Via Sistina snares Group 1 number eight
Via Sistina (Fastnet Rock) has again shown why she’s the finest import to have landed in Australia with another comfortable romp in the race that kicked it off for her in this country, the Ranvet Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m), writes Trevor Marshallsea.
Bought as a yearling in Britain for around $9,700 and purchased four years later as a Group 1 winner by Yulong for $5.2 million, Via Sistina has now earned $8.55 million in ten Australian starts.
With eight Group 1 victories – seven in 12 months in Australia – the seven-year-old mare has not only eclipsed all other imports to have been brought to this country, but needs one more elite win to become the equal top performer in the long stud history of the now-retired Fastnet Rock (Danehill).
Her next top tier success – perhaps in Randwick’s Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) next month – would put her equal with Avantage at the head of Fastnet Rock’s 2,213 runners, with that Australian-bred mare winning all of her nine Group 1s in New Zealand.
On Saturday at Rosehill, Via Sistina turned back the clock a year to her debut Australian performance when, as $2.30 favourite, she led in a Ranvet quinella for Yulong imported European mares in beating Place Du Carrousel (Lope De Vega) by 1.2 lengths.
This time around, again in a six-horse field but at $1.22, the Chris Waller-trained mare gave James McDonald a slightly tougher time in the run after settling just behind the pace, but eventually pulled away to beat her stable companion, Lindermann (Lonhro), by 1.53 lengths. Fawkner Park (Zoffany) was third.
Among prominent European imports of modern times, Godolphin has enjoyed success with Hartnell (Authorized) and Cascadian (New Approach) winning four Australian Group 1s each, and Avilius (Pivotal) three. Zaaki (Leroidesanimaux) was another from Europe to have claimed a top-level quartet.
As she did to the field in last year’s Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m), Via Sistina is racing away from them all, as she continues to set the scene for an entrancing breeding career once she joins Yulong’s broodmare band.
“She lit up our lives 12 months ago today,” Waller said.
“We didn’t know what we had coming out of quarantine and obviously we had a good article and a good horse to work with. And a very supporting team with Yulong.
“She is a star. She’s a lovely, big, unassuming horse. But come race day, she really turns it on. We don’t dare light her up in the mornings because of what she’s capable of. Like, she’s a real powerhouse.
“She’s a gentle giant that graces the turf.”
McDonald has ridden Via Sistina in all but three of her Australian runs, including her record-shattering eight-length Cox Plate victory.
Such is the embarrassment of riches for the expat New Zealander who’s probably the world’s best jockey today, McDonald was reluctant to put the mare on a par with his Hong Kong–based star Romantic Warrior (Acclamation). But he did say she wasn’t far off him.
“She’s well up there that’s for sure,” he told Channel 7. “She’s definitely good. It takes a good one to beat the big boy [Romantic Warrior] though, but she’s well up there.
“She turns up each and every time. I’m so proud of her because if she was going to get beat, it could’ve easily been a race like this. It was a little bit tricky.
“But as we’ve seen, she’s getting more versatile. It felt like it was a mile race, because she was really tanking up. Hence the sweat – I’ve earned my money.
“I don’t think we’ll ever see a big performance where she careers away like she did by [eight] lengths. She just does what she has to do, and maintains a good gallop.”
The first horse to win back-to-back Ranvets since Theseo (Danewin) in 2009-10, Via Sistina is now a raging $1.75 favourite for the $5 million Queen Elizabeth, on April 12.
Via Sistina was bred in Ireland but by UK interests, from the quintessentially English-sounding Laundry Cottage Stud. While advertising as a small, family-run affair away from the Newmarket hub in North Hertfordshire, it can also lay claim to breeding outstanding racehorse and now exciting sire Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj).
The super mare is the fifth and very much the best of seven named foals for the unraced Nigh (Galileo). Suggesting major influence from Fastnet Rock in their mating during his shuttling career to Ireland, only one other of Nigh’s offspring has won, and that is Fougere (Bated Breath), who claimed only a Nottingham handicap in 19 starts.
Via Sistina is another example of Fastnet Rock’s potency when crossed with daughters of Coolmore’s perennial breed-shaping sire Galileo (Sadler’s Wells). She is among the nick’s 30 stakes winners, and is one of 11 Group 1 victors bred on the cross.
The yearling Via Sistina was sold by agent Jamie Railton to Stephen Hillen Bloodstock for just £5,000 from Book 3 of Tattersalls’ October Yearling Sale in 2019. From those inauspicious beginnings, she was bought by Yulong associate Evergreen Equine at Tattersalls’ December Mares Sale last year for 2,700,000gns, from the draft of Ireland’s Grove Stud.