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Extreme staying performance from Cummings’ star filly

Second Group 1 for daughter of Extreme Choice after Berry guides her to Oaks victory

Never one to duck a challenge, trainer Anthony Cummings’ belief in the ability of brilliant filly She’s Extreme (Extreme Choice) to extend her talent to a staying distance was proven correct yesterday, after the three-year-old’s class shone through in the VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m).

She’s Extreme, now a Group-winning filly from 1200 metres to 2500 metres, also ensured another generation of the famous racing family was on the VRC Oaks honour board, with Cummings joining his grandfather Jim, father Bart and son James, Godolphin Australia’s head trainer, as trainers of VRC Oaks winners.

“The big thing is to keep up with the kids,” said Cummings, whose other son Edward is also a Group 1-winning trainer. 

“They’re setting a furious pace and for an old guy it is not always simple. But we’ve got a nice filly and a good mob of owners that have been understanding and copped it, not that it’s hard as she’s won over $1.5 million now, so it’s not all pain. 

“I’m just pleased to have a filly like that to get the recognition, get the Group 1, certainly at Flemington.” 

By Newgate Farm’s Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt), the sire of eight stakes winners and 34 individual winners from 51 runners, She’s Extreme has been one of her generation’s most consistent and durable fillies, winning the Magic Night Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) and the Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) last season before multiple placings this spring prior to yesterday’s VRC Oaks.

Cummings elected to bring She’s Extreme to Melbourne after a luckless third in the Spring Champion Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) at Randwick 12 days ago.

“I think she was the right horse to win this race,” Cummings said.

“It was the icing on the cake for a very good prep and it’s nice to see her get the right breaks today. 

“Tommy [Berry, jockey] rode her very well and assessed the situation at every turn. I’m just rapt for the horse as much as anything.” 

She’s Extreme’s jockey Tommy Berry, who won the Champagne Stakes on She’s Extreme and finished second in the Flight Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) earlier this preparation, bided his time behind the leader and eventual runner-up Pavitra (American Pharoah) before taking a narrow gap when Jamie Kah eased off the fence.

She’s Extreme won by a length, over the Richard and Will Freedman-trained Pavitra, with Queen Air (Toronado) running a gallant third, two and a quarter lengths behind the runnerup.

“I was only saying to my wife [Sharnee] during the week that I’ve ridden a lot of good colts and geldings, I’ve ridden a lot of fillies and good sprinting fillies, but I’ve always admired Hugh Bowman and winning Oaks on good fillies,” Berry said following the success.

“I guess the way I’ve evolved and grown into the rider I am, I wasn’t a very patient rider when I was younger, but over the years I’ve become a more patient rider and I think that shows in my staying races over the last few years.”

Berry was wearing co-owner Robert Crabtree’s Dorrington Farm colours of red with white checks, the same silks worn by the now retired Cummings-trained mare Mizzy (Zoustar) who was awarded the 2021 Canterbury Stakes (Gr 1, 1300m) after the disqualification of Savatiano (Street Cry) and Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Catchy (Fastnet Rock), among others.

“Crabby, we’ve got a longterm relationship. He’s been with me since 1991, ’92 or something and we’ve had a lot of success together,” Cummings said.

“I think this filly might have been our first Group 1 winner and she’s now got number two.”

Fellow part-owner Monique Annetts was one of many emotional connections after the filly’s victory.

“We all were [emotional]. Every owner, even Anthony was,’’ Annetts said.

“I can’t believe it! She’s just so brilliant. This is horse racing Mecca, Flemington in Cup Week and to be winning not just an Oaks but the VRC Oaks, it’s just huge, so special.

“While we didn’t know if she would run the 2500 metres, the way she came home over the 2000 metres in the Spring Champion [Stakes] at her last start, that gave us plenty of confidence that she’d run the trip out today and she was just awesome.’’

Kah echoed Pavitra’s co-trainer Will Freedman in suggesting the filly would mature significantly later in the season.

“This time next year she’s going to be a super horse, she’s just still learning,” Kah said.

Blaike McDougall rode the Lindsey Smith-trained third placegetter Queen Air.

[She’s an] amazing filly. Her constitution. Three runs in three weeks in her first preparation,” he said. 

“[It’ll be] scary to think what she’s going to be like next prep.”

She’s Extreme was purchased by Cummings for $275,000 at last year’s Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale, which provided Coolmore Australia sales manager Colm Santry and his friends with a big pinhook result having purchased her through Inglis Digital as a weanling for just $32,500.

About the same time, Randwick Bloodstock Agency’s Brett Howard purchased the stakes-placed Keysbrook (So Secret), the dam of She’s Extreme, for $60,000 through Inglis’s online sale.

Originally sourced off the track in Western Australia by Willow Park’s Glenn Burrows in 2016, who traded her in foal the following year for $140,000 through Magic Millions to Aquis Farm, Howard on-sold Keysbrook in May for $825,000 to Kia Ora Stud through the Inglis Chairman’s Sale.

 

Big day for agent Mills as Blue Diamond becomes likely target for Charm Stone

Agent Sheamus Mills had a day to remember at Flemington, enjoying an ownership double on Oaks Day with valuable juvenile filly Charm Stone (I Am Invincible) winning the Ottawa Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m), while Roots (Press Statement) claimed the $250,000 Inglis Bracelet (1600m).

