Stakes Result - Ladbrokes Moonee Valley Gold Cup

Te Akau Racing made a blistering start to the afternoon across both New Zealand meetings on Saturday, racking up six wins in a three-hour period including with a pair of potential candidates for next month’s Gr.1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas (1600m).

Progressive I Am Invincible colt Ohope won the $1million ATC Tapp Craig (1400m) at his previous start, however was not rewarded officially with Black Type for that result, but he did achieve stakes-winner status at Randwick on Saturday when scoring a determined win over quality colt Rivellino in the $1million ATC Callander Presnell (1600m).

Already a dual Group1 winner, Bjorn Baker’s 5yo All Too Hard mare Stefi Magnetica added the $2m Group 2 ATC The Invitational (1400m) to her impressive record, with her earnings smashing through the $7m mark for her ownership group headed by the Cunningham family.

A previous Group 2 winner at Moonee Valley a few years back, Jigsaw’s connections would’ve headed into Saturday’s Group 2 MVRC McEwen Stakes (1200m) with a level of confidence despite tackling last start Group 1 MVRC Manikato Stakes winner Charm Stone.

When breaking his maiden by five lengths at just his second start last season, Ghaiyyath's colt Observer looked to have above average ability, but it was his third last start in the Group 1 MRC Caulfield Guineas (1600m) that had everybody talking about the exciting prospect.

The last British Group I race of the flat season was run overnight at Doncaster with Aidan O’Brien producing a trifecta of two year-old colts led by a son of the late Wootton Bassett (GB) in Hawk Mountain, who was too good for a pair of Frankel colts.

At the start of August we ran a story about the 3YO’s that were entered for this year Cox Plate and aside from the usual suspects there were some ‘Cox Plate dreamers’ and one of them was unraced Lonhro colt Attica, who capped his meteoric rise to fame with a thrilling victory in the $2million Group I ATC Spring Champion Stakes (2000m) at Randwick on Saturday.

Exciting young sire Home Affairs opened his account with his first winner in New Zealand on Saturday with a dominant debut victory for race favourite Harvey Wallbanger at Ellerslie.

A genuine champion sire should be able to produce the horses that win the very best races in the country in which they stand and the late great Fastnet Rock have us a demonstration of that when his high class Northern Hemisphere bred offspring Via Sistina (IRE) and Buckaroo (GB) fought out an epic finish to the $6million Group I MVRC WS Cox Plate (2040m) at Moonee Valley on Saturday.

The current crop of three year-olds running for Godolphin lay claim to being the best they have ever produced in Australia and three of those colts won Group races in Australia on Saturday so let’s take a look at those pedigrees.