Making his third start on September 19th, 2009, High Chaparral colt So You Think earned his first stakes win in the Group III Gloaming Stakes at Rosehill, two starts later he won the Group I WS Cox Plate and he was on his way to fame and fortune.
So You Think’s daughter Coral Coast makes her stakes debut in Saturday’s Gloaming Stakes.
It’s really upping the ante for the Stuart Webb-trained filly who only broke her maiden over 1606 metres at Benalla on September 4 after being unplaced at her previous two starts at Sale and Seymour.
A $360,000 Magic Millions purchase by James Bester Bloodstock from the Kia Ora draft, Coral Coast is the first winner for dual New Zealand Group I winner Dorabella, one of the few success stories for Don Ha in his short but spectacular foray into the thoroughbred market.
Ha hit the headlines when making the final bid of $2 million for the Zabeel x Sunline colt at the 2007 NZ Bloodstock Premier Yearling sale.
Four months later he set a new mark for a broodmare at auction when he went to $825,000 for Honor Lap at the Bloomsbury Stud dispersal.
It did not stop there. Ha set a new benchmark for a weanling in NZ when he went to $400,000 for a Zabeel colt out of Myself and at the Gold Coast he outlaid $460,00 Redoute's Choice-Donna Dior weanling filly
Ha purchased Dorabella in a private transaction after she had won the Group I One Thousand Guineas at Riccarton for her breeders, Peter and Nancy Izett.
She had a good one behind her that day, Encosta de Lago’s 4-time Group I winning daughter, Princess Coup.
Nearly a year later, Dorabella added another prized scalp when defeating the champion, 7-time Group I winner, Seachange (Cape Cross) in the Group I Captain Cook Stakes at Trentham.
Not long after Ha was declared bankrupt.
Though his thoroughbred holdings showed little return on investment, Dorabella proved the one bright spot.
She retired with a record of five wins and seven placings with earnings of almost $400,000.
A daughter of Summer Squall’s Grade II Peter Pan Stakes winner Postponed (USA), Dorabella is a half-sister to Crusoe (Volksraad) who finished third in the Group I NZ Two Thousand Guineas before becoming a multiple stakes winner in Singapore.
Dorabella’s dam, Caserio, is a 4-time winner by Kaapstad and her granddam Our Lafite won the Group II VRC Wakeful Stakes and was second in the Group I VRC Oaks.
The only filly in the race, Coral Coast (pictured as a yearling) looks assured of being one of the long-shots with the Godolphin pair Astoria (Medaglia d’Oro) and Sanctioned (Teofilo) dominating the betting. However, it is likely to define her path to, hopefully, a chance at the Classics later in the spring.
Another interesting runner is the Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young-trained Sully, who, like Coral Coast, has form on Victorian country tracks.
Sully will be vying to become the first southern hemisphere stakes winner for Westbury Stud’s magnificent grey Reliable Man who broke his maiden stakes status in Europe recently when his daughter
