Time to get excited, racing fans - A new season is underway, and Spring Carnival action is just around the corner, so it's time to switch our Breeding To Win focus into race preview mode.
A bevy of classy three year olds are kicking off their campaigns in several races across two states on Saturday, but we are focusing on Rosehill and The Rosebud.
The Listed 1100m sprint is the first step on the path to the coveted $1m G1 Golden Rose. Whose potential might we begin to see unfurl?
Early season 3YO races are always fascinating contests. We get to see some of the juveniles who impressed through the summer and autumn line up against their more unexposed peers. Who is ready to burst into bloom? Does a soon-to-be revealed topliner lurk among the more lightly raced?
A full field of 16 plus emergencies are assembled, with several dual acceptors still in the market at time of writing for the G3 Vain Stakes / Quezette Stakes at Caulfield.
The Rosebud first ran in 2011 and was won by Aeronautical. Other early winners were Eurozone, the mighty Sebring, Giga Kick's dad Scissor Kick, Thronum, Menari, Sandbar and Dawn Passage.
Paulele, Anders and Gatsbys followed them.
Last year's winner Skyhook (Written Tycoon) was third in the G2 Run To The Rose 1200m and fourth in the 1400m grand final. He raced on for dual G3 victories to add to his juvenile Pago Pago win, in the Hawkesbury Guineas and the Gunsynd Classic at Eagle Farm in June.
Only two fillies have been successful in The Rosebud; She's A Fox in 2012 and Tiz Invincible in 2023.
This year our race favourite is Blue Door, an exciting daughter of Slipper hero Stay Inside. Widden Stakes heroine Chilly Girl (Trapeze Artist) is well in commission, and there's money around for the expat West Aussie Striking Alibi ( Hanseatic), on debut for the Waller stable.
All eyes will be on J Mac aboard the Waller- trained Frankel colt Central Europe who was outstanding at two and could be anything at three. He has drawn ideally, no such luck for stablemate, the charismatic grey Hidrix ( Extreme Choice) - his big win came first up here, but is he good enough to overcome the wide barrier?
The chances certainly don't end there! Rosehill will be somewhere in the soft range, with maybe a couple of showers forecast on Saturday.
TOP PICK: BLUE DOOR
The Bjorn Baker trained Blue Door featured in our 3YO Crystal Ball series as one to follow, and she goes on top as she attempts to become the third filly to win The Rosebud.
Blue Door has not yet raced at Rosehill, but bolted in a trial here on rain affected ground by almost eight lengths in March before her ultra-impressive debut in the G3 Kindergarten Stakes over this distance.
Blue Door raced handy and did everything right that day, hitting the front at the 300m and storming to the line. She showed plenty of grit to fight off the $2.8m Snitzel colt The Next Episode by a neck.
The Next Episode franked the form in Brisbane when dominating his rivals in the Listed Dalrello Stakes, before following up with a big win in the $1m Magic Millions National 2YO Classic over 1000m on the Gold Coast.
Third in the Kindergarten was Yulong's colt Under Focus (Too Darn Hot) who is a Rosebud rival on Saturday!
Significantly, the blistering time Blue Door ran to win the Kindergarten was a full four lengths faster than the standard time for the race, which in recent years has been won by future G1 winners Libertad, Paulele, Bivouac, Astern and Hallowed Crown.
Blue Door's ultra-impressive win broke a long drought for the fairer sex, as no filly had emerged victorious in the Kindergarten Stakes since General Nediym's flyer Anise in 2011.
Solar Charged, Forensics, Menemosyne, Plagiarize ( beat Gold Edition), Crimson Reign and Belle Du Jour are other fillies to win the Kindergarten - topliners all!
The daughter of Stay Inside was bred by Armitage Australia and born and raised at Yarraman Park.
Her quality and big pedigree saw Gai Waterhouse & Adrian Bott / Kestrel Thoroughbreds part with $400,000 to secure her at Inglis Easter from the Yarraman draft, but owner John Singleton this year elected to place her with Bjorn Baker.
