Lightning strikes at Randwick for dynamic duo
The dynamic duo of trainer Peter Moody and owner-breeder Stuart Ramsey had a shot at the stumps and struck again when tough mare Chain Of Lightning (Fighting Sun) became her late sire’s first elite-level winner with a fighting – and very timely – victory in Saturday’s TJ Smith Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
Moody and co-trainer Katherine Coleman had been rated strong chances of winning the $3 million Randwick race to take their first top-tier success since they became a partnership last August 1. It happened, but not with the horse most expected.
While last year’s winner I Wish I Win (Savabeel) ran a commendable third as the $4.20 second-favourite, it was little-fancied stablemate Chain Of Lightning who took the spoils after a superb ride by Damian Lane.
The five-year-old won six of her first seven starts, including a Group 2 and a Group 3, but managed just two placings from her next 12. She ‘reappeared’ from seemingly nowhere with another stakes win last start, at $16, in Randwick’s Birthday Card Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) on March 23, but despite that was sent out a largely neglected $21 chance for Saturday’s race.
But, after jumping from gate two, Chain Of Lightning settled third on the fence before being kicked into the lead as the compact 13-runner field approached the rise. And while a one-length lead at the 200 metres mark looked to be ebbing away as the challengers appeared, she dug deep to hold on by 0.4 lengths.
It was a clean-sweep for the colourful Ramsey, who not only bred Chain Of Lightning but also her sire and her dam, Magic Art (Perugino).
And not only was Lane’s timing spot-on, so was the mare’s, since she’s entered for next month’s Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale on the Gold Coast.
Bella Nipotina (Pride Of Dubai) turned in her usual game run to take second – her sixth Group 1 placing to sit alongside one top-level win – just ahead of I Wish I Win, whose third place took his earnings past $11 million.
In a bunched finish, New Zealand super mare Imperatriz (I Am Invincible) was close up in fourth as $3.50 favourite, battling only fairly even considering a slight lack of room in the straight, with Sunshine In Paris (Invader) fifth and Espiona (Extreme Choice) sixth, only 0.8 lengths off the winner.
But all honours went to Chain Of Lightning, who delivered a 67th Group 1 success for Moody and made him the most successful trainer in the race named after first boss with four TJ Smith triumphs, after I Wish I Win’s success last year following the two of his champion Black Caviar (Bel Esprit) in 2011 and 2013.
Chain Of Lightning also provided another top-tier win for Moody and his long-term owner Ramsey, of the boutique Turangga Farm in the Hunter Valley.
In his 2017 autobiography, Moody described the colourful Ramsey and his wife Trish as “great supporters of ours” and close family friends from the days when he first set up his stable in his mid-20s in Brisbane.
And the pair have built a great record of jumping in the deep end in major races. The Ramsey-owned Ancient Song (Canny Lad) became Moody’s second elite-level winner when taking Flemington’s Salinger Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) at $10 in 2003.
A year later, stablemate Sky Cuddle (Snippets) became Ramsey’s first top-level victor as a breeder by winning the Emirates Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) at bolter’s odds of $51. A year after that she took an inside run while all else went wide to run a superb fourth in Makybe Diva’s (Desert King) Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) at $101.
Moody and Ramsey also aimed ambitiously high by running Segments (Mossman) in the 2005 Oakleigh Plate (Gr 1, 1100m) as a $151 chance, and came within a long neck of a major upset, when second to favourite Fastnet Rock (Danehill).
And on Saturday the pair were celebrating with another unfancied runner, as Chain Of Lightning excelled in the upgraded Heavy 8 going to become just the first Group 1 winner, among three stakes winners in Australia, for Fighting Sun (Northern Meteor), who died in 2020.
Ramsey was highly emotional after the race. His and Moody’s history also includes the 2007 Doomben Cup (Gr 1, 2020m) win of Cinque Cento (Nothin’ Leica Dane), which came only days of the Ramsey’s daughter Sherilee died in her sleep from a heart condition aged just 18.
“We’ve had a lot of luck,” Ramsey said of Moody, while tearing up in his post-race TV interview. “He’s a decent person, see?”
