Slated to begin his stud career at Darley's Melbourne base later this year, Godolphin's blue-blooded Lonhro colt Impending kick-started his farewell tour with a fighting win in the Group II Hiflow Industries Victory Stakes (1200m) at Doomben on Saturday.
The short-priced favourite looked in trouble when bailed up with nowhere to go inside the 300 metres before Damian Browne found a narrow seem to overhaul Most Important (I Am Invincible) by a long neck with three-quarters of a length to I'm Excited (Snitzel) in third place.
Godolphin's managing director Vin Cox said Impending would now head to the Doomben 10000, Kingsford Smith Cup and Stradbroke Handicap.
"They are all Group I races and he will contest them all. He won last year's Stradbroke and we were always keen to give him a chance at repeating that," Cox told AAP.
"He is off to stud at the end of the winter and more Group I's won't do him any harm."'
Winner of the Group 1 BRC Stradbroke Handicap 12 months ago (pictured), Impending advances his record to 4 wins, 1 second and 6 thirds from 15 starts with earnings of $1,824,000.
A half-brother to the Group III Cameron Handicap winner Forget (Exceed And Excel), Impending is the fifth foal of the outstanding mare Mnemosyne who captured her first Group 1 in the 1000 Guineas at Caulfield defeating Rewaaya and Serenade Rose.
Back in Sydney, the daughter of Encosta de Lago earned a second Group 1 in the Queen Of The Turf Stakes.
Bred by a partnership that included former champion jockey Ron Quinton, Mnemosyne was a $400,000 Easter Yearling purchase by Woodlands Stud.
Inherited by Darley after the purchase of Woodlands, Mnemosyne is also the dam of the talented Street Cry mare Memorial who ran fifth in Mossfun's Golden Slipper and was second to Bring Me The Maid in the Group II Silver Shadow Stakes at Randwick.
Mnemosyne has a 3yo sister to Impending named Epidemic who is a winner at Randwick and Rosehill and placed in the Listed Gosford Guineas back in February.
It has been nothing but heartbreak for Godolphin since as Mnemosyne slipped to Dawn Approach (IRE) in 2014 and to Sepoy in 2015 before missing to Lonhro in 2016.
She was covered by Lonhro's Group 1 Golden Rose Stakes winning son Exosphere last spring.
