Taormina (AUS)
TRAINER: Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott
RACE: Silver Shadow Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m)
Well-bred filly Taormina (Written Tycoon) will bid to make her first foray into stakes company a successful one as she tackles today’s Darley Silver Shadow Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) at Randwick.
The Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained filly boasts an unblemished record from two starts so far, scoring in a 1200-metre event at Warwick Farm on debut in June before doubling her tally with a narrow success in Saturday company at Rosehill on July 22.
Ridden by Tim Clark that day, as she was for her debut, the daughter of Written Tycoon (Iglesia) beat the previously unbeaten colt Fukubana (Dundeel) by a head, providing the jockey with his 1,500th career winner.
“Tim Clark has had a great career and we’ve had a great association with him and that was a great example of the types of rides he can produce for us,” Bott said.
“She’s a nice professional filly that does everything right and he took bad luck out of the equation and she was tough enough to hang on.”
Taormina was a $450,000 purchase for her trainers in partnership with Kestrel Thoroughbreds from the Newhaven Park draft at last year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
She is the third winner from as many foals to race out of Infra Dig, a metro-winning daughter of Exceed and Excel (Danehill) from the family of Champion Two-Year-Old and Three-Year-Old filly English (Encosta De Lago).
Newhaven Park sold a yearling colt by Frosted (Tapit) from Infra Dig at Magic Millions this year for $100,000, while she is in foal to one of the farm’s resident sires Xtravagant (Pentire).