“I’ve never had a lot of luck at Randwick but we did today. It’s pretty satisfying, when you breed the father and the mother and her. It took me 20 years. It’s wonderful.”
Moody described the win as “a beautiful moment”.
“Stuey and Trish Ramsey, they’ve been my foundation clients, we go back 30-odd years, so to win that for him that’s unbelievably special,” said Moody, who set up his and Coleman’s new stables at Pakenham this week.
“We thought we might have been out of our depth class-wise, but I think she shocked us a little bit with her courage and determination, and a beautiful ride by Damian. She just loves getting that toe into the ground.
“Fourth time now winning the race named after The Little Master, my first boss TJ Smith, which makes me very proud.
“It wasn’t quite the one I thought. I was looking at Wish [I Wish I Win] steaming down the outside.
“Thanks to Kat Coleman, my training partner, her first Group 1. Well done Katherine, well deserved. We’ve had a big couple of weeks shifting stables and everything. It’s a very proud moment.”
Lane described Chain Of Lightning as “super” after his first ride on the mare.
“I was able to hold a handy spot from a good draw and just travelled into the race so well,” the winning rider said.
“Moods said to me before the race, ‘If you’re going well on straightening, try and pinch a break up the rise’. I did and then I went, ‘I might have gone too early’. But in the end it came off and she was so tough.
Moody was still full of praise for I Wish I Win. He said: “He ran superb. He was there to win and probably just peaked on the run the last little bit.”
Craig Williams was “proud” of Bella Nipotina’s performance, saying she “loves the conditions and fought all the way to the line” while Opie Bosson had little to say publicly about Imperatriz who, despite two prior wins in heavy going, appeared less than the imperious best that’s taken her to ten Group 1 wins.
“She got held up momentarily for a few strides but she ran through the line well,” Bosson said.
Chain Of Lightning’s (5 m Fighting Sun – Magic Art by Perugino) dam Magic Art, a daughter of Magic Night Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) winner Mardi’s Magic (Kenny’s Best Pal), has had two runners from eight foals, with Chain Of Lightning far and away her best.
Now 18, Magic Art also has an unraced two-year-old gelding in the Anthony and Sam Freedman stable named Jaddaf (Magna Grecia) and – after being sold on Inglis Digital for $3,250 in-foal to Better Land (Shamardal) in 2022 – now has a yearling filly by that sire. She missed to Magna Grecia (Invincible Spirit) last year.
Celestial Legend stars in Doncaster win
A month ago when he won the Randwick Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m), Les Bridge declared the Bon Ho-owned Celestial Legend (Dundeel) the best horse he’d trained.
It was some rating considering Bridge had, at 85, just become the oldest person to train a Group 1 winner since the 87-year-old Bart Cummings in 2015, and that his previous stock included the great Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Sir Dapper (Vain), Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) hero Kensei (Blarney Kiss), three-time Group 1 victor Drawn (Star Shower), and Everest (1200m) winner Classique Legend (Not A Single Doubt).
But on Saturday Celestial Legend rose another sizeable notch in Bridge’s assessment, when he stormed down the outside of the Randwick straight to claim an unforgettable victory in the Doncaster Mile (Gr 1, 1600m).
Well ridden by Tyler Schiller – who’d shed four kilograms to make the three-year-old’s 49 kilograms weight – $6.50 second-favourite Celestial Legend settled near-last in the 19-runner field from barrier four, was blocked among traffic for most of the straight, but pounced once clear at the 100 metres with a withering late burst.
He collared longshot Godolphin four-year-old Pericles (Street Boss, $41) to win by 0.7 lengths while three-year-old Militarize (Dundeel, $11) – who’d provided half of the Dundeel (High Chaparral) quinella in the Randwick Guineas – this time sealed the Arrowfield sire a duet in running third.
The victory came with excellent timing for Arrowfield, who’ll offer a half-brother to Celestial Legend by their Japanese shuttler Maurice (Screen Hero) at the Inglis Easter sale on Monday, as Lot 260.
And it had Bridge grappling for words.
“He’s some horse. I’ve had a lot of good horses, but this horse is unbelievable,” he said.
