Viddora notches first Group One in style
Five-year-old mare Viddora (I Am Invincible) had enjoyed little luck in her past appearances in Group One tests but everything fell into place last Saturday as she recorded a stylish win in the WATC Winterbottom Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) at Perth’s Ascot track.
Twice a runner–up in Group One contests, Viddora settled back in the field on Saturday, obtained runs when needed and powered away in the closing stages to win by a length and a half from another mare, Fuhryk (Star Witness) in 1:10.06, with Durendal (Medaglia d’Oro) close up in third place.
Viddora has now won seven of her 23 starts, with her other black type victories coming in the SAJC R N Irwin Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) and the SAJC Lightning Stakes (Listed, 1050m). After her notable placings, her earnings now stand at $1,473,680.
Her Adelaide-based trainer Lloyd Kennewell astutely selected Viddora at the 2014 Adelaide Magic Millions Yearling Sale, buying her for $40,000 with her breeder, Riva Ridge Stud owner Dr. Terry Hodgson, wisely keeping an interest to race the mare with a large group of partners.
Dr. Hodgson bought Viddora’s New Zealand-bred dam Snow Flight (Colombia) after she completed a solid racing career in which she won five races, two in Melbourne, from 1600 metres to 2400 metres. The stamina Snow Flight brought to her mating with the speedster I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) was undoubtedly a valuable factor in giving Viddora the class and finishing dash needed to become a Group One winner.
Snow Flight’s first foal, the gelding Blitzing (Southern Appeal) was unplaced. Viddora is the mare’s second foal and since then she has produced Relentless Me (Statue Of Liberty), twice a winner in Hong Kong. Following him, she has an unraced three-year-old filly named Star Flight (Hard Spun), an unraced two-year-old colt called Snowplough (Fiorente), a yearling filly by Magnus (Flying Spur) and a 2017 colt by young sire Super One (I Am Invincible), who ranks as a three-quarter relation to Viddora.
Colombia (Zabeel), the unraced maternal grandsire of Viddora, is worthy of comment here as he was at the time the highest priced yearling ever sold in New Zealand when he fetched NZ$1,600,000 for Cambridge Stud at the 1998 New Zealand Bloodstock National Yearling Sale, a price justified both on looks and his exceptional pedigree as a brother to champion Octagonal (Zabeel) and to Mouawad (Zabeel), only two of the five Group One winners produced by their dam, the extraordinary matron Eight Carat (Pieces Of Eight).
Several issues prevented Colombia from making it to the track but he deservedly earned a place as a stallion in his country of birth. Colombia died in January this year but has to date left seven stakes winners, the best of them being Addictive Habit, a five–time black type winner up to Group One level, and El Soldado, winner of the 2016 Auckland Cup (Gr 1, 3200m).
Viddora’s mother Snow Flight is a half-sister to Zeddane (Danske), a stakes winner of nine races in New Zealand, and comes from a distinguished international family strongly identified with the late Robert Sangster and one packed with major winners.
Her fourth dam, French winner Delagoa (Targowice), who foaled no fewer than 13 winners, is a three-quarter sister to former New Zealand sire Travolta (Targowice) and a half-sister to Group One winners Detroit (Riverman) and Durtal (Lyphard), as well as to stakes winners Darcounette (Dapper Dan) and Valderna (Val De Loir), famous here as the second dam of Zabeel (Sir Tristram).
Detroit, winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (Gr 1, 2400m) in 1980, produced four stakes winners, among them a fellow Arc de Triomphe winner in Carnegie (Sadler’s Wells), a successful and influential international sire who spent time in both New Zealand and Australia. Durtal, champion British two-year-old filly of her generation, foaled outstanding stayer Gildoran (Rheingold), who was twice a winner of the Ascot Gold Cup (Gr 1, 2m4f) in 1984 and 1985.
Viddora, linebred 5m x 5m to Northern Dancer (Nearctic) and 5f x 5m to Sir Ivor (Sir Gaylord), also carries duplications of Relic (War Relic) and Round Table (Princequillo), while her dam Snow Flight is linebred to the mare Derna (Sunny Boy) through her daughters Valderna and Delagoa.
As the third Group One winner for Yarraman Park Stud’s sensational young sire I Am Invincible, Viddora capped off an exciting recent run of success for her father who, in November alone, had 38 winners to put himself in sixth place on the Australian general sires’ list by prizemoney.
Brazen Beau, the first of I Am Invincible’s Group One winners, has his first yearlings on offer at the Magic Millions Sale at the Gold Coast next month, where I Am Invincible’s entries total 44 lots and will be in great demand.
I Am Invincible’s rise to be recognised as one of Australia’s leading sires can be tracked via his ever escalating service fee, which started out at just $10,000 when retired to stud in 2010 and by 2017 had increased by a factor of eleven to $110,000. At that figure he could have been filled several times over after three of his yearlings sold earlier in the year for $1,400,000, $1,500,000 and $1,600,000.