The Waterhouse Bott stable have had plenty of success with juveniles by Widden Stud’s Written By claiming Group wins with the likes of Straight Charge, The Playwright and The Novelist and they unleashed a talented debut winner by the same sire at Randwick on Saturday in By Choice.
A winner at both of her previous barrier trials this month at Canterbury and Randwick, good looking chestnut filly By Choice took that winning form straight into raceday.
Drawn the outside in the field of 10 for the 1100m juvenile dash, By Choice jumped well for Regan Bayliss to cross and sit one out and one back behind the leader Masvingo, who had the advantage of gate one and race experience with placings in both the Group III ATC Gimcrack and Wyong Magic Millions 2YO Classic.
Masvingo gave a kick in the straight, but was no match for By Choice, who hit top gear with 100m to run and forged clear to win by a length.
A $220,000 Magic Millions purchase from Lustre Lodge for Gai Waterhouse & Adrian Bott Racing/Kestrel Thoroughbreds, By Choice banked over $82,000 for her debut victory which puts her in the picture for the $3million Magic Millions 2YO Classic on January 17.
“She’s the ultimate professional and that is going to take her a long way,” said Adrian Bott.
“She began well, put herself nicely in the race, was able to come back underneath Reagan nicely there throughout the race and was just able to refill and then she showed plenty late.
“She's obviously a nice-sized filly that's got plenty of scope to keep improving deeper into the preparation and as she gets over further.
“The owners here today, I think, are pretty excited to try and get a horse up there to the Gold Coast, so I may be one out if I said, ‘let's sort of try and hang around and wait for a Widden (Stakes) or something like that’.
“We may sort of head up (Gold Coast) that way and if that's the case, whether we sort of look to give her a run up in the Pearl the week before. She's got a great constitution, so she could probably handle the travel and the backup. So we'll see how we go.”
Bred by Lustre Lodge, she is the third winner from four foals to race from Audacious Choice, a winning half-sister by Redoute’s Choice to stakes-winner Prime Star from Group I winner Barinka.
Attunga Stud will be glad to see By Choice win on debut as they will offer her yearling half-sister by So You Think at Magic Millions as Lot 72.
Audacious Choice foaled this spring producing a colt by Starspangledbanner.
Written By has half a dozen entries for Magic Millions.
