Few horses deserve a stakes win more than the honest Quackerjack but the son of Not A Single Doubt sent his supporters to the bar after nosing out Invincible Gem in a heart-stopping finish to Saturday’s $250,000 Group II Villiers Stakes (1600m) at Randwick.
Given an enterprising ride by Rachel King, Quackerjack led all the way but it came to a bob of heads when Invincible Gem was finishing strongly along the rail. Sambro (Fastnet Rock) improved greatly off his first-up run to be a fast-finishing third.
With his maiden stakes success, Quackerjack advances his record to 7 2 2 from 18 starts with earnings of $816,430.
Trained by Mark Newnham, Quackerjack came into the race off a narrow defeat in the $1 million The Gong at Kembla Grange.
"I've been trying to win a Group Two for ages. I've got a few Group Threes and obviously a Group One, but now I've done the Group Two as well and they're all for Mark," King said.
Newnham said he was resigned to another narrow defeat.
"I thought he got beat," Newnham said.
"I'm sure the other one (Invincible Gem) had a head on him a stride before the line and probably a stride after, but it's the one on the line that matters.
"He was the first horse I bought at the sales.
"He never gives in. He is such a special horse to everyone in the stable because of his style of racing and how hard he tries.
"He gets a free kick into it (Doncaster) now and he goes in wet, dry. He'll probably only get 51 kilos so it's probably worth having a throw at the stumps."
The 4yo gelding was a $240,000 Magic Millions purchase for his trainer from the Rosari Farm draft and runs for a big group of stable clients including the Mittiga family whose colours had already been carried to success in the Villiers by the 2008 winner Something Anything.
Quackerjack is one of four winners from as many foals for Quack It, a half-sister to stakes-winners Anatina (who was second in the Group 1 The Galaxy) and Pricked from the very speedy Mother Duck family that has also produced slick stakes-winners such as Ladys Angel, Alberto Magic and Oxford Poet and Sugar Boom.
Rosari Farm will offer a Vancouver filly out of Quack It at the upcoming Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale as Lot 660.
Quack It foaled a Sebring filly on August 12.
Quackerjack becomes the 69th stakes-winner for Not A Single Doubt who has 38 entered for the Gold Coast and five catalogued for the Inglis Classic.
