The Too Darn Hot (GB) debutant Too Darn Lovely led home a first-season sire quinella for Darley Stud stallions in the Buy An Arrowfield Graduate Maiden Plate (900m) at Scone on Tuesday.
Ridden by Reece Jones for Scott Singleton, Too Darn Lovely was three lengths in front after 50 metres.
Despite tiring, Too Darn Lovely had enough in hand to defeat Annabel Neasham’s well-supported Microphone filly Madame Fiocca by a half-neck with a length back to the Sebring Sun first-starter Myalaby in third.
Too Darn Lovely has wiped off her purchase price at her first start. She was a $17,000 purchase for her owner T Smith, from the Cornerstone draft at the 2023 Inglis Classic Yearling Sale.
That made her the second cheapest of the 50 yearlings to sell from the first crop of Too Darn Hot (GB).
Bred by Australian Racehorse Breeding Pty Ltd, Too Darn Lovely is the first winner from two to race for the unraced Exceed And Exel mare Lovestruck (GB), whose weanling filly by Blue Point sold to Belmont Bloodstock Agency (FBAA) for $125,000 from the Cornerstone Stud draft at the National Weanling Sale.
Lovestruck (GB) is a half-sister to the French Group III winner Desideratum (Darshaan), runner-up in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris.
A 32,000 gns buy for McKeever / Cornerstone Stud at the 2018 Tattatsalls July Sale, Lovestruck (GB) is also a half-sister to stakes-winner Poet Laureate and stakes-placegetters Status Symbol and Belonging from the family of the influential broodmare Fall Aspen, the ancestress of Too Darn’s Hot’s grandsire Dubai Millennium.
Ainsley Downs Stud consigns a Darci Brahma colt from this family to the NZB Karaka Yearling Sale (lot 181).
Too Darn Lovely is the third first-crop winner for Darley Stud’s Too Darn Hot (GB) from four runners.
