With the Group I MRC Thousand Guineas to be run this Saturday at Caulfield it only seems fitting that we find a ‘One to Watch’ on Monday, whose dam and grand-dam both won the iconic race for fillies.
Trained by Paul Messara and Leah Gavranich, three year-old I Am Invincible filly Chains of Love has a bit to live up to and opened her account at her second start at Scone.
Second on debut over 1100m last month at the same venue, Chains of Love was backed as though unbeatable and proved to be exactly that.
She sped away for Andrew Adkins over the concluding stages to take the 1200m maiden by nearly three lengths in a dominant display.
Retained to race by her breeders, John Messara, John Leaver and Alan Jones, Chains of Love is a full sister to stakes-winner Waltz on By and half-sister to Group II placed Duvana being the fifth winner from five foals to race from Group I MRC Thousand Guineas winner Stay With Me.
Stay With Me was bred by the same partnership at Arrowfield and she is the best of seven winners from Champion 2YO and 3YO Filly Miss Finland, whose G1 wins came in the Golden Slipper, Australian Guineas, Thousand Guineas, VRC Oaks and Arrowfield Stud Stakes.
Miss Finland was retired from stud service last year, but the family is a work in progress with a good selection of her descendants being bred to the best sires.
Arrowfield sold a Dundeel colt from Stay With Me at Inglis Easter this year for $750,000 and she has a yearling filly to follow that is also by Dundeel, but no foal this year after missing to I Am Invincible.
The first two daughters of Stay With Me are also now at stud with Always on My Mind (Deep Impact) producing a yearling filly by Pinatubo (IRE) and a colt foal this spring by Maurice (Jpn), while Waltz on By was sent to the UK to visit Frankel last year in her first season at stud.
She produced a very valuable filly from that mating on August 20.
