If performing on the Moonee Valley track is hereditary, the Tony and Calvin McEvoy-trained debutant Sailor’s Rum has a walk-up start in Saturday’s $500,000 Inglis Banner (1000m).
The son of Merchant Navy is the second foal of the Reward For Effort mare Brugal Reward, who excelled at the track.
Her career highlight was defeating Modern Wonder in the Group III Typhoon Tracy Stakes (1200m) at Moonee Valley, which followed a dominant performance over the same track and distance a week earlier.
A brother to the Canterbury winner Standing Order, Sailor’s Rum was a $190,000 purchase for McEvoy Mitchell Racing / Belmont Bloodstock Agency (FBAA) from the draft of his breeder B2B Thoroughbreds at the Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale.
A $45,000 Inglis Premier yearling, Brugal Reward, won four and placed in seven of her 27 starts while banking $260,290. She is the best of two winners from three to race out of Tiger Tess (Hold That Tiger), a half-sister to the magnificent Apache Cat.
While he takes his place among the greatest sprinters of his generation, Apache Cat was given the chance to stretch his speed to the 2020m of the 2006 WS Cox Plate.
Perhaps encouraged by his second in the Feehan Stakes (1600m) at Moonee Valley, the Cox Plate proved a bridge too far. The spectacularly marked son of Lion Cavern clocked in seventh behind Fields Of Omagh.
Returned to sprinting in the autumn of 2008, Apache Cat was invincible.
He reeled off wins in the Group Lightning Stakes, Group 1 Australia Stakes, Group 1 TJ Smith Stakes, Group 1 BTC Cup and Group Doomben 10000.
The Greg Eurell-trained superstar defended his Australia Stakes title at Moonee Valley the following year. The final win of a memorable career came at the Valley in the Group II Schweppes Stakes (AJ Moir Stakes), elevated to Group 1 status in 2013.
Apache Cat is out of the Whisky Road mare Tennessee Blaze. Another of the family to go through the Inglis Premier Sale, Tennessee Blaze was a $6,000 purchase for Paul Radford.
The family was devoid of black type for five generations, stretching back to the Relic mare Geneve, dam of the 1966 VRC Oaks and 1967 AJC Oaks heroine Farmer’s Daughter (Agricola).
Tenessee Blaze defied the odds to become a successful broodmare.
Few of her consorts were commercial successes, but all her eleven foals made it to the track, and nine were winners.