A $1.55 million Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale graduate, who is trained by Mick Price and Mick Kent Jnr, Charm Stone benefited from the experience of her Maribyrnong Trial Stakes (Listed, 1000m) third placing a month earlier to score the important Group 3 win yesterday.

“She’s a beautiful type, big, strong, sound and got a pedigree,” Price said. 

“She’s one of Sheamus’ buys for the boys and it’s good that she’s now got a stakes race [win]. 

“That makes them as broodmares, albeit at start two, and the question will be, what to do now? Personally, I’m a Group 1 man.

“She’s a big, strong filly, she’ll train on, and she’ll have a good, robust two-year-old year, but that’s open for discussion.” 

Sent out the $4.60 favourite under Damian Lane in the $200,000 race, Charm Stone registered a one-and-three-quarter-length victory over Empress Of Wonder (Choisir) ($5) with Hell Queen (Hellbent) ($13) a further half-length away in third. 

“As a yearling, I wouldn’t say I thought she was a straight out two-year-old, but you just can’t tell basically. I know there are horses that look like two-year-olds and those that look like they’re going to train on,” Mills told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday. 

“She could have gone either way, really, and I do think these Vinnies, as a rule, are better when they’re left alone and given time.

“It’s a cliche, but she’s a horse who has just kept putting her hand up. She went into Mick Price’s with three other friends and one-by-one they went shin sore or lost their appetite or whatever and she did none of that. They sort of pick themselves (two-year-olds).”

Mills concurs with Price, indicating the Blue Diamond Stakes, rather than the $2 million Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) on the Gold Coast in January, was the likely New Year target for Charm Stone.

“She was in the Golden Gift on Saturday, a $1 million race in Sydney, and we were to-ing and fro-ing which way to go, but I am always of the opinion that a black-type win was worth more than the difference in prizemoney,” Mills said. 

“Obviously, if the Golden Gift had black type it’d make it a bit easier, but when she drew 14 up there, it was a pretty easy decision [to stay in Melbourne].

“As far as the autumn goes, you’ve got to listen to your horse the whole way through, but two fillies we thought we really looked after in Odeum, who ended up having 11 starts in her career with a fair bit of unfinished business there, and Daisies, who has been a good filly, but her last couple of starts have been below par, makes you think, ‘how much petrol have I got in the tank here?’, so I am certainly mindful that it is very hard to win a Magic Millions being trained in Victoria. 

“History shows you that, so I would think the Blue Diamond is the option.”

A sister to the Listed-winning Najmaty, a filly retained by breeder Emirates Park, and out of the Group 3 winner Najoom (Northern Meteor), Charm Stone was a $1.55 million purchase by Mills and clients Heath Newton and Anthony Roberts’ Chesapeake Thoroughbreds.

Najoom, who recently foaled a filly by Capitalist (Written Tycoon), has a yearling filly by Newgate Farm’s young sire Tassort (Brazen Beau) who will be retained to race by Emirates Park, which also has ownership of Najmaty and another half-sister in Najmah (Snitzel), who gave birth to a daughter of I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) in September.

“That is the modus operandi, I suppose, with what we’re trying to do and that is to make fillies and make broodmares,” Mills said of the high-priced purchase of Charm Stone. 

“We’ve also bought into Hips Don’t Lie’s family and this [Charm Stone’s family]. You don’t go to a yearling sale trying to buy broodmares, but where you can if you think the horse has all the right credentials to be a racehorse – it’s different to Europe and America and a lot of other places – there’s a good opportunity to get into some of the best families in the country and that’s what happened here, people sell their very good yearlings.”

She is the 85th individual stakes winner for Australia’s reigning champion stallion I Am Invincible, also the sire of Saturday’s Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner In Secret.

While Charm Stone already has a valuable stakes win on her CV, Mills hopes Roots, a private purchase for the same connections as the Ottawa Stakes winner, can claim her own piece of black type in three weeks’ time. 

A $52,000 Inglis Classic Yearling Sale purchase from the Vinery Stud draft for Japanese breeder Kinya Murakami, who retains a share in the four-year-old mare, Mills zeroed in on Roots after a closing second to Fangirl (Sebring) in the Reginald Allen (Listed, 1400m) at Randwick in October last year in just her second race.

“I wasn’t the lone ranger in thinking Fangirl was a superstar in the making and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to buy her, so I tried the next best thing which was Roots and it’s been a great ride since,’’ Mills said.

“This is what dreams are made of, coming to a big day like Oaks Day at Flemington in Melbourne Cup week and saddling up a short-priced favourite and watching her win like that.

“She’s such a beautiful mare, she’s got plenty of length to her and so much quality. I think she’s a gem.”

Ridden by James McDonald, Roots ($1.65 favourite) defeated three-year-old filly Climbing Star (Zoustar) ($6.50) by threequarters of a length with Sur La Mer (Nicconi) ($13) another halflength away in third.

Runner-up in the Tesio Stakes (Gr 3, 1600m) at Moonee Valley on Cox Plate Day, Roots will head to the Summoned Stakes (Gr 3, 1500m) at Caulfield on November 26 where she will aim to improve her record of five wins from 11 starts.

“We had this horse in a stakes race on Tuesday [the Hong Kong Jockey Club Stakes] as well, but these sorts of races that Inglis put on as part of their race series with great prize-money, it gives people a great chance to run for big money when some generally wouldn’t be able to,” Mills said. 

“None of us can complain when there’s so much money in the industry for owners to race for, and the Inglis Race Series plays a big part in that.’’

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