Tiara fits Splash Back

French-bred six-year-old Splash Back (Le Havre) brought the ultimate reward for her bold importation from Europe in becoming an elite winner in Saturday’s Tatt’s Tiara (Gr 1, 1400m) for fillies and mares at Eagle Farm.

Trained by Grahame Begg and well ridden by his main jockey Jordan Childs, the compact mare settled near the rear on the fence from gate five of 17 before making ground to be midfield by the halfway point behind a fair pace.

As the longshot leaders weakened into the home straight several challengers emerged with their bids down the centre of the track, but it was Splash Back – plotting the inside course which proved popular on the day – who had the strongest finish.

Defying a betting drift to jump at $8.50 despite a solid last-start sixth in the Stradbroke Handicap (Gr 1, 1400m), Splash Back powered home to claim the last Group 1 of the season by 1.26 lengths from Tony Gollan’s four-year-old Savagery Vibe (Brutal) at $21.

Team Munce’s four-year-old Gerringong (Blue Point) took third in the weight-for-age event as $5 favourite, almost a length further back, while Michael Freedman’s $4.60 favourite Manaal (Tassort) ran 11th.

Victory capped a five-year story for Splash Back and her prominent Victorian owner Sandy McGregor.

Out of a dual Group winning, dual G1-placed dam who’s produced three stakes victors, Splash Back was bought at the Arqana October Yearling Sale in 2021 for €100,000 (around $156,000) by renowned Australian agent John Foote along with French-born international buyer Arthur Hoyeau.

Imported aged 18 months and held up for her first run as a three-year-old, she showed early promise for Stawell trainer Andrew Bobbin, winning two of her first three country starts before scoring at Sandown.

Transferred to Cranbourne-based Begg, she scored at Caulfield and Flemington last winter to earn promotion to black type grade, and won Moonee Valley’s Stocks Stakes (Gr 2, 1500m) in September.

After running eighth in her first attempt at the top level in Flemington’s Empire Rose Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m), Splash Back was targeted at the Brisbane winter and won Eagle Farm’s Victory Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) second-up.

Her return to the top tier brought a ninth in the Kingsford Smith Cup (Gr 1, 1300m) on a soft 5 before her improved Stradbroke run on a heavy 9, leading to her huge boost in value through her Tatt’s Tiara success.

A delighted Begg said the triumph showcased the deep fighting spirit of Splash Back, who now boasts nine wins from 23 starts, with Saturday’s $420,000 first prize taking her earnings to almost $1.2m.

“She’s been a beauty, this horse. Since we got her to train, she’s been outstanding,” said Begg, noting the mare’s smallish stature.

“She’s all heart. She just goes out and goes to war for you.”

Begg said he gave Childs the freedom to stick to the inside if he pleased, since it was playing well on a drying soft 6 track.

“I gave him the licence – if you’ve got to go back to the inside, because there’s nothing wrong with it today,” Begg said. “The track’s played beautifully, whereas the last few weeks, it rained all week going into the meetings.

“We must give credit to the track staff here, they’ve done an amazing job.”

He added: “It’s always very exciting, particularly coming up here and winning up here. I’ve actually won this race a couple of times in the past, but I think it was a Group 2 or 3 at that stage. It’s always been a race that I really love.”

Childs said he was confident in the run provided the race transpired the way it did.

“She’s obviously always a horse that gets back in her races and just needs a lot of luck,” he said.

“She’s always beaten for a little bit of speed but I was able to sneak runs up the inside, and coming to the corner I knew I just needed it to unfold the way I needed it to and a few runs to appear, and once it did, she really burst through.

“Great to get another Group 1 winner for Grahame, and especially this horse. She’s been fantastic, it is fantastic, and she was always going to handle the track well here today.

“Her last two starts, the track’s been probably on the real soft and nearly heavy stage, and it probably just takes away a bit of her turn of foot, whereas today it’s been a drying surface.

“So I was pretty confident when I walked the track, but I just needed that luck, and thankfully we got it.”

Bred by the Ecurie La Vallee Martigny Earl Franklin Finance Sa, Splash Back is the seventh foal of the Irish mare Tamazirte (Danehill Dancer), who won at G2 and G3 level over 1600m at Longchamp, and ran back-to-back seconds in G1s in France over 1600m and 2100m, in 2009.

