent sprinter in England and Italy by Petingo, a top European sire, and from Malt, an unraced half-sister by Moss Trooper (GB) to Interstellar, a Star Way (GB) Canterbury Guineas winner and sire of Yippyio, runner up in Brew’s Melbourne Cup.

Their mother, Frill, was by Agricola (GB) and from Froth, a Faux Tirage (GB) winner of the Auckland Cup, Great Northern Oaks and New Zealand Oaks. Froth is also ancestress of Laelia (won Adelaide Cup), Laebeel (second Caulfield Cup), Swift General (second Adelaide Cup), Niconero (won VRC Australian Cup, MRC Futurity – twice), Nicconi (won AJC Galaxy, sire), Military Plume (won VRC Australian Guineas; sire), Monaco Consul (won VRC Derby, AJC Spring Champion Stakes; sire) and General Nediym (champion Australian sprinter at three; sire).

Three Legs and Faux Tirage were two very good sires used at one of New Zealand’s most prestigious studs, the still owned Lowry family’s Okawa at Hastings. It was very famous in the early 1900s for a mare they bred and raced, Desert Gold. She ran 59 times for 36 wins, 19 of them in succession.

The Lowrys are closely associated with the de Gruchys, breeders not only of Sacred Elixir, but also of his first three dams. Graham de Gruchy raced Horlicks and then placed her in the care of Patrick Hogan at the Cambridge Stud.

Bred to go on and be a strong contender for the 2017 Melbourne Cup, the Tony Pike, Cambridge NZ trained Sacred Elixir has won five of ten starts, including the Group 1 JJ Atkins (1600m) at Eagle Farm at two, the Caulfield Guineas Prelude and the Moonee Valley Vase.

Posted in Jim Pola Blog on Sunday, 30 October 2016