Who are we highlighting this week? - Analysis of the G1 winning 3YO’s for last season has made us realise how many horses on this list took giant strides from two to three, so we are looking into the crystal ball to find some juveniles we believe could end this season as G1 performers if not G1 winners.
Click here for the story on 3YO G1 winners for 2024/2025.
Written Tycoon has long been admired for his ability to get a flying filly, and far from slowing down the veteran stallion is picking up pace!
The nine times Victorian Champion sire unleashed yet another talented daughter onto the track last season when Scenic Point made her debut.
The Lindsay Park - trained youngster went to the paddock undefeated from two starts which gave every indication of an exciting career to come.
Having disposed of a 1100m Pakenham maiden field by three and a half lengths, Scenic Point lined up in the Listed Redoute's Choice Stakes at Caulfield over the same distance.
Despite racing greenly she was untroubled to win, with blueblood Godolphin colt Aleppo Pine (Blue Point) in her wake.
Scenic Point is the fourth stakes winner to be bred on the Written Tycoon/Snitzel cross and the three before her are all G1 winners - a nick that is rapidly rising to prominence!
Two of them are fillies -
Captured By Love won the 2024 G1 NZ 1,000 Guineas and twice G2 placed at three.
Velocious was the G1 victress in the Sistema and sold earlier this week to Yulong for $1.625million through Inglis Digital.
On the other side of the Tasman, the Chris Waller-trained Private Life sprung a surprise in the 2024 G1 Caulfield Guineas when he led all the way to defeat the subsequent G1 Australian Guineas winner Feroce, with hot favourite Broadsiding in fourth.
The above bodes well for Scenic Point’s upcoming three year old season, particularly as the filly only saw enough of the racetrack at two to give her experience. There will be plenty of gas in her tank as she chases spring riches!
The youngster was a successful pinhook for James Bester Bloodstock/Ridgmont Farm when purchased as a weanling for $190,000 from the 2023 MM Edinburgh Park unreserved dispersal, and sold for $450,000 at the 2024 Inglis Easter Yearling to the bid of KPW Bloodstock.
Scenic Point races for renowned owner and breeder Judi Wanless.
She is the second foal and second winner from Snitzel’s Ludicrous Mode, placed from two starts and a half-sister to Group 2 winner Glenfiddich.
Ludicrous Mode was a $160,000 Yulong purchase from the same MM Edinburgh Park Dispersal as her daughter. She is an exceptionally nice type of mare and had previously sold as an Inglis Easter yearling for $400,000.
Ludicrous Mode has a 2024 filly by Yulong's G1 winning sprinter Pierata and is expecting another Written Tycoon foal this spring!
Hers is one of the best North American families and it goes back to the stakes winning filly Laughing Queen, a full sister to Canadian Champion 2YO Colt, Pompey.
Pompey daughters left an indelible mark on the breed. Two became grand dams of very great progenitors - Bold Ruler and Polynesian, the sire of Native Dancer.
Laughing Queen and Pompey were out of US Champion 3YO Filly Cleopatra, a contemporary of the legendary American racer and sire Man o’ War.
Cleopatra ran in the 1920 Kentucky Derby which Man o’ War surely would have won to complete the Triple Crown had he contested the race won by the gelding Paul Jones.
A tough cookie, Cleopatra was well named for a fierce queen! The filly backed up from the Derby to win the Pimlico Oaks in fast time. Later in the year she broke the track record to take the 11 furlong Belmont Oaks and then won the Latonia Championship Stakes at one and three quarter miles - another track record! Cleopatra retired having accumulated the fourth highest annual earnings ever, for any racehorse, at that time. A queen of the turf - and the stud - she proved to be.
More about Cleopatra and her royal line to come - but let's move forward through the generations to her modern day descendant Nothin But a Dream, the second dam of Scenic Point.
A two time winner in the US and producer of six foals, her best offspring to date is G2 winner placed Glenfiddich, now standing at Aquis in Queensland.
Nothin But a Dream is a daughter of First Defence, a G1 winning sprinting son of Unbridled's Song with a blueblood pedigree. His G1 winning dam by the great Seattle Slew, was a half sister to champion racers and sires Chester House (died young) and Empire Maker by Unbridled - the grandsire of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah. His third dam was G1 winner and Blue Hen Toussaad, by El Gran Senor (Best In Show family).
First Defence was as expected a successful sire, his best being the US Champion Older mare Close Hatches - from Storm Cat by Storm Bird out of a granddaughter of Best In Show, the affinity with Snitzel is obvious!
Nothin But A Dream’s dam was SW Darling Alice, a half sister to Smokin Alice ( dam of $2.4 million earner Eleven Eleven by Fastnet Rock) and Quiet Alice, grand dam of stakes winning sprinter miler Regal Zeus (Zoustar)
This is a family which thrives in Australian conditions.
Darling Alice was a half sister to Afleetaffair who became a good broodmare sire in Australia, and his full sister Gainesville who founded a very well known and prolific tribe.
