A competitive juvenile colts maiden at Randwick on Wednesday over 1100m drew an interesting field with a pair of Yulong owned colts by their champion sire Written Tycoon fighting out the finish.
The favourite was Farnan colt Ninja, who had won his only two previous trials and as he did in those trials, he stepped away a little slowly and settled back in the field.
Ninja made good ground when angled into clear running but came up short as Grand Prairie slipped through on the inside for Tom Sherry to win, while Pictor charged home from last to grab an eye-catching second on debut.
Grand Prairie was offered by Yulong at Inglis Easter, but passed in shy of his $500,000 reserve and sent to Peter Snowden to train.
Second and fourth in his first two starts back in March, Grand Prairie has obviously come back well.
“He’s a nice horse and we’ve always liked him,” said Peter Snowden.
“He was still wanting to look around at the other horses and stargaze and if he can win doing that, you know he’s only going to improve. The more experience he gets, the better he will be and he’s a nice horse going forward.
“He’s in at the right time of year and he's ready to launch with a lot of good racing coming up. It's up to him whether he keeps stepping up, but he’s got a great pedigree and is out of a very good mare.
“It's a pleasure to have a Yulong horse that is going well.”
Grand Prairie is the second living foal and second winner from dual Group I winning I Am Invincible mare Viddora, who was bought by Yulong for $2.55million at the 2020 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale.
Viddora had no yearling for the sales this year, but produced a filly last year by Diatonic (Jpn) before being covered by Pierata.
