Cambridge Stud seeking unique trans-Tasman Guineas double
The Lindsays have leading chances in both the Australian and New Zealand Classics this weekend
Belief in a sassy homebred filly by their young resident sire Embellish (Savabeel) and a large-scale investment in elite Australian stallion Zoustar (Northern Meteor) has Cambridge Stud on the verge of a possible trans-Tasman Guineas double.
The Brendan and Jo Lindsay–bred and owned Luberon (Embellish) will be a leading player in the New Zealand Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) at Riccarton despite a wayward lead-up performance while at Caulfield in the repositioned Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) the Cambridge Stud principals have expensive yearling purchases Joliestar and Zourion, both by Widden’s champion Zoustar.
With the Guineas races scheduled to run almost three hours apart, it will be the stakes-placed Luberon for Cambridge Stud’s private trainer Lance Noble who will be the first vie for Group 1 glory.
The promising filly gained unwanted notoriety at her last start when she violently veered off the Pukekohe track under Australian apprentice Celine Gaudray, colliding into the outside running rail and in doing so narrowly avoided a catastrophe for both horse and rider.
Cambridge Stud chief executive Henry Plumptre is confident that Luberon, who has since barrier trialled at Cambridge, will not repeat her antics from Counties.
“I will say that Luberon is one of those fillies that you have every now and again. She is a very strong character, strong and tough and doesn’t particularly like being struck with the whip,” Plumptre told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“If you look at her replays, she’s a bit of a tail swisher when you give her one around the back end.
“Some fillies like that, if they are hit in the wrong place at the wrong time, they will react. It’s ‘don’t do that’.”
From the same first crop of Embellish as last Saturday’s New Zealand Two Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) runner-up Talisker, Luberon will have the experienced Warren Kennedy back in the saddle this weekend.
Kennedy rode the filly at her previous two wins this preparation.
“We discovered in her start before that if she hits the front a long way from home, she wanders around a bit, but she has got extraordinary ability in terms of what we’re trying to achieve at Karaka with the little stable there, I think she’s the best chance we’ve got of winning a Group 1, a three-year-old Classic, that we’ve had in six years,” Plumptre said.
“We’ve had a couple of runners down there at Riccarton, but nothing as good as her. She’s one right out of the box.”
In Melbourne, the strong double-hand in the Thousand Guineas is a result of a concerted effort to race high-end fillies who will eventually become members of the Cambridge Stud broodmare band.
The Zoustar fillies, Joliestar and Zourion, are trained by Chris Waller and Mark Walker and Sam Berguson respectively, the latter winning her first two starts in New Zealand as a juvenile, including the Breeders’ Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m), before joining Te Akau’s recently opened Cranbourne stable.
Joliestar, meanwhile, is already twice stakes-placed with a pedigree indicative of her $950,000 price tag, being out of Jolie Bay (Fastnet Rock), a Group 2-winning sister to Merchant Navy.
Zourion ran on from last in the Scarborough Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) first-up in late September before again closing to run third in the Thousand Guineas Prelude (Gr 2, 1400m), with both races won by Saturday’s favourite Coeur Volante (Proisir).
“She [Zourion] was our best two-year-old here last season,” Plumptre said of Zourion. “The reason that we put her out after the Matamata Breeders’ win and didn’t take her to Sydney was because she was just a touch fragile.
“She had a little bit of activity going on in her knees. Mark [Walker] said to me, ‘look, we could push on if you want to but next year will be her year’.”
The Sir Peter Vela-bred Zourion, a half-sister to the Group 3 winner Pearl Of Alsace (Tavistock), was a NZ$475,000 purchase by Te Akau’s David Ellis for the Lindsays at the 2022 New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Yearling Sale.
“She is a New Zealand-bred filly and sometimes they don’t come to hand for a long preparation when they’re two, so we put her in the paddock at Karaka,” he said.
“She had a lovely eight-week holiday up there and she went back in looking absolutely magnificent and she’s never really put a foot wrong since.”
As for Joliestar, Plumptre is confident the high-class filly is up to the task.
“She probably wouldn’t have as much ringcraft as Zourion, she’s taken a bit longer to come into herself, that filly, but it is nice to see that she’s got Group 1 ability because we paid a lot of money for her in Sydney last year,” he said.
“It’s a beautiful family and Chris [Waller] has been extremely patient with her, extremely careful with her and brought her through her classes.
“She hasn’t managed to win this time in, she’s run second a couple of times in quality races, and he thought she deserved a shot at it.”
A former Godolphin Australia managing director, Plumptre hopes James McDonald, who will soon take up a short-term riding contract in Hong Kong, can prove the difference between winning and losing if Joliestar is to land the Group 1.
“I remember Peter Snowden and John Hawkes started it, they used to rank jockeys as an eight of ten or a seven out of ten and that meant that every time they jumped on a horse, they got it right seven times out of ten and so on,” he recalled.
“They always said that Darren Beadman was the only jockey they ever gave a nine to and it was always a bit of a joking point, but James McDonald would be as close to a nine as you could get with his riding ability.
“Regardless of what barrier they have, they have a habit of putting the horse in the right place within 400 metres.”