Her G2 winning daughter Mica's Pride by Bite The Bullet founded a Black Type dynasty noted for producing G1 winners Criterion (Sebring) and Comin’ Through (Fastnet Rock) and more recently Charm Stone (I Am Invincible).
Scenic Point's branch through Darling Alice introduces her sire Northern Flagship, a full brother to Adjal, the champion 2YO and European Top Rated Sprinter of 1987. Adjal was short-lived, leaving only 35 live foals.
Adjal also had a three quarter brother by Nijinsky named Serheed, who became an excellent sire in Western Australia, forever remembered as the damsire of Australian turf legend Northerly.
“The Fighting Tiger” was linebred to the dam of all the above sires - the Blue Hen Dinner Partner, also the ancestress of three quarter brothers and sires Arazi and Noverre.
This remarkable legacy is largely due to Dinner Partner's sire Tom Fool - and it is this great sire, and relatives on both sides of her pedigree - which are the genetic foundations for the mating which produced Scenic Point, for she is one of their own tribe.
Scenic Point's only inbreeding in five generations is Northern Dancer 5m x 5m.
But she is the product of extensive ancestor duplications in further removes and has Tom Fool 7 x 7 x 7.
Let's revisit the exploits of the freakish racehorse Tom Fool.
A muscular horse with a blistering turn of foot, Tom Fool had the deep girthed physique of a sprinter and the heart of a marathon runner.
He was US Champion 2YO but the best was still to come.
Racegoers of the time were awed by Tom Fool's ability to carry huge weights up to a middle distance, with no discernible effect on his stamina or acceleration.
So good a racehorse was he that Tom Fool was declared US Horse Of The Year in 1953, tipping out a handy conveyance by the name of Native Dancer!
Tom Fool had gone on a rampage undefeated in ten starts through the Handicap division, which included the Handicap Triple Crown, a feat that had last been achieved by Whisk Broom II in 1913.
Such was Tom Fool's dominance, the last four of these contests were declared non-betting events.
The stallion ended the season and his turf career with an eight length demolition job in the Pimlico Special, smashing the track record on his way out.
In 1960 the National Turf Writers Association voted Tom Fool “Horse Of The Decade” for the 1950s.
Well - Native Dancer got his own back in the breeding barn - but Tom Fool also went on to exert great influence at stud.
His greatest son was the revered racehorse, US HOTY and breed shaper Buckpasser, while his best European performer was Silly Season who won the Champion, St. James’s Palace, Dewhurst, Lockinge, and Coventry Stakes at two years.
Silly Season's son Lunchtime carried on Tom Fool's legacy and was undefeated champion at two in GB, where he won all three of his juvenile starts including the Dewhurst Stakes before his export to Australia. Lunchtime is sex balanced 5f X 3m in Snitzel, who faithfully passed on Tom Fool's indomitable brand of speed.
Through Buckpasser, Tom Fool exerted his dominance as tail male ancestor of great producing mares - Seeking The Gold, Miswaki, Woodman, Private Account, Slew ‘O Gold, Easy Goer to name a few of the greats, were out of Buckpasser daughters - while Danehill, AP Indy and Unbridled were all close descendants of Buckpasser mares.
In Scenic Point's pedigree the full brothers El Gran Senor and Written Tycoon's grandsire Try My Best - out of Buckpasser's Blue Hen Sex Appeal (Best In Show) - are brought together.
A potent pattern, powerfully reinforced by Redoute's Choice (a third line to Best In Show with a key addition of Tom Fool's sire Menow through Nijinsky, and Menow's relative Sir Ivor) - plus Unbridled and Buckpasser's Hall Of Fame son L'Enjoleur who sired Scenic Point's fifth dam Avowal.
Duplication of the Best In Show family through her various female descendants is increasingly prevalent - the 2025 Golden Slipper winner Marhoona, plus G1 winners Benagil and Schwarz are three recent examples.
When you look at Written Tycoon's G1 winners only - the majority are bred from mares which predominantly reinforce those lines carried by his sire Iglesia.
Including of course, his three out of Snitzel mares!
What will prove to be Scenic Point's racing forte? Will she be a pure powerhouse sprinter or could she mature into a 1,000 Guineas type at three?
Her speed is a given - but she does have three mighty Classic influences in Unbridled, Seattle Slew and Alleged, all there within five generations.
And Written Tycoon already has two G1 Guineas winners out of Snitzel mares.
So it wouldn't surprise if Scenic Point embarked on a path that takes her to the $1.5 million G1 Thousand Guineas - restored in 2025 to its rightful place on Caulfield Cup Day.
Or, is the Hayes camp hatching a mission to deploy their flyer in Victoria's newest $1 million race, the Thoroughbred Club Stakes for three year old fillies over 1200m, also at Caulfield?
This exciting girl is poised to write her own chapter in the enduring story of a great American family.
