2021 European Horse of the Year St Mark’s Basilica (Fr) will be parading at Coolmore next Sunday and the champion son of Siyouni is warming to the task of siring winners with Venetian Prince opening his account at Newbury in the UK overnight.
Having his second start in the £40,000 Tattersalls Novice Stakes (7f), the Andrew Balding trained colt was sent off favourite and duly scored by a length for Oisin Murphy.
Venetian Prince is a homebred for Jeff Smith’s Littleton Stud and is a half-brother to Group II winner See the Fire and two more stakes horses being the sixth winner from six foals to race from Group I winning Dubawi mare Arabian Queen.
“The dam has produced lots of good horses and hopefully he can follow in similar footsteps,” said Oisin Murphy.
“He comes with high expectations because of the pedigree. He hasn’t done any hard work at home as such so I’d hope to see plenty of improvement from today.”
Venetian Prince is the eighth first crop winner for St Mark’s Basilica, who returns to Australia at a fee of $38,500.