Before Splash Back’s yearling purchase, Tamazirte had proven herself as a broodmare with her daughter Into The Mystic (Galileo) winning in Listed class, and son Chaknak (Kingman) claiming two G3s in France in 2020, over 1800m and 2000m.

Chaknak has since gone on to stand at stud in France, and has three stakes winners from 41 runners, with three crops racing. Into The Mystic has thrown G2 winner Nakheel (Dubawi) and Listed winner Morshdi (Dubawi).

Splash Back’s sire Le Havre (Noverre), who died aged 16 in 2022, has 74 stakes winners from 1001 runners at a strong 7.4 per cent. His Australian imported runners include the Waterhouse-Bott trained triple stakes winning import Eliyass and Richard Freedman’s dual G3 winner Auvray.

 

The Machine Gun to target Spring riches

The Machine Gun (Stay Inside) continued a powerhouse start for his Newgate Farm first season sire and saved himself from the ultimate gear change in claiming Saturday’s Tattersall’s Stakes (Listed, 1400m) for two-year-olds at Eagle Farm.

Trilogy Racing’s colt was having just his second start following a debut win in a Canterbury maiden on King’s Birthday Monday, and after drawing gate 10 of 12 was little fancied in drifting to start at $21.

But well ridden by Tim Clark, the Peter Snowden-trained colt put in a determined performance for a narrow but courageous victory.

The Machine Gun had to use petrol early to go forward and race in third spot, and was rarely closer than three-wide, although he was aided by just a moderate pace.

Clark allowed him to stride to the lead at the 300m and only got busy at the 220m as Chris Waller’s $500,000 colt Klokke (Zoustar) came home strongly on the inside with The Machine Gun knuckling down to finish doggedly to score on the bob of the head by 0.04 lengths.

Klokke’s second, at $7, reprised the quinella of both horses’ Canterbury debut albeit wih the margin narrowed, while the Peter Robl-trained Hard To Exceed (Exceedance) was third at $4.50, a further 1.14 lengths back.

Michael Freedman’s Godolphin colt Tannin (Exceed And Excel) also having his second start, looked disappointing in running 10th as $2.80 favourite. 

The Machine Gun’s victory gives Stay Inside (Extreme Choice) four stakes winners from just 24 runners at a booming 12.5 per cent. Though from a far smaller sample size, that figure echoes the 11.72 per cent of his freakish, sub-fertile sire and Newgate barnmate Extreme Choice’s (Not A Single Doubt).

Stay Inside – standing this year at an unchanged $66,000 – now has three stakes-winners in Australia, the most of any first-season sire in the country, while The Machine Gun’s win lifted him from fourth to third on that table on progeny earnings. The seven-year-old Golden Slipper-winning sire’s only runner in New Zealand has been the Listed-winning Lassified.

The first foal of the twice Melbourne G3-placed Dont’telltheboss (Street Boss), The Machine Gun was a $300,000 purchase for breeders Trilogy, in conjunction with Snowden and Suman Hedge Bloodstock at the Magic Millions Gold Coast from Blue Gum Farm. Whilst Don’ttelltheboss is the only clacktype in the first two dams, until today, third dam Cancanelle (Danehill Dancer) ran second in an Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m).

Although The Machine Gun has won both his starts, Snowden said he’d been slow to come to hand, requiring three campaigns and five barrier trials before reaching the racetrack.

That had led his veteran trainer and master two-year-old conditioner to consider gelding him – an option that’s definitely off the operating table now.

“He’s been a slow learner,” Snowden said. “He has a good pedigree but he’s just been so laid back.

“I just couldn’t work out whether he’s ready or not ready, or whether we would geld him or not.

“There’s no way we would geld him now. It’s just great.

“Now that he’s won a Stakes race he’ll have a spell for three or four weeks and we’ll bring him back for the Spring.”

Clark concurred, saying The Machine Gun had yet to work out how to kill off a race, while still showing a will to win at the finish.

“He’s a real unassuming type of horse,” the jockey said. “At the moment, he just sort of doesn’t know how to put them away. So he’s never going to win by big margins, but he just does enough to keep his head in front, which is all that matters at the moment.

“It’s a big step from a maiden to stakes grade at his second start. He didn’t have the best run in transit but was all heart late so, he’s a promising horse. He was really brave again today.”

The Machine Gun’s connections will be hoping recent history from the Tattersall’s Stakes repeats.