The exciting youngster was put aside after her sparkling debut, which earned her $141,000.
Blue Door's grandsire Extreme Choice is the only stallion in history to have sired the winners of a Golden Slipper and a Melbourne Cup - and the only to have sired a Blue Diamond winner and a Melbourne Cup winner in the same season!
It’s been a textbook example of quality over quantity with the progeny of Extreme Choice, wo will command a service fee of $385,000 at his home Newgate Farm this season.
His fee is well earned. The son of Not A Single Doubt is the current world’s leading sire of G1 winners to runners!
Extreme Choice maintains the highest stakes winners to runners ratio for any sire in the Southern Hemisphere, and has notched up his six G1 winners to date at an electrifying pace which has outstripped any other Australasian stallion this century.
While his fee puts the remarkable sire out of reach of most breeders, Newgate also stand his Slipper hero Stay Inside, and his impeccably bred G2 winning son Tiger Of Malay.
Newgate are among a large group of owners with an interest in Hidrix, the G3 Canonbury Stakes winner and G2 Silver Slipper runner up who contests the Rosebud on Saturday.
The striking grey full brother to last season's champion three year old filly Apocalyptic from the famed Emancipation family was a $1.7m yearling - and could go stratospheric this prep.
The future looks fantastic for the Extreme Choice sireline, but let's focus on his obvious flagbearer, Blue Door's sire Stay Inside, because nothing has more clout in this country on a stallion's CV than a Golden Slipper!
Blue Door was a recent Breeding to Win Crystal Ball horse so check out her pedigree back story here.
Will this glamour girl prove to be a pure speedster, or could she be a G1 Flight Stakes contender later this spring?
Blue Door and Rachel King will fly from barrier 5
NEXT BEST : STRIKING ALIBI
This Hanseatic filly was an explosive three length winner on debut at Ascot for trainer Luke Fernie but flopped on a week's back up in WA's version of the Golden Slipper, the G2 Karrakatta Plate. Like a number of West Aussies before her, she has crossed the country to the big smoke and the Chris Waller camp, and with two excellent trials under her belt she looks ready to make her presence felt at her eastern states debut!
Striking Alibi was a cheapie yearling buy - Fernie Racing paid $10,000 for the chestnut at Adelaide MM from The Chase consignment.
She is a member of Hanseatic's second crop and the electrifyingly fast son of Street Boss was described as “easily the best 2YO we have had since Alinghi” by Anthony Freedman.
Hanseatic is a member of the incredible Scandinavia family - Black Caviar, all Too Hard, Magnus, Ole Kirk etc, with his line coming via Baltics, a half sister to Magnus (by noted broodmare sire Fusaichi Pegasus) to his dam Itameri by Exceed And Excel, a multiple black type producer.
Striking Alibi is the fifth foal from her dam who have all raced and are all sprint winners. She is the Listed winning Stryker ( Fastnet Rock) mare Strykum.
Strykum's dam Dinkum Star by Happy Giggle was stakes placed and of her eight to race, seven were winners with Strykum being her best. She was the only winner from just three foals produced by the unplaced Tropical Star ( Southern Appeal) a full sister to the dam of G1 Australasian Oaks heroine Rinky Dink ( dam of the G2 winner and good sire Galah, and G1 QLD Oaks placed filly Pygmy)
Their dam Peebinga Star was stakes placed and a daughter of the imported Bold Ruler stallion Abdicating, a close relation of the breedshaping sire Menow.
Striking Alibi traces tail female to Buchna, daughter of studbook matriarch Cinna (3-e) and carries a 3f x 3f cross to Buchna through her ancestress Eve's Star.
Striking Alibi is bred
Danehill 4m x 4m
Danzig 5m,6f x 5m
Mr Prospector 5m,5m x5m
La Troienne is a big factor in her pedigree - she is linebred to Glamour (Woodman / Poker) and duplicates the Princequillo / family cross which is doubled in Lomond, via Tropical Breeze, the damsire of Southern Appeal who traces to La Troienne daughter Big Hurry.
