Blue Gum Farm have an appealing roster of three sires for this spring and while it’s all in front of Sejardan and Oxley Road, proven favourite Flying Artie remains unbeatable value and the G1 sire produced a four length 2YO winner on Thursday.
Trained by Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman, Complete Unknown was a close fourth on debut earlier this month as a long shot at Sale, but his effort that day was lost on nobody and punters rallied to send him off as favourite at Bendigo.
He relished the heavy ground under Zac Spain and raced away for a commanding four length win in the 1300m maiden making a mess of his older rivals.
Passed in at Magic Millions Adelaide and retained to race by his breeder, Complete Unknown is the first winner for Cavalry Rock, an unraced Fastnet Rock daughter of Group III winner Cavalry Rose.
It’s a great female family that has produced Group I winners Brutal, Provence and rising star Damask Rose, so Complete Unknown has a good chance of not remaining unknown for long!
Flying Artie is one of those proven sires that can slip under the radar, but for anyone seriously looking to breed a racetrack winner rather than one in the sale ring, he’s a great choice.
He runs at over 60% winners to runners and his 10 stakes-winners are headed by Group I winners Artorius, now standing at Newgate Farm, and Asfoora, who was a G1 winner at Royal Ascot last year.
His star on the rise is undoubtedly four year-old mare In Flight, who has been quietly nurtured by Joe Pride and has won her last two starts in stakes company with her overall record reading an impressive seven wins from 17 starts with prizemoney just shy of $700,000.
Interesting that Complete Unknown is the sixth 2YO winner this season for Flying Artie and comes from his biggest and best foal crop apart from his very first crop which produced Artorius.
Given the potential of this quality crop of rising three year-olds it will be no surprise to see Flying Artie put his name in lights again and at a fee of $11,000 this spring at Blue Gum, he’s a great gamble.
