Spicer rides Sangster winner Snapdancer home from the couch
Group 1-winning Maher and Eustace-trained Choisir mare set to race on for another season
Syndicator Brad Spicer plans to return to the Gold Coast with yesterday’s upset Robert Sangster Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Snapdancer but not to immediately cash in on the mare’s skyrocketing value as a broodmare prospect, instead chasing more Magic Millions race day riches and Group 1 glory with the daughter of Choisir (Danehill Dancer).
That could be as soon as The Goodwood (Gr 1, 1200m) at Morphettville on Saturday week or the Tatts Tiara (Gr 1, 1400m) at Eagle Farm during the Queensland winter carnival, an elated Spicer suggested last night from Melbourne.
“She is a really nice horse because we can freshen her, whether it’s a three, four, five or six-week freshen, so she’s ideal for that sort of scenario,” Spicer told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“She loves the beach, she does a bit of work down at Balnarring and the team know her. That’s pretty much where she’s lived whenever she’s in Melbourne.”
Ridden by Ethan Brown for trainers Ciaron Maher and David Eustace from barrier 15 yesterday, Snapdancer, sent out a $17 chance, scored by a length and a half over stablemate Away Game (Snitzel) ($7.50) with $5 equal favourite September Run (Exceed And Excel) another length and a quarter away in third.
A winner of the $1 million Magic Millions Fillies & Mares (1300m) in January, she also won the Triscay Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) in February before a puzzling down-the-track performance in the Newmarket Handicap (Gr 1, 1200m) at Flemington, a race in which a number of favoured horses under performed.
“I couldn’t really make sense of what happened last start,” Maher said post-race.
“Track bias or whether she didn’t like the straight, but we freshened her up and pretty much like what we did at the Gold Coast, and the main thing with her is the start.
“I said to Ethan, if you get the start, the rest is easy and I was very surprised how easily she got across (from the wide barrier).”
Snapdancer’s Sangster success was also the first Group 1 for the Alice Springs-raised Brown.
“I can’t really believe it. I left home at 15 years of age – mum and dad let me go, I was fortunate enough for that and it has been a lifelong dream,” Brown said.
“To get it at such a young age, it is so surreal. I can’t explain the feeling (as) I’ve been in that situation before and been run down. Ciaron said to just make sure I was on top of her in the gates.”
Spicer was also rapt to be able to enjoy Group 1 success with Brown, the pair creating a rapport about four to five years ago through the deeds of another talented mare in Platinum Angel (Snitzel).
“She jumped so well and she just got there so easily and, credit to Ethan, he just went with her and she travelled well in that soft ground,” he said.
“Halfway up the straight I thought I’d better get off the couch because I think she’s home.
“I am not one who likes to go early, but she had it pretty much in her grasp at the 300-metre mark.”
As a three-year-old Snapdancer was placed in an Exford Plate (Listed, 1400m) and an Alexandra Stakes (Gr 3, 1600m) in Victoria, but the rising six-year-old’s career-best form has been put down to training her as an out-and-out sprinter.
Spicer said: “It just took us a while to work out whether she was a miler and whether she wanted further, but to Ciaron’s and J Mac’s (James McDonald’s) credit, they thought she was more of a brilliant mare and to keep her to the sprint races. Once we started to do that, we’ve seen the benefit of it.”
A three-quarter sister to the stakes-placed Drago (Danehill Dancer), the Coolmore-bred Snapdancer is a daughter of Snapdragon (Galileo) whose value has soared courtesy of yesterday’s Group 1 victory.
Having already been through an auction ring twice, selling for $60,000 to agent Sheamus Mills at the 2017 Inglis Chairman’s Weanling Sale before being resold at the following year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale to Spicer and original trainer Darren Weir for $180,000, yesterday’s win could place her valuation closer to $2 million, if not more.
The 2020 Sangster Stakes winner Bella Vella (Commands), who finished 13th in yesterday’s edition, sold for $1.9 million at last year’s Magic Millions National Sale.
Snapdancer has now won six of her 18 starts and earned almost $1.3 million in prize-money.
