Winx Half-Sister Ready for Debut

Tara Madgwick - Sunday June 7

The wraps are going to come off the two year-old half-sister to world champion mare Winx this week as Covent Garden has been entered for Warwick Farm on Monday and also Canterbury on Wednesday.

By champion sire Exceed and Excel, Covent Garden featured in a recent Juvenile Trial Watch story on Breednet and you can read it here.

Hugh Bowman has ridden her in each of her three barrier trials and expects her to run on Monday despite drawing awkwardly.

“She is a bit new, she's certainly not the ready-made article at this stage but she's a decent filly," Bowman told AAP.

"She is working really well at home and her trials have been good.

"She is ready to race but she is going to improve from any experience she has. You could see she was a bit raw in her trial but she got a chance to stick her head out late which was good."

Retained to race by Fairway Thoroughbreds, who bred and sold Winx as a yearling, Covent Garden is the seventh named foal from stakes-winner Vegas Showgirl, who has only had two runners from those foals, but they are Winx and ill-fated Group III winner El Divino.

Covent Garden as a foal at Segenhoe in 2017

Based at Segenhoe Stud, 17 year-old Vegas Showgirl produced a filly by Deep Impact last spring and is now in foal to I Am Invincible as is her world champion daughter Winx.

 

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