There was no Black Type, but plenty of cash for offer in the $750,000 ATC Rosehill Gold Cup (2000m) providing a lucrative first Australian start and first Australian win for lightly raced Galileo colt Star of India (IRE).
Sourced from the Ballydoyle stable of Aidan O’Brien in Ireland for the Annabel Neasham stable, Star of India came to Australia with two wins from five starts, his most recent outing a fourth in a Group III race at Longchamp.
Reports from quarantine were encouraging and he duly ran up to his good looks in the mounting yard when surging home for Brenton Avdulla to win by a long neck.
"It's very exciting. We always aimed for this race and to see him do that, get through quarantine in England, quarantine here at Canterbury so to have a first-up run like that is really exciting,” said stable representative Rob Archibald.
"You always doubt yourself a little bit. We knew he was in good form, he came through the quarantine in really good order"
"We were confident he would run well, to win like that was really exciting so he probably exceeded our expectations."
As a lightly raced three year-old, Star of India looks to be a great prospect for Australia and will give his owners headed by BK Racing plenty of thrills.
“A big thank you to (Coolmore's) Tom and MV Magnier. When I finished up at Coolmore, I 'said can you find us one?' MV rang up Annabel a couple of months ago and said, 'I think this one will suit Australia, this is the one',” Archibald added.
"So we bought him, BK Racing got on board along with a few other partners and here we are today."
Star of India won the Listed Chester Dee Stakes in the UK earlier this year and has now won three of six starts. He is a half-brother to Group I winner Sudirman from stakes-winner Shermeen.