“We thought she was worth between $1 million and $1.5 million before today and she can go back to the Gold Coast, carry 60 kilograms next January in a million dollar race, so we weighed it up and thought we’d put off selling her for another year,” Spicer said.
“With her pedigree, she’s out of a Galileo mare, so it is going to open up opportunities in both hemispheres. There will be major studs, and I won’t name them, who I think will be pretty keen to have her in their broodmare band and hopefully she does end up with one of those so she can go to some of the best stallions in the world.”
Agent Mills last night also recalled pinhooking Snapdancer out of the Chairman’s Sale, which at the time conducted a weanling session.
“I remember looking at her at Newmarket in 2017, she was stabled across the road in the back stalls and she was just a filly that fitted my criteria. I’ve got a very simple sort of philosophy on these fillies in terms of what I look for, I have an acronym in my head that I work off – Walk, Attitude, Girth, Length – they have to have WAGL and she had all of those,” Mills said.
“I’m not that fussed on x-rays, legs, height, anything other than those four criteria really and she ticked those boxes.
“She’s by Choisir who always gets a good horse. I’m also big on three-quarter relations and she’s a three-quarter to Drago – he by Danehill Dancer and she by Choisir – and I always liked Drago as a horse so I bought her and now she’s a Group 1 winner.’’
Her dam Snapdragon was sold to Aquis Farm in 2018 for $60,000 to support their first season stallion The Mission (Choisir), a mating which produced an unnamed filly who will be offered for sale at the Gold Coast later this month. Snapdragon died in 2020.
While Snapdancer continues her career on the racetrack, runner-up Away Game (Snitzel) will be one of the most sought after mares to be offered at the Magic Millions National Sale on the Gold Coast later this month.
Away Game has finished second in three Group 1 races: the Golden Slipper (1200m), the Oakleigh Plate (1100) and now in the Sangster.
“Away Game, she must be the best bridesmaid in the country,” Maher said.
Craig Williams said the well-supported last start William Reid Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner September Run slipped at the start.
“That was detrimental from then on but she ran super to still finish in the placings,” the jockey said.
Bigger things in store for Nettuno after Ken Russell victory
Tony Gollan has the spring in mind for Nettuno (I Am Invincible) while the juvenile’s jockey Ryan Maloney has recommended the colt target Melbourne’s premier three-year-old sprints next campaign after stretching his unbeaten record to three in the Ken Russell Memorial Classic (Gr 3, 1200m).
Despite more two-year-old Group races on the calendar during the Queensland Winter Carnival, culminating in the J J Atkins Plate (Gr 1, 1600m) at Eagle Farm on June 11, leading Brisbane trainer Gollan indicated from the Gold Coast yesterday that the talented colt would not be seen again this season.
“He wasn’t as good as what he’d been. When he won up at the Sunshine Coast, it was an improving Heavy 8 that day and this is a deteriorating Heavy 8 here today, if not a nine,” Gollan said.
“I don’t think he handled this ground as well. He wasn’t the best version of himself today.”
Winning by a combined nine lengths in his first two starts, at the Sunshine Coast and Doomben in March and April, Nettuno ($2.20 favourite) had a long head to spare over Midnight In Tokyo (Kobayashi) ($31) with former Western Australian filly Sheeza Belter (Gold Standard) ($15) another length away in third.
Gollan remains upbeat that Nettuno, a colt owned by a high-profile group of owners including Black Soil Bloodstock’s Brian Siemsen, co-breeder Yarraman Park and Kevin Maloney’s Segenhoe Stud, can live up to his lofty opinion.
“There was a point there where he was able to be beaten and he was able to pick himself up and win. That’s always a good quality in a horse, particularly a colt, when you win when you’re there to be defeated,” the trainer said.
“I think he’s got a really, really promising future, this colt. I think he is probably one of the more exciting horses I’ve trained.
“There’s a lot to look forward to I think in the spring with him now. I don’t think we’ll go again this winter, but I am really happy with that win.”
Maloney, who has ridden Nettuno in all three starts and his two public barrier trials, said the colt settled better in the run yesterday than he had previously, even though Allude (Spirit Of Boom) was racing to his outside.
