Heroic Valour Makes History

Tony Arrold of "The Australian" writes:

A breath away from a history-making Group I trans-Tasman double, premier stallion Fastnet Rock (main picture) on Saturday got a monkey off his back, filling in the one gap in an otherwise outstanding stud ­career.

Before Saturday, the Coolmore Stud colossus had not, with 13 crops of racing age, struck a Group I success with a two-year-old.

Indeed, for all he has achieved in Australasia and for the impact he is now making on European tracks, Fastnet Rock has not been without his critics for the absence on his roll of honour of a two-year-old up to taking out a prized race for first-season runners.

But he filled that hole in the ­resume in the 1min 9.79 sec that it took Heroic Valour to win the Group I Diamond Stakes (1200m) at Ellerslie racecourse, Auckland, New Zealand.

Foaled and raised on Coolmore Stud in the NSW Hunter Valley before being shipped to New ­Zealand to be sold as a yearling, Heroic Valour has won all his three starts and he credits Fastnet Rock as his 90th stakes winner worldwide.

The Diamond Stakes winner is the eighth winning foal of 11 to race for Myrrh, a New Zealand-bred mare by Nassipour, the Blushing Groom horse celebrated as the sire of outstanding staying mare Let's Elope and multiple Group I winner Tie The Knot, among others.

Aged 19 when she foaled Heroic Valour, Myrrh is also the dam of Triple Honour, a son of the Danehill horse Honours List and who has the 2008 Doncaster Handicap among seven career wins. The now 22-year-old Myrrh was covered last spring by Coolmore's Zoffany, last year's leading European first-season sire.

Heroic Valour runs for the Te Akau Syndicate, which is managed by David Ellis, New Zealand's prodigious bloodstock investor.

Ellis bid $NZ400,000 for ­Heroic Valour at the 2015 NZ Premier yearling sales and backed up to buy his full-brother for $NZ510,000at the 2016 NZ ­National in January.

Heroic Valour is the 23rd Group I winner for Fastnet Rock and the fifth in New Zealand for the champion son of Danehill.

Fastnet Rock is one of 89 Group I winners worldwide for Danehill, Coolmore's supreme dual hemisphere stallion.

While he did not win in seven attempts in his first racing season, the Coolmore-bred Fastnet Rock was prominent among the best two-year-olds of 2003-04, finishing third to Dance Hero in the Group I AJC Sires' Produce Stakes (1400m) after a close-up fourth to Dance Hero in the Group I Golden Slipper Stakes (1200m).

Fastnet Rock's performances at two pointed to a cracking season at three years, and particularly when he would contest features at around 1600m. But, surprisingly to many, his high points among six wins as a three-year-old came in Australia's two Group Is at the minimum distances of 1000m, in the VRC Lightning Stakes, and 1100m, in the VATC Oakleigh Plate. Fastnet Rock's international status soared in 2015 through ­Fascinating Rock, a member of his first foal crop in Ireland, winning the Group I Champion Stakes at Ascot and his second crop daughters Qualify and Diamondsand­rubies taking the classic English Oaks and a Group I in Ireland ­respectively.

Diamondsandrubies' triumph in the Pretty Polly Stakes came just weeks before Fastnet Rock claimed the 2014-15 Australian sires' championship, a title he also won in 2011-12 with record progeny earnings of $12,683,189.

Fastnet Rock momentarily had his 15th Group I winner in Australia after Awesome Rock crossed the line first in the $1 million Australian Cup (2000m) at Flemington on Saturday. But he lost first prize in a protest hearing that saw Preferment, son of Zabeel and the runner-up by a short half-head, awarded the race.

Expectations had been high at Flemington for Coolmore Stud and favourite backers when Chautauqua, by the stud's two-time champion sire Encosta de Lago, tried for the Group I Newmarket Handicap (1200m) under topweight of 58kg. A brilliant winner of the Group I Lightning Stakes (1000m) at the same track at his previous start, Chautauqua had to yield to two light-weighted rivals when finishing a creditable third, beaten just over one length.

Victory in the Newmarket Handicap went to The Quarterback, a five-year-old gelding whose mother Soorena is a daughter of Encosta de Lago, now ­spending a quiet retirement on the Coolmore Stud after a disting­uished career. Soorena's grand-dam Dawn Arrival was by the 1973 Newmarket Handicap winner Century while her dam Jewel of Light was, in turn, a grand­daughter of Dark Jewel, one of the true gems of the Australian Stud Book.

Dark Jewel, by five times national champion sire Star Kingdom, left five stakes winners, including three Group I performers — Cabochon (AJC Epsom Handicap, QTC Stradbroke Handicap), Heirloom (VATC Thousand Guineas) and cham­pion sprinter Baguette whose seven Group Is included the 1971 Newmarket Handicap.

The Quarterback was bred by Rick Jamieson on his Gilgai Farm in Victoria — the birthplace of the unbeaten Black Caviar whose 15 Group Is among 25 wins included the 2011 Newmarket Handicap.

Bought at the Melbourne Premier yearling sale for $120,000 by trainer Rob Griffiths, The Quarterback is a five-year-old chestnut gelding and is the first Group I winner in Australia for Darley Stud's shuttle stallion Street Boss.

Street Boss has been identified as the fastest son of Street Cry, Darley's now deceased outstanding sire-son of Machiavellian, with the claim backed by track records at 1100m (twice) and 1200m on the major US tracks of Hollywood Park, Del Mar and Santa Anita.

Encosta de Lago also featured as the damsire of Peeping, the winner of the $600,000 Group I Coolmore Classic (1500m) at Rosehill, Sydney on Saturday. Prepared by former premier jockey Ron Quinton, Peeping became the 28th Group I winner for three-times champion sire Redoute's Choice.