Fastnet Rock’s champion daughter Via Sistina (IRE) is the best racehorse in the country and she showed us exactly why at Flemington Saturday when overcoming a heavy track and testing conditions to win the $3million Group I VRC Champions Stakes (200m) for the second year in a row.
It’s been quite the weekend for the late great champion sire Fastnet Rock with a Cox Plate quinella on Saturday and then on Sunday he produced a new stakes-winner when seven year-old gelding El Rocko captured the $200,000 Listed Sale Cup (1600m).
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.
Victorian bloodstock agent Sheamus Mills is known for his good record with expensive fillies and $1.1million Inglis Easter purchase On Display showed she was in line for a good spring campaign when charging home to win at Caulfield on Saturday.
Via Sistina is certainly in rare air and if you want another stat to put her in perspective – yesterday’s Winx Stakes win saw her become one of only three horses in the last 40 years to win eight Group One races in a 12-month period.
Current Runners Accepted
Sunday, December 28
Bunbury Race 4 - 1400m Rst 0 Met Win-LY
Hesket (ex: Hard Rider) Tnr: Dylan Bairstow Rdr: Holly Nottle
Canberra Race 5 - 1600m Class 1
Rose Diamond (ex: Love Charm) Tnr: Matthew Kelley Rdr: Jeff Penza
Seymour Race 9 - 1600m Benchmark 62
Bancory Bay (ex: Oohood) Tnr: Jack Laing Rdr: Teodore Nugent
Dual Champion Sire. Proven Sire of Sires. Proven Broodmare Sire.
193 Stakes winners worldwide with earnings of over $258m.