While the Kiwi's are patting themselves on the back for the sublime, Champions Mile hero,Beauty Generation (Road To Rock) they can also take some credit for the Chairman's Sprint Prize winner Beat The Clock (Hinchinbrook) as well as the Japanese-bred Win Bright (JPN) who captured the HKJC Queen Elizabeth II Cup.
While Beat The Clock's granddam, great granddam and great-great granddam are New Zealand-breds, you have to go back to the fifth dam of Win Bright to find the kiwi connection. (images Grant Courtney)
It comes through Miss Buzzen, a daughter of the great stallion Summertime, who must have been among the earliest exports to Japan.
A half-sister to the 1951 Manawatu Sires Produce Stakes winner Taringaroa, Miss Buzzen is the dam of the unraced Guerlain, herself the dam of the Champion 2-year-old filly in Japan, Silinsky as well as the dam of Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks) winner Cosmo Dream.
Guerlain's
unraced daughter Miss Guerlain (Maruzensky) left four winners including All For
Guelain (Jade Robbery) who is the dam of Win Bright's dam Summer Eternity
(Admire Cozzene).
Miss Guerlain features as the fourth dam of that very smart sprinter Hakusan Moon (Admire Moon) who had a decision over Lord Kanaloa in the 2013 Group II Centaur Stakes and played second fiddle behind the champion in the Group 1 Sprinters Stakes and in the Group 1 Takamatsunomiya Kinen a race in which he finished second again two years later to the New Zealand-bred Hong Kong representative Aerovelocity.
Hakusan Moon was great favourite of Japanese racegoers due to his pre-race antics so it comes as no surprise that Win Bright has his own peculiar pre-race perks.
Being a son of Stay Gold (JPN) it could be way worse. You do not have to cast your mind back too far for the memorable performances, good and bad, of Win Bright's paternal half-brothers, the champion Gold Ship, and the Horse Of The Year Orfevre.
The winner of the Hong Kong Vase and the Dubai Sheema Classic as a 7yo in 2001, Stay Gold died at Big Red Farm in 2015 at the age of 21.
Win Bright is his ninth Group 1 winner.