In one of the greatest form races of recent times, last year’s edition was taken out by Autumn Boy (The Autumn Sun), who’s gone on to win the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and Rosehill Guineas (Gr 1, 2000m).

Second home was Sheza Alibi (Saxon Warrior), who’s become a turf superstar in winning her past five starts including the Randwick Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and Doncaster Handicap (Gr 1, 1600m).

Tough Tavistock takes out the Tatts Cup

Group 1 winner Asterix (Tavistock) appreciated the drop in class to score his fifth black type victory in taking Saturday’s Tattersall’s Cup (Gr 3, 2400m) at Eagle Farm.

Sealing a black type double for jockey Tim Clark after his Tattersall’s Stakes (Listed, 1400m) success on The Machine Gun (Stay Inside), Asterix defied a betting drift to take the $200,000 feature by almost half a length.

Clark rode a quiet race in second-last spot of the six-horse field on the Chris Waller-trained gelding as Nash Rawiller set a middling pace on $3 favourite Future History (Showcasing).

As the pace quickened approaching the turn – and Future History weakened to ultimately run last – Asterix came as the widest runner to engage in a torrid battle inside the last 200m with the Moody-Coleman gelding Pounding (Exceed And Excel).

Under vigorous riding from Clark, Asterix had the last say, with Pounding taking second at $3.70 and the Waller-trained Etna Rosso (Decorated Knight) finishing third a further two lengths away, at $7.50.

Saturday’s win completed a stakes quintet for seven-year-old Asterix, who took the New Zealand Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) in 2022 and the Avondale Cup (Gr 2, 2400m) in his country of birth when trained by Lance O’Sullivan and Andrew Scott.

Transferred to Waller at the start of last year, Asterix added Randwick’s JRA Plate (Gr 3, 2000m) and the Gosford Cup (Listed, 2100m) in the first two starts of his current campaign, carrying topweight each time, before finding the going a little tougher in his first two Brisbane runs. At weight-for-age, he finished sixth of seven in the Doomben Cup (Gr 1, 2000m) and sixth of nine in the Q22 (Gr 2, 2200m), but found conditions more to his liking in Saturday’s set weights event.

“He was brilliant for the start of the preparation and then obviously took a massive step up in grade going to Group One level in the Doomben Cup, and then last start in the Q22,” Waller’s assistant trainer Charlie Duckworth said.

“So a drop back in grade, and that’s all I think he needed.

“It was aided by a lovely ride, but Tim didn’t panic early and he just let it all unfold in front of him. He was strong late.

“It’s been a race that’s been pretty good to Chris over the years. So hopefully he can win a few more.”

It was Waller’s fourth Tatt’s Cup victory following those of another Derby winner in Manzoice (Almanzor) last year, Brimham Rocks (Fastnet Rock) in 2020 and Index Linked (Dansili) in 2016.

Clark said Asterix had been “well treated under the weight scale”, with only 1.5kg separating his equal topweight of 56.5kg and the lightest impost in the field, despite Asterix bringing the highest benchmark rating, of 109.

“I just felt my main priority there was just to get him to settle,” the jockey said. “He has raced a bit keenly previously so I just felt it was really important to get the first two thirds of the race right, and if I could do that he’d take care of the rest.

“He was out to track up behind Pounding and he dragged me wherever I needed to go.”

Clark said Asterix had felt the toils from his tougher recent assignments late in the race.

“He was just a little bit tired in the legs after a couple of them races [sic] up against better opposition, but he toughed it out well for me,” he said.

Bred in New Zealand by Sir Own Glenn’s Go Bloodstock, Asterix hails from the third-last crop of former Cambridge Stud sire Tavistock (Montjeu), who died in 2019. The stallion has 54 stakes winners from 775 runners at an impressive 6.96 per cent.

Part-owned by former New Zealand Test cricketer Mark Greatbatch, Asterix is the fifth and best of nine foals for Mourasana (Shirocco), who was imported to Australia after two city wins in France, and who’s had four winners from six runners.

Asterix was sold from Curraghmore Stud’s draft at the 2020 New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale to Bruce Perry Bloodstock for $NZ450,000, making him the fourth-top lot of that auction.

Mourasana now has a weanling filly by Chaldean (Frankel), and was covered by that Cambridge shuttler again last spring.

