There are some intriguing races for the two-year-olds on Saturday with Sunlight’s half-brother Halogen (Sebring) set to make his career debut at Moonee Valley, while in Sydney all four acceptors in the opener over 1000 metres at Randwick are eligible for the $2 million Magic Millions 2yo Classic as are the 10 runners in the Group III BJ McLachlan Plate at Eagle Farm where I Am Invincible’s son Blondeau and Choisir’s Group III ATC Gimcrack Stakes heroine Every Rose dominate the market.
Two of the four runners at Randwick, the Peter and Paul Snowden pair Bartley (Written Tycoon) and Nitrous (Deep Field) were runaway winners at their last start but we will put our faith in the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained Belieber.
Carrying the famous red with white cap silks of the Tait family, Belieber has not started since finishing fourth in the Group III ATC Breeders’ Plate at Randwick on October 5.
The son of Zoustar showed plenty of toe that day but was hung out on a limb and flattened out in the closing stages finishing two lengths behind the highly impressive winner Global Quest (More Than Ready).
Belieber has a big action and appears quite headstrong so he is sure to have taken plenty of benefit from his two recent barrier trials. At the latest he charged to an early four lengths lead under a stranglehold by Nash Rawiller who let him coast to the line to be run down by Sauvestre (Hinchinbrook).
Consigned by Twin Hills Stud to the 2019 Gold Coast Yearling Sale, Belieber failed to make his $200,000 reserve.
Twin Hills had purchased his dam Sense And Reason for $150,000 from the Bell View Park Stud draft at the 2017 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale when carrying Belieber.
A daughter of Exceed And Excel, Sense And Reason was an accomplished sprinter winning five races in Sydney.
Her dam Donna Intelligente (Dehere) is a half-sister to the Group III STC Sweet Embrace winner Burning Sands (Marju) from a family that includes Skoozi Please, Shelbourne Lass, Elusive Touch and Main Stage.
The fourth dam of Donna Intelligente was the outstanding New Zealand mare Jandell (Shifnal) who made her first trip to Australia in the autumn of 1975 finishing second to Apollo Eleven in the Chipping Norton Stakes.
Two starts later she defeated Leilani, Dayana, Battle Heights and Apollo Eleven in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick in a golden era for the New Zealanders.
At three in NZ she won the Avondale Guineas, Waikato Guineas, Great Northern Oaks and Avondale Championship Stakes and was second to Fury’s Order in the New Zealand Derby.
Jandell is two years older than another great New Zealand-bred mare, How Now (In The Purple) who plied her trade in Australia where she numbered the Caulfield Cup, AJC Oaks, Caulfield Stakes, Underwood Stakes, Craiglee Stakes, Wakeful Stakes and Kewney Stakes among her wins.
How Now is the fifth dam of the BJ McLachlan Plate hopeful Every Rose.
A win by Belieber at Randwick on Saturday would prove timely for Twin Hills who will offer a half-brother from the first crop of Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint winner Bobby’s Kitten (USA) at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
Sense And Reason had one of the first foals of the new season, a full-brother to Belieber born on July 28.
