Australian triple Group I winning Fastnet Rock mare Sea Siren is back enjoying life as a broodmare at Coolmore Australia, while her globetrotting daughter Warm Heart kicked off 2024 with a course record breaking win in the Group I Pegasus Invitational Turf (1800m) at Gulfstream on Saturday.
The Aidan O’Brien trained Galileo mare won a maiden at Leopardstown in May last year and from that point never looked back. Warm Heart graduated swiftly through Listed and Group wins before claiming a pair of Group I victories in the UK and France and ended her year with placings in the Group I Breeders Cup Filly and Mare Turf and Group I Hong Kong International Vase at Sha Tin.
Dispatched to Gulfstream for her first run of the year, Ryan Moore gave Warm Heart a magical rails hugging ride and she responded with a flashing run along the fence to win by half a length. The final time of 1:44.45 for the nine furlongs on firm turf broke the previous record set by English Channel back in 2007.
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uo;She’s always traveling very comfortably,” said Moore.
“I didn’t want to be there too early, and I didn’t want to be tipping out into the straight, and I thought I’d rather just wait. She’s a great filly. She’s had an incredible year. She hasn’t had a bad race. The leader, he was always leaning out, and he was weakening and I knew I had plenty of horse, so no problem. I was happy to wait.”
A homebred for the Coolmore partners, Warm Heart has the overall record of six wins and three placings from 11 starts and has a date at stud this year in Kentucky with Justify, who also sired a new stakes-winner on the Gulfstream program when Alpha Bella took out the Group III La Prevoyante Stakes (1 ½ m). She is the 26th stakes-winner worldwide for Justify.
She is sister to Group III placed Celestial Object and is the best of four winners from five foals to race so far from triple Group I winning Fastnet Rock mare Sea Siren.
A brilliant sprinter for the John O’Shea stable, Sea Siren posted Group I wins in the MVRC Manikato Stakes, BRC Doomben Ten Thousand and BTC Cup before finishing eighth in the 2013 Group I Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot. She finished her career with a short preparation under Aidan O’Brien which yielded a stakes win and two stakes-placings in Ireland.
Sea Siren started her stud career in Ireland for Coolmore, but is now back in Australia and had a yearling colt by Camelot fetch $275,000 for Coolmore at Magic Millions when secured by Waller Racing/Mulcaster Bloodstock.
She had a colt by Home Affairs last spring and is now in foal to Justify (USA).