“I just love the horse. I felt the same as I did on Everest day [when Classique Legend won].
“You get horses like this, I thought I’d get one in my lifetime, I keep getting them. I can’t work it out.”
Asked how he felt when his rising grey star was buried in the ruck at the 300 metres, Bridge said: “I just didn’t think he could win, that’s all, but he just got out and he’s just unbelievable.
“For three-year-olds in this era, to win a Doncaster, when they’ve got the compressed weights and all these good horses are so close to him in the weights, that was the only thing that made me worry a bit.”
Bridge, celebrating a second Doncaster win nearly four decades after Row Of Waves (Long Row) scored as a 100-1 bolter in 1985, said he’d only given Celestial Legend one “tick-over” trial since his tough run to win the Randwick Guineas on March 9.
Hong Kong’s Ho, who owns 22 horses bearing the “Legend” tag among the 26 on Bridge’s books, described this second straight Group 1 win as “overwhelming”.
“I think I’m really fortunate. We’re really fortunate to have this good horse, and luck in running as well,” he said. “I was slightly worried up to about the 200 or 150 [metres], he had all the horses in front of him. Fortunately, he got a gap.”
Schiller had put himself through a rigorous wasting schedule to make the 49 kilograms. He was 53 kilograms when he agreed to take the ride.
“It’s so worth it,” said Schiller, after his third Group 1 win. “I’m absolutely knackered after it, but I can’t thank Les and Mr Ho, everyone that’s had something to do with the horse, enough. They’ve got him here perfect, I’ve got the light weight and, God, he was so brave.
“Early, I was a bit worried, he couldn’t get into a spot. I would have liked to be a little bit further forward but once the 800 [metres] came he tracked into the race so well and then it was just trying to find a gap.
“I probably took a gap that I wouldn’t take usually but once he found that clear air, he knows where the line is. He’s very competitive and he wasn’t going to let them beat him today.”
Pericles’s jockey Blake Shinn said the four-year-old, coming off a seventh in the George Ryder Stakes (Gr 1, 1500m) had “run amazing to finish second beaten by the superstar three-year-old”.
Zac Purton said Militarize had produced a “very good run” especially considering his 54 kilograms compared with fellow three-year-old Celestial Legend’s 49 kilograms.
Two more lightweights Nugget (Siyouni, $26) and Hinged (Worthy Cause, $21) ran fourth and fifth at hefty odds, while favourite Another Wil (Street Boss, $3.60) found this rise in class too much as he chased a fifth straight win, weakening into seventh.
Last year’s Everest winner and boom sprinter Think About It (So You Think) – unwanted at $21 under his topweight of 57 kilograms, on his first try beyond 1500 metres and his first outing on heavy going – faded to 11th after racing on the pace. Japan’s Golden Eagle (1500m) winner Obamburumai (Discreet Cat) ran 13th after suffering a lack of room in the straight.
Celestial Legend (3 c Dundeel – Sarraqa by Snitzel) is the first foal of the unraced Sarraqa (Snitzel), a three-quarter sister to two South African Group 1-winning brothers by Redoute’s Choice (Danehill) in Rafeef and Mustaaqeem. Sarraqa is a daughter of National Colour (National Assembly), a triple top-tier victor for champion trainer Mike de Kock in South Africa, and joint Horse of the Year there in 2006.
De Kock’s son Mathew, along with co-trainer Rob Griffiths, paid $160,000 for Sarraqa’s Written Tycoon (Iglesia) filly from Noorilim Park’s draft at last year’s Inglis Premier Yearling Sale.
Not surprisingly, Sarraqa went back to Dundeel last September.
While Celestial Legend was an Inglis Classic purchase – with Ho and Avenue Bloodstock paying $220,000 for him from Arrowfield’s draft at Inglis Classic 2022 – it seems likely Sarraqa’s progeny will be Easter only from now on.
That starts on Monday, with Ho a possible candidate to buy his dual Group 1-winner’s half-brother by Maurice.
Asked as he headed towards celebrations whether Ho wanted him to buy more yearlings over the next two days, Bridge said with a wink: “I’ll talk to him about that tonight.”