Australia’s revered royal family centred around blue hen Dancing Show (USA) has produced a course record breaking Group I winner in North America.
John Camilleri’s Fairway Thoroughbreds have bred their share of great horses ranging from Golden Slipper winner Vancouver to world champion racehorse Winx and one of the bluebloods they have bred and sold overseas is talented Dubawi mare In Italian, who scored a course record breaking win in the $500,000 Group I Diana Stakes (1 1/8thm) on the turf at Saratoga on Saturday.
The Chad Brown trained four year-old mare won the Group III Honey Fox Stakes at Gulfstream earlier this year and produced the best run of her career when leading all the way for Joel Rosario to win by a length and a half over her stable-mates Technical Analysis and Bleecker Street.
Owned by Peter Brant, In Italian has been handled patiently and has never missed a place in seven starts with four wins and three placings netting over $590,000 in prizemoney.
“I just think she’s a terrific filly and she wouldn’t be in here if we didn’t think she had the ability to win,” Brant said after the race.
“The instructions to Joel [Rosario] were ride this race like you can win, not just for pace, and he did it.”
In Italian became the 51st Group I winner for her sire Dubawi and the 26th for Redoute’s Choice as a broodmare sire.
“It looked like she had the speed on paper,” Joel Rosario said.
“It looked like there were other horses with speed too on paper, but Chad told me to let her break and go on into the first turn and she put herself forwardly placed. She was nice and relaxed in front and ran a big race.”
A 475,000 guinea Tattersalls October Yearling Sale purchase for Mike Ryan on behalf of owner Peter Brant, In Italian is a half-sister to two Australian stakes-placed horses in Villa Carlotta and Fasano being the fourth winner from four foals to race from Australian bred Group III winning Redoute’s Choice mare Florentina.
A half-sister to Group I winner Gathering from the Twyla branch of the famed Dancing Show family, Florentina was bred by Fairway Thoroughbreds and retained to race.
She had four foals in Australia before being sent to the Northern Hemisphere where she was covered by Dubawi producing In Italian followed by a Kingman colt that was born in the UK and then sent back to Australia with his dam in 2019 when she was safely back in foal to Kingman again to Southern Hemisphere time.
The Kingman colt was sold at Magic Millions last year in the Segenhoe draft with Tom Magnier paying $1.8million to secure the blue-blood who has been named Spanish Empire and is trained by Chris Waller.
His mother Florentina was sold in 2020 at the Inglis Chairman’s Sale for $650,000 to the Towell family’s Jananth Pty Ltd. She did the right thing for her new owners producing a gorgeous Kingman filly that was passed in at Inglis Easter earlier this year.
Florentina missed in 2020 and was looking uncertain last spring missing twice to different sires before a late cover to Yes Yes Yes, which appears to have been successful.
