Stakes Quartet Made Saturday A Great Day For Snitzel
These wins boosted greatly Snitzel’s prize money earnings for the 2016/17 season to a new record figure of more than $13,800,000 and virtually assured him of taking his first Australian general sires title with more than ten weeks of the season still to run. Snitzel is also currently the leading sire of winners in Australia and well clear of his rivals in the race to be champion sire of two-year-olds this season.
We will review the pedigree of Redzel later in this article but first we should say a little about Snitzel’s other stakes winners last Saturday, two-year-old colt Tangled in Brisbane, two-year-old filly Debonairly (Woodlands Stakes, Listed, 1100m) at Scone and three-year-old filly Vienna Miss (Adelaide Guineas, Listed, 1600m) at Morphettville.
Tangled looked special in flying home from the rear to win the BRC Champagne Classic (Gr 2, 1200m) at Doomben and should relish longer distances as he is out of former star filly Bramble Rose (Shinko King) whose wins included the New Zealand Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m). This Snitzel colt is the mare’s third stakes winner after Sebrose (Sebring) and Maules Creek (Redoute’s Choice) and should be hard to beat in the season’s final Group One for juveniles, the J J Atkins Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) at Eagle Farm on 10 June.
It has indeed been a season of milestones for Snitzel in Australia with 24 individual stakes winners of 29 races overall. Snitzel is also poised to break Without Fear’s (Baldric) long standing record of 30 juvenile winners in a season. This year Snitzel additionally has Group One winners in New Zealand and South Africa plus a Group winner in Japan with his lifetime tally of stakes winners worldwide now numbering 62 (27 this season). Snitzel so far has 11 Group One winners (five this season) and 27 two-year-old stakes winners (nine this season).
Redzel follows Hot Snitzel, Invader, Russian Revolution, Shamus Award, Sizzling, Snitzerland, Sweet Idea and Wandjina as Group One winners for Snitzel in Australia and his front running performance to win last Saturday’s Doomben 10,000 was full of merit, defeating the fast finishing Counter Attack (Redoute’s Choice) by a half-length with Derryn (Hinchinbrook) another neck away in third place in a time of 1:10.54.
A reduction in the traditional 1350 metre distance of the race proved ideal for Redzel to notch his fifth and most important stakes victory.
Bred in Victoria by Lee Fleming, then owner of Eliza Park Stud, Redzel sold as a weanling for $45,000 to Marquee Stud at the 2013 Inglis Australian Weanling Sale with the buyer then re-selling him for a profitable $120,000 to Triple Crown Syndications at the 2014 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
Redzel is the 13th and last foal of his dam Millrich (Rubiton) who died about a month after his birth.
Millrich was among the best two-year-olds in Australia in the 1994/95 season when she won the Sweet Embrace Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) and two other races in Sydney and placed in four other Group races, notably when third to Flying Spur (Danehill) and Octagonal (Zabeel) in the 1995 Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
Of Millrich’s seven winners the only other one of real class was Danerich (Danehill), also a handy two-year-old and a dual stakes winner who has achieved good success as a sire in Victoria leaving stakes winners such as Lord of the Sky, Didntcostalot, Richie’s Vibe and others.
A sister to stakes-placed Melbourne winner Natural Elegance (Rubiton) and to Rubimill (Rubiton), the dam of stakes winner El Roca (Fastnet Rock), Millrich comes from a family with its origins in New Zealand but introduced to Australia when the Neck family purchased her second dam Sana Rani (Pakistan II) as a yearling in 1971 and brought her to South Australia.
Sprinters such as Redzel most often carry some inbreeding or linebreeding but the Doomben 10,000 winner is an exception as he is an outcross for five generations although his sire Snitzel is linebred to Northern Dancer (Nearctic) and Lunchtime (Silly Season) as well as having three crosses of the famous mare Natalma (Native Dancer).
Go back a little further in Redzel’s background and you find four crosses of Nasrullah (Nearco) and a double of Star Kingdom (Stardust), both factors for speed.