Snippets has another line of Glamour's dam Striking which is sex balanced via her son Hitting Away by Ambiorix.
Woodman's damsire Buckpasser descends from La Troienne as does the damsire of Ogygian, Francis S carried by Street Boss. Never Bend carries La Troienne son Bimelech.
Tropical Breeze was sired by Prince John and he is linebred, also appearing in Riverman. This is important for the Halo daughter duplications carried by Hanseatic - Halo's damsire Cosmic Bomb is out of Blue Hen Banish Fear, and her daughter Not Afraid is Dam of Prince John.
Striking Alibi is linebred to Ambiorix, Beau Pere ( her own family, also prominent in Blushing Groom) and Blue Hen Sunshot - ancestress of Never Bend, Grand Chaudiere, King Of The Tudors.
This filly likes to be on pace or even lead and might be hard to catch over 1100m!
Striking Alibi and Kerrin McEvoy will launch from barrier 11.
ROUGHIE - HIDRIX
A beautiful grey colt, descendant of the immortal Emancipation, son of a global supersire - brother to a G1 winner!
Sister Apocalyptic possesses a devastating turn of foot, and Hidrix can produce it too as he showed in the autumn with a breathtaking win in the Canonbury Stakes.
He was a good closing third in the Silver Slipper, then the shades went on in the Todman and it backfired. They were removed, but the Extreme Choice colt was over the top in the Golden Slipper.
The Waller-trained Hidrix has drawn a horror gate, but as he is a get back and run on type perhaps it's better than being cluttered up on the rail. He is something of a query on wet ground, though - so he's got plenty against him, but what the son of Extreme Choice has got going for him is class and a pedigree that is primed to roar into top gear at three!
Hidrix was a high profile $1.7 million Inglis Easter buy for Chris Waller Racing / Mulcaster Bloodstock / B2B Thoroughbreds from the Coolmore draft, and he is the latest in a long line of stakes winners descending from his fifth dam, the great Bletchingly daughter Emancipation.
The dam of Hidrix, Shadow (Medaglia D'Oro) produced a Pierro filly last season and was returned to Extreme Choice.
Unraced Shadow is full sister to the stakes placed Geist and they were the only two foals of the unraced Wraith, by Exceed And Excel.
Wraith was one of nine living foals from champion sprinting filly Virage De Fortune by Anabaa. A dual G1 winner, possibly the grey's most courageous performance came in the 2006 Oakleigh Plate when she chased home Snitzel and beat Takeover Target on a bottomless track.
Her full sister Avenue also placed second in an Oakleigh Plate!
Virage De Fortune and Avenue were two of eight winners / three stakes winners for the remarkable Blue Hen Virage, by Kenmare - the result of Emancipation's only mating to that
Emancipation's daughter Principation founded a line through her daughter Vanilla Sky by O'Reilly - grand dam of top colts Stratum Star and Prague.
Emancipation’s pedigree featured linebreeding to the great speedster Newtown Wonder.
Let's admire the damsire of Hidrix, Medaglia d 'Oro.
The son of El Prado is one of the great sires of fillies in the current era.
This beautifully made stallion with his near faultless classic American type descends from Blue Hen Sunday Evening and is linebred to her through his dam. A similar pattern is repeated in the breeding of his relation, the influential sire Bluebird.
Hindrix is bred:
Danzig 5m x 5m,5m
Danehill 4m x 4m
His own wider family (3-l) is also that of Gay Mecene, damsire of Anabaa - while Exceed And Excel carries family member Citation.
Extreme Choice brings their relative Raja Baba, Hussonet's damsire - additionally there are close affinities between the damlines of Hussonet and Medaglia d'Oro.
Newtown Wonder was such a contributing factor to the greatness of Emancipation. His was the same taproot line as Kenmare's grandsire Zeddaan - about the best filly producing line of all - to which also belong Eight Thirty (dam of Sunday Evening), and the ever present War Admiral.
Hidrix and Andrew Adkins will have to ride for luck from barrier 16.
