For a first season sire whose yearlings were not exactly selling like hotcakes earlier this year, Flying Artie has made a great start to his stud career and at the Newcastle trials on Thursday morning we saw a colt that may well add to his success sooner rather than later.
Trained by Paul Perry, Harlem Groove proved a challenging ride at his first trial at Wyong last month when he wanted to buck leaving the gates and had little interest in running with the pack to finish last.
Fitter and better educated to the task this time, Harlem Groove was ridden conservatively from a wide gate and allowed to find his feet early while travelling deep.
The widest runner around the turn, he is still racing greenly, but let down well to cruise home and win by more than a length showing huge improvement on his first trial.
If he takes that sort of benefit again from this experience, he’s going to be worth following on to race day.
An $80,000 Inglis Classic purchase for his trainer from the Goodwood Farm draft, Harlem Groove is the second foal of Harlem Shuffle, a half-sister by Oratorio (IRE) to stakes-winner Harlem River.
Harlem Groove comes from an outstanding family of serious sprinters that includes Everest winner Yes Yes Yes ad $3.7million earner and dual Group I winner In Her Time, not to mention Group III winner Hot as Hell and stakes-winners Flaming Hot and Craig’s Dragon.
For the record , Flying Artie has already had 10 runners which is the same number as Capitalist and Star Turn, indicating early maturity, soundness and trainability, with those runners including a stakes horse The Art of Flying, a metropolitan winner Princess Bojack and another place-getter Ruby Kisses.
Placed in a Blue Diamond and Golden Slipper before emerging as the Champion 3YO Sprinter of his generation, Newgate Farm’s Flying Artie has certainly started his stud career in pleasing fashion.