“He’s a quality colt, there’s no doubt about that. He’s probably getting towards the back end of his preparation now and this track is very genuine Heavy 10 and we got through it, but I think it was more his class that got him the win today,” Maloney said.
“If he was mine, I’d be putting it away and setting him for the three-year-old sprints in Melbourne.”
A $500,000 yearling purchase by agent John Foote, Black Soil Bloodstock and Gollan at last year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, Nettuno is one of seven named foals out of Group 3 winner Saint Minerva (Galileo).
Nettuno’s three-quarter brother by Hellbent (I Am Invincible) was purchased by Dullingham Pty Ltd at this year’s Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale while Saint Minerva, who has a 100 per cent winners to runners strike–rate from five to race, died last October.
I Am Invincible, the sire of 77 stakes winners, is also the sire of this season’s brilliant three-year-old colt, dual Group 1 winner Home Affairs, who won the Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) at Flemington last spring and the Black Caviar Lightning Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) in February.
Prince Of Boom overcomes wide run to take out Gold Coast Guineas
Also at the Gold Coast yesterday, talented three-year-old Prince Of Boom (Spirit Of Boom) waged a stirring battle against Cambridge Stud’s soon-to-be first season Group 1-winning sire Sword Of State (Snitzel) in the Gold Coast Guineas (Gr 3, 1200m).
It was the Robert Heathcote-trained gelding, last season’s BRC Champagne Classic (Gr 2, 1200m) winner, who came up trumps, scoring by a nose in the last stride to bring up a hat-trick of victories this campaign.
Prince Of Boom, whose record now stands at an impressive five wins from eight starts, defeated the Mark Walker-trained colt, who lost few admirers on his return to Australia, while there was four and a half lengths back to Grey Defence (Instinction) back in third.
Heathcote was not on course to witness Prince Of Boom’s victory first hand, instead making the trip north to Rockhampton for the inaugural running of the $440,000 The Archer (1300m), a journey made worthwhile when his representative in the Queensland country slot race Emerald Kingdom (Bryannbo’s Gift) won the race.
His racing manager Melanie Sharpe has been in charge of the stable while Heathcote has been in Central Queensland, making it a “stressful couple of weeks”.
“I’m just so thrilled for the owners today to get this win. It was a lovely ride (from Jimmy Orman), three deep and he was patient. It was beautiful,” Sharpe said.
“The pure will and determination of this horse, what he’s done is unreal. He’s just a dream boat, to be honest. He’s never, ever been a worry at all. He’s just so cruisy and lovely. We just adore him.”
Prince Of Boom’s three unplaced runs came in the BRC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 2, 1400m) and in two early season three-year-old races last August and September when it was discovered he had a breathing issue.
Orman did not panic despite being caught wide in yesterday’s Guineas.
“I didn’t want to burn him just to get to the fence when I’m coming off anyway,” the winning jockey said.
“I was happy. It’s not good to be three deep but it didn’t really worry me in that circumstance because I wanted to get out wide anyway, but it was a good win.
“He was always there, but I just thought I’d been beaten right on the line, but I was lucky I had my head down.”
Orman added: “He’s a nice horse. He’s come back well from his breathing issue.”
From the fourth crop of Eureka Stud’s Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo), whose fee this year remains unchanged at $33,000 (inc GST), Prince Of Boom is one of two winners out of Dazzling Display (Red Dazzler), herself a half-sister to Group 2 winner Express Air (Piccolo), and a family developed by the Queensland stud’s McAlpine family. Proving the Spirit Of Boom cross works with the family, Express Air is in turn the dam of the stakes placed Simply Fly.
Prince Of Boom was sourced from the 2020 Magic Millions March Yearling Sale by Adrenaline Thoroughbreds for $20,000, a bargain price considering what has transpired since, earning almost $650,000 in prize-money so far.
Sunshine Coast-based trainer Stuart Kendrick has the unraced two-year-old half-brother Shot ‘N’ Shell (Smart Missile) to Prince Of Boom while their dam has a weanling filly by Defcon (Choisir) and she is back in foal to Spirit Of Boom this year.