Yellow Brick weaves a path to victory

Tommy Berry copied a rails-hugging victorious ride from the race before and it paid handsome dividends as Queensland star Yellow Brick (The Mission) earned a fourth black type win in Saturday’s Healy Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m).

Thirty-five minutes earlier, Jordan Childs had stuck to the inside and powered to victory in the day’s feature, the Tatt’s Tiara (Gr 1, 1400m), aboard Splash Back (Le Havre).

And with the fence clearly a fine place to be on an Eagle Farm soft 6, Berry and trainers Tony and Maddy Sears determined this should also be the Yellow Brick road.

Jumping from gate two of 13, Berry settled the gelding fourth-last behind a fair pace, before making ground from the 600m.

But Yellow Brick was still only midfield at the 300m and seemingly a forlorn chance with two runners blocking his path – his fellow $8 chance Hidden Wealth (Better Than Ready), battling to hold onto the lead, and the $6 favourite Payline (Shooting To Win).

Payline and Tony Gollan’s $10 hope Pereille (Fastnet Rock) still looked like fighting out the finish as they swamped Hidden Wealth, but back on the rail it was Yellow Brick, sprouting wings inside the last 50m, who lifted to score.

On the post he had 0.21 lengths to spare over Payline, with Pereille a further 0.42 lengths back in third, just ahead of Hidden Wealth.

“He (Berry) is just a star,” Maddy Sears said. “We had a good talk before the race, and Splash Back came up the fence, and he was a little bit hesitant to go up the rail … but I was like, ‘Come on boy, you can do it’.”

Tony Sears echoed his daughter, saying: “I had a lot of faith in Tommy’s ride. I said to him, ‘Just don’t panic’, and it was a great ride.”

Yellow Brick drew fervent praise from Berry, the Sydney jockey who went to Rockhampton to partner him for the first time when he won the $1m slot race The Archer (1300m) in early May.

The six-year-old then failed from wide barriers in the Kingsford Smith Cup (Gr 1, 1300m), also under Berry, and Stradbroke Handicap (Gr 1, 1400m), when Jason Collett rode him on a heavy 9.

Not only did Berry contribute a winning ride on Saturday, his tip to apply a cross-over noseband to the horse also appeared to pay off.

“This horse, I’ve followed him all the way up to Rocky and he’s repaid me again today, so it’s been great,” Berry said.

“His last two starts he’s drawn the carpark and he’s just been too keen. So I spoke to the team about putting the crossover on him. He was much more relaxed today and really conserved that energy.

“A great effort by the team because he’s had a few hard runs. He had a bit of travelling to do and to back up and do what he did today was a great effort from the team and everyone involved.”

Maddy Sears said Yellow Brick had benefited from increased work at the beach, which she said was “the only time that I can ride him” since his keenness in racing also applies to trackwork.

“He’s been going to the beach a lot,” she said. “When I get to take him to the beach, it’s quite special, because I can’t ride him work anymore.”

Owned by the Sears family with just one associate in Suat Wee, Yellow Brick continues to be a huge money-spinner.

Bred by the Aquis Sha Tin Syndicate, he was bought for just $20,000 by Tony Sears and Paul Moroney Bloodstock from Waylon J Stud’s draft at the 2021 Gold Coast National Yearling Sale.

With his wins including Toowoomba’s inaugural King Of The Mountain (1200m) slot race, The Archer and the $1.5 million Magic Millions QTIS Open (1300m), along with lucrative seconds in the Gold Coast Guineas (RL, 1425m) and last year’s Stradbroke, Yellow Brick took his earnings past $4m with Saturday’s success.

It was his fourth black type victory among 11 wins from 32 starts.

He’s the fourth living foal of Magical Mist (High Chaparral), a Perth city winner of four races and dam of two other Queensland G3 victors in Ballistic Boy (Smart Missile) and Splendiferous (Pride Of Dubai), who also won an Adelaide Listed event.

Bought by Yulong in 2023 for $775,000 after Yellow Brick had won six of his first eight starts, Magical Mist had a filly by Yulong’s Alabama Express (Redoute’s Choice) sell for $220,000 at Inglis Easter this year.

After missing to Pierata (Pierro) in 2024, she was covered again by Alabama Express last spring.

Yellow Brick is the stand-out progeny among just two stakes winners for The Mission (Choisir), the ATC Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) victor who stood seven seasons at Aquis Farm before being sold to China after the 2024 breeding season.