Te Parae and LA have bred and/or sold the winners of a number of Australia's biggest races and for a moment there on Saturday afternoon we thought we had added another Group One Caulfield Cup to our honours board when Roman Emperor (Montjeu-Gussy Godiva) hit the front with 200m to run only to be run down by his stablemate and last year's Melbourne Cup winner Viewed.
Bred by the Ormond family and prepared then sold from our 2007 Karaka Premier draft to Bart Cummings for $230,000 the four-year-old entire is a real chance on the first Tuesday in November to follow in the footsteps of 1957 Melbourne Cup winner Straight Draw who was sold by The Williams familyat the 1954 National Yearling Sales.
While the The Williams Family bred and raced llumquh took the 1960 Caulfield Cup ...what is somewhat ironic is that Saturdays effort by Roman Emperor was ten years to the day since the LA bred and owned Laebeel was narrowly defeated by Sky Heights in the 1999 Caulfield Cup.
Horses pictured right are General Command, Illumquh and Straight Draw.
Towkay has had three individual winners over the last week starting with Sparky Winner(Towkay-Mission Star) in Macau and culminating in winners at Wingatui on Friday in the form of Shaky Bridge(Towkay-Miss Georgie) and finishing with Katipo(Towkay-Conchelle) on Saturday at Rotorua over 1400m.
The family of the Te Parae bred Logical Miss which has been to the fore over recent seasons producing the likes of Eloa, Winning Fellowship and Alamosa, looks to have unveiled another promising galloper in the shape of Stellafire(Testa Rosa-I'm In Heaven). The four-year-old mare who made it back to back victories with a comprehensive success in Queensland last week is from a full sister to the LA bred and raced group three winner Eloa, whose first foal a filly by Stratum we sold to Stephen Grey for $225,000 at Karaka earlier this year. Father Kevin Gray reports that she is progressing through her early education well.
The farms purchase of broodmare We Leica in Australia a couple of years ago has probably already justified itself with the quality of the Bradbury's Luck filly that she was carrying at the time and subsequently retained by us however we are not begrudging the form of her Encosta De Lago four-year-old Leica Conquistador who made it a treble of wins with his 1600m success in NSW on Saturday and Leica Lion (Lion Hunter-We Leica) who won over 1300m in Queensland also on Saturday.
Long-time LA client Lorraine Jameson would have got a kick out of the form shown by two progeny of her broodmare Kincia this last week. Appreciation (Danasinga-Kincia)won his third race in Hong Kong with a 1400m success there last Sunday while the full sister to Lorraine's talented racemare Ciara(O'Reilly-Kincia) in the shape of Monachee ran second at Hawkes Bay on Thursday in just her second lifetime start following a third on debut. Appreciation was a $92,500 purchase from our 2007 Karaka Premier draft by John Foote, continuing the great run John has had in Hong Kong with LA purchases and Monachee was a $135,000 purchase by Alan Sharrock from our 2008 Karaka draft.
