Bloodlines: Blue-blooded youngsters set sights on gold

The quest for gold is on again, with the declaration of nominations for the 2019 Golden Slipper attracting 2456 rising two-year-olds.
Of course, the first of the golden races is the eagerly awaited $1 million Golden Rose at Rosehill Gardens on September 22 and the bunch of rising three-year-olds assembling is mouth-watering. However, Bloodlines here will look at vital statistics regarding the $3.5million Golden Slipper.

Snitzel, the sire of this year’s Slipper winner Estijaab, has the greatest number of nominations – 112. Second-most prolific is I Am Invincible with 105 entries, while third is freshman sire Deep Field with 100 paid up for and owners obviously impressed with his first crop of yearlings. The 2018 sales were among the most competitive Bloodlines has experienced.
An extraordinary 33seven-figure yearlings sold in Australia and at Karaka in New Zealand with the highest price being the full-brother to Shoals at $2.3million at the Easter Sales to Anthony Freedman.
Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin was the biggest Slipper nominator with 140. The Hayes-Dabernig trio has 136, Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott 106 followed by Chris Waller (91), Tony McEvoy (87) and Peter and Paul Snowden (86).
Godolphin’s head Australian trainer James Cummings has a great variety of nominations with their total of 140 including 22 different stallions, 16 of which are part of their huge stallion team.
Lonhro and Exceed And Excel, two champion Australian homebreds, both have 27 and Medaglia d’Oro has 23 rising two-year-olds among Godolphin’s entries, However, there are also bluebloods to race in the all-blue silks by Snitzel (2), I Am Invincible (2) and one each by Fastnet Rock, More Than Ready and Not A Single Doubt. Godolphin also bought five yearlings by Shooting To Win. They help make up the dozen offspring of Deep Field’s full brother striving to earn a Slipper start.
David Hayes, Ben Hayes and Tom Dabernig have an amazing array of beautifully bred colts and fillies in for the Slipper, with the trainer going mainly for the proven stallions when buying at the Australasian sales.
He has 15 Fastnet Rocks entered, three which cost in excess of $1 million. The trainers were given four Fastnet Rocks by breeders, which Bloodlines estimates could have also definitely been close to seven-figure lots. They are colts from Hips Don’t Lie, Rubimill and Scandinavia and a filly from Estelle Collection, which is a half-sister to Lankan Rupee.
The Lindsay Park team also has five Not A Single Doubts, Nicconis and Medaglia d’Oros among their noms; four by More Than Ready; three by Redoute’ s Choice and two Pierros.
Waterhouse and Bott have 106 yearlings entered in the 2019 Golden Slipper and they include all the usual suspects, particularly the progeny of I Am Invincible. They have 15 of his yearlings to work with highlighted by a $2million colt from Tai Tai Tess, which sold to American owner-breeder Jon Kelly and Reg Inglis. The duo actually signed for four of I Am Invincible’s progeny at the Magic Millions January Sales and the Waterhouse/Bott loyalists have spent in excess of $8 million to secure their yearlings by the Yarraman Park-based sire.
The Tulloch Lodge team has five by Snitzel among their lots with four of them costing a total of $3,520,00 while the other Snitzel was given to her by clients and did not sell at the sales. They also have five by Spirit Of Boom.

Real Charmer
Charm Spirit, whose first crop of two-year-olds racing in Europe are showing exceptional ability, recorded his 10th winner at the Irish track Fairyhouse on Tuesday with his filly Fulminate scoring for trainer Ger Lyons.
Fulminate contested a 14-horse maiden over six furlongs and had only three behind her on settling, but was able to show a touch of class by sprinting to the lead with a furlong remaining and holding on for a half-length success.
Charm Spirit shuttles to Windsor Park Stud in NZ for the coming southern hemisphere breeding season and the farm has placed a price-on-application fee for those breeders wishing to take up a spot with the exciting stallion.

Lady retired
Wesley Ward’s globetrotting mare Lady Aurelia has been retired after her Royal Ascot failure last month following wins at the two previous two Royal Ascot meetings in the Queen Mary Stakes (2016) and King’s Stand Stakes last year.
The daughter of Scat Daddy was a flying machine as a two-year-old winning the Prix Morny, which is regarded as France’s version of the Golden Slipper, and won five of her 10 starts.

Overseas news
❏ Galileo is just one win shy of equalling his illustrious father Sadler’s Wells’ group1-winning tally of 73 following the success of Kew Gardens at Longchamp last weekend. He’s also closing in on the mighty Danehill who has the world record of 84 and one would expect that this would be a formality in 2019 for the Coolmore-based sire.

❏ High Chaparral, another son of Sadler’s Wells, chalked up his 115th stakes winner at Killarney in Ireland last Sunday with the success of the Dermot Weld-prepared Bella Estrella.
❏ Quorto gave the Godolphin-owned Dubawi his 152nd stakes winner with a super impressive victory in the prestigious group 2 Superlative Stakes at Newmarket last Saturday. The race was won by Dubawi in 2004.
❏ Frankel, Galileo’s unbeaten performer during his halcyon racetrack career, is climbing up the stakes-winning ladder with Zarkamiya taking out a listed event at Longchamp last Friday. Frankel is available for southern hemisphere coverings at Juddmonte this year at £80,000 ($142,500), which is less than half the price of Frankel’s northern hemisphere fee of £175,000.
❏ Fastnet Rock added another stakes winner to his career total at Rosehill when the John Thompson-prepared Dreamforce was successful in the listed Winter Stakes. The Australian-bred son of Danehill has sired 138 black type performers.